of his later years, the effects, which might otherwise have been
transient, of his early enthusiasm. It required many talents, as well as
many virtues, to accomplish this—and Wesley was abundantly endowed with
both. The natural ardour and eagerness of his character was moderated by
great sagacity and calm judgment, a conciliating and forgiving temper.
If he loved power, he did not covet money; but bestowed all that he had
upon the poor. Doubtless his original object was simply to awaken the
dormant spirit of vital Christianity; and if spiritual ambition,
fomented by the general discouragement which he received from the
clergy, seduced him too readily—though reluctantly and in opposition to
his own professions, and even to his own intentions—into what did in
fact amount to schism; yet the breach is not even now irreparable, if
only his better spirit shall preside in the councils of his disciples,
and be met with a kindred feeling of religious moderation by the
directors of the Established Church.

[Illustration: [Monument to Wesley in the Chapel in the City Road.]]

                            DR. CARTWRIGHT.

The incident which immediately led to the invention of the power-loom is
best related in the words of the inventor himself. “Happening to be at
Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen of
Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright’s spinning
machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright’s
patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun,
that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observation I
replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work to invent a
weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which
the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was
impracticable; and in defence of their opinion, they adduced arguments
which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend,
being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a
person weave. I controverted however the impracticability of the thing.”
Looms driven by power had been constructed before, but they had not been
made to answer; and it is probable, from the circumstances of Dr.
Cartwright’s life, that he had never heard of them: at all events the
idea thus suggested to him did not lie dormant. Before the following
April, he had constructed his first power-loom; and he took out his last
weaving patent Aug. 1, 1787. Mechanical spinning therefore was the
parent of mechanical weaving. Without the former, the latter would have
been needless; without the latter, the former would have been
incomplete. Every stage of the cotton manufacture, from the cleaning of
the raw wool to the formation of a perfect web, may be, and in many
establishments is, now carried on under the same roof, and by the moving
power of the same engine. The name of Dr. Cartwright should follow that
of Sir Richard Arkwright in the list of our national benefactors; though
at present it is far less known to the world at large. It was long
indeed before Cartwright’s merits were appreciated, and they failed to
obtain for him the wealth and distinction which the creation of the
factory system secured to Arkwright. The utility of the power-loom is
now acknowledged, and its sphere appears to be rapidly enlarging. But it
is still limited even in the cotton, and much more in the silk and
woollen manufactures; and it is not unreasonable to expect that, as
prejudices give way, and fresh refinements render the machine
susceptible of more general, not to say universal, application, the art
of weaving by mechanism, as formerly of spinning, may give an impulse to
our trade, of which we now see the beginning, but cannot conjecture the
end.

  _Engraved by J. Thomson._

  D^R. CARTWRIGHT.

  _From a Picture in the possession of Miss Cartwright._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society of the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

Edmund Cartwright was the fourth son of William Cartwright, Esq., of
Marnham in Nottinghamshire, a gentleman whose family had been long
established in the county, and had suffered considerably in its fortune
by adherence to the cause of Charles I. in the civil war. He was born
April 24, 1743; and at the school of Wakefield, and at University
College, Oxford, received the education usually bestowed upon young men
destined for the clerical profession. At an early age he manifested a
taste for poetic composition; but though he had printed some short
pieces anonymously, his name was not given to the public, until the
appearance, in 1770, of ‘Armenia and Elvira,’ a legendary poem, which
became so popular that it passed through seven editions in little more
than a year. He also published, about the same period, the ‘Prince of
Peace,’ and ‘Sonnets to Eminent Men.’ In 1774 he became a contributor to
the Monthly Review, in which he continued to write for ten years.

We have not ascertained the date of his taking orders, of his election
to a fellowship at Magdalen College, or of his vacating that fellowship
by marriage. The degree of D.D. he took in 1806. For some years after
his marriage he resided, first on his living at Brampton in Derbyshire,
and afterwards at Goadby-Marwood in Leicestershire; where the hours
which were not devoted to the duties of his calling were chiefly
employed in literary pursuits.

Hitherto Mr. Cartwright’s private life had been that of a retired
country clergyman, varied only by his correspondence with literary
friends. From his family connexions, and the esteem in which he was held
by some who had power to advance him, his prospects in the church were
favourable; and he had good reason to believe, that if he had confined
himself to the line of life in which he had been educated, and in which
he was then advancing, he would have attained a more ample provision in
his profession, than it was his lot to acquire by the exercise of his
mechanical talent. The existence of such a talent in his own mind had
been wholly unknown even to himself, until he was upwards of forty years
of age, when the circumstance which has been above narrated called it
into action, and caused a change in the whole tenor of his life. In his
first attempts he had to contend with the difficulties which usually
beset genius without experience. “As I had never before turned my
thoughts to anything mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had
even seen a loom at work, or knew anything of its construction, you will
readily believe that my first loom was a most rude piece of machinery.
The warp was placed perpendicularly; the reed fell with the weight of at
least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle
were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it
required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow
rate, and only for a short time.” This, as we have seen, was in 1785: he
also applied his talents to effecting the substitution of machinery for
manual labour in combing wool, and took out his first patent on this
subject in April 1790.

The following anecdotes we quote from the ‘Pursuit of Knowledge,’ vol.
ii.; we believe them to rest upon the best authority. “Dr. Cartwright’s
children still remember often seeing their father about this time
walking to and fro apparently in deep meditation, and occasionally
throwing his arms from side to side; on which they used to be told that
he was thinking of weaving and throwing the shuttle. From the moment
indeed when his attention was first turned to the invention of the
power-loom, mechanical contrivance became the grand occupying subject of
his thoughts. With that sanguineness of disposition which seems to be
almost a necessary part of the character of an inventor, he looked on
difficulties, when he met with them in any of his attempts, as only
affording his genius occasion for a more distinguished triumph: nor did
he allow even repeated failures for a moment to dishearten him. Some
time after he had brought his first loom to perfection, a manufacturer,
who had called upon him to see it at work, after expressing his
admiration of the ingenuity displayed in it, remarked, that wonderful as
was Mr. Cartwright’s mechanical skill, there was one thing that would
effectually baffle him, namely the weaving of patterns in checks, or in
other words, the combining in the same web, of a pattern, or fancy
figure, with the crossing colours which constitute the check. Mr.
Cartwright made no reply to this observation at the time; but some weeks
after, on receiving a second visit from the same person, he had the
pleasure of showing him a piece of muslin of the description mentioned,
beautifully executed by machinery. The man is said to have been so much
astonished, that he roundly declared his conviction that some agency
more than human must have been called in on the occasion.”

The prejudices and opposition which Dr. Cartwright’s invention
encountered from the manufacturers, stood greatly in the way of any
general adoption of his loom during the period of his patent rights.
Other causes, however, were concerned in this. A mill, containing five
hundred of his looms, was burnt down almost immediately after its
erection. He engaged in a concern for manufacturing with power-looms at
Doncaster; but this proved unsuccessful. And it is not improbable,
though we have not found it expressly stated, that the machine itself
was not at this time able to compete, in respect of economy and beauty
of workmanship, with hand labour: for during the period of his exclusive
rights, two or three other persons took out patents for power-looms,
without being able to make them answer. But about the year 1801, in
which his patent expired, he had the pleasure of finding that his
invention was coming into use to a very considerable extent; and the
mortification of seeing others reap the fruit of his unrequited
ingenuity. The increased demand during the war for English cotton goods,
with the necessity for working up at home the cotton yarn which had
hitherto been exported to the Continent, had given an impulse to the
manufacture favourable to the introduction of machinery; and at the same
time the power-loom was rendered much more economical by a very
ingenious method, invented by Mr. Radcliffe of Stockport, about 1804, of
dressing or sizing the warp, before it was placed in the loom. A cotton
manufacturer of Stockport, named Horrocks, took out a patent for another
power-loom in 1803. He failed; but his loom, with various modifications,
is that which has now come into general use.

The following estimate, taken from ‘Baines’s History of the Cotton
Manufacture,’ of the number of power-looms in Britain at various
periods, though literal exactness in such a matter is unattainable,
affords probably a tolerably correct measure of the rapid multiplication
of these engines.

              In 1813.                In 1820. In 1829. In 1833.
        Not exceeding 2,400. England    12,150   45,500   85,000
                             Scotland    2,000   10,000   15,000
                                       ———————  ———————  ———————
                                        14,150   55,500  100,000

At the present time, we are told by the same authority, the
machinemakers of Lancashire are making power-looms with the greatest
rapidity, and they cannot be made sufficiently fast to meet the demands
of the manufacturers. This quick increase, notwithstanding the
considerable expense of outfit, which by employing hand-weavers the
manufacturer avoids entirely, may safely be taken as a test of the
advantages and national importance of the power-loom. The following
estimate is given of its productiveness as compared with hand-loom
labour. A very good hand-weaver, twenty-five or thirty years of age,
will weave _two_ pieces of cloth per week, of a certain description,
each twenty-four yards long. In 1833, a steam-loom weaver, from fifteen
to twenty years of age, assisted by a girl about twelve years of age,
attending to four looms, can weave _eighteen_ similar pieces in a week;
some can weave twenty pieces. It appears from the fuller statement given
by Mr. Baines, that the comparative productiveness of steam-looms has
rapidly increased up to the last-mentioned period, and therefore it may
be conjectured not yet to have reached its maximum; and it is also
stated, that in those descriptions of plain goods for which they have
hitherto been chiefly used, “cloth made by these looms, when seen by
those manufacturers who employ hand-weavers, at once, excites
admiration, and a consciousness that their own weavers cannot equal it.”
The set-off against these advantages is the interest on capital
employed, and the expense of supplying power. It is not asserted by the
more intelligent, either among masters or workmen, that the power-loom
has been more than a secondary and minor cause of the lamentable
depression and misery now existing among the hand-weavers; a depression
which it is to be feared will never be removed but by the gradual
relinquishment of that laborious and ill-paid trade.

The hardships of Dr. Cartwright’s case, his merits, and the extent to
which the country was then profiting by his discoveries, had become, by
1807, so manifest to those who were best acquainted with the cotton
trade, that a considerable number of the most respectable and
influential gentlemen of Manchester presented a memorial to government,
praying that some remuneration for his useful inventions might be taken
into consideration. He petitioned the legislature himself to the same
effect; and in 1809 obtained from parliament a grant of £10,000 for “the
good service he had rendered the public by his invention of weaving.”
The compensation thus awarded, though falling far short of the sums he
had expended in perfecting his inventions, as well as in defending his
patent-rights, contributed essentially to place him in comparatively
easy circumstances; and being advanced in life, he was thankful to be
enabled to pass the remainder of his days in tranquil retirement. The
activity of his mind however was unabated. Engaged to the last in
scientific pursuits, with an occasional revival of the poetic spirit of
his youth, he closed his active, useful, and benevolent life at
Hastings, October 30, 1823, in the eighty-first year of his age.

Like many inventors, Dr. Cartwright was negligent of his pecuniary
interests: he possessed another quality less common to that class of
persons, entire freedom from jealousy, and great liberality in
communicating his ideas and assistance to others engaged in pursuits
similar to his own. And we may fairly conjecture that the temper of mind
in which such conduct originated, promoted his happiness much more than
any increase to his fortune, procured by a less frank and generous
spirit, could have done. It is also stated, that whether from absorption
in the pursuits of the moment, or carelessness of their value, he was
remarkably apt to forget his own productions, even when offered to his
notice. Among other instances of this disposition, it is related, that
on examining the model of one of his own machines, he expressed great
admiration, and said that he should have been proud to have been the
inventor of it; nor could he readily be convinced that the merit was
indeed his own.

In this sketch of Dr. Cartwright’s life a limited notice only has been
taken of his productions. He is chiefly known as the inventor of the
power-loom; but the public are also reaping the advantage of several
minor improvements in the arts of life, which emanated from his active
and observing mind. It is sufficient here to state that he obtained ten
patents, either for original inventions, or improvements upon his
earlier mechanical attempts: and in addition to the kindred arts of
weaving, spinning, wool-combing, and rope-making, he had successfully
applied his talents to a variety of subjects unconnected with those
manufactures.

An account of his life, containing a more detailed description of his
various inventions, as well as a relation of the struggles and
difficulties which he encountered, is now, we are informed, in
preparation for the press. The portrait from which our engraving is
taken was copied from one painted by Robert Fulton, when studying the
art under his countryman, Benjamin West.

                                PORSON.

It is perhaps not easy to invest the memoirs of a verbal critic with the
interest which attaches itself to the lives of men distinguished in
other departments of literature and science: the classical scholar has
little sympathy, in respect of his peculiar vocation, with the world
around him, and the world for the most part repays his indifference with
interest. Nevertheless, it is due to the great reputation of the subject
of this memoir to relate the principal events of his life.

