for all appearances in the visible world, by fecond caules, by the powers of matter, and mechanism: and thus they might come infenfibly to forget or neglect the great original cause of all. This kind of reasoning convinced the multitude, overawed the wifer few, and effectually put a stop to the progrefs of useful knowledge.

Such, in general, were the dispositions of mankind, when Sir Francis Bacon came into the World: whom we will not confider as the founder of a new fect, but as the great affertor of human liberty; as one who rescued reafon and truth from the flavery, in, which all fects alike had, till then, held them. As a plaufible hypothefis, a fhining theory, are more amufing to the imagination, and a fhorter way to fame,, than the patient and humble method of experimenting, of pursuing nature thro' all her labyrinths by fact, and observation; a philofophy, built on this principle, could not, at first, make any fudden or general rovolution in the learned world. But its progress, like that of time, quiet, flow, and fure, has in the end been mighty and universal He was not however the first among the moderns, who ventured to diffent from Aris. totle. Rainus, Patricius, Bruno, Severinus, to name no more, had already attacked the authority of that ty rant in learning, who had long reigned as abfolutely over the opinions, as his restless pupil had of old affected to do over the persons of men. But these writers invented little that was valuable themselves, however juftly they might reprehend many things in him. And as to the real improvements made in fome parts of natural knowledge, before our author appeared, by Gilbert, Harvey, Copernicus, Father Paul, and fome few others, they are well known, and have been deservedly celebrated. Yet there was ftill wanting one great, and comprehenfive plan, that might embrace the al

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most infinite varieties of fcience, and guide our enquiries aright in all. This Sir Francis Bacon first conceived, in its utmost extent, to his own lafting honour, and to the general utility of mankind. If we stand surprized at the happy imagination of fuch a System, our furprize redoubles upon us, when we reflect, that he invented and methodized this Syftem, perfected fo much, and sketched out fo much more of it, amidst the drudgery of business, and the civil tumults of a Court. Nature feems to have intended him peculiarly for this province, by bestowing on him with a liberal hand all the qualities requifite: a fancy voluble and prompt to discover the fimilitudes of things; a judgment steady, and intent to note their subtlest differences; a love of meditation and enquiry; a patience in doubting; a flowness and diffidence in affirming; a facility of retracting; a judicious anxiety to plan and dispose. A mind of fuch a caft, that neither affected novelty, nor idolized antiquity, that was an enemy to all imposture, must have had a certain congeniality and relation to truth. These characters, which with a no ble confidence he has applyed to himself, are obvious and eminent in his Inftauration of the sciences: a work, by him designed, not as a monument to his own fame, but a perpetual legacy to the common benefit of others.

Dr. Johnson.

Bei der ansehnlichen Zahl trefflicher Biographen, welche die englische Nation mehr, als irgend eine andre, aufzuweisen hat, war der ausgezeichnete Vorrang, den D. Johnson in dieser Gats tung von Schriftstellern behauptet, gewiß kein leichter Erwerb. Schon durch mehrere frühere Versuche dieser Art, besonders aber durch seine Lebensbeschreibung des unglücklichen Dichters, Ris chard Savage, hatte er sich diesen Ruhm eigen gemacht; noch mehr aber sicherte er sich denselben durch die kritischen Biogras phien, womit er die unter seiner Leitung veránßtalteté Sämmlung englischer Dichter, in sechzig Bånden, begleitete, die aber auch einzeln abgedruckt sind. Die Kritik hat freilich an diesen Lebenss beschreibungen größern Antheil, als die Geschichte; und was se jedem Kenner und Liebhaber des feinern Geschmacks vorzüglich schäßbar macht, ist die Würdigung des dichterischen Verdienstes, die Ents wickelung der Schönheiten und Mängel, und die scharfe Prüfung einzelner Werke der berühmtesten brittischen Dichter, verbunden mit vielen scharfsinnigen allgemeinern Bemerkungen und Winken. Dazu kommt die sehr korrekte, oft nur zu sorgfältig geründete Schreibart, die sich dieser Schriftsteller nach klassischen Mustern gebildet hatte, und das durch finnreiche Fülle der Gedanken und des Ausdrucks immer neu belebte Intereffe dieser Biographien. Einige derselben, wie die von Cowley, Dryden, Milton, Pope, u. a. find sehr ausführlich; hier erlaubt mir der Raum nur die Mittheilung einer der kår¡ern. Unerwartet war übrigens der Kalts finn, womit man die vom Hrn. v. Blankenburg angefangne, fehr gute Ueberfeßung, wovon aber nur zwei Bånde geliefert find, in Deutschland aufnahm.

