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priests; who were likewife left from their inflitution to a life of leisure.

From the laity, on the other fide, who, from their mean education, wanted all thefe requifites, they were in fact no better than what Dryden calls them, a tribe of Ifachar; a race, from their cradle bred in barbarity and ignorance.

A fample of thefe illuftrious laymen may be found in Anna Comnena's hiftory of her father Alexius, who was Grecian emperor in the eleventh century, when the first Crufade arrived at Conftantinople. So promifcuous a rout of rude adventurers could not fail of giving umbrage to the Byzantine court, which was ftately and ceremonious, and confcious withal of its internal debility.

After fome altercation, the court permitted them to pafs into Afia through the Imperial territories, upon their leaders taking an oath of fealty to the emperor.

What happened at the performance of this ceremonial, is thus related by the fair hiftorian above mentioned.

"All the commanders being affembled, "and Godfrey of Bulloign himself among "the reft, as foon as the oath was finifhed, "one of the counts had the audacioufnefs “to feat himself befide the emperor upon " his throne. Earl Baldwin, one of their "own people, approaching, took the "count by the hand, made him rife from "the throne, and rebuked him for his "infolence.

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"The count rofe, but made no reply, except it was in his own unknown jargon, to mutter abufe upon the emperor.

"When all things were difpatched, the "emperor fent for this man, and demanded who he was, whence he came, and of "what lineage-His answer was as fol"lows-I am a genuine Frank, and in the "number of their nobility. One thing I "know, which is, that in a certain part of "the country I came from, and in a place "where three ways meet, there ftands an "ancient church, where every one who has a defire to engage in fingle combat, "baving put himself into fighting order, comes, and there implores the affiftance "of the Deity, and then waits in expecta"tion of fome one that will dare attack "him. On this fpot I myself waited a long time, expecting and feeking fome "one that would arrive and fight me. But "the man, that would dare this, was no "where to be found.

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This was one of thofe counts, or barons, the petty tyrants of Western Europe; men, who, when they were not engaged in general wars (fuch as the ravaging of a neighbouring kingdom, the maffacring of infidels, heretics, &c.) had no other method of filling up their leisure, than, through help of their vaffals, by waging war upon one another.

And here the humanity and wisdom of the church cannot enough be admired, when by her authority (which was then mighty) fhe endeavoured to shorten that fcene of bloodshed, which he could not totally prohibit. The truce of God (a name given it purpofely to render the meafure more folemn) enjoined these ferocious beings, under the terrors of excommunication, not to fight from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, out of reverence to the myfteries accomplished on the other four days; the afcenfion on Thursday; the crucifixion on Friday; the defcent to hell on Saturday; and the refurrection on Sunday.

I hope a farther obfervation will be pardoned, when I add that the fame humanity prevailed during the fourteenth century, and that the terrors of church power were then held forth with an intent equally laudable. A dreadful plague at that period defolated all Europe. The Germans, with no better reafon than their own fenfelefs fuperftition, imputed this calamity to the Jews, who then lived among them in great opulence and fplendour. Many thousands of thefe unhappy people were inhumanly maffacred, till the pope benevolently interfered, and prohibited, by the feverest bulls, fo mad and fanguinary a proceeding.

I could not omit two fuch falutary exertions of church power, as they both occur within the period of this inquiry. I might add a third, I mean the oppoling and endeavouring to check that abfurdeft of all practices, the trial by battle, which SpelDd 2

man

404
BOOK THE
man exprefsly tells us, that the church in
all ages condemaed.

It must be confeffed, that the fact just re-
lated, concerning the unmannered count,
at the court of Conftantinople, is rather
against the order of Chronology, for it hap-
pened during the firft crufades. It ferves,
however, to thew the manners of the Latin,
or Western laity, in the beginning of that
holy war. They did not in a fucceffion of
years, grow better, but worse.

It was a century after, that another crufade, in their march against infidels, facked this very city; depofed the then emperor; and committed devaftations, which no one would have committed but the most ignorant, as well as cruel barbarians.

But a question here occurs, eafier to propofe than to anfwer-" To what are we to "attribute this character of ferocity, which "feems to have then prevailed through the "laity of Europe?"

Shall we fay it was climate, and the nature of the country?-Thefe, we muft confefs, have, in fome inftances, great influence.

The Indians, feen a few years fince by Mr. Byron in the fouthern parts of South America, were brutal and favage to an enormous excefs. One of them, for a trivial offence, murdered his own child (an infant) by dashing it against the rocks. The Cyclopes, as defcribed by Homer, were much of the fame fort; each of them gave law to his own family, without regard for one another; and befides this, they were Atheists and Man-eaters.

