those creatures have done who, by reason of their sleeping for many days together, have not spent any spirits, and so not wanted any food, which is commonly related of serpents, crocodiles, bears, cuckoos, swallows, and such like. To this purpose Mendoza reckons up divers strange relations: as that of Epimenides, who is storied to have slept seventy-five years; and another of a rustic in Germany, who, being accidentally covered with a hay-rick, slept there for all the autumn and the winter following without any nourishment.

the history of that learned body, with the object of dissipating the prejudice and suspicion with which it was regarded by the public. Previously to this he had been appointed chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have aided in writing the Rehearsal. He was made also chaplain to the king. In these circumstances, ecclesiastical promotion could hardly fail to ensue; and accordingly, after several advancing steps, the see of Rochester was attained in 1684. Next year, he

How a Man may Fly to the Moon.

If it be here inquired, what means there may be conjectured for our ascending beyond the sphere of the earth's magnetical vigour, I answer: 1. It is not perhaps impossible that a man may be able to fly by the application of wings to his own body; as angels are pictured, as Mercury and Dædalus are feigned, and as hath been attempted by divers, particularly by a Turk in Constantinople, as Busbequius relates.

2. If there be such a great ruck in Madagascar as Marcus Polus, the Venetian, mentions, the feathers in whose wings are twelve feet long, which can swoop up a horse and his rider, or an elephant, as our kites do a mouse; why, then, it is but teaching one of these to carry a man, and he may ride up thither, as Ganymede does upon an eagle.

Or if neither of these ways will serve, yet I do seriously, and upon good grounds, affirm it possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such a motion unto it as shall convey him through the air. And this, perhaps, might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum, and commodities for traffic. It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat.

This engine may be contrived from the same principles by which Archytas made a wooden dove, and Regiomontanus a wooden eagle.

In 1640, Wilkins published a Discourse concerning a New Planet: tending to prove that 'tis probable our Earth is one of the Planets. This was one of the earliest defences of the Copernican system, as developed by Galileo in 1632. In 1641, Wilkins called attention to writing in cipher and by signals, in a work entitled Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger: Shewing how a man may with privacy and speed communicate his Thoughts to a Friend at any Distance. In 1668, he wrote a valuable treatise entitled An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, which was published by the Royal Society.

DR THOMAS SPRAT.

DR THOMAS SPRAT, bishop of Rochester (16361713), is praised by Dr Johnson as an author whose pregnancy of imagination and eloquence of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature.' Lord Macaulay also eulogises him as 'a very great master of our language, and possessed at once of the eloquence of the orator, the controversialist, and the historian.' At Oxford he studied mathematics under Dr Wilkins, at whose house the philosophical inquirers used to meet. Sprat's intimacy with Wilkins led to his election as a member of the Royal Society soon after its incorporation; and in 1667 he published

of the Ryehouse Plot, written by the command of King James. For this work he found it expedient, after the Revolution, to print an apology; and having submitted to the new government, he was allowed, notwithstanding his well-known' attachment to the abdicated monarch, to remain unmolested in his bishopric. In 1692, however, he was brought into trouble by a false accusation of joining in a conspiracy for the restoration of James; but after a confinement of eleven days, he clearly proved his innocence. So strong was the impression made by this event upon his mind, that he ever afterwards distinguished the anniversary of his deliverance as a day of thanksgiving. Besides the works already mentioned, Sprat wrote some the death of the Protector, 1658, and a Pindaric poems unworthy of his general talents-one on Ode on the Plague of Athens, 1659. He published Cowley's Latin Poems, to which he prefixed a life of Cowley, also in Latin, but afterwards published in English and enlarged. He was author of a volume of Sermons, 1710, which have been justly admired: 'his language,' says Doddridge, 'is always beautiful.' Sprat is represented as being over-genial in his habits, but a popular, as well as able, divine.

View of the Divine Government afforded by Experimental Philosophy.

We are guilty of false interpretations of providences and wonders, when we either make those to be miracles that are none, or when we put a false sense on those that are real; when we make general events to have a private aspect, or particular accidents to have some universal signification. Though both these may seem at first to have the strictest appearance of religion, yet they are the greatest usurpations on the secrets of the Almighty, and unpardonable presumptions on his high prerogatives of punishment and reward.