Richard Porson was born December 25, 1759. His father, Mr. Huggin
Porson, was the parish-clerk of East Ruston, near North Walsham, in the
county of Norfolk. Notwithstanding his poverty, Porson had the good
fortune to obtain a first-rate education. Even in his childhood he was
taught by a careful father more than is generally learned by the
children of the rich; and after he had spent a short time at a village
school, to which he was sent at the age of nine, his abilities attracted
the notice of Mr. Hewitt, the vicar of his native place, who kindly
undertook to teach the young prodigy the rudiments of Greek and Latin.
In these elementary studies Porson passed his time till 1774, being also
occasionally employed as a shepherd or a weaver. But his reputation had
reached the ears of Mr. Norris, of Grosvenor Place, who in the summer of
that year undertook the charge of maintaining him at Eton College. His
name soon became favorably known beyond the circle of his admiring
school-fellows. The interest which he excited was fortunate for him, for
on the death of his kind patron Mr. Norris, he would have been unable to
continue at Eton, had it not been for a subscription collected by Sir
George Baker, then President of the Royal College of Physicians, from a
number of gentlemen who had heard of Porson’s talents, and were desirous
of giving him a fair opportunity to cultivate them to the uttermost.
With this subscription, an annuity of 80_l._ for a few years was
purchased for him; and thus he was enabled to finish his course at Eton,
and to proceed thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.

  _Engraved by B. Holl._

  PORSON.

  _From a Print engraved by W. Sharpe, after a Picture by Hoppner._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

In the second term of his third year (1781), Porson obtained one of the
Craven University Scholarships, which, being open to the free
competition of the whole body of undergraduates, have always been
regarded among our most honourable academical distinctions. He took the
degree of B. A. in 1782; and, on the mathematical tripos, obtained the
respectable place of third senior optime: but he gained the first of the
medals annually given by the Chancellor of the University to the two
commencing bachelors of arts, under certain restrictions, who pass the
best examination in classical learning. In the following September he
was elected Fellow of Trinity College. He proceeded to the degree of
M.A. in 1785; but being unwilling, from conscientious motives, to
subscribe to the articles of the Established Church, he could not take
orders, and, according to the rules of the College, vacated his
Fellowship in 1791. He was thus for the second time dependant upon the
liberality of his friends. Nor did they neglect him: a subscription was
entered into by Mr. Cracherode and some others, from the proceeds of
which a life annuity of 100_l._ was purchased for him.

In 1792 he was elected Regius Professor of Greek: but, as the salary of
this office is only 40_l._ per annum, he was still a poor man; and not
being able to procure a suitable lecture room, he was prevented from
making the usual addition to his income, by delivering lectures on the
Greek authors. In 1795 he married Mrs. Lunan, the sister of Mr. Perry,
the well-known Editor of the Morning Chronicle. From this union, short
as it proved, Porson derived important benefits. He laid aside, while it
lasted, most of the unseemly and intemperate habits which he had
contracted at College: but unfortunately his wife died of consumption in
1797, and he subsequently relapsed into his former course of life, and,
as is too notorious, sacrificed friends, health and fortune, to his
passion for drinking. After her death the kindness of his brother-in-law
provided him with a home, gave him an opportunity of mixing in good
society, and preserved him from many inconveniences, to which a man of
Porson’s careless habits is always exposed.

About the time of his wife’s death, in 1797, Porson published an edition
of the Hecuba of Euripides; which he intended to form the first portion
of a complete edition of that poet, and which, with very modest
pretensions, was at once acknowledged to be a piece of first-rate
criticism by the scholars not only of England but of all Europe.
However, in 1800, Gottfried Hermann of Leipzig, who has since become
very eminent as a verbal critic, published an edition of the same play,
as a professed attack on Porson’s; and there was something in the tone,
as well as in the matter of his strictures, which more than
counterbalanced the compliment at the commencement of the preface. When,
therefore, Porson republished the ‘Hecuba,’ in 1802, he added to the
preface a long Supplement, in which Hermann was treated rather
superciliously; indeed it appears from a letter which Porson wrote to
Professor Dalzel, of Edinburgh, on the third of September, 1803, that he
entertained a most sincere contempt for his German censor. The
Supplement, however, obtained the applause of the learned in all
countries, and, in its kind, it has rarely been surpassed in learning
and ingenuity. Porson subsequently published the ‘Orestes,’ ‘Phœnissæ,’
and ‘Medea,’ and the four plays, collected into one volume, have gone
through numerous editions.

When the London Institution was established, in 1805, Porson was
appointed Librarian, with a salary of 200_l._ per annum. The situation
however gave him no opportunity of useful exertion. He selected indeed
an excellent classical library, and was tolerably diligent in his
attendance; but he acquired in this monotonous employment a habit of
selfish intemperance, which impaired his faculties and ruined his
health. From the beginning of 1808 he was afflicted with asthma; and
neglecting the usual modes of treating this disease, he endeavoured to
cure it by abstinence. Under this regimen he grew weaker and weaker, and
on Monday, September 19, 1808, he was attacked with apoplexy in the
street. Being unknown, he was carried to a neighbouring workhouse; but
on the following day he was discovered and taken home by his friends,
whose attention had been called to an advertisement describing his
person, and some scraps of Greek writing and algebra, which were found
in his pockets. He recovered so far as to receive a visit from his
friend Dr. Adam Clarke, at the Institution; but the hand of death was
upon him, and he never regained the full use of his faculties. He died
on the night of the following Sunday, just as the clock struck twelve.
His body was conveyed to Cambridge, and buried, with the highest
academical honours, in Trinity College Chapel, near the statue of
Newton, where a monument, with a bust by Chantrey, is erected to his
memory.

A complete list of Porson’s works is given by Dr. Young in the
‘Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.’ The general reader will
perhaps form the best notion of his style from his celebrated ‘Letters
to Archdeacon Travis,’ in which the genuineness of the long-controverted
text, 1 John v. 7, is, we may venture to say, finally refuted. This
work, from its subject, is chiefly interesting to the theologian and
scholar: but its wit, terseness and strength of style, and force of
argument, will well repay even the general reader for perusing it. Of
his posthumous works the Photius requires particular notice. It was
printed in 1822, from Porson’s transcript of the Galean MS. of an
imperfect Lexicon, which is generally attributed to the celebrated
Patriarch of Constantinople. He had transcribed and corrected this
Lexicon with the intention of printing it some years before his death,
but a fire having broken out in Mr. Perry’s house at Merton, and having
consumed, among other papers, this transcript, he began the task again,
and completed another copy in his own handwriting. A collection of his
miscellaneous notes, under the title of ‘Adversaria,’ was published
several years after the author’s death.

As Porson was the champion of English scholarship against the attacks of
continental critics, and the head of a school of verbal criticism in
this country, we must expect to find among his English contemporaries
and successors a sort of reverence for him not altogether justified by
his merits, and among the scholars of Germany, on the other hand, a
corresponding feeling of dislike and desire to disparage him. Hermann
wrote an article a few years since in the ‘Vienna Journal,’ on the
characteristics of English scholarship, in which (vol. liv. p. 236,) the
peculiar features of Porson’s criticism are said to be “great metrical
accuracy in the kinds of verse with which he was acquainted; in others,
sometimes an acquiescent acceptance of what he found, sometimes
uncertain alterations: in his knowledge of the Greek language, great
correctness; a sound judgment in the choice of readings, and considerate
circumspection in conjecture, except where his own rules came in the
way.” On the other hand, it is affirmed that “Porson’s notes are
defective in acute and decisive proofs, and in that criticism which
proceeds from a lively conception of the poetical: and that their
contents are much more indicative of great industry and cool
examination.” This is true enough as far as it goes; but had Hermann in
his old age forgotten the rivalry which subsisted between Porson and
himself in his earlier years, he would not have omitted to add that,
with all these drawbacks, Porson was the greatest verbal critic of
modern times.

It has been stated that Porson could not make himself generally
agreeable; but it is well known that he had a strong turn for the
humorous, and was almost always successful in his strokes of wit, so
that it cannot be doubted that his society was courted even by the
superficial; and we have heard from several of his surviving friends
that, though his coarseness was sometimes offensive, he was often a
welcome guest at the tea-table. He was also very happy in connecting
classical allusions with ludicrous associations; and Professor Dobree,
in his inaugural Prælection, speaks rapturously of the delight which
Porson’s broad vernacular translations from Aristophanes afforded to his
intimates at college. Some of his jeux d’esprit have been printed in the
Classical Journal; the poem called ‘The Devil’s Walk’ was till lately
attributed to him: it is stated in the last edition of Coleridge’s works
to be the joint production of that poet and of Southey.

It may be necessary to say a few words in conclusion on those two
peculiarities for which perhaps Porson is most talked about at the
present day: his extraordinary memory, and his fondness for the manual
labour of writing. The former he attributed in great measure to the
latter. He told a friend, that he recollected nothing which he had not
transcribed three times, or read at least six times; adding the
assurance, that any one who would take the same trouble would acquire
the same powers. We should incline to ascribe the tenacity of his
recollection, so far as it depended on cultivation, in great measure to
the early training of his father, who taught him the rules of arithmetic
without the use of book or pencil; and his proficiency was such, that at
nine years of age he is said to have been able to extract cube roots in
his head. His memory was as indiscriminate as it was retentive and
capacious. Proper names of no importance, foolish ballads, and prosing
tales he could recall as easily, and repeat as accurately, as the
passages of ancient authors which he required for the illustration or
correction of a line of Euripides: he loved to recite, and was equally
ready to repeat, ‘Jack the Giant Killer,’ or half a book of Milton, to
his wearied company. As to his penmanship, it has been objected to him
that he wasted many hours in an employment which would have better
suited a country writing-master than a man of such talents. But it must
be recollected that a reader of Greek MSS. must also be a scribe
himself; and a great deal of the facility with which Porson performed
his collations is to be attributed to his practice as a calligrapher.
And if, as he used to say, his memory was principally formed by repeated
copying, he certainly did not throw away his time; for all that he did
in the way of illustrating Greek authors was mainly owing to his memory.
And the world has at least derived one benefit from the perfection of
Porson’s handwriting, in the adoption by the English University presses
of a set of uniform types, formed after his models, of which even
Hermann has said that they far exceed all attempts made in modern times
to improve the beauty of Greek writing.

[Illustration: [London Institution.]]

  _Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

  WICLIF.

  _From a Print by G. White, after a Picture in the Collection of the
    Duke of Dorset._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

                                WICLIF.

The village of Wiclif, distant about six miles from Richmond in
Yorkshire, had long been the residence of a family of the same name,
when it gave birth, about the year 1324, to its most distinguished
native. The family possessed wealth and consequence; and though the name
of the Reformer is not to be found in the extant records of the
household, it is probable that he belonged to it. Perhaps the spirit of
the times, and zeal for the established hierarchy, may have led it to
disclaim the only person who has saved its name from absolute obscurity.

John Wiclif was first admitted at Queen’s College, Oxford, but speedily
removed to Merton, a society more ancient and distinguished, and adorned
by names of great ecclesiastical eminence. Here he engaged in the
prescribed studies with diligence and success. In scholastic learning he
made such great proficiency as to extort admiration from some who loved
him not; and the direction in which his talents were turned is indicated
by the honourable appellation, which he early acquired, of the Evangelic
or Gospel Doctor. The terms, “profound,” “perspicuous,” “irrefragable,”
were applied to mark the respective peculiarities of Bradwardine, of
Burley, and of Hales; and so we may infer, that the peculiar bent of
Wiclif’s youthful exertions was towards the book on which his subsequent
principles were founded, and that he applied the ambiguous fruits of a
scholastic education, not to enlarge the resources of sophistry, but to
illustrate the treasures of truth. And on the other hand, in the
illustration of those oracles, and in the accomplishment of his other
holy purposes, it was of good and useful service to him that he had
armed himself with the weapons of the age, and could contend with the
most redoubtable adversaries on the only ground of argument which was at
all accessible to them.

In 1356 he put forth a tract on ‘The Last Age of the Church,’ which was
the first of his publications, and is on other accounts worthy of
mention. It would appear that his mind had been deeply affected by
meditation on the various evils which at that period afflicted the
world, especially the pestilence which had laid waste, a few years
before, so large a portion of it. He was disposed to ascribe them to
God’s indignation at the sinfulness of man; and he also believed them to
be mysterious announcements of the approaching consummation of all
things. Through too much study of the book of the Abbot Joachim, he was
infected with the spirit of prophecy; and, not contented to lament past
and present visitations, he ventured to predict others which were yet to
come. All however were to be included in the fourteenth century, which
was to be the last of the world. That Wiclif should have been thus
carried away by the prevalent infatuation, so as to contribute his
portion to the mass of vain and visionary absurdity, was human and
pardonable: but in his manner of treating even this subject, we discover
the spirit and the principles of the Reformer. Among the causes of those
fearful calamities, among the vices which had awakened to so much
fierceness the wrath of the Almighty, he feared not to give the foremost
place to the vices of the clergy, the rapacity which _ate up the people
as it were bread_, the sensuality which infected the earth with its
savour, and “smelt to heaven.” Here was the leaven which perverted and
corrupted the community; here the impure source whence future
visitations should proceed. “Both vengeance of sword, and mischiefs
unknown before, by which men in those days shall be punished, shall
befal them, because of the sins of their priests.” Thus it was that in
this singular work, of which the foundation may have been laid in
superstition, Wiclif developed notwithstanding a free and unprejudiced
mind, and one which dared to avow without compromise, what it felt with
force and truth.