May we not fuppofe, that a ftormy fea, together with a frozen, barren, and inhofpitable fhore, might work on the imagination of thefe Indians, fo as, by banishing all pleafing and benign ideas, to fill them with habitual gloom, and a propenfity to be cruel? Or might not the tremendous fcenes of Ætna have had a like effect upon the Cyclopes, who lived amid fmoke, thunderings, eruptions of fire, and earthquakes? If we may believe Fazelius, who wrote upon Sicily about two hundred years ago, the inhabitants near Etna were in his time a fimilar race.

If therefore thefe limited regions had fuch an effect upon their natives, may not a fimilar effect be prefumed from the vaft regions of the North? may not its cold, barren, uncomfortable climate, have made its numerous tribes equally rude and favage? If this be not enough, we may add ano

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rance.

ther caufe, I mean their profound igno-
no defire, either from example or edu-
Nothing mends the mind more
that culture; to which thefe emigrants had
cation, to lend a patient ear.

is, that when they had acquired countries
better than their own, they fettled under
We may add a farther caufe ftill, which
the fame military form through which they
had conquered; and were in fact, when set-
quartered upon the wretched remains of the
tled, a fort of army after a campaign,
ancient inhabitants, by whom they were
attended under the different names of ferfs,
vaffals, villains, &c.

It was not likely the ferocity of these
their vaffals, whom, as ftrangers, they were
conquerors fhould abate with regard to
more likely to fufpect than to love.

gard to one another, when the neighbour-
It was not likely it fhould abate with re.
their territories, must have given occafions
hood of their caftles, and the contiguity of
(as we learn from hiftory) for endless alter-·
cation. But this we leave to the learned in
feudal tenures.

We shall add to the preceding remarks,
fectly different; which is, that though the
one more, fomewhat fingular, and yet per-
darkness in Western Europe, during the
period here mentioned, was (in Scripture
language) "a darkness that might be felt,"
yet it is furprifing, that during a period fo
obfcure, many admirable inventions found
their way into the world; I mean fuch as
clocks, telefcopes, paper, gunpowder, the
here omitted.
mariner's needle, printing, and a number

importance of thefe arts, and their exten-
It is furprising too, if we confider the
five utility, that it should be either unknown,
vented.
or at least doubtful, by whom they were in-

that every art, as
fuddenly ftarted forth, addreffing thofe
A lively fancy might almoft imagine,
that fought it, as Eneas did his compa-
it was wanted, had
nions-

-Coram, quem quæritis, adfum. VIRG.

affured, that though the particular inventAnd yet, fancy apart, of this we may be inventions themfelves are clearly referable to man; to that fubtle and active principle, ors may unfortunately be forgotten, the human wit, or ingenuity.

Let me then fubmit the following que

ry

If the human mind be as truly of divine

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Prefent.

Every paft age has in its turn been a prefent age. This indeed is obvious, but this is not all; for every paft age, when pre fent, has been the object of abufe. Men have been reprefented by their contemporaries not only as bad, but degenerate; as inferior to their predeceffors both in morals and bodily powers.

This is an opinion fo generally received, that Virgil (in conformity to it) when he would expreis former times, calls them fimply better, as if the term, better, implied former of course.

Hic genus antiquum Teucri, pulcherrima proles, Magnanimi heroes, nati melioribus annis.

En. vi. 648. The fame opinion is afcribed by Homer to old Neftor, when that venerable chief fpeaks of thofe heroes whom he had known in his youth. He relates fome of their names. Perithous, Dryas, Cæneus, Thefeus; and fome alfo of their exploits; as how they had extirpated the favage Centaurs. He then fubjoins.

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with the fe no one

Iλ. A. 271.

Of earthly race, as men are now, could fight.

As thefe heroes were fuppofed to exceed in ftrength thofe of the Trojan war, fo were the heroes of that period to exceed thofe that came after. Hence, from the time of the Trojan war to that of Homer, we learn that human ftrength was decreafed by a complete half.

Thus the fame Homer,

· ὁ δὲ χερμάδιον λάβε χειρί Τυδείδης, μέτα ἔργον, ὃ ἐ δύογ ̓ ἄνδρα φέροιεν, Οἷς νῦν βροτοί εἰσι· ὁ δὲ μιν ῥέα πάλλε καὶ οἷος.

IX. E. 302.

Then grafp'd Tydides in his hand a stone,
A bulk immenfe, which not two men could bear,
As men are now, but he alone with cafe
Hurl'd at-

Virgil goes farther, and tells us, that not twelve men of his time (and thofe too chofen ones) could even carry the ftone which Turnus flung:

Vix illud leti bis fex cervice fubirent,
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus :
Ille manu raptum trepidâ torquebat in hoftem.
Æn. xii. 899.