And now, if a moderating of these extravagances must be esteemed profaneness, I profess I cannot absolve the experimental philosopher. It must be granted that he mentaries on prophetical visions, in giving liberty to new will be very scrupulous in believing all manner of compredictions, and in assigning the causes and marking out the paths of God's judgments amongst his creatures.

He cannot suddenly conclude all extraordinary events to be the immediate finger of God; because he familiarly beholds the inward workings of things, and thence perceives that many effects, which use to affright the ignorant, are brought forth by the common instruments of nature. He cannot be suddenly inclined to pass censure on men's eternal condition from any temporal judgments that may befall them; because his long him the truth of what the Scripture says, that 'all things converse with all matters, times, and places, has taught happen alike to all.' He cannot blindly consent to all imaginations of devout men about future contingencies, seeing he is so rigid in examining all particular matters of fact. He cannot be forward to assent to spiritual raptures and revelations; because he is truly acquainted with the tempers of men's bodies, the composition of

But in all this he commits nothing that is irreligious. 'Tis true, to deny that God has heretofore warned the world of what was to come, is to contradict the very Godhead itself; but to reject the sense which any private man shall fasten to it, is not to disdain the Word of God, but the opinions of men like ourselves. To declare against the possibility that new prophets may be sent from heaven, is to insinuate that the same infinite Wisdom which once shewed itself that way is now at an end. But to slight all pretenders, that come without the help of miracles, is not a contempt of the Spirit, but a just circumspection that the reason of men be not overreached. To deny that God directs the course of human things, is stupidity; but to hearken to every prodigy that men frame against their enemies, or for themselves, is not to reverence the power of God, but to make that serve the passions, the interests, and revenges of men.

It is a dangerous mistake, into which many good men fall, that we neglect the dominion of God over the world, if we do not discover in every turn of human actions many supernatural providences and miraculous events. Whereas it is enough for the honour of his government that he guides the whole creation in its wonted course of causes and effects: as it makes as much for the reputation of a prince's wisdom, that he can rule his subjects peaceably by his known and standing laws, as that he is often forced to make use of extraordinary justice to punish or reward.

Let us, then, imagine our philosopher to have all slowness of belief, and rigour of trial, which by some is miscalled a blindness of mind and hardness of heart. Let us suppose that he is most unwilling to grant that anything exceeds the force of nature, but where a full evidence convinces him. Let it be allowed that he is always alarmed, and ready on his guard, at the noise of any miraculous event, lest his judgment should be surprised by the disguises of faith. But does he by this diminish the authority of ancient miracles? or does he not rather confirm them the more, by confining their number, and taking care that every falsehood should not mingle with them? Can he by this undermine Christianity, which does not now stand in need of such extraordinary testimonies from heaven? or do not they rather endanger it, who still venture its truths on so hazardous a chance, who require a continuance of signs and wonders, as if the works of our Saviour and his apostles had not been sufficient? Who ought to be esteemed the most carnally minded-the enthusiast that pollutes religion with his own passions, or the experimenter that will not use it to flatter and obey his own desires, but to subdue them? Who is to be thought the greatest enemy of the gospel-he that loads men's faiths by so many improbable things as will go near to make the reality itself suspected, or he that only admits a few arguments to confirm the evangelical doctrines, but then chooses those that are unquestionable?

By this, I hope, it appears that this inquiring, this scrupulous, this incredulous temper, is not the disgrace, but the honour of experiments. And, therefore, I will declare them to be the most seasonable study for the present temper of our nation. This wild amusing men's minds with prodigies and conceits of providence has been one of the most considerable causes of those spiritual distractions of which our country has long been the theatre. This is a vanity to which the English seem to have been always subject above others. There is scarce any modern historian that relates our foreign wars, but he has this objection against the disposition of our countrymen, they used to order their affairs of the greatest importance according to some obscure omens or predictions that passed amongst them on little or no foundations. And at this time, especially this last year [1666], this gloomy and ill-boding humour has prevailed. So that it is now the fittest season for experi

the depths of knowledge, to shake off the shadows, and to scatter the mists which fill the minds of men with a vain consternation. This is a work well becoming the most Christian profession. For the most apparent effect which attended the passion of Christ was the putting of an eternal silence on all the false oracles and dissembled inspirations of ancient times.

