ping, as gods, the sun and the hosts of heaven, with an adoration which had more in it of the sublime than commonly appertains to unrevealed religions, Zoroaster and the Magi looked upon these gods of the vulgar only as the types and images of the hidden God,' the unseen Mithras father and maker of all things. Over the whole field of inquiry opened up by this interesting question, Cudworth proceeds with unabated learning. The reader will find the most curious and valuable information levied from every possible source, and will often be struck with the ingenuity and powerful mind displayed in disentangling the thread of sophistry, or in explaining those mysterious allegories which seemed rather the visions of the poet than religious traditions. The glowing fictions of the Grecian mythology,—the shadowy outlines of ancient religions so dimly seen through the obscurity of ages, that they almost seem to be the relics of a pre-Adamite race,—the Chaldaic oracles, and the Orphic Cabala, are all made the subjects of his piercing investigation.

Perhaps the only fault in the True Intellectual System is the heedless and mischievous introduction of a plastic nature. This plastic nature was a sort of inferior and subordinate instrument which executed that part of God's providence which relates to the regular and orderly motion of matter. It was an inward principle, a vital and incorporeal energy resident in matter, yet not having the power of acting electively, or with discretion. Bayle, in his 'Continuation des pensées diverses sur les Cometes,' observes, that "the atheists are very much perplexed how to account for the formation of animals, which they ascribed to a cause which was not conscious of what it did, and yet followed a regular order without knowing according to what laws it went to work. But Dr Cudworth's plastic nature and Dr Grew's vital energy are exactly in the same case, and thus they took away the whole of their objection against atheism." Bayle's reasoning is obvious: if God could create such a plastic power, then it might exist; and if it might exist, why not necessarily and of itself? Le Clerc, who had already given, in his Bibliotheque Choisie,' large extracts from Cudworth, replied to Bayle, and endeavoured to show that his reasoning was fallacious, because this plastic nature was only an instrumental cause in the hands of God, and required an intelligent cause to create it or to set it in motion. To this Bayle answered, that if a plastic nature can produce plants and animals without having the least idea of what it is doing, then, in the same way, the plastic power itself might have been produced by a cause, not having any idea of what it was doing. To this he added, that if it were asserted that God created nature with this faculty, then it might be objected that it was just as easy for a being to perform a scheme of which no one has any notion at all, as it is for a being to perform a scheme of which it has itself no idea, though some other being has. Le Clerc replied, that the plastic nature of Cudworth was not a mere passive instrument, and that the atheists could not retort the argument, because God is the author

This reasoning evidently settled the question against Dr Cudworth's plastic nature; for if excellent works can be produced, showing every symptom of order and method, without any idea or knowledge of doing so, then assuredly it is possible that the world may have been so produced,-the very thing which the atheists were desirous of establishing.

of the order and regularity with which the plastic natures act. This controversy was carried on to a much greater length, but Bayle continued throughout to maintain that decided superiority which he possesses in the short abstract we have given.

We have spent so much time in giving an account of the Intellectual System, as to have left us little or none for his remaining works; we must not, however, omit to recommend most earnestly, to the attention of the reader, his sermon in 1647 before the house of commons. Those who have heard of his great work only as a collection of the dry bones of forgotten tongues, will be surprised to find in this sermon a complete absence of all erudition,-a plainness, and simplicity, and fervour, and a vein of poetical imagery not unlike the glorious effusions of Jeremy Taylor.

In addition to the works before enumerated, there was published, after his death, ' A Treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality' from his pen. Its object was to disprove the opinion, that right and wrong were not real, but imaginary and arbitrary. Though probably intended only as an introduction to an ethical treatise, it is very valuable as a complete and masterly refutation of this ancient dogma of Protagoras, which had been revived by Hobbes in modern times with considerable applause. The British museum contains many, and it is said, very valuable manuscripts in Cudworth's writing, which have never yet seen the light.

