critics of beauty in the works of art, judge of medals by the fmell, and pictures by feeling. In statuary hang over a fragment with the most ardent gaze of admiration; though wanting the head and the other extremities, if dug from a ruin the Torfe becomes inestimable. An unintelligible monument of Etrufcan barbarity cannot be fufficiently prized; and any thing from Herculaneum excites rapture. When the intellectual tafte is thus decayed, its relifhes become falfe, and, like that of fenfe, nothing will fatisfy but what is beft fuited to feed the difease. Poetry is no longer among them an imitation of what we fee, but of what a vifionary might wish. The zephyr breathes the moft exquifite perfume, the trees wear eternal verdure; fauns and dryads and hamadryads ftand ready to fan the fultry fhepherdefs, who has forgot indeed the prettineffes with which Guarini's fhepherdeffes have been reproached, but is fo fimple and innocent as often to have no meaning. Happy country, where the pastoral age begins to revive! Where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural groupe of nymphs and fwains under the appellation of modern Arcadians. Where, in the midit of porticos, proceffions, and cavalcades, abbes turned fhepherds, and thepherdefles without fheep indulge their innocent di vertimenti. The Filofofi are entirely different from the former. As thofe pretend to have got their knowledge from converfing with the living and polite, fo these boast of having theirs from books and study. Bred up all their lives in colleges they have there learned to think in track, fervilely to follow the leader of their fect, and only to adopt fuch opinions as their univerfities, or the inquifition, are pleafed to allow. By these means they are behind the rest of Eu VOL. I. rope, rope, in feveral modern improvements. Afraid to think for themfelves; and their univerfities feldom admit opinions as true, till univerfally received among the rest of mankind. In fhort, were I to perfonize my ideas of learning in this country, I would reprefent it in the tawdry habits of the ftage, or elfe in the more homely guife of bearded fchoolphilofophy. CHAP. V. Of polite learning in Germany. IF we examine the ftate of learning in Germany, we fhall find that the Germans early discovered a paffion for polite literature; but unhappily, like conquerors, who, invading the dominions of others, leave their own to defolation, inftead of ftudying the German tongue they continue to write in Latin; thus, while they cultivated an obfolete language, and vainly laboured to apply it to modern manners, they neglected their own. At the fame time alfo they began at the wrong end, I mean by being commentators, and though they have given many inftances of their induftry, they have scarcely afforded any of genius. If criticifm could have improved the tafte of a people, the Germans would have been the most polite nation alive. We fhall no where behold the learned wear a more important appearance than here; no where more dignified with profefforfhips, or dreffed out in the fopperies of fcholaftic finery. However, they feem to earn all the honours of this kind which they enjoy. enjoy. Their affiduity is unparalleled; and did they employ half those hours on ftudy which they beftow on reading, we might be induced to pity as well as praise their painful preheminence. But guilty of a fault too common to great readers, they write through volumes, while they do not think through a page. Never fatigued themselves, they think the reader can never be weary; fo they drone on, faying all that can be faid on the fubject, not selecting what may advanced to the purpofe. Were angels to write books they never would write folios. But let the Germans have their due; if they are. dull no nation alive affumes a more laudable folemnity, or better understands all the decorums of ftupidity. Let the discourse of a profeffor run on never fo heavily, it cannot be irkfome to his dofing pupils, who frequently lend him fympathetic nods of approbation. I have fometimes attended their difputes at gradation. On this occafion they often dispense with their gravity, and feem really all alive. The difputes are managed between the followers of Cartefius, whofe exploded fyftem they continue to call the new philofophy, and thofe of Ariftotle. Though both parties are in the wrong, they argue with an obftinacy worthy the caufe of truth; Nego, Probo, and Diftinguo, grow loud; the difputants become warm, the moderator cannot be heard, the audience take part in the debate, till at laft the whole hall buzzes with fophiftry and error. There are, it is true, feveral focieties in this country which are chiefly calculated to promote knowledge. His late majefty as elector of Hanover has established one at Gottingen, at an expence of not less than a hundred thousand pounds. This univerfity has already pickled monsters, and diffected live puppies without number. Their tranf actions have been published in the learned world at proper intervals fince their inftitution; and will, it is hoped, one day give them juft reputation. But had the fourth part of the immenfe fum abovementioned been given in proper rewards to genius, in some neighbouring countries, it would have rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added to the real interefts of fociety. Yet it ought to be obferved, that of late learning has been patronifed here by a prince, who, in the humbleft ftation, would have been the first of mankind. The fociety established by the king of Pruffia at Berlin, is one of the fineft literary inftitutions that any age or nation has produced. This academy comprehends all the fciences, under four different claffes; and although the object of each is different, and admits of being feparately treated, yet these claffes mutually influence the progrefs of each other, and concur in the fame general defign. Experimental philofophy, mathematics, metaphyfics, and polite literature, are here carried on together. The members are not collected from among the ftudents of fome obfcure feminary, or the wits of a metropolis, but chofen from all the literati of Europe, fupported by the bounty, and ornamented by the productions of their royal founder. We can eafily difcern, how much fuch an inftitution excells any other now fubfifting. One fundamental error among focieties of this kind is their addicting themselves to one branch of fcience, or fome particular part of polite learning. Thus, in Germany, there are no where fo many eftablifhments of this nature; but as they generally profefs the promotion of natural or medical knowledge, he who reads their Acta will only find an obfcure farago of experiments, moft frequently terminated by no refulting phænomena. To make experiments is, I own, the only way to promote natural know ledge; ledge; but to treasure up every unfuccefsful enquiry into nature, or to communicate every experiment without conclufion, is not to promote science, but opprefs it. Had the members of these focieties enlarged their plans, and taken in art as well as fcience, one part of knowledge would have repreffed any faulty luxuriance in the other, and all would have mutually affifted each other's promotion. Besides, the fociety which, with a contempt of all collateral affiftance, admits of members fkilled in one fcience only, whatever their diligence or labour may be, will lofe much time in the difcovery of fuch truths as are well known already to the learned in a different line, confequently their progrefs must be flow in gaining a proper eminence from which to view their fubject, and their strength will be exhausted in attaining the station whence they should have fet out. With regard to the Royal Society of London, the greateft, and perhaps the oldeft inftitution of the kind, had it widened the bafis of its inftitution, though they might not have propagated more difcoveries, they would probably have delivered them in a more pleafing and compendious form. They would have been free from the contempt of the ill-natured, and the raillery of the wit, for which, even candour muft allow, there is but too much foundation. But the Berlin academy is fubject to none of all these inconveniences, but every one of its individuals is in a capacity of deriving more from the common stock than he contributes to it, while each academician ferves as a check upon the reft of his fellows. Yet, very probably, even this fine inftitution will foon decay. As it rofe, fo it, will decline with its great encourager. The fociety, if I may fo fpeak, is artificially fupported; the introduction of foreigners of learning was right; but in adopting a foreign language |