Powers assumed by the Present System of Philosophy; Subjects in Dispute between the Author of the Divine Legation of Moses [Warburton] and a Late Professor in the University of Oxford [Lowth]. Dr. Wilson published also several works on medical subjects.

FRANCIS HUTCHESON, 1649-1747, was a metaphysical writer of considerable celebrity.

Hutcheson was a native of the north of Ireland, and a graduate of the University of Glasgow. He was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Dublin. His writings on metaphysical science, though not numerous, exerted a large influence by their originality and the clearness and beauty with which his thoughts were presented. He is even sometimes considered as the founder of the modern Scottish school of philosophy. The doctrine which he particularly advocated was the existence of an innate moral sense. His principal works are: A System of Moral Philosophy; An Inquiry into the Originals of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue; An Essay on the Passions and Affections; Letters on Virtue.

DAVID HARTLEY, M. D., 1705–1757, was a writer of some note on metaphysical science.

Hartley was educated at Cambridge. He is the author of several medical treatises, but is best known by his Observations on Man, his Frame, etc., and by his Theory of the Human Mind. This theory regards the brain, nerves, and spinal chord as the direct Instruments of sensation, by means of vibrations communicated to and through them by external objects. Although overthrown subsequently, the theory is still interesting as marking an important step in the investigation of psychological phenomena.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON, 1642-1727, does not belong, strictly speaking, to the department of English literature, inasmuch as nearly all his most celebrated works were published in Latin.

Newton's English works are: A Treatise on the Reflections, etc, of Light, Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel, etc., and Historic Account of Two Notable Corrup tions of Scripture (on the reading of 1 John v. 7, and 1 Tim. iii. 16). Sir Isaac Newton is the most distinguished name in the annals of English science. It is not too much to say that his great discoveries in the laws of gravitation and of light, and his invention of the system of fluxions, reconstructed all the processes of scientific investigation hitherto employed, and placed them upon a broad and stable basis. His labors as a Bible critic cannot claim the same honor, and are of little value as compared with the results of modern exegesis.

WILLIAM WHISTON, 1667-1752, notorious in his own day for his theological heresies, and the persecution and controversy to which they gave rise, is now chiefly known for his translation of Josephus.

Whiston was educated at Cambridge, where he became tutor, fellow, and finally successor to Sir Isaac Newton in the professorship of Mathematics. He was expelled from the University in 1710, in consequence of his Arianism and his rejection of infant baptism. Whiston's works are exceedingly numerous, but are chiefly scientific

or theological. His New Theory of the Earth, (a defence of the Mosaic account,) attracted much attention when it appeared, but is now wholly worthless.

The remainder of Whiston's life, after his expulsion from the University, was spent in writing and publishing works in defence of Arianism. An attempt to expel him from the communion of the Church of England was made, and was continued for five years, but failed. This suit forms a curious chapter in the history of the times.

Works.Whiston's theological works are now almost forgotten, and he is remembered almost exclusively by his translation of Josephus. This translation has gone through a number of editions, and is still much read, although superseded by the work of Dr. Robert Traill. Whiston's Autobiography is a curious record of the times, and displays the author in all his disinterested zeal and curious proneness to superstition.

RT. HON. DUNCAN FORBES, 1685-1747, a distinguished Scotch scholar and advocate, studied at Edinburgh, Utrecht, Leyden, and Paris, and rose to high distinction in civil affairs. He wrote Thoughts on Religion, Natural and Revealed; Reflections on the Sources of Incredulity with regard to Religion; Letters on some Important Discoveries in Philosophy and Theology, etc. "I knew and venerated the man; one of the greatest that ever Scotland had, both as a judge, a patriot, and a Christian."— Warburton.

JOHN ASGILL, 1738, was the author of a number of books, chiefly legal. For one of his books, entitled Argument proving that men may be translated to Heaven without dying, he suffered much persecution. It was regarded as impious, and on account of it he was expelled first from the Irish House of Commons, and then from the English, and finally he lay for thirty years in prison. The quotations from the book given by Southey in The Doctor convict the author of absurdity rather than of blasphemy. He berated men for dying, when, as he said, there was no necessity for it; it was merely a foolish custom into which they had fallen! As he himself lived to be almost a hundred years old, some people began to think that possibly there might be something in his theory. But finally he knocked it all in the head by dying himself, just like other people.

ANTHONY COLLINS, 1676-1729, a writer on Theology and Metaphysics. Works: Essay concerning the Use of Reason; Priestcraft in Perfection; Vindication of the Divine Attributes; Discourse on Free Thinking; Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty and Necessity; A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, etc. Collins was a Deist, and an acute and subtle disputant. His opponents were some of the greatest men of his time, Bentley, Sam. Clarke, Sherlock, and others.

