great undertaking, to speak of academies which no longer exift, but are revived in our literary inftitution; and I fhall difguife neither the incalculable benefit' they have been of to letters, nor the failings by which they have been attended. This difcuffion naturally induces me to affume the tone of a critic: but from a fpirit of tolerance, I would with my obfervations to be fuppofed to attach rather to facts, than to perfons; and when I fhall be obliged to difclofe the veil which covers their foibles, and on which public opinion is always apt to put the worst conftruction, I would wish to draw my examples from fome diftant epoch, to filence contemporary vanity, under the venerable names of antiquity, and prefent truth to the mind of the refined fcholar, through the medium of fable.

This work fhall be free, it cannot be otherwife, fince the object of its author is true and enlightened literature; it is impoffible for him to breathe the fpirit of flavery, who has pronounced with fo much energy the name of freedom. Thirty years has the Philofophy of Nature exifted. But this love of independence favors not the advocates of licentious manners: I admire not the apostle of liberty, unless in his original purity. The moment that devotees difgrace, or traitors mutilate it; or, above all, that factious men make it fubfervient to their own finifter defigns, I think it right then to fubmit it to the ordeal of the moral crucible, to feparate the virgin gold of nature from the vile drofs with which man has contaminated it.

In giving a true philofophical defcription of men of letters, it is neceffary to confider them either as ifolated, or forming an intellectual conftellation by their union in fome inftitution, literary fociety, or academy.

The folitary labors of a literary man ought to yield in priority to thofe of him whofe views and talents are enlarged by liberal converse with men of letters: juft as in a gallery of pictures, an artift examines not a portrait, till he has feafted his eyes on the hiftoric pictures which furround him.

After thefe preliminary obfervations, the reader may fee what train of ideas has led me to the plan of this work. It feeins proper, that I fhould firft begin by a grand and rapid furvey of all those philofophic and literary affociations, which have extended the sphere of human know ledge, refined the arts, and enlightened the world by the concentration of its numerous rays. And, as the human mind, MONTHLY Mag, No, L.

any where running a long career, muft leave fome traces behind; it would be proper perhaps to fearch for the origin of those affociations among the Chaldee writers, the literary focieties of China, the facerdotal colleges of Egyptian Thebes, or of Memphis, the academy of Benares, and in all the Lyceums of the first ages.

The brilliant age of Pericles would also be useful to affift this inquiry, which was never equalled, at least till the time of Montaigne, and that I am bold enough to call, by way of diftinction, the age of

reason.

The connection of events leads me to fpeak of Rome, which, during the space of feven hundred years, was acquainted with no other science but that of military murder, and diplomatic intrigue; and which, having arrived at the completion of her ambitious wishes, confoled the world for all the miferies fhe had occafioned, by adopting the arts of the conquered nations, and establishing the age of Auguftus, next in excellence to that of Pericles. She drew, however, from Athens almost all her brightest ornaments, except Horace and Tacitus.

We may fee fome traces of an enlightened combination of men among the Arabian califs, during the reign of Charlemagne and Aaron Rafchild, which for a fhort time illuminated the horizon of science: history has represented the revival of letters in the middle age, under the tutelary guardianship of the house of Medici, as more permanent; but it was not till the commencement of the immortal age of Louis the 14th, that it received true ftability,-an age ornamented by the genius of Corneille, Mollière, and Fenelon, and capable, by its luftre, of obfcuring even the crimes of Richelieu.

A description of the various focieties of literary men, from the first ages, to the inftitution of thofe original academies after which all thofe of modern Europe feem modelled, that is to fay, the Royal Society of London, and the French Academy, cannot be given but in the aggre gate.

Here the hiftory of literature prefents one regular procefs of the human mind, advancing towards perfection; and requires to be treated in that kind of comprehenfive manner, which unites general inquiry with the minutest detail.