The Intellectual System' was published in one volume, folio, at London, 1678, and in 2 vols. 4to, in 1743, with the majority of his smaller works, and a life by Dr Birch. It was also translated into Latin by Mosheim, and published at Jena, in 2 vols. folio, 1733, and reprinted at Leyden in 1773, 2 vols. 4to.- The Eternal and Immutable Morality' was published by Chandler, bishop of Durham, in 1733, 8vo. His sermons and some of his smaller tracts have been several times reprinted. The best of them-that preached before the house of commons-was printed in 1647, 4to; in 1814, 8vo; and in a neat little pocket volume in 1831, by T. Hodgson, Liverpool.

III-LITERARY SERIES.

Sir Thomas Bodley.

DIED A. D. 1612.

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THIS gentleman, who has endeared his name to posterity, by founding the noble library at Oxford, called after him, The Bodleian library,' was the son of an eminent merchant at Exeter, who having early embraced the reformed religion, and being menaced with persecution on that account, fled with his son to Geneva, and remained there during the turbulent reign of Queen Mary.

Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth, they returned home with the other protestant exiles; and young Bodley, having made consider

able progress at Geneva in divinity and the learned languages, was sent by his father to Magdalen college, Oxford. In 1563, he took his degree of master of arts; in 1563, he obtained a fellowship in Merton college; in 1569, he was elected one of the proctors of the university; and, for a considerable time during a vacancy, he supplied the place of university-orator. His friends now having in view some preferment for him about the court, in 1576, he went abroad to make the tour of Europe, and perfect himself in the modern languages. He continued about four years on the continent, and, upon his return he applied himself to the study of history and politics to qualify himself for public employment.

He was very soon called upon to exert his talents in stations of great dignity and importance. From gentleman-usher to Queen Elizabeth, he rose to be her majesty's ambassador to the courts of France and Denmark; and her representative in the council of state of the United Provinces, in 1588. He managed the queen's affairs so much to the satisfaction of the ministry at home, that he was continued in this high office till 1597, when all the public negotiations with the states being successfully terminated, he was recalled. But, instead of meeting with that reward for his eminent services which he had a right to expect, he found his own interest declining with that of his patron, the earl of Essex, and, in a fit of disgust, retired from court, and all public business; and, though afterwards much solicited, he never would accept of i any new office under government, but King James, on his accession, conferred on him the honour of knighthood.

To this retirement from the bustle of public life, the university of Oxford most probably stands indebted for the Bodleian library, justly esteemed one of the noblest in the world. The first step Sir Thomas Bodley took in this affair, was to write a letter to Dr Ravis, the vicechancellor of the university, offering to rebuild the decayed fabric of the public library, to improve and augment the scanty collection of books contained in it, and to vest an annual income in the hands of the heads of the university, for the purchasing of books, and for the salaries of such officers as they should think it necessary to appoint. A suitable answer being returned, and this generous offer gratefully accepted, Sir Thomas immediately ordered the old building to be pulled down, and a new one erected at his own expense, which was completed in about two years. He then added to the old a new collection of the most valuable books then extant, which he ordered to be purchased in foreign countries; and having thus set the example, the nobility, the bishops, and several private gentlemen, made such considerable benefactions in books, that the room was not large enough to contain them. Upon which Sir Thomas offered to make considerable additions to the building. On the 19th of July 1610, he laid the first stone of a new foundation, being accompanied by the vice-chancellor, doctors, masters of arts, &c. Sir Thomas Bodley did not live to see this building completed; but he had the satisfaction to know that it was intended as soon as that was finished to enlarge the plan of the whole edifice, and in the end to form a regular quadrangle; and as he knew his own fortune was inadequate to this great work, he made use of his interest with several persons of rank and fortune, and engaged them to make -large presents to the university to forward this undertaking, to which

he bequeathed his whole estate. He likewise drew up some excellent statutes for the regulation of the library, which seems to have been the last act of his life. He died on the 28th of January, 1612, and was buried in the chapel of Merton college, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory; his statue was likewise put in the library, at the expense of the earl of Dorset, when chancellor of the university.

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.

FLOR. A. D. 1612.

THESE bright ornaments of our dramatic literature were so indissolubly united during life, in a fellowship dear to every lover of the muses, and their immortal strains have so intertwined their names in the remembrance of posterity, that it would be a violation of good taste and good feeling were we to separate them. Very little is known concerning them, and very few memorials of them have been handed down, save those matchless dramas which have made their literary partnership more celebrated, and far more valuable to mankind, than the martial friendships of the Theseus and Pirithous, and Castor and Pollux, of antiquity.