Thus human ftrength, which in Homer's time was leffened to half, in Virgil's time was leffened to a twelfth. If ftrength and bulk (as commonly happers) be proportioned, what pygmies in ftature muft the men of Virgil's time have been, when their ftrength, as he informs us, was fo far di

minished!

A man only eight times as trong (and not, according to the poet, twelve times) muft at least have been be tween five and fix feet higher than they

were.

But we all know the privilege claimed by poets and painters.

It is in virtue of this privilege that Horace, when he mentions the moral degeneracies of his contemporaries, afferts that "their fathers were worfe than their grand"fathers; that they were worse than their

fathers; and that their children would be "worse than they were;" defcribing no fewer, after the grandfather, than three fucceffions of degeneracy:

Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiofiorum.

Hor. Od. L. iii. 6.

We need only afk, were this a fact, what would the Romans have been, had they degenerated in this proportion for five or fix generations more?

Yet Juvenal, fubfequent to all this, fuppofes a fimilar progreflion; a progreflion in vice and infamy, which was not complete till his own times.

Then truly we learn, it could go no farther:

Nil erit ulterius, noftris quod moribus addat
Pofteritas, &c.

Omne in præcipiti vitium ftetit, &c.
Sat. i. 147, &c.

But even Juvenal, it feems, was mistaken, bad as we must allow his times to have been. Several centuries after, without regard to Juvenal, the fame doctrine was inculcated with greater zeal than ever.

When the Western empire began to decline, and Europe and Africa were ravaged by barbarians, the calamities then happening (and formidable they were) naturally Dd 3

led

406

led

BOOK THE

men, who felt them, to efteem their
own age the worst.

The enemies of Chriftianity (for Pa-
ganifm was not then extinét) abfurdly
turned thefe calamities to the difcredit of
the Chriftian religion, and faid, the times
were fo unhappy, because the gods were
difhonoured, and the ancient worship neg-
lected. Orofius, a Chriftian, did not deny
the melancholy facts, but, to obviate an ob-
jection fo difhonourable to the true reli-
gion, he endeavours to prove from histo-
rians, both facred and profane, that calami-
ties of every fort had exifted in every age,
as many and as great as thofe that exifted
then.

If Orofius has reasoned right (and his
work is an elaborate one) it follows, that
the lamentations made then, and made ever
fince, are no more than natural declama-
tions incidental to man; declamations na-
turally arifing (let him live at any period)
from the fuperior efficacy of prefent events
upon prefent fenfations.

There is a praife belonging to the past, congenial with this cenfure; a praise formed from negatives, and beft illuftrated by examples.

Thus a declaimer might affert, (fuppofing he had a with, by exalting the eleventh century, to debafe the prefent) that “in "the time of the Norman conqueror we "had no routs, no ridottos, no Newmar"kets, no candidates to bribe, no voters to "be bribed, &c." and ftring on negatives, as long as he thought proper.

What then are we to do, when we hear fuch panegyric? factsThat cannot be.-Are we to adAre we to deny the mit the conclufion?-That appears not quite agreeable. No method is left, but to compare evils with evils; the evils of 1066 with thofe of 1780; and fee whether the former age had not evils of its own, fuch as the prefent never experienced, becaufe they do not now exift,

We may allow the evils of the present day to be real-we may even allow that a much larger number might have been added but then we may alledge evils, by way of return, felt in thofe days feverely, but now not felt at all,

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We may affert, "we have not now, as happened then, feen our country conquered by foreign invaders, nor our property taken from us, and diftributed "among the conquerors; nor ourselves, from freemen, debafed into flaves; nor our rights fubmitted to unknown laws,

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imported, without our confent, from fo"reign countries."

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favour of times nearly as remote, and other Should the fame reafonings be urged in imputations of evil be brought, which, though well known now, did not then exift, we may ftill retort that-" we are no longer now, as they were then, fubject to "feudal oppreffion; nor dragged to war, "as they were then, by the petty tyrant of "a neighbouring cattle; nor involved in "fcenes of blood, as they were then, and. "that for many years, during the uninterefling difputes between a Stephen and a

"Maud."

period, and praife, after the fame manner, Should the fame declaimer país to a later the reign of Henry the Second, we have then to retort, "that we have now no Bec"kets." Should he proceed to Richard to John Lackland, and his fon Henry, the Firft," that we have now no holy wars" -to "that we have now no barons wars"and with regard to both of them, "that,

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though we enjoy at this infant all the be"nefits of Magna Charta, we have not "been compelled to purchase them at the 66 price of our blood."

few years more, to the wars between the A feries of convulfions brings us, in a houfes of York and Lancaster-thence from lamities of the York family, and its final the fall of the Lancaster family to the cato the oppreffive period of his avaricious deftruction in Richard the Third-thence reign of his relentless fon, when neither the fucceffor; and from him to the formidable could protect their wearers; and when (to coronet, nor the mitre, nor even the crown, the amazement of pofterity) thofe, by whom church authority was denied, and those, by whom it was maintained, were dragged together to Smithfield, and burnt at one and the fame ftake.