The mendicant orders of friars were introduced into England in the year
1221; and they presently supplanted the antient establishments in the
veneration of the people, and usurped many of the prerogatives, honours,
and profits of the sacerdotal office. As long as they retained their
original character, and practised, to any great extent, the rigid
morality and discipline which they professed, so long did their
influence continue without diminution, and the clamours of the monks and
the priests assailed them in vain: but prosperity soon relaxed their
zeal and soiled their purity, and within a century from the time of
their institution, they became liable to charges as serious as those
which had reduced the authority of their rivals. Accordingly, towards
the middle of the following century, the contest was conducted with
greater success on the part of the original orders; and some of the
leading prelates of the day took part in it against the Mendicants.
Oxford was naturally the field for the closest struggle, and the rising
talents of Wiclif were warmly engaged in it. About the year 1360 he is
generally believed to have first proclaimed his hostility “against the
orders of friars;” and he persisted, to the end of life, in pursuing
them with the keenest argument and the bitterest invective, denouncing
them as the authors of “perturbation in Christiandome, and of all the
evils of this worlde; and these errors shallen never be amended till the
friars be brought to freedom of the Gospel and clean religion of Jesu
Christ.”

In the year 1365 Urban V. renewed the papal claim of sovereignty over
the realm of England, which was founded on the submission rendered by
John to Innocent III. The claim was resisted by Edward III., and the
decision of his parliament confirmed, in the strongest language, the
resolution of the monarch. A zealous advocate of papacy ventured to
vindicate the pretension of the Vatican, and challenged Wiclif to reply
to his arguments. He did so; and his reply has survived the work which
gave it birth. It is not however remarkable for any power of
composition, still less can it be praised for grace or accuracy of
style; but it stands as a rude monument of his principles, and proves
that even then he was imbued with that anti-papal spirit which more
splendidly distinguished his later years. Still, he was not yet
committed as the adversary of Rome; and in a dispute, in which he was
engaged with the Archbishop of Canterbury at this very time, he appealed
from the decision of the Primate to the authority of the Pope.

Seven years afterwards, at the age of forty-eight, Wiclif was raised to
the Theological Chair at Oxford; and from this period we may date the
most memorable of his spiritual achievements. For it is a question
whether, had he died before that time, his name would have come down to
us distinguished by any peculiar characteristic from those of the other
divines and doctors of his age; but when he turned this eminence into a
vantage-ground for assailing the corruptions of his church, and thus
recommended the expressions of truth and justice by the authority of
academical dignity, his language acquired a commanding weight, and his
person a peculiar distinction, which the former would never have
possessed had he remained in an inferior station, nor the latter, had he
not employed his station for the noblest purposes: purposes which,
though they were closely connected with the welfare and stability of the
Roman Catholic communion, were seldom advocated from the pulpits of her
hierarchy, or the chairs of her professors. Had Wiclif been no more than
an eminent and dignified theologian, he would have been admired,
perhaps, and forgotten, like so many others. Had he been only a humble
pleader for the reformation of the church, his voice might never have
been heard, or it might have been extinguished by the hand of
persecution: but his rank removed him above the neglect of his
contemporaries; and his principles, thus acquiring immediate efficacy,
have secured for him the perpetual respect of a more enlightened and
grateful posterity.

At this time the various profitable devices, by which the Vatican turned
into its own channels the wealth and patronage of the church, were come
into full operation. By its provisions and reservations, and other
expedients, it had filled many valuable benefices with foreign
ecclesiastics; these, for the most part, were non-resident, and spent in
other countries the rich revenues which they derived from England. This
system had been vigorously opposed both by kings and people, but with
little effectual success; for the Pope commonly contrived to repair the
losses which he had sustained in the tempest during the interval which
succeeded it. In 1374 Edward III. dispatched an embassy to Avignon to
remonstrate on these subjects with Gregory XI., and procure the
relinquishment of his pretensions. The Bishop of Bangor was at the head
of this commission, and the name of Wiclif stood second on the list. The
negociation was protracted, and ended in no important result; and the
various arts of the Vatican triumphed over the zeal of the Reformer,
and, as some believe, over the honesty of the Bishop. Howbeit, Wiclif
obtained on that occasion a nearer insight into the pontifical
machinery, and beheld with closer eyes the secret springs which moved
it. And if he carried along with him into the presence of the vicar of
Christ no very obsequious regard for his person, or reverence for his
authority, he returned from that mission armed with more decided
principles, and inflamed with a more determined animosity. At the same
time his sovereign rewarded his services at the Papal Court by the
prebend of Aust, in the Collegiate Church of Westbury, in the diocese of
Worcester; and soon afterwards by the rectory of Lutterworth, in
Leicestershire.

After this period, his anti-papal opinions were more boldly declared,
and he became more and more distinguished as an advocate for the
Reformation of the Church. The suspicions of the hierarchy were aroused;
and whatever reasons the Prelates might have had for sometimes siding
with their sovereign against the usurpations of the Pope, they were
ill-disposed to listen to the generous remonstrances of a private
Reformer. Accordingly, at a Convocation held Feb. 3, 1377, they summoned
him to appear at St. Paul’s, to clear himself from the fatal charge of
holding erroneous doctrines. Had Wiclif trusted to no other support than
the holiness of his cause—had he thrown himself, like Huss and Jerome of
Prague, only on the mercy and justice of his ecclesiastical judges—it
might have fared as ill with him as it did with his Bohemian disciples.
But his principles, recommended as it would seem by some private
intercourse, had secured him the patronage of the celebrated John of
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, under whose protection he presented himself on
the appointed day before the assembled bishops. A tumultuous scene
ensued: and after an undignified and indecent dispute between the Duke
and the Bishop of London, the meeting dispersed without arriving at any
conclusion, or even entering on any inquiry respecting the matter
concerning which it was convened. The process against Wiclif was however
suspended; and this good result was at least obtained, though by means
more in accordance with the violent habits of the age, than with the
holiness of his cause.

In the course of the same year, while the Pope was endeavouring to
re-establish and perpetuate his dominion in fiscal matters over the
English, and the Parliament struggling to throw it off altogether,
Wiclif was again called forth as the advocate of national independence;
and he argued with great force and boldness against the legality of the
papal exactions. In this Treatise, he entered more generally into the
question, as to what were the real foundations, not only of papal but of
spiritual pretensions; he pressed the Gospel of Christ as the last
appeal in all reasonings respecting the Church of Christ; and he
contrasted the worldliness and rapacity of his Vicar with the principles
of the religion, and the character of its Divine founder. The name and
example of Christ were never very pleasing objects of reflection to the
hierarchy of that age; and the argument with which they loved to repel
such ungrateful suggestions was, the personal oppression of those who
ventured to advance them. Accordingly, the storm gathered; and four
Bulls were issued forthwith against the doctrines and person of Wiclif.
“His holiness had been informed that John Wiclif, rector of the church
of Lutterworth, and Professor of the Sacred Page, had broken forth into
a detestable insanity, and had dared to assert opinions utterly
subversive of the Church, and savouring of the perversity and ignorance
of Marsilius of Padua, and John of Ganduno, both of accursed memory.” It
was then ordained that he should be apprehended and imprisoned; and in
an address to Edward III., the arm of the flesh was invoked to
co-operate with the spiritual authorities for the suppression of this
monstrous evil. One of these Bulls was addressed to the University of
Oxford; and what may seem singular, it found there a spirit so far in
advance of the bigotry of the age, that a question was raised whether it
should be received, or indignantly rejected. After long hesitation, it
was received; but still no readiness was shown to comply with its
requisitions, nor were any measures taken to punish or degrade the
Reformer.

Howbeit, in the beginning of the year following, Wiclif presented
himself at Lambeth, before the Tribunal of the Papal Commissioners, to
meet the various charges of heretical pravity. We have no room to doubt
the wishes and intentions of his judges. But on this occasion he was
rescued from them, for the second time, by extraneous circumstances. The
populace of London, among whom his opinions may have made some progress,
and by whom his name was certainly respected, interrupted the meeting
with much clamour and violence, and showed a fierce determination to
save him from oppression. And at the same time, while the delegates were
confounded by this interference, a message was delivered to them from
the Queen Mother, prohibiting any definitive sentence against Wiclif.
Thus unexpectedly assailed, and from such different quarters, the
Prelates immediately softened their expressions, and abandoned their
design; and Wiclif returned once more in safety to the propagation of
his former opinions, and to the expression of others which had not yet
been broached by him.

The sum of those opinions might be given with tolerable accuracy, though
some of them were not perhaps propounded with perfect distinctness, and
others have been made liable to consequences which were disclaimed by
their author. In the first place, he rejected every sort of pretension,
tenet, or authority, which did not rest on the foundation of Scripture:
here he professed to fix the single basis of his whole system.
Accordingly he denounced, with various degrees of severity, many of the
popular observances of his church. He rejected auricular confession; and
declared pardons and indulgences to be no better than antichristian
devices for augmenting the power and wealth of the clergy, at the
expense of the morality of the people. He paid no respect to
excommunications and interdicts; he pronounced confirmation to be an
unnecessary ceremony, invented for the aggrandizement of the episcopal
dignity; he reprobated the celibacy of the clergy, and the imposition of
monastic vows. And in his contempt for the outward ceremonies of the
church, even to the use of Sacred music, he anticipated by more than two
centuries the principles of the Puritans. In like manner, he maintained
that bishops and priests, being one and the same order according to
their original institution, were improperly distinguished; and that the
property claimed by the clergy, being in its origin eleemosynary, was
merely enjoyed by them in trust for the benefit of the people, and was
disposable at the discretion of the secular government.

So long as Wiclif confined himself to the expression of these opinions,
though he ensured the hatred of the hierarchy, he might reckon on a
powerful party both at the Court and among the people. The objects for
which he contended were at least manifest, and his arguments generally
intelligible. But he was not content with this limited field. In his
solicitude to assail all the holds of papacy, and denounce all its
pernicious errors, he entered, in the year 1381, into a controversy
respecting the nature of the Eucharist. His opinion on this mysterious
question seems to have approached very nearly to that of Luther. He
admitted a real presence; but though he did not presume to determine the
manner, he rejected the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Roman
Catholic sense. This was ground sufficient for a new clamour, louder and
more dangerous than all that had preceded it: not that there was
stronger argument on the side of his opponents, but because the subject,
being more obscure, was more involved in prejudice; it was more closely
connected with the religious feelings and deepest impressions of his
hearers; it affected, not their respect for a sensual and avaricious
hierarchy, but their faith in what they had been taught to consider a
vital doctrine essential to salvation. And thus it proved, not perhaps
that his enemies became more violent, but that his friends began to
waver in their support of him. The lower classes, who had listened with
delight to his anti-sacerdotal declamations, trembled when he began to
tread the consecrated ground of their belief. His noble patrons, if they
were not thus sensibly shocked, perceived at least the impolicy of
contending in that field; and John of Lancaster especially commanded him
to retire from it.

With the sincerity of a zealot he persisted, and in the course of May,
1382, a Synod was held by Courtney, who had been just promoted to the
primacy, and the heresies of Wiclif became, for the third time, the
subject of ecclesiastical consultation. We have no space to pursue the
details of these proceedings. The result was, that he was summoned to
answer, before the Convocation at Oxford, respecting certain erroneous
doctrines, the most prominent of which was that regarding the Eucharist.
He prepared to defend them. And it was then that the Duke of Lancaster,
who had been his faithful protector throughout all his previous
troubles—whether it was that he sincerely differed with Wiclif on that
particular question, or whether he was unwilling to engage in a struggle
with the whole hierarchy, supported by much popular prejudice, for the
sake of an abstract opinion, which might appear to him entirely void of
any practical advantage—withdrew his support, and abandoned the Reformer
to his own resources. Yet not then was his resolution shaken. In two
Confessions of Faith, which he then produced, he asserted his adherence
to his expressed doctrines. And though one of them is so perplexed with
scholastic sophistry, as to have led some to imagine that it was
intended to convey a sort of retractation, yet it was not so interpreted
by his adversaries, six of whom immediately entered the lists against
it. Neither did it persuade his judges of his innocence. He was
condemned—but not, as the annals of that age would have led us to
expect, to death. And whether the praise of this moderation be due to
the Prelates who forbore so far to press their enmity, or to the State,
which might have refused to sanction the vengeance of the Prelates,
Wiclif was merely condemned to banishment from the University of Oxford.
He retired in peace to his rectory at Lutterworth, and there spent the
two remaining years of his life in the pursuit of his theological
studies and the discharge of his pastoral duties.