Francis Beaumont was descended from an ancient and respectable family of that name in Leicestershire. His grandfather, John Beaumont, had been master of the rolls, and his father, Francis, one of the judges of the court of common pleas. He was born in the year 1585, and having completed his education at Cambridge, was entered a student of the Inner Temple. It does not appear that he made any great progress in his legal studies, nor indeed is it possible that he could have done so, since it was here that he met with Fletcher, and the two embryo lawyers, being both possessed of a competency already, flung aside all anticipations of wigs and silk gowns for the more agreeable pastime of enlivening the town with their exquisite dramas, and of engaging at the Mermaid in those celebrated wit combats' which called forth, in addition to the wit and fancy of our two authors, all the learning of Selden, the quaint conceits of Donne, the rich humour of Ben Jonson, and the genius of Shakspeare. In a poetical epistle to Ben Jonson, Beaumont writes,

"What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,

As if that every one from whence they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life."

He died on the 15th of March, 1615, in the 30th year of his age, leaving behind him one daughter, who, it is said, was living in Leicestershire in the year 1700.

John Fletcher was the son of Dr Fletcher, bishop of Bristol, and afterwards bishop of London, and was born in the year 1577. After studying at Cambridge, where he made great proficiency, and was

esteemed an excellent scholar, he was entered of the Inner Temple, being destined by his parents for the bar. Their wishes do not appear to have been accomplished, since the young poet found it difficult to bend his attention to musty parchments and tedious precedents, and meeting an associate of the same disposition in Beaumont, the two committed the deadly sin of writing poetry, which, of course, incapacitated them for the legal profession. A pleasant story is told of their having been once at a tavern together, where they were concerting the rough draft of a tragedy, and assigning to each the different parts he was to write: "I'll undertake to kill the king," said Fletcher. These treasonable words were overheard by the waiter, who immediately caused them to be apprehended, but, of course, on their giving an explanation, the affair ended in a jest. Fletcher was carried off by the plague which ravaged London in the year 1625, being then in the 49th year of his age.

It is almost impossible to enter into any just criticisms of the writings of these illustrious men within the limits allotted to us. They have left behind them upwards of fifty dramas of such unequal merit that almost every one would demand a separate examination; and so little are they known to modern readers, that we should seem to be guilty of extravagance were we to bestow on their productions any adequate commendations, unless we produced very ample extracts to justify our praise. We cannot now apportion out to each his share in the different plays which they wrote in conjunction, nor indeed have we any account on which reliance can be placed of the different qualities of mind by which each was distinguished. The general opinion seems to be that Beaumont was the deeper scholar and more acute critic, while Fletcher had the more brilliant wit and loftier genius. He," (Fletcher) says old Fuller, in his quaint and amusing style, "and F. Beaumont, Esq. like Castor and Pollux, most happy when in conjunction, raised the English stage to equal the Athenian and Roman theatre; Beaumont bringing the ballast of judgment, and Fletcher the sail of phantasie; both compounding a poet to admiration." Langbaine bears the same testimony. "Beaumont was master of a good wit and a better judgment; he so admirably well understood the art of the stage, that even Jonson himself thought it no disparagement to submit his writings to his correction." "Mr Fletcher's wit was equal to Mr Beaumont's judgment, and was so luxurious, that, like superfluous branches, it was frequently pruned by his judicious partner." This statement, though true in the main, must be received with some limitations, since, on the one hand, The Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, and the King and No King, in which Beaumont is generally allowed to have had the chief hand, exhibit more fancy, more of the qualities by which Fletcher was distinguished, than the majority of the other plays which they are known to have written in conjunction; while, on the other hand, those written by Fletcher alone, are, on the whole, equal in point of taste and judgment to most of those in which Beaumont assisted him. It is nevertheless to be noticed, that in the Maid's Tragedy, King and No King, and Philaster, the characters are more justly conceived and more consistent, the plot is less defective, the inequalities not so marked, and the general impression left on the mind more permanent, than in any other of their plays; and that the most light, airy, and fancy-teeming

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