AKEN SIDE.

Mark Akenfide was born on the ninth of November, 1721, at Newcastle upon Tyne. His father Mark, was a butcher of the Presbyterian fect; his mother's name was Mary Luinsden. He received the first part of his education at the grammar-school of Newcastle; and was afterwards inftructed by Mr. Wilson, who kept a private academy. At the age of eighteen, he was sent

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to Edinburgh, that he might qualify himself for the office of a diffenting minifter, and received fome affistance from the fund, which the Diffenters employ in educating young men of scanty fortune. But a wider view of the world opened other fcenes, and prompted other hopes: he determined to ftud phyfic, and re paid that contribution, which being received for a dif ferent purpose, he justly thought it dishonourable to retain. Whether, when he resolved, not to be a dissent ing minifter, he ceased to be a Diffenter, I know not. He certainly retained an uneceffary and outrageous zeal for what he called and thought liberty; a zeal, which for metimes disguises from the world, and not rarely from the mind which it poffeffes, an envious defire of plun dering wealth or degrading greatness; and of which the immediate tendency is innovation and anarchy, an impetuous eagerness to fubvert and confound, with very little care what shall be established. Akenfide was one of those poets who have felt very early the motions of genius, and one of those students, who have very early stored their memories with fentiments and images. Many of his performances were produced in his youth; and his greatest work, The pleasures of Imagination, appeared in 1744. I have hear'd Dodsly, by whom it was publifhed, relate, that when the copy was offered him, the price demanded for it, which was an hundred and twenty pounds, being fuch as he was not inclined to give precipitately, he carried the work to Pope, who, having looked into it, advised him not to make a niggardly offer, for this was no every day writer.

In 1741. he went to Leyden, in pursuit of medi cal knowledge; and three years afterwards (May 16, 1744., became doctor of phyfick, having, according to

the cuftom of the Dutch Univerfities, publifhed a thefis or differtation. The fubject which he choose was, the Original and Growth of the Human Foetus; in which he is said to have departed, with great judge, ment, from the opinion then established, and to have delivered that which has been fince confirmed and received

Akenfide was a young man, warm with every notion, that by nature or accident had been connected with the found of liberty, and by an excentricity which fuch difpofitions do not easily avoid, a lover of contradiction, and no friend to any thing established. He adopted Shaftesbury's foolish allertion of the efficacy of ridicule for the discovery of truth. For this he was attacked by Warburton, and defended by Dyfon: Warburton afterwards reprinted his remarks at the end of his dedication to the Freethinkers.

The refult of all the arguments which have been produced in a long and eager discuffion of this idle question, may be eafily collected. If ridicule be applied to any position as the test of truth, it will then become a question, whether fuch ridicule be juft; and · this can only be decided by the application of truth, as the test of ridicule

Two men, fearing, one a real, and the other a fancied danger, will be for a while equally exposed to the inevitable confequences of cowardice, contemptuous cenfure, and ludicrous representation; and the true ftate of both cafes must be known, before it can be decided whose terror is rational, and whofe is ridiculous; who is to be pitied, and who to be defpifed.

In the revifal of his poem, which he died before he had finished, he omitted the lines which had given occafion to Warburton's objections.

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