The greater part of the opinions by which he was distinguished were so
entirely at variance with the principles and prejudices of his age, that
our wonder is not at their imperfect success, but at their escape from
immediate extinction. Having thus escaped, however, and taken root in no
inconsiderable portion of the community, they were such as to secure by
their own strength and boldness their own progress and maturity. Neither
was their author neglectful of the methods proper to ensure their
dissemination. For in the first place, by his translation of the Sacred
Book on which he supposed them to rest, he increased the means of
ascertaining their truth, or at least the spuriousness of the system
which they opposed. In the next, he sent forth numerous missionaries,
whom he called his “Poor Priests,” for the express purpose of
propagating his doctrines; and thus they acquired some footing even in
his own generation. In succeeding years, the sect of Lollards, in a
great measure composed of his disciples, professed and perpetuated his
tenets; and by their undeviating hostility to the abuses of Rome,
prepared the path for the Reformation.

Nor were the fruits of his exertions confined to his native country. It
is certain that his works found their way, at a very early period, into
Bohemia, and kindled there the first sparks of resistance to the
established despotism. The venerable Huss proclaimed his adherence to
the principles, and his reverence for the person, of the English
Reformer; and he was wont in his public discourses to pray, that “on his
departure from this life, he might be received into those regions
whither the soul of Wiclif had gone; since he doubted not that he was a
good and holy man, and worthy of a heavenly habitation.” The memory of
Huss is associated by another incident with that of his master. The same
savage Council which consigned the former to the flames, offered to the
other that empty insult, which we may receive as an expression of
malignant regret that he had been permitted to die in peace. It
published an edict, “That the bones and body of Wiclif should be taken
from the ground, and thrown far away from the burial of any church.”
After a long interval of hesitation, this edict was obeyed. Thirty years
after his death, his grave was violated, and his ashes contemptuously
cast into a neighbouring brook. On this indignity, Fuller makes the
following memorable reflection:—“The brook did convey his ashes in Avon;
Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the main ocean.
And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblems of his doctrine, which now
is dispersed all the world over.”

The date of Wiclif’s death renders the authenticity of his portraits in
some degree uncertain, and we are not able to trace the history of any
which exist. But that some memorials were preserved in his features, in
illuminations or otherwise, we may conclude from the general resemblance
which is to be traced in two different pictures of him—that from which
our print is engraved, and that at King’s College, Cambridge, engraved
in ‘Rolt’s Lives of the Reformers,’ and Verheiden, ‘Præstantium
Theologorum Effigies, &c.,’ 1602.

[Illustration: [Lutterworth Church.]]

                                CORTEZ.

Perhaps no great revolution has ever been effected by means apparently
so inadequate to the end proposed, as in the first establishment of the
Spanish monarchy on the continent of America. The immense importance of
that revolution, and its intimate connexion with the history of
geographical discovery, warrant us in assigning a place in our Gallery
to a representative of the rude and daring men by whom the mighty
conquest was effected. Of these, Fernando Cortez claims the first place.
It is proper to mention, in explanation of what might seem a capital
omission in our work, that no authentic likeness is known to exist of
Columbus: a man raised above those who followed him across the Atlantic,
no less by the purity of his motives, than by the originality of his
daring career.

Columbus, however, did not colonize the American continent: his
settlement was in Hispaniola. But the Spaniards soon took possession of
other islands in the group of the Antilles. In 1511 Diego Velasquez
annexed the most important of them, Cuba, to the Spanish crown, and was
rewarded with the appointment of Governor. Eager to gain fresh wealth
and honour, he equipped a squadron of discovery, in 1518, which tracked
the southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and brought home so inviting
a report, that he determined to attempt the conquest of the country. But
he was greatly embarrassed in the choice of a commanding officer. To
conduct the enterprise himself was no part of his scheme: at the same
time he was very desirous to appropriate to himself the advantages
likely to accrue from its successful issue. It was no easy matter to
find a person qualified by talent and courage to assume the command of
such an enterprise; yet so humble in rank, or so devoid of ambition, as
to give no umbrage to the governor’s jealousy. After much hesitation, he
invested Cortez with the chief command as his lieutenant. The early
history and character of this remarkable man are clearly and concisely
told by Dr. Robertson.

  _Engraved by W. Holl._

  CORTEZ.

  _From a Picture in the Florence Gallery._

  Under the Superintendence of the Society for Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

“He was born at Medelin, a small town in Estremadura, in the year 1485,
and descended from a family of noble blood, but of very moderate
fortune. Being originally destined by his parents to the study of the
law, as the most likely method of bettering his condition, he was sent
early to the university of Salamanca, where he imbibed some tincture of
learning. But he was soon disgusted with an academic life, which did not
suit his ardent and restless genius, and retired to Medelin, where he
gave himself up entirely to active sports and martial exercises. At this
period of life he was so impetuous, so overbearing, and so dissipated,
that his father was glad to comply with his inclination, and send him
abroad as an adventurer in arms. There were in that age two conspicuous
theatres on which such of the Spanish youth as courted military glory
might display their valour: one in Italy, under the command of the Great
Captain; the other in the New World. Cortez preferred the former, but
was prevented by indisposition from embarking with a reinforcement of
troops sent to Naples. Upon this disappointment he turned his views
towards America, whither he was allured by the prospect of the
advantages which he might derive from the patronage of Ovando, the
Governor of Hispaniola, who was his kinsman. When he landed at St.
Domingo, in 1504, his reception was such as equalled his most sanguine
hopes, and he was employed by the Governor in several honourable and
lucrative stations. These, however, did not satisfy his ambition; and in
the year 1511 he obtained permission to accompany Diego Velasquez in his
expedition to Cuba. In this service he distinguished himself so much,
that, notwithstanding some violent contests with Velasquez, occasioned
by some trivial events, unworthy of remembrance, he was at length taken
into favour, and received an ample concession of lands and of Indians,
the recompense usually bestowed upon adventurers in the New World.

“Though Cortez had not hitherto acted in high command, he had displayed
such qualities in several scenes of difficulty and danger, as raised
universal expectation, and turned the eyes of his countrymen towards
him, as one capable of performing great things. The turbulence of youth,
as soon as he found objects and occupations suited to the ardour of his
mind, gradually subsided, and settled into a habit of regular
indefatigable activity. The impetuosity of his temper, when he came to
act with his equals, insensibly abated, by being kept under restraint,
and mellowed into a cordial soldierly frankness. These qualities were
accompanied with calm prudence in concerting his schemes, with
persevering vigour in executing them, and with what is peculiar to
superior genius, the art of gaining the confidence and governing the
minds of men. To all which were added the inferior accomplishments that
strike the vulgar, and command their respect; a graceful person, a
winning aspect, extraordinary address in martial exercises, and a
constitution of such vigour as to be capable of enduring any fatigue.

“As soon as Cortez was mentioned to Velasquez by his confidants, he
flattered himself that he had at length found what he had hitherto
sought in vain, a man with talents for command, but not an object for
jealousy. Neither the rank, nor the fortune of Cortez, as he imagined,
were such that he could aspire at independence. He had reason to believe
that by his own readiness to bury ancient animosities in oblivion, as
well as his liberality in conferring several recent favours, he had
already gained the good-will of Cortez; and hoped, by this new and
unexpected mark of confidence, that he might attach him for ever to his
interest.”

It is remarkable that Velasquez, actuated by these views, should have
selected for his deputy such a man as is here described. He soon
repented of his confidence, and sought to revoke the commission which he
had bestowed. But Cortez, in addition to the funds provided by the
governor, had spent the whole of his own available means in raising
troops, and making preparations for the enterprise; he was already
embarked at the head of a body of impatient adventurers; and he despised
a mandate which there were no means of enforcing. And one of his first
steps after landing on the Main was to throw off formally all
subordination to Velasquez, and to assume the title of Chief Justice and
Captain General of the intended colony, by virtue of a new commission,
drawn in the king’s name, and purporting to continue in force until the
royal pleasure should be known.

The expedition sailed from Cuba, February 10, 1519, and following the
track of the preceding one, coasted the western side of the peninsula of
Yucatan. At St. Juan de Ulloa some natives came on board, and replied to
the questions put to them through the medium of interpreters, that their
country formed part of a great empire called Mexico, governed by a
powerful monarch, Montezuma. Several interviews followed, in which
Cortez, professing to come as ambassador from his own sovereign,
perseveringly demanded to be led into the presence of Montezuma. This
was peremptorily refused; but the denial, as if to make amends, was
accompanied by presents rich enough to inflame, had that been necessary,
the cupidity of the strangers. Instead of departing, they laid the
foundations of a settlement, named Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz.
Meanwhile, Montezuma acted indecisively and weakly: he neither admitted
his formidable visitors to the friendly intercourse which they
insidiously demanded, nor summoned the strength of his empire to crush
them at once; but let them fortify themselves while he was making vain
requisitions for their immediate departure, and gave time and
opportunity to those who were discontented under his own heavy yoke, to
rally round the standard of the invader. And it was not long before the
Spaniards obtained that native assistance, without which their mere
physical strength must have sunk under the vastness of their enterprise.

The Cacique of Zempoalla, prompted by hatred of Montezuma, was the first
to assist in the ruin of his native land. Supported by a small body of
that chieftain’s troops, and attended by 200 Indians of an inferior
class, who in that country, where the art of breaking animals to the use
of man was unknown, performed the humiliating services of beasts of
burden, Cortez marched from Zempoalla towards the heart of the country,
August 16, with only 500 Europeans, and six cannon. Aware that on the
first reverse of fortune his men might grow disgusted with an enterprise
of such formidable appearance, or from mere inconstancy might be eager
to return to their homes in Cuba, a temper which had been already
manifested by some, he resolved, before quitting the coast, to destroy
the shipping; and it is a remarkable instance of his ascendency over his
followers’ minds, that he procured a general consent to this decisive,
not to say desperate measure, which left small hope of safety but in
success.

His route lay through the country of the Tlascalans, a warlike people,
who spurned his professions of friendship, and attacked the invaders in
a series of battles. The imperfection of their weapons rendered their
efforts fruitless; and having been severely taught the strength of their
enemies, they sued for peace, and became faithful and active allies. The
Spaniards, accompanied by a body of 6000 Tlascalans, then advanced
without resistance to Mexico itself; after punishing an attempt to lead
them into an ambuscade at Cholula by an indiscriminate massacre, in
which 6000 persons are reported to have perished. Montezuma received
them with the semblance of profound respect. He told them of an ancient
tradition, that the ancestors of the Mexicans came originally from a
remote region, and conquered the land: after which their leader went
back to his own country, promising that at some future period his
descendants should return to reform their constitution, and assume the
government; and Montezuma expressed his belief that the Spaniards were
the persons whom his countrymen were thus taught to expect. Another
tradition, which helped to produce that weak and wavering conduct which
gave the Spaniards such advantage, foretold that some great misfortune
should accrue to the native inhabitants from a race of invaders from the
regions of the rising sun. It is remarkable that, according to the
earliest and best Spanish historians, this belief was very prevalent in
the New World.

The Spaniards, with their Indian allies, were quartered in the ample
precincts of a royal palace. But Cortez was uneasy, notwithstanding
these fair appearances. He had advanced with a handful of men into a
populous city, where he might at any time be surrounded and attacked by
multitudes. He was warned by the Tlascalans of Montezuma’s
faithlessness; and the hostile spirit of the Mexicans was made plain, by
intelligence that several Spaniards had been slain in repelling an
attack on the garrison of Vera Cruz. Cortez felt that Montezuma’s
forbearance proceeded only from timidity, and that his own best security
lay in working upon that passion. He conceived the daring resolution to
make the king a prisoner in his own capital; judging that, while
Montezuma lived, the Mexicans would not throw off their allegiance, nor
disobey his mandates, though issued under foreign control. He went,
therefore, as usual, to the palace, attended only by a few picked men;
and being admitted without suspicion to the emperor’s presence, he
complained angrily of the attack on the garrison of Vera Cruz, and
required Montezuma, as a pledge of his good faith, to take up his
residence in the Spanish quarters. Betrayed by his own easiness into the
power of a few strangers, Montezuma complied, under the imminent fear of
personal violence. Cortez next required that the officer who commanded
in the attack complained of should be given up. This was done; and he,
his son, and five others, were publicly burnt on a pile of Mexican
weapons, taken from the public armoury. While this atrocious act of
cruelty and revenge was proceeding, the emperor, apparently to render it
the more impressive, was placed in fetters.