Cowley's Love of Retirement.

Upon the king's happy restoration, Mr Cowley was past the fortieth year of his age; of which the greatest part had been spent in a various and tempestuous condition. He now thought he had sacrificed enough of his life to his curiosity and experience. He had enjoyed many excellent occasions of observation. He had been present in many great revolutions, which in that tumultuous time disturbed the peace of all our neighbour states as well as our own. He had nearly beheld all the splendour of the highest part of mankind. He had lived in the presence of princes, and familiarly conversed with greatness in all its degrees, which was necessary for one that would contemn it aright; for to scorn the pomp of the world before a man knows it, does commonly proceed rather from ill-manners than a true magnanimity.

He was now weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of court; which sort of life, though his virtue had made innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to forego all public employments, and to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which in the greatest throng of his former business had still called upon him and represented to him the true delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and of a moderate revenue, below the malice and flatteries of fortune.

In his last seven or eight years he was concealed in his beloved obscurity, and possessed that solitude which, from his very childhood, he had always most passionately desired. Though he had frequent invitations to return into business, yet he never gave ear to any persuasions of profit or preferment. His visits to the city and court were very few; his stays in town were only as a passenger, not an inhabitant. The places that he chose for the seats of his declining life were two or three villages on the bank of the Thames. During this recess, his mind was rather exercised on what was to come than what was past; he suffered no more business nor cares of life to come near him than what were enough to keep his soul awake, but not to disturb it. Some few friends and books, a cheerful heart, and innocent conscience, were his constant companions.

I acknowledge he chose that state of life not out of any poetical rapture, but upon a steady and sober experience of human things. But, however, I cannot applaud it in him. It is certainly a great disparagement. to virtue and learning itself, that those very things which only make men useful in the world should incline them to leave it. This ought never to be allowed to good men, unless the bad had the same moderation, and were willing to follow them into the wilderness. But if the one shall contend to get out of employment, while the other strive to get into it, the affairs of mankind are like to be in so ill a posture, that even the good men themselves will hardly be able to enjoy their very retreats in security.

DR THOMAS BURNET.

DR THOMAS BURNET (1635-1715), brother of the more popular Bishop Burnet, master of the Charter-house in London, and an able scholar, acquired great celebrity by the publication of his

So

and subsequently, for the most part, at the residence of Boyle. These scientific students, with others who afterwards joined them, were incorporated by Charles II. in 1662, under the title of the Royal Society. Boyle, after settling in London in 1668, was one of its most active members, and many of his treatises originally appeared in the Society's Philosophical Transactions. He died in 1691, and his works are voluminous enough to fill six quarto volumes. They consist chiefly of accounts of his experimental researches in chemistry and natural philosophy, particularly with respect to the mechanical and chemical properties of air. The latter subject was one in which he felt much interest; and by means of the air-pump, the construction of which he materially improved, he succeeded in making many valuable pneumatic discoveries. He also published various works in defence of Christianity, and in explanation of the benefits resulting from the study of the Divine attributes as displayed in the material world. earnest was Boyle in the cause of Christianity, that he not only devoted much time and money in contributing to its propagation in foreign parts, but, by a codicil to his will, made provision for the delivery of eight sermons yearly in London by some learned divine, 'for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels, namely, atheists, theists, pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans; not descending lower to any controversies that are among Christians themselves.' We learn from his biographers, that in 1660 he was solicited by Lord Clarendon to adopt the clerical profession, in order that the church might have the support of those eminent abilities and virtues by which he was distinguished. Two considerations, however, induced him to withhold compliance. In the first place, he regarded himself as more likely to advance religion by his writings in the character of a layman, than if he were in the more interested position of one of the clergy-whose preaching there was a general tendency to look upon as the remunerated exercise And, secondly, he felt the obligaof a profession. tions, importance, and difficulties of the pastoral care to be so great, that he wanted the confidence to undertake it.