Our three academies enter effentially into this plan: and as it is not my with to flatter, but to speak truth and to be ufeful, I fhall, in the courfe of this work, inveftigate both the falfe and legitimate 4 X

fruit,

fruit, which this fcientific tree of good and evil has produced. That which retrieves the honor of letters moft is, that our academies conftantly execute with energy the important concerns government has committed to their care, and ftruggle, but with that flow circumfpection which becomes their dignity, against thofe anti-republicans who would wish to degrade them therefore the good which they have done belongs to them as a body; and the evil to which they may have given origin, is attributable only to that fceptre of iron which prefided over their infancy. After having examined the literary and philofophical focieties of Europe with the double torch of criticifin and liberality, I fhall difcufs the merits of the Inftitute itfelf; I fhall bring into full display the great advantages refulting to government, from the union round one focus, of the fcattered members of the three academies ; and shall venture, with a philofophical boldness, to hint at thofe regulations, which are ftill wanting to that celebrated body, to raise it to its proper eminence, and to make its members lefs the reprefentatives of a literary people, than of the general republic of letters.

This treatife on the literary focieties of all ages and all nations, fo extended in its original intention, yet neceffarily confined in its execution, cannot be confidered in any other light but as the colonnade of a grand edifice, which it is my intention to rear to the honor of literature.

The great work, of which this introduction may be confidered only as an outline, is the hiftory of literature fince that epocha, when the clouds which feemed to hang over it began to difperfe, that is, fince the days of Marcus Aurelius to the beginning of the French Republic.

Such a work would be unworthy the Inftitute and all fucceeding ages, unless it embraced thefe two diftin&t objects the rational history of literature, and that of literary men.

The history of literature, like a table of contents, must be looked upon as an aggregate: It muft prefent at one glance that part of the world which it illuminates, and that which it configns to darknefs and ftupidity. It is the cloudy pillar of Mofes, half-enlightened; which conducted by its bright fide the Ifraelitish army through the red fea, and fcattered darknefs round the hoft of Pharaoh.

The hiftory of literary men is more fimple; it only requires a judicious felection of facts, refined by criticism, and tied together by the invifible bond of me.

thod: facts are the foul of necrology; they prevent the hiftory of art from being loft in the vortex of oratorical declamation, and, what is much more dangerous, faves it from the corruption and degeneracy of infipid panegyric.

The idea of fetting off with the hiftory of literature and of the literati, is perhaps new. Brucker, Gouget, Condorcet, &c. have treated of the firft; Bayle, and a crowd of encyclopædian authors have only attempted at the fecond: in the mean time it is very evident, that every philofophical intention goes unanfwered, unless the hif tory of art is illuminated by that of the artist,-unless we give to the fabric of literature an architectural individuality, as well as totality.

It is poflible that the difficulty of uniting thefe two objects, without injury from their interference with each other, prevented thofe celebrated men who have written before me, from proceeding in the way I propofe; by doing which, they would have obviated the neceffity of my endeavors. Robert fon has preceded his indifferent Life of Charles the Fifth by a pompous introduction, in which he gives an out-line of our laws, and manners, but particularly of our literature. If one.had propofed to him, from time to time to relieve our eyes from the contemplation of this brilliant mafs of hiftory, by placing before us thofe very literati who ferve as the elements of his original ideas, it is most likely he would have refused to defcend from his elevated walk to the petit details of minute necrology.

But I fhould have anfwered Robertfon: It is not defcending, to write in a philofophical manner the lives of men of letters, and to expofe to public view thofe documents by which they decide on the merits of any particular enlightened age. I might have added, that the fublime hiftorian who wrote the reigns of Tiberius and Nero, thought it no degradation to repofe his pencil on the Life of Agricola, and would have thought perhaps the compromife with glory lefs, to have become the biographer of Tibullus, of Terence, or of Virgil.

I am perfuaded, the prevailing motive which deters philofophers from undertaking that grand arrangement of history which I propofe, is, that they think, the first part of the hiftory of literature would be embarraffed in its execution, by the acceffory part, which is a philofophical account of the innumerable phalanx of men of letters.

But this pretext, at the bottom is it not illufory? Is there not truly a principal

and

and fecondary part in the philofophic work, whofe plan I trace? Each object, little or great, does it not contribute to the general harmony of the whole, if its fituation is properly difpofed of, and its proportions natural?