The reign of his fucceffor was fhort and one of a bigotted woman. turpid, and foon followed by the gloomy

enough. Thofe, who hear any portion of We ftop here, thinking we have inftances thefe paft times praised for the invidious purpofe above mentioned, may anfwer by thus retorting the calamities and crimes which exifted at the time praised, but which now exift no more. fuch a comparison; for if we drop the never be formed, but in confequence of A true estimate can laudable, and alledge only the bad, or drop is no age, whatever its real character, but the bad, and alledge only the laudable, there

may

may be made to pafs at pleasure either for a good one or a bad one.

If I may be permitted in this place to add an obfervation, it shall be an obfervation founded upon many years experience. I have often heard declamations against the prefent race of men; declamations against them, as if they were the worst of animals; treacherous, falfe, felfish, envious, oppreffive, tyrannical, &c. &c. This (I fay) I have often heard from grave declaimers, and have heard the fentiment delivered with a kind of oracular pomp.-Yet I never heard any fuch declaimer fay (what would have been fincere at least, if it had been nothing more) "I prove my affertion by an example, where I cannot err; I affert myself to be the wretch I have been juft defcribing."

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So far from this, it would be perhaps dangerous to ask him, even in a gentle whitper" You have been talking, with much confidence, about certain profligate beings Are you certain, that you yourfelf are not one of the number?"

I hope I may be pardoned for the following anecdote, although compelled, in relating it, to make myself a party.

"

Sitting once in my library with a "friend, a worthy but melancholy man, I "read him, out of a book, the following "paffage

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"In our time it may be spoken more "truly than of old, that virtue is gone; the "church is under foot; the clergy is in "error; the devil reigneth, &c. &c. My "friend interrupted me with a figh, and "faid, Alas! how true! How juft a pic"ture of the times !—I asked him, of what " times?—Of what times! replied he with "emotion; can you fuppofe any other but "the prefent? were any before ever fo "bad, fo corrupt, fo &c. ?-Forgive me "(faid I) for ftopping you-the times I am reading of are older than you imagine; the fentiment was delivered about "four hundred years ago; its author Sir * John Mandeville, who died in 1371." As man is by nature a focial animal, good-humour feems an ingredient highly neceffary to his character. It is the falt which gives a feafoning to the feast of life; and which, if it be wanting, furely renders the feaft incomplete. Many caufes contribute to impair this amiable quality, and nothing perhaps more than bad opinions of mankind. Bad opinions of mankind naturally lead us to Mifanthropy. If thefe had opinions go farther; and are applied

to the univerfe, then they lead to fomething worse, for they lead to Atheism. The melancholy and morofe character being thus infenfibly formed, morals and piety fink of courfe; for what equals have we to love, or what fuperior have we to revere, when we have no other objects left than those of hatred or of terror?

It should seem then expedient, if we value our better principles, nay, if we value our own happiness, to withstand fuch dreary fentiments. It was the advice of a wife man" Say not thou, what is the caufe that the former days were better than these? For thou doft not inquire wifely concern. ing this." Eccl. vii. 10.

Things prefent make impreffions amazingly fuperior to things remote; fo that, in objects of every kind, we are easily mistaken as to their comparative magnitude. Upon the canvafs of the fame picture a near fparrow occupies the space of a diftant eagle; a near mole-hill, that of a diftant mountain. In the perpetration of crimes there are few perfons, I believe, who would not be more fhocked at actually feeing a fingle man affafinated (even taking away the idea of perfonal danger) than they would be fhocked in reading the maffacre of Paris.

The wife man, juft quoted, wishes to fave us from thefe errors. He has already informed us-" The thing that hath been, is that which fhall be; and there is no new thing under the fun. Is there any thing whereof it may be faid, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us." He then fubjoins the cause of this apparent novelty-things paft, when they return, appear new, if they are forgotten; and things prefent will appear fo, fhould they too be forgotten, when they return. Eccl. i. 9. ii. 16.

This forgetfulness of what is fimilar in events which return (for in every returning event fuch fimilarity exifts) is the forgetfulness of a mind uninstructed and weak; a mind ignorant of that great, that providential circulation, which never ceases for a moment through every part of the univerfe.

It is not like that forgetfulness which I once remember in a man of letters; who when, at the conclufion of a long life, he found his memory began to fail, faid chearfully-" Now I fhall have a pleasure I could not have before; that of reading my old books and finding them all new.'

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