The titles of those works of Boyle which are most likely to attract the general reader areConsiderations on the Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy; Considerations on the Style of the Holy Scriptures; A Free Discourse against Customary Swearing; Considerations about the Reconcilableness of Reason and Religion, and the Possibility of a Resurrection; A Discourse of Things above Reason; A Discourse of the High Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God, particularly for his Wisdom and Power; A Disquisition into the Final Causes of Natural Things; The Christian Virtuoso, shewing that, by being addicted to Experimental Philosophy, a Man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good Christian; and A Treatise of Seraphic Love. He published, in 1665, Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects, mostly written in early life, and which Swift has ridiculed in his Meditation on a Broomstick. The comparative want of taste and of sound judgment displayed in this portion of Boyle's writings, is doubtless to be ascribed to the immature age at which they were composed: his treatises on natural theology are valuable, though prolix and rambling in style.

The Study of Natural Philosophy favourable to Religion.

The first advantage that our experimental philosopher, as such, hath towards being a Christian, is, that his course of studies conduceth much to settle in his mind a firm belief of the existence, and divers of the chief attributes, of God; which belief is, in the order of things, the first principle of that natural religion which itself is pre-required to revealed religion in general, and consequently to that in particular which is embraced by Christians.

That the consideration of the vastness, beauty, and regular motions of the heavenly bodies, the excellent structure of animals and plants, besides a multitude of other phenomena of nature, and the subserviency of most of these to man, may justly induce him, as a rational creature, to conclude that this vast, beautiful, orderly, and, in a word, many ways admirable system of things, that we call the world, was framed by an author supremely powerful, wise, and good, can scarce be denied by an intelligent and unprejudiced considerer. And this is strongly confirmed by experience, which witnesseth, that in almost all ages and countries the generality of philosophers and contemplative men were persuaded of the existence of a Deity, by the consideration of the phenomena of the universe, whose fabric and conduct, they rationally concluded, could not be deservedly ascribed either to blind chance, or to any other cause than a divine Being.

without witness,' even to perfunctory considerers, by But though it be true 'that God hath not left himself workmanship such conspicuous impressions of his attristamping upon divers of the more obvious parts of his butes, that a moderate degree of understanding and attention may suffice to make men acknowledge his being, yet I scruple not to think that assent very much inferior to the belief that the same objects are fitted to produce in a heedful and intelligent contemplator of them. For the works of God are so worthy of their author, that, besides the impresses of his wisdom and goodness that are left, as it were, upon their surfaces, there are a great many more curious and excellent tokens and effects of divine artifice in the hidden and innermost recesses of them; and these are not to be disful beholders; but require, as well as deserve, the most covered by the perfunctory looks of oscitant and unskilattentive and prying inspection of inquisitive and wellinstructed considerers. And sometimes in one creature there may be I know not how many admirable things, that escape a vulgar eye, and yet may be clearly discerned by that of a true naturalist, who brings with him, besides a more than common curiosity and attention, a competent knowledge of anatomy, optics, cosmography, mechanics, and chemistry. But treating elsewhere purposely of this subject, it may here suffice to say, that God has couched so many things in his visible works, that the their unobvious exquisiteness, and the more clearly and clearer light a man has, the more he may discover of distinctly he may discern those qualities that lie more obvious. And the more wonderful things he discovers in the works of nature, the more auxiliary proofs he meets with to establish and enforce the argument, drawn from the universe and its parts, to evince that there is a God; which is a proposition of that vast weight and importance, that it ought to endear everything to us that is able to confirm it, and afford us new motives to acknowledge and adore the divine Author of things.

this is performed by that faculty of the mind which, from To be told that an eye is the organ of sight, and that its function, is called visive, will give a man but a sorry account of the instruments and manner of vision itself, or of the knowledge of that Opificer who, as the Scripture speaks, 'formed the eye.' And he that can take up with this easy theory of vision will not think it necessary to take the pains to dissect the eyes of animals,