JOHN TOLAND, 1669-1722, another of the deistical writers of England at the beginning of the last century, was born in Londonderry, Ireland. He was of Catholic parentage; but in his sixteenth year became a Protestant, and afterwards a Deist, or rather a Pantheist. He studied at the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Leyden, and afterwards spent much time in literary research at Oxford. His chief work was Christianity not Mysterious, published in 1696.

MATTHEW TINDAL, LL.D., 1657-1733, was the leading deistical writer at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. He was educated at Oxford, and was elected to a Law Fellowship there. He resided chiefly in London. He published several works, but the only one much known is that entitled Christianity as Old as the Creation, or the Gospel a Republication of the Law of Nature. It cre

ated great controversy, and was the chief object had in view by Butler in writing his Analogy.

NICHOLAS TINDAL, 1687-1774, nephew of the deistical writer, Matthew Tindal, translated Rapin's History of England from the French to the English, and continued it to his own time. Tindal's Rapin, published formerly in 5 vols., fol., and latterly in 21 vols., 8vo., is a valuable thesaurus of facts, but heavy in style, and consequently not much read except by profound students of history. Tindal was the author of sev eral works, but this was the chief.

CHARLES DAVENANT, LL.D., 1656–1714, had considerable notoriety in his day as a dramatist and a writer on political economy. His Tragedy of Circe was written at the age of nineteen, and he himself took part in the performance of it. His works were published in 5 vols., 8vo. The following are the titles of some of them: An Essay on the Ways and Means of Supplying the War; An Essay on the Trade of India; Discourses on the Public Revenues, etc., etc.

Mrs. Mary Astell, 1668-1731, was one of the earliest of her sex in England to gain celebrity by the pen.

Mrs. Astell wrote a number of works, which were well received and gained for her the respect of some of the most distinguished persons of her day. Her works are partly of a religious kind, and partly directed to the improvement and elevation of her own sex. One of her works, Reflections on Marriage, is said to have been occasioned by a disappointment of her own on that subject, and betrays, not unnaturally, some acerbity of temper. "Some people [men?] think that she has carried her arguments with regard to the birthrights and privileges of her sex a little too far; and that there is too much warmth of temper discovered in this treatise." The old story!

Another of her books was Six Familiar Essays upon Marriage, Crosses in Love, and Friendship. Another, "a witty piece," was an Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. The titles of some of her other works are: A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, A Fair Way with Dissenters and their Patrons, Letters concerning the Love of God, Bart'lemy Fair, or an Inquiry after Wit, The Christian Religion as practised by a Daughter of the Church of England. The last named work was for a time attributed to Bishop Atterbury.

"Mrs. Astell was a truly exemplary character, and devoted her talent to the best ends, the interests of true religion, and the improvement of her own sex; indeed, of all capable of appreciating moral excellence and intellectual elevation."— Allibone.•

MRS. ELIZABETH ROWE, 1674-1737, was another lady writer of

some note.

Mrs. Rowe was the daughter of a Dissenting minister, Walter Singer, and was noted at an early age for her beauty and accomplishments. She had Matthew Prior for a suitor, Bishop Ken and Dr. Watts for advisers, and no lack of adulation and compliment. She was married at the age of thirty-six to Mr. Thomas Rowe, a gentleman a

little turned of twenty. The marriage was a happy one, and on the death of Mr. Rowe, at the age of twenty-eight, she remained a widow. Mrs. Rowe published many works, all of a religious character. The principal are: Devout Exercises of the Heart in Meditation, Soliloquy, Praise, and Prayer; Letters, Moral and Entertaining; Poems on Various Occasions.

BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE, 1670-1733, was a native of Holland, who finally settled in London. He was the author of a number of miscellaneous works in prose and verse, but is chiefly known by his Gambling Hive, 1714. This work having been severely censured, he published a new edition in 1723, enlarged, and furnished with notes, under the title, The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Public Benefits. It abounds in shrewd observations, and the style is vigorous, but is founded upon the paradox that private vices are public benefits. As Dr. Johnson shrewdly observed, "the fallacy of the book is that Mandeville defines neither vices nor benefits." The author reasons well on the motives of human action, and his analysis of character is close.

