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glories, or rewards; for that they believe nothing to be there but a certain simple and happy essence, void of all action; they add farther, that after the day of judgment, all men universally, the bad as well the good, together with God himself, will make up only one and the same divine essence, which will enjoy an absolute rest and inaction to all eternity. And for this reason that they will neither know, understand, will, love, think, return thanks for, nor praise; no, not so much as desire to have any thing. For they will have themselves to be superior and independent ofGod, and in no respect wanting to seek or to find God; but in short, absolutely exempt from all things, and this they call a perfect poverty of spirit." Observe, that there are philosophers who agree that what the Quietists say of the falsity of the notions under which the Deity is commonly represented, is very reasonable; and that the figures which the sacred writers have made use of to represent the Deity to us, require rectification.

Arts. BRACHMANS, DIOSCORIDes, Taurellus.

RACAN.

"THE Marquis de Racan," says Menage, "being in garrison at Calais, he made these four verses at nineteen years of age:

Estime qui voudra la mort épouvantable,

Et la face l'horreur de tous les animaux ;
Quant à moy je la tiens pour le poinct desirable
Où commencent nos biens, et finissent nos maux.

Some time after, being at Paris, and repeating those verses as his own to his friend Ivrante, his friend told him that he should not impose upon him, that he knew very well those verses were the first quatrain of Mathieu's book, intitled 'Les Tablettes de la vie et de la mort.' M. de Racan who had never seen that book, denied obstinately and for a considerable time, that Mathieu had made those verses, until Ivrante

brought Mathieu's book and showed him the verses, at which M. de Racan was not a little amazed. I do not question the truth of this story, being fully persuaded that M. de Racan, who told it me often in the presence of several people, is a very sincere man. But I doubt very much of what Leonardo Salviati says in the first book of his Avertimenti della Lingua Italiana, that a poet of his time who had never seen cardinal Bembo's sonnets, had made some exactly like them." You see that M. Menage makes a great difference between Racan's adventure and those of the other poets whom he names. He finds something in the first that is more extraordinary; I should judge otherwise of it, if I were to say what I think of it. Few people are ignorant that well-bred children are taught some moral and pious maxims, and that care is taken even before they can read, to get by heart some sententious staves of verses. The Protestants pitch upon some passages of David's psalms, or as the Catholics do, upon some quatrains of Pibrac, or of another poet of the same nature, which are never wanting in any country. Without doubt, little Racan when he was but five or six years

of

age, heard his governess or his mother repeat some of those fine quatrains, or some of Mathieu's, which are generally bound up with Pibrac. The traces that were imprinted on his brain sunk in, and remained so several years; afterwards they appeared again, and seemed to him an object entirely new, without rousing up the remembrance of the author, or of the book which had occasioned them; he therefore thought himself to be the author of those four verses, though at the bottom they were only an imperfect reminiscence. If a man would carefully examine himself, he would find upon a thousand occasions, that what he takes to be his own invention, is a thing that he has heard or read without remembering the circumstance.-Art. RACAN.

96

RADZIVIL.

(The cause of his conversion.)

WHEN the reformation began to be established in Lithuania, Christopher Radzivil being very sorry that a prince of his house had embraced it, went to Rome and paid all imaginable honours to the pope. The pope being likewise willing to gratify him, presented him with a box full of relics when he went away. Having returned home, and the news of those relics being spread abroad, certain monks came to him some months after, and told him that there was a man possessed of the devil, that the wicked spirit had been exorcised in vain, and that hitherto all the exorcisms had proved ineffectual. They begged of him that he would lend the precious relics he had brought from Rome, for the relief of that poor man. The prince readily granted their request; the relics. were carried into the church with a solemn pomp and a procession of all the monks. At last they were placed upon the altar, and on the day appointed, an innumerable multitude of people crowded in to see the show, and after the usual exorcisms, the relics were made use of; at that very moment the pretended devil went out of the body of the man, with the usual gestures and grimaces. Every body cried out 'a miracle,' and the prince lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven to return thanks that he had brought a thing so holy, and which could do such miracles.

Some few days after, as he was full of admiration and transported with joy, extolling the virtue of his relics, he perceived that a young gentleman of his house who had the keeping of that rich treasure, smiled and made some gestures, whereby it appeared that he derided his discourse. The prince grew angry and would know the reason of his derision; the gentleman being assured that no harm should come to him, told the prince in private, "that upon

his return from Rome, he lost the box of relics of which he had the keeping, and that not daring to speak of it for fear of being punished, he got one like it, and filled it with little bones of beasts and such trifles as he could get that were like the relics which he had lost; so that seeing so much honour paid to that vile heap of filth, and even that they ascribed to it the virtue of driving away the devil, he had good reason to wonder at it.

The prince gave credit to what he said, but being willing to be more particularly informed of the cheat, he sent for the monks the next day, and desired them to enquire whether there was any other demoniac who wanted the assistance of his relics. Some few days after, they brought him another man possessed with the devil, who acted the same part with the first. The prince ordered him to be exorcised in his presence; but because all the exorcisms that are commonly made use of on such an occasion proved ineffectual, he told the monks that he would have the man to stay in his palace till the next day, and that they should retire. After they were gone, he put the pretended demoniac into the hands of his Tartarian grooms, who at first exhorted him to confess the cheat, as they were ordered to do; but because he obstinately persisted in it with horrid and furious gestures, six of them laid on him with whips and scourges, and put him into such condition that he was forced to implore the prince's mercy, who forgave him as soon as he had confessed the truth. When the night was over, the prince sent for the monks, in whose presence the poor fellow flung himself at his feet, and protested that he neither was, nor ever had been possessed with the devil; but that those monks had persuaded him to counterfeit a demoniac. Immediately the monks desired the prince not to believe what he said, and told him that it was a trick of the devil who spoke through that man's mouth.

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But the prince answered, that if his Tartars had been able to force the devil to tell the truth, they would be able to extort it from the mouth of the monks; so that the monks finding themselves pressed so hard, confessed the imposture, and said they had done it with a good intention, and to prevent the progress of heresy.

The prince thanked God with all his heart, that he had been graciously pleased to discover such an imposture to him; and suspecting a religion that was supported with such diabolical devices, though they went by the name of pious frauds, he declared that he would no longer depend upon any body for his salvation, and betook himself to the reading of the Holy Scriptures with a wonderful assiduity: and having spent half a year in reading and praying, he made a wonderful progress in piety and in the knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel, and then he and all his family made an open profession of our religion, in the year 1564." These are the words of Mr Drelincourt, minister of the church of Paris, in the answer he published in the year 1663, to the letter which prince Ernest, landgrave of Hesse had written to the five ministers of Paris. Mr Drelincourt adds, "Your highness may believe it if you please; but I protest, as if I were before the throne of God, that this story was told me in this manner by the minister of prince Janusius Radzivil; nay, he gave me in writing part of what he told me, and explained to me viva voce." Art. RADZIVIL.

RAGE.

(Singular instance of.)

ANTONY CODRUS URCEUS, one of the most learned and most unfortunate men of the fifteenth century, was an Italian. He was so sensibly afflicted with the loss of his manuscripts, that he not only uttered extreme blasphemies, but also like a savage retired to

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