Haughty and tyrannical, but unstable and timid, the spirit of Montezuma
was entirely broken by his misfortunes. He remained passively during six
months in his captivity; and formally acknowledged himself a vassal to
the crown of Castile. Religion was the only point on which he was firm.
Cortez urged him with the blind zeal of a crusader to renounce his false
gods, and embrace Christianity; and not content with these importunate
solicitations, he attempted forcibly to remove the idols from the grand
temple. The resolute interference of priests and people compelled him to
desist from the rash project; but not until it had aroused a spirit of
implacable hostility.

Meanwhile Velasquez’s anger at Cortez’s faithlessness was increased by
the brilliant accounts of his success; and having obtained from the
court of Castile a patent constituting himself governor of New Spain, he
prepared to remove or punish his disobedient officer by force of arms.
He sent 900 men, commanded by Narvaez, a brave and experienced officer,
who immediately opened a correspondence with Montezuma. This raised the
hopes of the Mexicans, by showing that their invaders were not exempt
from internal discord. Cortez perceived and met the dangers of his
position with his usual ability and courage. Having tried in vain to
arrange matters with Narvaez by negotiation, he left a garrison of 150
men in Mexico, and marched with only 250 against an enemy who nearly
quadrupled him in number. His skill, the patience of his soldiers,
inured to the inclemency of a tropical climate, and the too great
security of his adversary, won for him an almost bloodless victory; and
the troops sent out for his destruction enlisted almost to a man under
his standard. Placed against all expectation at the head of near a
thousand men, he hastened back to Mexico, where by that time his
presence was urgently required.

He found the Spanish garrison hemmed in, and reduced to extremities, by
a people who, stimulated by superstition and maddened by a fresh and
atrocious outrage, seemed suddenly to have exchanged timidity for
desperation. The return of Cortez with his formidable reinforcement did
not abate their ferocity. Even the person of Montezuma, who was exposed
on the Spanish rampart, ceased to command respect, and he received three
wounds from stones and arrows, from the effects of which, aggravated by
rage and a deep sense of his degradation, he expired. The Mexicans now
sought to blockade their enemies and reduce them by hunger; and, as
Cortez had not the command of the lake, he found it necessary
immediately to evacuate the city. But he was taken at disadvantage in
traversing by night (July 1, 1520) one of the long causeways which
connect the city with the shores of the lake in which it stands; and on
mustering those who reached the mainland, he found his small battalion
of Europeans reduced by one-half, with the loss of all the horses,
baggage, artillery, and most of the treasure which had been amassed by
individual soldiers. The anniversary of this calamity was long, and may
be still, distinguished in New Spain by the appellation of Noche Triste,
the sad night.

By a circuitous route, and not without cutting their way through an
immense army assembled to intercept them, the Spaniards returned to the
friendly Indians of Tlascala, among whom Cortez meant to recruit his
exhausted companions, and to wait until fresh supplies of men and stores
could be obtained from the West India islands. Some vessels which put
into the harbour of Vera Cruz afforded an unexpected reinforcement of
180 men; and on the 28th of December Cortez began to retrace his march
towards Mexico. At Tezeuco, the second city of the empire, situated on
the banks of the lake, about twenty miles from the capital, he
established his head-quarters for four months, during which the timbers
of twelve small vessels, cut out in the mountains of Tlascala, were put
together. This force ensured the command of the lake, for the Mexicans
had nothing larger than canoes; and just before their completion, a
reinforcement of 200 men, with arms and stores, arrived from Hispaniola.
At the beginning of May, 1521, with about 800 Europeans, Cortez
commenced the siege of Mexico itself.

Guatimozin, a nephew of Montezuma, who had succeeded to the throne, made
a resolute defence; and Cortez, aware of the danger of entangling his
troops in the streets, yet anxious to preserve the buildings as a trophy
of his victory, urged the siege with unusual caution. Each day he pushed
his way as far as possible into the city; but he returned to his
quarters at night, during which the barricades of the causeways were
repaired, and on the morrow a fresh battle was to be fought on the same
ground. Thus matters went until the 3d of July, when Cortez, impatient
of so protracted a resistance, made a desperate attempt to carry every
thing before him in one great assault. Experience improved the Mexicans
in the art of war. When the Spaniards, by the energy of their attack,
had forced a way into the heart of the city, Guatimozin led them still
onwards by a show of slackened resistance, while he detached troops, by
land and water, to beset the breaches in the causeway by which it was
necessary for the enemy to retire. At a given signal, the great drum of
the god of war was struck, and the Mexicans returned to the attack,
their hatred of the invaders stimulated by the ferocity of their
superstition. The Spaniards were compelled to give way, and disorder was
converted into absolute rout by the promiscuous onset of the natives,
when they arrived at the breach. Above sixty Europeans perished, for
those who were taken prisoners were offered as sacrifices on the Mexican
altars. After this reverse Cortez took a surer way to success, and as
fast as his troops made a lodgment, he caused the houses to be levelled
with the ground. When three quarters of the city were thus destroyed,
and those who defended the remainder were exhausted by famine and
disease, Guatimozin yielded to the persuasion of those who urged him to
preserve himself, to renew the war in the remote provinces of the
empire. But he was intercepted and captured with his family, as he
sought to escape across the lake; and on the loss of their sovereign,
the Mexicans ceased to resist. The siege thus ended August 13, 1521.

The victors were greatly disappointed in the amount of the precious
metals which fell into their hands. What remained of the royal treasures
Guatimozin had ordered to be thrown into the lake. Much spoil was
carried off by the Indian auxiliaries, and much probably was lost or
destroyed in the ruins of the city. The whole treasure collected was
inferior in amount to that which the Spaniards had formerly received as
a present from Montezuma; and the adventurers clamorously expressed
their dissatisfaction. Pressed by this spirit of discontent, Cortez gave
way to a passion, as alien to that undefined feeling which we call the
spirit of chivalry, as to the natural laws of charity and justice; and
tried, in vain, to extract by torture from the royal prisoner and one of
his favourite followers a discovery of the treasures which were supposed
to be hidden. Overcome by pain, the latter cast a look on his master,
which seemed to ask permission to reveal what he knew. Guatimozin
indignantly replied to the implied entreaty—“Am I reposing on a bed of
flowers?” and the faithful subject kept silence, and died. The emperor,
with his two principal officers, was afterwards hanged, on a groundless
charge of having excited insurrection.

The provinces were readily overrun after the fall of the capital, and
made subject to Spain; though intolerable oppression often produced
insurrections, which were put down with unrelenting severity. Having
conquered an empire without commission from the monarch in whose name he
made war, Cortez narrowly escaped having to answer as a criminal for the
irregularity of his proceedings. But in 1522 he succeeded in procuring a
royal commission, which constituted him captain-general and governor of
New Spain. Still his actions were watched with an ungenerous though
natural jealousy; and his situation became so critical, that he
resolved, in 1528, to return to Castile, and answer, before no inferior
tribunal, such charges as might be urged against him. He appeared with
the splendour which became one who had unlocked the treasures of the New
World; and his own ample fortune, contrasted with the smallness of the
sum divided among his comrades, gave birth to a belief that he had not
dealt fairly in the partition of the spoil. As his return to Spain put
an end to all fears of his ambition, he was received with the favour
which such brilliant services merited. He was invested with the order of
St. Jago, the highest rank of Spanish knighthood; and the valley of
Guaxaca, with an extensive domain, was erected into a marquisate in his
behalf. But he could not obtain what he most desired, the supreme
direction of affairs in Mexico. He returned thither in 1530 at the head
of the military department, and with authority to prosecute new
discoveries; but the direction of civil affairs was vested in a board,
entitled the Audience of New Spain. Henceforward we may regard Cortez as
a disappointed and unhappy man. Thwarted at home by the double authority
established, he sought to reap new glory by exploring the Pacific Ocean;
and in 1536 he discovered the peninsula of California, and surveyed part
of the gulf which separates it from the American continent. But from
that country neither profit nor honour, unless as a geographical
discoverer, could be gained; and the result of the expedition neither
satisfied the expectations of others, nor repaid the adventurers for the
hardships which they underwent. In 1540, wearied and disgusted, Cortez
returned to Spain, and found his services forgotten, or at least his
person slighted. He served as a volunteer in 1541, in Charles V.’s
expedition against Algiers, and had a horse killed under him. This was
his last military action. After wearying his proud spirit in fruitless
attempts to gain attention from Charles or his ministers to his real or
supposed grievances, he retired into seclusion, and died at Seville,
December 2, 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age.

We have passed rapidly over the shocking cruelties which marked the
progress of the Spanish arms. Some portion of the horror, with which we
naturally regard the actors in such events, may be neutralized by the
consideration, that men’s notions in all things, and perhaps most
especially in matters of international justice, are greatly dependent on
the spirit of the time in which they live; and that it is hardly fair to
judge actions, which won the admiration of contemporaries, according to
the standard of a subsequent age. But even in that age there were not
wanting many to raise an indignant voice against the cruelties practised
on an unoffending people; and after every just allowance has been made,
it is not to be doubted that the treatment of the American aborigines
forms a foul stain on the history of Spain, and loads all who were
concerned in it with an awful responsibility; and we willingly
acknowledge it to have been a just retribution, that of the original
settlers few reaped prosperity, repose, or wealth, as the harvest of
their arms. With their leaders it was eminently otherwise. Scarce one of
those who led the conquerors of Peru escaped a violent death in civil
strife; while Cortez (with whom no one divides the fame of conquering
Mexico) lived to experience the proverbial ingratitude of courts, and
died in that forced obscurity which is most galling to an ambitious
mind.

The noble inscription, composed by Southey for the birth-place of
Cortez’s early companion in arms and rival in fame, needs but the change
of name to render it equally applicable to Cortez himself.

           “Pizarro here was born—a greater name
           The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Pain,
           Famine, and hostile Elements, and Hosts
           Embattled, failed to check him in his course,
           Not to be wearied, not to be deterred,
           Not to be overcome. A mighty realm
           He overran, and with relentless arm
           Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons,
           And wealth, and power, and fame were his rewards.
           There is another world beyond the grave,
           According to their deeds where men are judged.
           O reader! if thy daily bread be earned
           By daily labour,—yea, however low,
           However wretched be thy lot assigned,
           Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God
           Who made thee, that thou art not such as he.”

                               LEIBNITZ.

The materials for this life of Leibnitz are chiefly taken from the
_éloge_ of his contemporary Fontenelle.

Godfrey William Leibnitz was born at Leipzic, June 23, 1646. His father
was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of that place: he
died when his son was only six years old. Leibnitz’s education therefore
was left to his mother; and the great variety of his studies is traced
to his free access to a large collection of books which his father left.
He thus became a poet, an orator, an historian, a lawyer, a
metaphysician, a mathematician, and a theologian. In some of these
capacities he would not have escaped oblivion; but every accession to
such a mass of titles becomes interesting, when it is remembered how
conspicuous he became in more than one of them.

At the age of twenty he applied to the University of Leipzic for the
degree of doctor of laws. This was refused, on the plea that he was too
young; and he then went to Altdorf, where he maintained a public
disputation, and was admitted to the degree which he desired, with
unusual distinction. From Altdorf he repaired to Nuremberg, where he
heard of a secret society of chemists, or, which was then the same
thing, of searchers after the philosopher’s stone. Desiring to obtain
some insight into their pursuits, he procured some books on chemistry, a
subject which he had never studied, and picking out the phrases which
seemed hardest, he wrote a letter altogether unintelligible to himself,
which he addressed to them as his certificate of qualification. He was
admitted with great honour, and was even offered the post of secretary,
with a salary; and though he continued his intercourse with them for
some time, he kept up his character as an adept to the last.

  _Engraved by B. Holl._

  LEIBNITZ.

  _From a Picture in the Florence Gallery._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

His first work, which appeared when he was twenty-two years old, was a
treatise written under the name of George Vlicorius, recommending the
choice of the Elector Palatine to be King of Poland. In 1670 he
published his first philosophical work, an edition of ‘Marius Nizolius
contra Pseudophilosophos;’ and in the following year two treatises on
abstract and concrete motion, severally dedicated to the French Academy
and the Royal Society.