JONATHAN RICHARDSON, 1665–1745; a prominent portrait-painter of the eighteenth century, is better known, however, as an art-critic than as a painter. His chief works are an Essay on the Theory of Painting, which exercised a decisive influence on the development of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Two Discourses on the Art of Criticism. In connection with his son, he also published a volume of notes on Milton's Paradise Lost, with a likeness of the poet. This engraving, made by Richardson himself, is said to bear a striking resemblance to Wordsworth, and to be a better likeness of him than any of those made expressly for him. Richardson's poems have no great merit.

LEWIS THEOBALD, 1744, is chiefly known as one of the early editors of Shakespeare, and as one of the heroes of the Dunciad. He possessed much industry, and was conscientiously accurate, but had little taste and no genius. He published an edition of Shakespeare in 7 vols., 8vo, which is of considerable value, and exposed therein many of the inaccuracies of Pope, for which Pope took exemplary vengeance in the Dunciad.

AARON HILL, 1685-1750, published a number of writings on a great variety of subjects, historical, poetical, politico-economical. He is principally known by his Progress of Wit, a satire aimed at Pope, who had introduced Hill into the Dunciad.

THOMAS SPRAT, 1636-1713, is one of the minor authors of this period. He wrote both prose and verse, and is chiefly known by the latter, though his merits as a poet are much inferior to his merits as a prose writer.

Sprat studied at Oxford, and took orders in the Church of England, finally becoming Bishop of Rochester. He is the author of several works, both in prose and verse. The latter are of little merit. They are An Account of the Plague of Athens, and a Poem on the Death of Oliver Cromwell. His prose works are a History of the Royal Society of London, etc., A True Account of the [Rye House] Conspiracy, etc., and several volumes of sermous and discourses to the clergy, which have been highly praised.

"Unhappily for his fame, it has been usual to print his verses in Collections of the British poets; and those who judge of him by his verses must consider him as a servile imitator, who, without one spark of Cowley's admirable genius, mimicked whatever was least commendable in Cowley's manner; but those who are acquainted with Sprat's prose writings will form a very different estimate of his powers. He was, indeed, a great master of our language, and possessed at once the eloquence of the author, of the controversialist, and of the historian."- Macaulay.

JOHN SHEFFIELD, Earl of Musgrave, Duke of Buckinghamshire, 1649-1720, a prominent English statesman of this period, was the author of several works which were much praised at the time, but which are now comparatively unknown. The principal one is an Essay on Poetry, in which Dryden was for awhile supposed to have had a share. Besides this, Sheffield published two Dramas-Julius Cæsar and Marius Brutus-mere alterations of Shakespeare.

SIMON OCKLEY, 1678-1720, a clergyman of the Church of England and Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, was the author of several works upon oriental literature and history. He is known almost exclusively, however, by his History of the Conquests of the Saracens. Although oriental studies have made immense progress since the eighteenth century, Ockley's work still retains a large share of its original value. It was the work which Gibbon chiefly consulted for information upon Saracenic conquests. "The very curious history of the Saracens, given by Ockley, should be consulted, and is somewhat necessary to enable the student more exactly to comprehend the character of the Arabians, which is there displayed, by their own writers, in all its singularities."-- Smyth.

JOHN OLDMIXON, 1673-1742, was the author of a number of historical works: The British Empire in North America, History of England, Clarendon and Whitlock compared, etc. Oldmixon is so bigoted a Whig that writers of even his own party,Macaulay, for instance, reject his works as of no authority. His Prose Essay on Criticism had no other effect than to elicit from Pope a satirical passage in the Dunciad.

THOMAS SALMON, 1742, was an English historian of some note. His principal works are Modern History, in 32 vols., published in 1725, and his Abridgment and Review of State Trials from Richard II. to George II. His Modern History was much read in its day, and has been made the text for numerous abridgments since.

ROBERT WODROW, 1679-1734, the historian of the Church of Scotland, was born and educated at Glasgow, and was minister of Eastwood from 1703 to his death in 1734. His chief work was A History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, 2 vols., fol. Besides this, he published A Life of James Wodrow, Professor of Divinity at Glasgow and father of Robert; Analecta, materials for a history of remarkable providences; and numerous other Collections, Letters, etc.

THOMAS CARTE, 1686-1754, was a careful and voluminous writer of English history. He was suspected of being in collusion with the exiled Stuarts, and was obliged in consequence to flee from the country, but was permitted afterwards to return and com plete his historical works. These were: History of the Life of James, Duke of Ormond, 1610-1688, containing a full account of the Irish Rebellion, 3 vols., fol.; History of England, 4 vols., 4to. Both these works were the fruit of original research, and are counted of great value for their facts, though the style is not such as to attract