I grant there are fome immenfe plans which feem to exclude the union I contend for. Bayle, for example, the philofopher, both from his genius and perfeverance beft calculated to undertake the hiftory of literature and literary men, in extending his Lives to four enormous volumes in folio, has been prevented, by his plan, from combining with his feparate details a wide and connected view of the whole. This general view, fpringing naturally from its conftituent parts, ought to be dif tinguished by its precifion; it is a focus of rays, which lofes its activity in proportion as the fphere of its influence is extended. Befides, what unity can there be in the work of Bayle, if his lives of celebrated and obfcure characters form four folio volumes, and the general philofophical furvey, defigned to form a key to the whole collection, fhould find itself reduced to the extent only of thirty pages?

But let us reduce to juft proportion the coloffus, more dazzling in appearance than valuable in reality, of this famous dicti onary, and the problem will be easily folved. It may be made to appear, that Bayle himself had the temerity to fupprefs articles of geography and other circum ftances which did nor immediately anfwer his purpose; that he paffed over a crowd of theologians, or at leaft jumbled their obfcure names together with a careless kand; that he fpoiled the fimplicity of his text by the oftentatious erudition of his notes, and fo far reduced the edifice, that its foundations feemed to want a fuperftru&ture. The confirmation of the fyftem I pro pofe, refults from thefe obfervations, that a philofophical difplay of literature cannot exift without a feries of generating ideas, which may vivify the detached hiftories of literary men; and that it is not impoffible to give to all parts of this grand work the proportions of nature, which never fuffers the general effect of the whole to be injured by the too great prominency of the component parts.

Now the foundations are laid, you may fee at what period of history the epocha fhould commence, which unites the general furvey of literature with the individual portraits of literary men.

The philofophical obferver may remark three ages, very diftinct in the political existence of civilized nations: that of morality, which marks youth; that of laws,

which announces maturity; and that of luxury, which is the forerunner of decay. The empire of knowledge, like the focial empire, has alfo three distinct epochas: there is an age of erudition, which betokens youth; an age of tafte, declaratory of mature perfection; and an age of philofophy, which, by degenerating into luxury, falls to decay.

It only feems given to a few individuals to appear with fplendor, either in the politi cal world, or that of letters; and to those principally, by whofe genius these three eras have been effected.

European literature feems at this moment to have arrived at the third age. To fee the dependency of this epocha on the two preceding ones, it is neceffary to af cend as high as the most adventurous philofophy will permit; to endeavour to feize, in the, clair obfeur of the picture, that line half dissolved in shade, which feparates the departing rays of the Auguftan age from the long twilight which preceded the times of Michael Angelo and Raphaël.

After long meditation, for fear of error in the beginning of my refearches, it appeared, that reafon and fact pointed out the clofe of the Auguftan age, about the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

The reign of that man, who could place the fovereignty in the laws, and occupy himself, for twenty years, in throwing a veil over the defpotifm of the first Cæfars, and above all over the crimes of republican Rome, is worthy to form an epocha in the annals of politics, and muft undoubtedly yield fome faint rays to gild the horizon of literature. I shall not fpeak here of Aulus Gellius, who has given celebrity to the Attic Nights, a work filled with paltry hiftoric facts, and garbled grammatical difcuffions; neither of Athenæus, who, in the courfe of his five books of Deipnofphistes, informs pofterity only how the Romans contrived to make a bad repaft at a great expence: but the tutelary reigns of the Antonini,!! written by more diftinguished names, are thofe works which reflect the departing fplendor of the Auguftan age.

Of this number was Apuleius, the famous hiftorian of the Golden Afs, from whom Raphaël and Fontaine have taken their Loves of Pfyché; Celfus, one of the oracles of medicine; and Maximus of Tyre, whole philofophical differtations conftituted him preceptor to Marcus Au-r relius.

But above thefe pofterity has always extolled Lucian, who ridiculed with the beft philofophic good-nature all the 4 X 2 fuper

fuperftitious rites of the Greek theology, thus preparing in the recefs of ages thofe weapons with which, one day or other, the dangerous colossus of fuperftition will be overthrown.