During his abode at Nuremberg, the Baron de Boinebourg, minister of the
Elector of Mayence, procured a legal appointment for him in that state.
While he held this post he travelled into France and England. After the
death of the Elector, he accepted a similar appointment in the dominions
of the Duke of Brunswick-Lunenberg. At the peace of Nimeguen in 1678 he
wrote upon some disputed ceremonials, under the title of Cesarinus
Furstnerius, and displayed a great extent of reading, and a little of
that speculative spirit which afterwards produced the _pre-established
harmony_. He is said, though a Lutheran, to have argued on the
supposition that Europe was to be considered as a large federation, of
which the Emperor was the temporal, and the Pope the spiritual, head. In
1679 he was engaged by the reigning Duke to write the history of the
House of Brunswick. On this service he went through Germany and Italy in
search of authorities. It is related that, on one occasion, having left
Venice in a small boat, a storm arose, and the boatmen began to discuss
in Italian, which they supposed their passenger did not understand, the
propriety of throwing the heretic overboard. Leibnitz, with great
presence of mind, drew out a rosary, which he had about him _par
précaution_, as Fontenelle supposes, who does not seem to guess that
this anecdote, coupled with what has preceded, makes it at least an even
chance that Leibnitz was really a Catholic. And this is negatively
supported by the fact, that, Lutheran as he was considered, he very
rarely attended the services of his church, in spite of the
publicly-expressed disapprobation of the clergy. But on the other hand,
he positively refused to profess Catholicism, when an advantageous
settlement at Paris was offered on that condition. That he was both a
religious man and a Christian is sufficiently attested by his writings.

He returned from his tour in 1690, and in 1693 published his ‘Codex
Juris Gentium Diplomaticus.’ He had published almost at the same time
with his first work a treatise on the study of jurisprudence. The first
volume of the ‘History of Brunswick’ appeared in 1707, and two others in
1710 and 1711.

In 1700 he induced the Elector of Brandenburg to found the Academy of
Berlin, of which he was appointed perpetual president. He contributed
many valuable papers to its memoirs. His patron, the Duke of
Brunswick-Lunenberg, died in 1678, and was succeeded by Ernest-Augustus,
first Elector of Hanover, on whose issue by the Electress Sophia the
crown of England was settled. Leibnitz continued in the Elector’s
service till his death. This took place from gout, November 14, 1716, at
Hanover. The real life of such a man is in his character and writings.
With regard to the first, the account of Fontenelle is as follows. He
had a strong constitution, ate a good deal, drank little, and never
undiluted liquors. When alone, he always took his meals as his studies
permitted. His chair was frequently his only bed, and in this way he is
said to have sometimes passed whole months. He made notes of all he
read, not to preserve them, but to fix the contents on his memory; for
when once written, they were finally laid aside. He communicated freely
with all classes of men, and could entirely divest himself of his
character of a philosopher. His correspondence was immense; he answered
every one who wrote, however small the pretext for addressing him. He
was of a gay humour, easily excited to anger, and easily appeased. He
lived at great expense, but had preserved and hid two years’ amount of
his salary. The securing of this treasure gave him great uneasiness; and
upon this slight ground he has been charged with avarice. He was never
married: it is said that he contemplated such a connexion at the age of
fifty, but that the lady desired time to consider. “This,” says his
biographer, “gave M. Leibnitz the same opportunity, and he continued
unmarried.”

The number and variety of characters in which Leibnitz is known will not
permit us to say much upon each subject. His public life was that of a
jurist. His ‘History of Brunswick’ was continued by M. Echard; who
supplied Fontenelle with the necessary information for his _éloge_. In
youth he was a poet; and he is said in one day to have made three
hundred Latin verses without a single elision. But the Leibnitz of our
day is either the mathematician or the metaphysician.

In the first of these two characters he is coupled in the mind of the
reader with Newton, as the co-inventor of what was called by himself the
Differential Calculus, and by Newton the Method of Fluxions. Much might
be instanced which was done by him for the pure sciences in other
respects; but this one service, from its magnitude as a discovery, and
its notoriety as the cause of a great controversy, has swallowed up all
the rest.

Leibnitz was in London in 1673, and from that time began to pay
particular attention to mathematics. He was in correspondence with
Newton, Oldenburg, and others, on questions connected with _infinite
series_, and continued so more or less till 1684, when he published his
first ideas on the Differential Calculus in the Leipzic Acts. But it is
certain that Newton had been in possession of the same powers under a
different name, from about 1665. The English philosopher drops various
hints of his being in possession of a new method, but without explaining
what it was, except in one letter of 1672, of which it was afterwards
asserted that a copy had been forwarded to Leibnitz in 1676. Leibnitz
published both on the Differential and Integral Calculus before the
appearance of Newton’s Principia in 1687; and indeed before 1711, the
era of the dispute, this new calculus had been so far extended by
Leibnitz and the Bernoullis, that it began to assume a shape something
like that in which it exists at the present day. In the first edition of
the Principia, Newton expressly avows that he had, ten years before
(namely, about 1677), informed Leibnitz that he had a method of drawing
tangents, finding maxima and minima, &c.; and that Leibnitz had, in
reply, actually communicated his own method, and that he (Newton) found
it only differed from his own in symbols. This passage was, not very
fairly, suppressed in the third edition of the Principia, which appeared
in 1726, alter the dispute; and the space was filled up by an account of
other matters. It was obvious that, on the supposition of plagiarism, it
only gave Leibnitz a year to infer, from a hint or two, his method,
notation, and results.

Some discussion about priority of invention led Dr. Keill to maintain
Newton’s title to be considered the sole inventor of the fluxional
calculus. Leibnitz had asserted that he had been in possession of the
method eight years before he communicated it to Newton. He appealed to
the Royal Society, of which Newton was President, and that body gave
judgment on the question in 1712. Their decision is now worth nothing;
firstly, because it only determined that Newton was the _first_
inventor, which was not the whole point, and left out the question
whether Leibnitz had or had not stolen from Newton; secondly, because
the charge of plagiarism is insinuated in the assertion that a copy of
Newton’s letter, as above mentioned, had been sent to Leibnitz. Now they
neither prove that he had received this letter in time sufficient to
enable him to communicate with Newton as above described, or, if he had
received it, that there was in it a sufficient hint of the method of
fluxions. The decision of posterity is, that Leibnitz fairly invented
his own method; and though English writers give no strong opinion as to
the fairness with which the dispute was carried on, we imagine that
there are few who would now defend the conduct of their predecessors.
Whoever may have had priority of invention, it is clear that to Leibnitz
and the Bernoullis belongs the principal part of the superstructure, by
aid of which their immediate successors were enabled to extend the
theory of Newton; and thus Leibnitz is placed in the highest rank of
mathematical inventors.

The metaphysics of Leibnitz have now become a by-word. He is
pre-eminent, among modern philosophers, for his extraordinary fancies.
His monads, his pre-established harmony, and his best of all possible
worlds, are hardly caricatured in the well-known philosophical novel of
Voltaire. If any thinking monad should find that the pre-established
harmony between his soul and body would make the former desire to see
more of Leibnitz as a metaphysician, and the latter able to second him,
we can inform him that it was necessary, for the best of all possible
universes, that Michael Hansch should in 1728 publish the whole system
at Frankfort and Leipzic, under the title, ‘Leibnitzii Principia
philosophica more geometrico demonstrata;’ and also that M. Tenneman
should give an account of this system, and M. Victor Cousin translate
the same. It is not easy to give any short description of the contents,
nor would it be useful. A school of metaphysicians of the sect of
Leibnitz continued to exist for some time in Germany, but it has long
been extinct.

The mathematical works of Leibnitz were collected and published at
Geneva in 1768. His correspondence with John Bernoulli was also
published in 1745, at Lausanne and Geneva. It is an interesting record,
and exhibits him in an amiable light. He gives his friend a check for
his manner of speaking of Newton, at the time when the partizans of the
latter were attacking his own character, both as a man and a discoverer.
He says (vol. ii. p. 234), “I thank you for the animadversions which you
have sent me on Newton’s works; I wish you had time to examine the
whole, which I know would not be unpleasant even to himself. But in so
beautiful a structure, _non ego paucis offendar maculis_.” He also says
that he has been informed by a friend in England, that hatred of the
Hanoverian connexion had something to do with the bitterness with which
he was assailed; “Non ab omni veri specie abest, eos qui parum Domui
Hanoveranæ favent, etiam me lacerare voluisse; nam amicus Anglus ad me
scribit, videri aliquibus non tam ut mathematicos et Societatis Regiæ
Socios in socium, sed ut _Toryos in Whigium_ quosdam egisse.” (Vol. ii.
p. 321.)

  _Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff_

  CARDINAL XIMENES.

  _From a Picture in the Florence Gallery._

  Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

                                XIMENES.

Gonzales Ximenes de Cisneros, Primate and Regent of Spain, was born at
Tordelaguna, in Castile, in 1437. He was descended of an ancient family,
long settled at Cisneros in the kingdom of Leon, and was baptized
Gonzales after an ancestor who was one of the most renowned knights of
his day: the name of Francis, by which he is commonly known, he assumed
in after-life, in honour of the saint whose monastic rule he embraced.
But though he was of honourable descent, neither rank nor wealth were
stepping-stones to his preferment. His father supported a large family
upon the income of his humble office of collector of tenths, payable to
the king by the clergy: but his own studious disposition, and the
facilities then afforded by the universities to poor scholars, raised
him out of the obscurity in which his lot appeared to be cast. At the
schools of Alcala, and at the University of Salamanca, he studied
philosophy, theology, canon and civil law; and his proficiency soon
enabled him to support himself, by teaching others. Having completed his
education he undertook a journey to Rome, hoping there to find a readier
field for the exercise of his talents than at home. Poor and friendless,
he maintained himself by pleading in the Spanish causes which came
before the Court of the Consistory; and he was already rising into
eminence, when, hearing of his father’s death, and the distress of his
family, he abandoned his flattering prospects and returned to Spain.

It appears that he had taken holy orders during his abode at Rome, for
before his departure Sixtus IV. bestowed on him a reversionary grant of
the first benefice which should fall vacant. This proved to be Uceda;
and he immediately produced his letters and took possession. The
Archbishop of Toledo, who had already promised the living, was highly
offended at this exercise of what in truth was a most objectionable
prerogative of the Holy See. He not only dispossessed, but imprisoned
for six years, Ximenes, who remained firm in the assertion of his
rights. At the end of that time the prelate yielded. Ximenes soon
exchanged Uceda for a chaplaincy in the cathedral of Siguenza. Here he
applied himself to the pursuit of theology, and laid the foundation of
that Hebrew and Chaldaic learning which bore such noble fruit in
after-life. He gained the warm friendship of his bishop, the Cardinal
Mendoza, who, in 1483, appointed him grand vicar of the diocese. In that
office he distinguished himself by integrity and talents for business,
as he had before by piety and learning. And the fairest prospect of
advancement was open to him, when all at once he resolved to quit the
world, and to devote himself wholly to religious meditation.

He embraced the strictest rule of the Franciscan order, with a zeal to
which the general example of his brethren gave no countenance. He
retired to the secluded monasteries of Castagnar and Salceda, and in the
forests which surrounded them, devoted himself wholly to prayer, the
study of the Scriptures, and the mortification of the flesh. He thus
gained the reputation of uncommon sanctity, and there seems to be no
reason to think that his asceticism was defiled by any trace of
hypocrisy. But his friend the Cardinal saw that he was fitted for still
better things, and regretting his departure from active life, expressed
a belief that he would ultimately be raised to much higher dignity, to
the great advantage of the Church. And, in truth, the Cardinal, who had
been raised from the see of Siguenza to the primacy of Spain, the
Archbishopric of Toledo, did much to fulfil his own prediction. He
introduced Ximenes to the Queen Isabella, who was then in want of a
confessor, and she readily listened to his recommendation, and appointed
Ximenes to the vacant office. He would fain have declined it, urging
that he had been called to the cloister from active life to attend to
his own salvation; that what was demanded would withdraw him from his
proper vocation; and that a sovereign above all persons needed a
religious guide, not only of good intentions, but of experience and
wisdom. The Queen smiled as she assured him, that if he had formerly
been directed to solitude, he was now summoned to court, and that if he
would take charge of her conscience, she would be answerable for having
chosen him to do so. And he consented, on condition that he should be
required to attend her only when called by the duties of his office.
This was in 1492. The austerity of his life and the wildness of his
aspect caused him, when he appeared, to be compared by the gay
frequenters of the court to an old Egyptian hermit come out from the
desert.

Moved by the hope of advancing the temporal interests of their order,
his monastic brethren now appointed him their provincial. They widely
mistook his character. He accepted the proffered dignity, moved chiefly
by the hope that it would furnish him with an excuse for more frequent
absence from court; and he employed his power in striving to reform the
corruptions which abundant wealth had introduced among them. His own
life was in strict adherence to the self-denial which he recommended to
others. In his visitations he travelled on foot from convent to convent,
accompanied by one brother, Francis Ruyz, whom he had selected for his
constant companion, as uniting the qualifications of a lively temper and
sound health, with learning, modesty, and trustworthiness. For their
sustenance they depended upon alms, and in the trade of begging Ximenes
was very unsuccessful. Ruyz used to remonstrate on the misapplication of
his talents. “Your Reverence will let us die of hunger; you were not
meant for this profession. God gives each of us his talents: do you pray
for me, and I will beg for you. Your Reverence may be made to give, but
certainly not to ask.” Visiting Gibraltar in one of these tours, he was
strongly possessed by the desire of going to preach the gospel in
Africa. On this subject he consulted a female devotee, who had the
reputation of enjoying divine revelations in visions, and was dissuaded
by her from prosecuting the scheme.

The Primate Mendoza died at the end of 1494. In their last interview, he
urged his sovereign not to entrust the vast revenues of his see to any
one connected with the highest nobility, esteeming its power to be even
dangerous to the crown, when knit by family ties to great feudal
influence. Isabella listened to his advice, and after much hesitation
pitched on Ximenes to be his successor. Aware of his feelings, she kept
her intentions secret until letters confirmatory of the appointment
arrived from the Pope. These without preface she put into his hands.
Reading the address, “To our venerable brother Ximenes, Archbishop elect
of Toledo,” “Madam,” he said, “these letters are not for me;” and he
rose abruptly and quitted the royal presence. Six months elapsed before
he was induced to accept the proffered dignity, in virtue of a direct
injunction from the Pope. He was consecrated October 11, 1495.

Rank and wealth made no difference in the manners of the ascetic monk.
He continued to live upon the coarsest fare, to wear the humble dress of
his order, to sleep on the ground, or on a bed as hard, and to travel on
an ass, or on foot. And Pope Alexander VI. thought it necessary to send
a letter to him, with the very unusual exhortation to cultivate the
pomps and vanities of the world a little more, for the sake of the
church of which he was so exalted a member. Ximenes obeyed, and probably
became convinced of the propriety of the counsel, as he became more
engaged in civil government. He assumed even a more gorgeous state than
his predecessors, but he still practised his usual self-denial in
private; he slept and fared as hardly as before, and wore a haircloth
under his episcopal robes. He was exemplary in the discharge of his
public duties; liberal even to an extreme in relieving the daily
necessities of the poor, and in contributing to charitable, useful, and
religious undertakings; diligent in promoting the welfare of the people
to the full extent of his almost regal power, by repressing extortion
and peculation, whether in courts of law, or the collection of the
revenue, by providing for the due administration of justice,
ecclesiastical and civil, and by exercising a strict superintendence
over the conduct of the parochial clergy. To the cry of the wretched his
ears were always open; he hated oppression; and if an injured vassal
complained against the highest noble in the land, he was ready to grant
justice, if the matter lay within his jurisdiction, or, if not, to carry
the complaint before the Queen. And his zeal and energy carried to a
happy conclusion the arduous undertaking of reforming the Franciscan
brotherhood, upon which he succeeded in enforcing a new system of
regulations in 1499, after a most obstinate resistance.

We may here mention with unmixed praise one of the Archbishop’s
charitable undertakings. It was an institution for the education of the
daughters of indigent nobles, on such principles, according to the words
of our authority, as should train them to the fit discharge of their
duties towards their families and towards society. A fund, afterwards
increased by the Spanish monarchs, was set apart to provide them with
marriage portions. We may here trace the original of the celebrated
establishment of St. Cyr.

His principal work was the establishment of a university at Alcala,
where he himself received his early education. The foundation-stone was
laid by himself in 1498; the buildings were completed, and the first
course of lectures given, in 1508. For a model he took the university of
Paris; he endowed it richly, and collected men distinguished for their
learning from all parts of Europe, to fill the professorial chairs. Here
he undertook the great work of publishing the first Polyglot Bible, the
Complutensian, as it is called, from the Latin name of Alcala, where it
was printed, which will exist for ages as a noble specimen of the
Archbishop’s piety, munificence, and zeal for learning. The four first
volumes contain the Old Testament in the Hebrew—the Septuagint version,
with a Latin translation—the Vulgate, as corrected by St. Jerome—and the
Chaldee Paraphrase, with a Latin translation. The fifth and sixth
volumes contain the Greek Testament and the Vulgate. The printing of
this great undertaking commenced in 1502, and was not completed till
1517, shortly before the death of Ximenes, who, when the last volume was
brought to him, is reported by his earliest biographer, after an
ejaculation of pious thanksgiving, to have addressed the bystanders in
these words:—“Many high and difficult undertakings I have carried on in
the service of the State, yet, my friends, there is nothing for which I
more deserve congratulation than for this edition of the Scriptures,
which lays open, in a time of much need, the fountain-head of our holy
religion, whence may be drawn a far purer strain of theology than from
the streams which have been turned off from it.” But owing to a
hesitation at the Court of Rome, how far the criticism of the Scriptures
should be encouraged, the Bible was not given to the world till 1522.
Only about 600 copies were printed. The price fixed on it was six and a
half ducats. The epistle dedicatory to Leo X. is by Ximenes himself: the
preface, according to Dr. Dibdin, is by another hand. The most learned
Hebrew and Greek scholars who could be procured were employed in the
collation of manuscripts; and it may be noted that for seven Hebrew MSS.
the sum of 4000 golden crowns was paid. These with other treasures of
learning, which were deposited with the University of Alcala, about the
middle of the last century were sold to a firework-maker as lumber. The
whole cost of the work, which was defrayed by Ximenes, is said to have
exceeded 50,000 gold crowns.

In 1498 the Archbishop was summoned to Granada by Ferdinand and
Isabella, to deliberate on the means to be used for the conversion of
the Moors. Inflamed by zeal, he had recourse to means which show the
wisdom of the serpent more than the simplicity of the dove. He began
with the priests and doctors of the law, and strove by kindness and
attention, mixed with religious discussion, to dispose them to adopt the
Christian faith. The priests led over the people in such flocks, that,
in one day, the anniversary of which was observed as a festival,
December 18, 1499, upwards of 3000 persons were baptized by aspersion in
Granada. That the Archbishop should have believed in the sincerity of
these wholesale conversions is not credible; he probably thought that a
hypocritical worship of the true God was a less evil than sincere
idolatry. The inquisition was charged with the superintendence of the
souls of these nominal Christians, and the relapse from that faith which
they never embraced was punished according to the mercy of that
irresponsible tribunal. The dread and indignation produced by these
measures led to a revolt, which was quelled, however, under the guidance
of the Archbishop.

The same desire of making Christians any how appears in the measures
adopted on this occasion. The inhabitants of the quarter in which the
tumult broke out were declared guilty of high treason, and offered their
choice of death or conversion. They embraced the latter; and the other
Granadans, to the number of 150,000, followed their example. But these
severities drove the most resolute spirits to that last insurrection,
related with so much interest in Washington Irving’s ‘Chronicles of
Granada;’ which terminated in the expatriation of the remnant who abided
in their national creed. But however unapostolic the Archbishop’s mode
of conversion may have been, his zeal and ability in instructing and
rendering truly Christian those who submitted to the outward forms of
the religion is said to have been admirable.

His conduct towards the unhappy natives of the West Indies was less
exceptionable. He did his utmost not only for their conversion, but to
protect them from the cruel exactions of the Spanish settlers.

The excellent Isabella of Castile died November 26, 1504. According to
the tenor of his beloved mistress’s will, Ximenes steadily maintained
the claim of Ferdinand, her husband, to the regency of the kingdom
during the minority of Charles V. After the death of the Archduke
Philip, September 25, 1506, he renewed his exertions to determine the
Castilians in favour of Ferdinand’s claim to the regency, in preference
to the Emperor Maximilian, Charles V.’s paternal grandfather; being
satisfied that, notwithstanding the ancient jealousy between Castile and
Arragon, the former would be better governed by a prince intimately
acquainted with its circumstances and interests than by a stranger.
Ferdinand, who was then engaged at Naples, owed his success in this
matter to Ximenes; and showed his gratitude by procuring for him the
rank of Cardinal, with the title of Cardinal of Spain, together with the
office of Grand Inquisitor.

In his zeal for spreading the true faith, Ximenes had conceived a scheme
for the conquest of the Holy Land, and indeed had nearly succeeded in
effecting a league for that purpose between Ferdinand, Manuel of
Portugal, and Henry VII. of England. But this hope being defeated, he
was still anxious to employ the power of Spain against Mahometanism, and
used his best endeavours to persuade Ferdinand to invade the coast of
Barbary. The king’s parsimony was not to be overcome, until Ximenes
offered a loan sufficient to equip the proposed armament, and defray its
expenses for two months; and the capture of the town of Marsarquiver, in
the autumn of 1505, was the immediate result. Here the Spanish arms
remained stationary till 1509, when the Cardinal obtained permission to
attempt the siege of Oran at his own expense, on the sole condition,
that if he succeeded, either the patrimony of the church expended in
this secular undertaking was to be repaid, or the domain conquered was
to be annexed to the see of Toledo. He assumed himself the supreme
direction of the expedition, entrusting the command of the army to Peter
Navarre, an able, turbulent, and ambitious soldier. Everything was
unfavourable to the Cardinal. The king was jealous of him; Navarre
impatient of the subjection of the sword to the crozier; and other
officers, corrupt or hostile, and encouraged by the example of their
superiors, stirred the soldiers to mutiny. But the decision of Ximenes
compelled obedience, and the wisdom of his measures ensured success; so
that the surrender of Oran was the almost immediate result of his
descent upon Africa. He would willingly have remained there to pursue
his successes. But finding the disobedience of his lieutenant to be
secretly encouraged by Ferdinand, he determined to return while he could
do so with honour, leaving Navarre in the command of the troops. For
himself or his see he reserved no part of the spoil. That which was not
bestowed upon the soldiers, or consumed in the service, he set apart for
the crown. Yet a fresh disagreement arose when the Cardinal, according
to the compact, demanded payment of the advances made by the see; and
when Ferdinand at last was compelled to acquiesce, it was in the most
ungracious and unbecoming manner.

Ferdinand died January 23, 1516. On his death-bed he appointed Ximenes
Regent of Castile during the minority of Charles V., with expressions
indicative of no personal regard, but bearing strong testimony to his
unbending justice, disinterestedness, and zeal for the public welfare.
The Cardinal’s conduct in this exalted station was consistent with the
tenor of his past life; he was a just ruler, but his authority was
feared and respected rather than loved. If he had one passion
unmortified, it was ambition: he ruled with a single eye to his young
sovereign’s interests; but he evaded that sovereign’s attempts to
circumscribe his powers with as much success as he bore down the
opposition of those turbulent nobles, who hoped, in the weakness of a
minority, to find a fit opportunity for prosecuting their own
aggrandizement, and committing with impunity acts of illegal violence.
For when Charles V. sent some of his confidential Flemish ministers to
be associates in the commission of regency, the Cardinal received them
with respect, and granted them the external distinctions of office; for
the rest they were mere puppets in his hands. Of his internal policy,
the chief scope was to elevate the regal power, and to depress that of
the nobles, even by throwing a greater weight into the hands of the
unprivileged classes: the same policy as had been pursued by the wisest
princes of the age, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII. of England, and
Louis XI. of France. The crown had been reduced to great poverty by
lavish grants, extorted, in disturbed times, by the necessity of
conciliating powerful noblemen, rather than granted by free-will, or out
of real gratitude for services; and it was one of Ximenes’ first objects
to remedy this evil, even by means which showed none of that regard to
vested interests, which belongs to times in which the course of law is
regular and supreme, and consequently the rights of property are rigidly
respected. Such pensions as had been granted in Ferdinand’s reign he cut
off at once, on the plea that the grantor could only have bestowed them
for his own life. The crown lands alienated during the same period were
resumed: even the Cardinal’s boldness did not venture to carry the
inquiry farther back, from the apprehension of driving the whole body of
the nobility into revolt.

These changes, and other important measures, were not carried into
effect without great discontent and considerable open resistance. But
the Cardinal was strong, in the resources of his own powerful mind, in
the general reverence of the people for the sanctity of his character,
in his exalted rank as head of the Spanish church, and in the immense
revenues of his see, which gave him a command of money not enjoyed by
the crown, and enabled him to keep in his own pay a considerable body of
troops. With these he maintained order, and repressed feuds, which the
barons, trusting to the common weakness of a regency, hastened to decide
by the sword; and set at defiance the enmity of the nobility at a later
period, when more decided encroachments on the privileges of the order
had produced a general spirit of discontent. On one occasion a
deputation of the chief grandees of Castile required to be informed,
under what title he presumed to exercise such high authority. The
Cardinal showed the will of Ferdinand, and its confirmation by Charles
V., and finding them still unsatisfied, led them to a window, from which
he pointed out a strong military force under arms. “These,” he said,
“are the powers which I have received from the king. With these I govern
Castile; and with these I will govern it, until the king, your master
and mine, takes possession of his kingdom.”