The hero, in my opinion, of this age, moft to be admired, was Marcus Aurelius himself; whofe thoughts, pure as thofe of an Evangelift, but far more fublime, were ever intent on refining morality by that culture which human reafon can only applaud the culture of human nature.

Marcus Aurelius died in the 180th year of the vulgar era: 150 years from that time began the epocha, when Conftantine, in transferring to Byzantium the throne of the Cæfars, gave a new impulfe to the political world, and accumulated the fhades of ignorance more and more over the plains of literature.

In this long interval, only one man appears worth mentioning, whom nature, in a forgetful mood, feems to have caft on thefe times of barbarity and ignorance; it was the celebrated Longinus, who wrote on the fublime in a manner worthy of the fubject; and him the fierce Aurelian, vanquisher of Zenobia, for that eloquence which could only revile his crimes, pu

nifhed with death.

Conftantine, in that city which he founded on the banks of the Propontis, fubftituted the cross of Chriftianity in place of the Roman Eagle; it was at this time that philofophy, fhackled by profcription, began to flatter a court religion, in which it did not believe; till the time of the illuftrious Julian, who fuppreffed it a fecond time, and imitated in every refpect his predeceffor Marcus Aurelius.

Unfortunately this reign of Julian being fhort, his endeavours to ferve the caufe of reason were of no avail; and the fyftem which was adopted by the politics of Conftantine continued to extend its iron fceptre over the improvements of knowledge.

At laft Odoacre, a cacique of a favage horde of Lombards, came to Rome in the year 476, depofed Auguftulus, and put an end to the domination of the Cæfars in the Weft. This completed the deftruction of philofophy and letters: from that moment the age of Auguftus was no mere, not even in the memory of those perfons who had been the witneffes of its long decay. Four hundred years had elapfed from the deftruction of the Weitern empire, to the time that Charlemagne, by overturning the reign of the Lombards in Italy, endeavoured, but in vain, to impart his heroifm to the Romans, and his genius to the rest of Europe.

By a concurrence of fingular events, it happened, that at the time when Charlemagne was endeavouring to move literary Europe by the lever of his own genius, a chief among the Arabian Califs, Aaron Rafchild, was trying the fame experiment in Afia, and, by a fuccefsful invafion of Saracens, tranfported into Spain the Arabian language, the Eaftern arts, and the haughty fpirit of ancient chivalry.

The feeds of science, fcattered by Aaron Rafchild in Afia, continued to flourish for many ages; but the benefits that Charle. magne conferred on knowledge were confined to his own age. At his death there were no literary men in Europe except monks, who may be faid to have battened fecretly in the night of theology: from that time to the overthrow of the Eaftern empire, a space of time including fix hundred years, the world, China excepted, fome Arabian villages, and the country of the Troubadours, feemed enveloped in a chaos of barbarity, as if retrograding to thofe times anterior to the focial compact.

We must now fly over, with the rapidity of thought that interval of fix hundred years, to the true modern era of arts and fciences, that is, to the overthrow of the empire of Conftantine by the second Mahomet. That was the epocha, when the literati of ancient Byzantium, obliged to return to Italy, brought back with them the germs of human fcience: they were afterwards collected by France, dur ing the hoftile invafions of Charles the eighth, Francis the First, and Louis the Twelfth, and thence diffused over the rest of Europe.

It is with regret that I cannot reduce to my scale the two brilliant but isolated reigns of Aaron and Charlemagne ; those reigns feem equally difowned by every refined age; like the islands in the South Sea, thrown by nature to a frightful dif tance from the three worlds, and where Cook at the fame time was idolized and affaffinated.

My plan of uniting in this work the hiftory of literature with that of literary men gives me an opportunity of connecting, in spite of the interregnum of fix ages, the acceffion of the arts under the Medici, with thofe important triumphs effected by the genius of Aaron and Charlemagne.

It is my defign to draw the grand outlines of those men, who, for these thoufand years, have agitated the public opinion, and preferved it from apathy. Under this defcription, the Arabian hero and the hero of France have the same

natural