One of his schemes for strengthening the crown was the erection of a
species of militia, composed of burghers of cities; but that class was
not sufficiently advanced in knowledge to appreciate the immense
accession of importance which would accrue from this measure, which they
regarded solely as a burden. It was therefore unpopular among them, as
well as unpalatable to the barons; and was entirely dropped soon after
the regent’s death.

His foreign policy was nearly confined to the conduct of two wars: the
one to maintain Navarre, which had been usurped by Ferdinand, against
the legitimate monarch John d’Albret; the other, an expedition against
the pirate Barbarossa, King of Algiers, who inflicted a signal and
entire discomfiture on the invading army.

In the administration of the kingdom Ximenes displayed the same
inflexible love of justice, and the same economy, integrity, and order,
as in the management of his own diocese of Toledo; and he brought the
finances into so flourishing a state, that after discharging the crown
debts, and placing the military establishment in a more than commonly
efficient state, he was enabled to remit large sums of money to the
young king in Flanders. And he had something of a title to Charles’s
more immediate and personal gratitude, for having used with success his
own overpowering influence to obtain the recognition of that prince as
king of Castile during the lifetime of his insane mother, against the
usage of the realm, although he had remonstrated with earnestness
against pressing the indecorous and unfilial claim. All these services
however were thrown into the shade by one thing. Ximenes hated the
Flemish ministers whom Charles sent into Spain, and who disgraced their
high station, and corrupted the country by open and abandoned venality.
He never ceased to remonstrate against these abuses, and to importune
Charles to visit his Spanish dominions; and the Flemish favourites saw
that their own ruin was certain if the regent once gained an ascendance
over the king’s mind. They retarded therefore the departure of the
latter as much as possible, and succeeded in prejudicing him against his
most sincere and judicious friend and servant. Convinced at last of the
necessity for his presence, Charles set out for Spain, and landed in the
province of Asturias, September 13, 1517. The Cardinal hastened towards
the coast to meet him, but was stopped at Bos Equillos by a severe
illness, which, as was very usual in past times, was imputed to poison.
He wrote to the king, entreating him to dismiss the train of foreigners
by whom he was attended, and earnestly soliciting a personal interview,
which, from the pressure of illness, he was unable himself to seek. This
favour was not granted, and he was vexed and harassed by a series of
petty slights. At the point of death he received a letter of dismissal
couched in civil but cold terms, permitting him to return to his
diocese, and repose from his labours. Whether the Cardinal retained his
faculties so as to be aware of this final mark of ingratitude is
doubtful; but his end was assuredly hastened by mortification at the
evil return made for his faithful service. He died a few hours after
receiving the dismissal in question, November 8, 1517.

Though austere in temper, Ximenes was not cruel, and in civil matters
had great reluctance to the shedding of blood. Yet in eleven years, as
Grand Inquisitor, he burnt at the stake 2500 persons, for the glory of
God and the good of the sufferer’s souls. Such miserable self-delusion
in so great and good a man ought to teach humility, as well as to
inspire abhorrence.

Our sketch has necessarily been personal rather than historical: a
fuller account of the public life of Ximenes will be found in
Robertson’s ‘Charles V.,’ as well as in the biographies of Flechier,
Marsollier, and others. Barrett’s ‘Life of Ximenes’ appears to be a
compressed translation from the Life by Flechier. We conclude with the
short and comprehensive praise of Leibnitz, who said, that “If great men
could be bought, Spain would have cheaply purchased such a minister by
the sacrifice of one of her kingdoms.”

  _Engraved by J. Thomson._

  ADDISON.

  _From a Picture copied by J. Thurston in the Possession of the
    Publisher._

  Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

                                ADDISON.

Joseph Addison, the second of the six children of Dr. Launcelot Addison
and Jane Gulstone, was born May 1, 1672, at Milston in Wiltshire. The
feebleness of his infancy seems to have impaired his spirit as a boy;
for, in the General Dictionary, Dr. Birch relates, that when at school
in the country, he was so afraid of punishment as to have absconded,
lodging in a hollow tree in the fields, till a hue and cry restored him
to his parents. At the Charter-House was formed that friendship between
him and Sir Richard Steele, which led to their close alliance in a new
kind of literary undertaking. Addison could not but feel his own
superiority; and Spence intimates, that the one was too fond of
displaying, and the other too servile in acknowledging it. Steele
occasionally availed himself not only of his friend’s pen, but of his
purse. Johnson has given currency to the story, that Addison enforced
the repayment of 100_l._ by an execution, and the fact is said to have
been related by Steele himself, with tears in his eyes. Hooke, the Roman
historian, professed to have received it from Pope. The biographer
sarcastically remarks, that the borrower probably had not much purpose
of repayment; but the lender, who “seems to have had other notions of
100_l._, grew impatient of delay.” Now no date is assigned to this
anecdote; and Addison’s finances were so low during the greater part of
his life, that he might have suffered greatly by the disappointment; nor
does it detract from the character of a man in narrow circumstances,
that he entertains serious notions of 100_l._

In 1687 Addison was entered at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he took
the degree of M.A., February 14, 1693. One of his early poetical
attempts was ‘An Account of the greatest English Poets, inscribed to H.
S.;’ initials which have been currently assigned to Dr. Henry
Sacheverell, who is indebted, for no enviable place in history, to his
trial and its consequences. But a college friend of Addison has left it
on record, that the initials were the property of a gentleman bearing
the same name, who died young, after having shown some promise in
writing a history of the Isle of Man, and who bequeathed his papers to
Addison, containing, among other things, the plan of a tragedy 011 the
death of Socrates, which the legatee had some thoughts of working up
himself. In this poem the writer tells his friend that Spenser can no
longer charm an understanding age. Now the judgment of the present age
disclaims this confident decision; nor would it be worth recording, but
for Spence’s assertion, that the critic had never read the ‘Faery
Queene,’ when he drew its character. In after life he spoke of his own
poem as a “poor thing;” but his general level as a versifier was not
high. The ‘Campaign’ is his masterpiece in rhyme.

He was indebted to Congreve for his introduction to Montague, then
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Johnson says, that “he was then learning
the trade of a courtier, and subjoined Montague as a poetical name to
those of Cowley and of Dryden.” In 1695 he wrote a poem to King William,
with an introduction addressed to Lord Somers, who is said by Tickell to
have sent a message to the author to desire his acquaintance.

In 1699, he obtained an annual pension of 300_l._ to enable him to
travel. He passed the first year in preparation at Blois, and then
departed for Italy. That he was duly qualified to appreciate the
attractions of “classic ground,”—his own phrase, sneered at for
affectation by contemporary critics, but since sanctioned by general
adoption,—appears by his ‘Travels,’ and by the letter from Italy to Lord
Halifax. His ‘Dialogues on Medals’ were composed at this time. On the
death of King William, in March, 1702, he became distressed for money by
the stoppage of his pension. This compelled him to become tutor to a
travelling squire. The engagement seems to have been for one year only,
for he was at Rotterdam in June, 1703. In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for
November, 1835, may be found three very curious, because characteristic,
letters, from the Duke of Somerset, surnamed by his contemporaries the
Proud, to old Jacob Tonson, forwarding a proposal to Addison to
undertake the office of tutor to his son, then going abroad. We
transcribe a passage from the second letter, as a sample of the proud
Duke’s liberality. “I desire he may be more on the account of a
companion in my son’s travels, than as a governor, and as such shall
account him; my meaning is that neither lodging, travelling, nor diet,
shall cost him sixpence, and over and above that, my son shall present
him at the year’s end with a hundred guineas, as long as he is pleased
to continue in that service to my son, by taking great care of him, by
his personal attendance and advice, in what he finds necessary during
his time of travelling.” It appears from the Duke’s quotation of the
answer, in the third letter to Tonson, that Addison had “other notions”
of this offer than the proposer entertained. “I will set down his own
words, which are these:—‘As for the recompense that is proposed to me, I
must confess I can by no means see my account in it,’ &c.” A hundred
guineas and maintenance was, even in those days, a mean appointment from
a Duke to a gentleman.

Addison returned to England at the latter end of 1703. In 1704, at the
request of Lord Godolphin, to whom he was introduced by the Earl of
Halifax, he undertook to celebrate the victory of Blenheim, and composed
the first portion of his poem called the ‘Campaign.’ This proved his
introduction into office. After filling some inferior appointments, he
became, in 1706, Under-Secretary of State. About the same time, he wrote
the comic opera of ‘Rosamond,’ which was neglected by the public, has
been overpraised by Johnson, and is now deservedly forgotten.

Thomas Earl of Wharton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
December 4, 1708, and proceeded to his destination April 10, 1709,
accompanied by Addison as his Secretary. Addison therefore left London
two days before the commencement of the ‘Tatler,’ the first number of
which came out April 12; and his own first contribution appeared May 26.
His last was No. 267, and the work ended with No. 271, January 2,
1710–11. In No. 93 is an article on a ‘Letter from Switzerland, with
Remarks on Travelling,’ and a sly hint that ‘Fools ought not to be
exported,’ in Addison’s happiest style of playful satire. The praise of
original design clearly belongs to the projector of the ‘Tatler.’
Tickell however was justified in saying, that Addison’s aid “did not a
little contribute to advance its reputation;” and Steele candidly
allows, that his coadjutor not only assisted but improved his original
scheme. In his dedication of the comedy of the ‘Drummer,’ he says, “It
was advanced indeed, for it was raised to a greater thing than I
intended it; for the elegance, purity, and correctness, which appeared
in his writings, were not so much to my purpose, as in any intelligible
manner I could, to rally all those singularities of human life, through
the different professions and characters in it, which obstruct any thing
that was truly good and great.”

The first No. of the ‘Spectator’ appeared March 1, 1710–11, and the
paper was discontinued December 6, 1712; No. 555 concluded the seventh
volume, as first collected by the publishers. The work was resumed June
18, 1714, with No. 556, and the eighth volume closed with No. 635. Of
the first forty-five papers of the revived ‘Spectator,’ Addison wrote
twenty-three; more than half: he did not contribute to the last
thirty-five. Notwithstanding the avowed purpose of exclusively treating
general topics, Steele’s Whiggism once burst its bounds, by reprinting
in the ‘Spectator’ a preface of Dr. Fleetwood to some sermons, for the
purpose of attracting the Queen’s notice to it. Had the Number been
published at the usual hour, the household might have devised means for
its suppression, with some plausible excuse for its absence from the
royal breakfast table; but the non-issue until twelve o’clock, the time
fixed for that meal, left no opening for cabal, and her Majesty’s
subjects were, for her sake, deprived of their morning’s speculation
till that hour. In No. 10 Addison states the daily sale at three
thousand: Johnson makes it sixteen hundred and eighty; apparently far
below the real number. The latter number is given on calculation from
the product of the tax; the assertion of the publisher was Addison’s
authority; and he might, in the commencement of the work, have indulged
in the puff oblique. No. 14, composed of Letters from the Lion—from an
Under-Sexton—on the Masquerade—and Puppet Show, is selected by the
annotators, as “meriting the attention of such as pretend to distinguish
with wonderful facility between Addison’s and Steele’s papers.” It is
wholly Steele’s. The ‘Guardian’ was published in the interval, between
the ‘Spectator’s’ being laid down and taken up again. The first Number
came out March 12, 1713; the last, October 1, 1713. Inattention to marks
has sometimes subjected Addison to undeserved censure. Dr. Blair
vindicates Tasso’s description of Sylvia against the ‘Guardian;’ but by
a double inadvertence, he quotes No. 38 for a passage contained in 28,
and ascribes to Addison what was written by Steele. The ‘Whig Examiner,’
and the ‘Freeholder,’ both exclusively Addison’s, have been enabled by
their wit to survive the usual fate of party-writings. The former is so
much more pungent than usual with the author, and excited so much alarm
and jealousy in Swift, that he triumphantly remarks, “it is now down
among the dead men;” part of the burthen of a popular Tory song. The
humour of the latter, Steele thought too gentle for such blustering
times; and is reported to have said, that the ministry made use of a
lute, when they should have called for a trumpet.

On the demise of the other papers, Hughes formed a project of a society
of learned men of various characters, who were to meet and carry on a
conversation on all subjects, empowering their secretary to draw up any
of their discourses, or publish any of their writings, under the title
of Register. Addison, in answer, applauds the specimen, and approves the
title; but adds, “To tell you truly, I have been so taken up with
thoughts of that nature, for these two or three years last past, that I
must now take some time _pour me délasser_, and lay in fuel for a future
work. I am in a thousand troubles for poor Dick, and wish that his zeal
for the public may not be ruinous to himself; but he has sent me word,
that he is determined to go on, and that any advice I can give him, in
this particular, will have no weight with him.”

Tickell says respecting Cato, “He took up a design of writing a play
upon this subject, when he was very young at the university, and even
attempted something in it there, though not a line as it now stands. The
work was performed by him in his travels, and retouched in England,