others are to advance their owne or others salvation. How many are there, who can bee at cost to hire a Coach, a Boate, a Barge, to carry them to a Play-house every day, where they must pay deare for their admission, Seates and Boxes; who will hardly be at any cost to convey themselves to a Sermon once a weeke, a moneth, a yeere, (especially on a weeke day) at a Church far nearer to them then the Play-house; where they may have Seates, have entrance, (yea spirituall Cordials, and celestial Dainties to refresh their soules,) without any money or expence. How many are there, who according to their severall qualities spend 2d. 3d. 4d. 6d. 12d. 18d. 2s. and sometimes 4 or 5 shillings at a Playhouse, day by day, if Coach-hire, Boate-hire, Tobacco, Wine, Beere, and such like vaine expences which Playes doe usually occasion, be cast into the reckoning; and that in these penurious times, who can hardly spare, who can never honestly get by their lawful callings, halfe so much. How many prodigally consume not onely their charity, apparell, diet, bookes, and other necessaries, but even their annuall Pensions, Revenues and Estates at Picke-purse Stage-playes; which are more expensive to them then all their necessary disbursements. If we summe up all the prodigall vaine expenses which Play-houses and Playes occasion every way, we shall finde them almost infinite, wel-nigh incredible, altogether intollerable in any Christian frugall state; which must needs abandon Stage-playes as the Athenians and Romans did at last even in this regard that they impoverish and quite ruine many; as the fore-quoted testimonies, with many domestique experiments, daily testifie.

Edmund Calamy (1600-66), born in London, studied at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and became chaplain to Felton, Bishop of Ely. In 1626–36 he was lecturer at Bury St Edmunds, but resigned when the order to read the Book of Sports was enforced; in 1639 he was chosen minister of St Mary Aldermanbury, London. He had a principal share in Smectymnuus (1641), a reply to Bishop Hall's Divine Right of Episcopacy. It was so called from the initials of the names of the writersStephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow (the 'uu' standing for the 'w' of 'William'). Calamy was much in favour with the Presbyterian party, but was, on the whole, a moderate man, and disapproved of those measures which ended in the death of the king. Having exerted himself to promote the restoration of Charles II., he received the offer of the bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield; but, after much deliberation, it was rejected. The passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662 made him retire from his ministerial duties, and he died heart-broken by the Great Fire of London. His sermons were of a plain and practical character; and five of them, published under the title of The Godly Man's Ark, or a City of Refuge in the Day of his Distress, acquired much popularity. -His grandson, EDMUND CALAMY, D.D. (16711732), studied three years at Utrecht, and declining Carstares' offer of a Scotch professorship, from 1694 was a Nonconformist minister in London. His

forty-one works include an Account of the Ejected Ministers (1702) and an interesting Autobiography, first published in 1829.

William Chillingworth (1602-44), a famous polemic, was born at Oxford, and was distinguished as a student there. Hales and Falkland were amongst his friends. An early love of disputation, in which he possessed eminent skill, developed a sceptical temper. A Jesuit named Fisher converted him to the Church of Rome-his chief argument being the necessity of an infallible living guide in matters of faith. He then studied at the Jesuits' College at Douay; and having been, imprudently, requested to write down the reasonings that led to his conversion, he studied anew the whole controversy and became ‘a doubting Papist.' Laud, his godfather, wrote a weighty series of letters to him; and his friends induced him to return to Oxford, where, after additional study of the points of difference, he declared in favour of the Protestant faith. His change of creed drew him into several controversies, in which he employed the arguments that were afterwards methodically stated in his famous work, entitled The Religion of the Protestants a safe way to Salvation, published in 1637. This treatise, which placed its author in the first rank of religious controversialists, is now, in spite of its following the line of argument of a now forgotten book attacking him, hailed as a model of perspicuous reasoning, and one of the ablest defences of the Protestant faith. The author maintains that the Scripture is the only rule to which appeal ought to be made in theological disputes, that no Church is infallible, and that the Apostles' Creed embraces all the necessary points of faith. The Arminian opinions of Chillingworth brought upon him the charge of latitudinarianism; and his character for orthodoxy was still further shaken by his refusal to accept of preferment on condition of subscribing the Thirtynine Articles. His scruples having at length been overcome, he was promoted, in 1638, to the chancellorship of Salisbury. During the Civil War he zealously adhered to the royal party, and even assisted as engineer at the siege of Gloucester in 1643. He died in the bishop's palace in Chichester in the succeeding year. Lord Clarendon, who was one of his intimate friends, has drawn the following character of this eminent divine: 'He was a man of so great a subtilty of understanding, and so rare a temper in debate, that, as it was impossible to provoke him into any passion, so it was very difficult to keep a man's self from being a little discomposed by his sharpness and quickness of argument, and instances in which he had a rare facility, and a great advantage over all the men I ever knew.' Writing to a Roman Catholic, in allusion to the changes of his ow faith, Chillingworth says:

Own

I know a man, that of a moderate Protestant turned a Papist, and the day that he did so, was convicted in

error.

conscience that his yesterday's opinion was an The same man afterwards, upon better consideration, became a doubting Papist, and of a doubting Papist a confirmed Protestant. And yet this man thinks himself no more to blame for all these changes, than a traveller who, using all diligence to find the right way to some remote city, did yet mistake it, and after find his error and amend it. Nay, he stands upon his justification so far, as to maintain that his alterations, not only to you, but also from you, by God's mercy, were the most satisfactory actions to himself that ever he did, and the greatest victories that ever he obtained over himself and his affections, in those things which in this world are most precious.

The following passages from his great work show a like spirit:

The Bible the Religion of Protestants. Know then, sir, that when I say the religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours, as, on the one side, I do not understand by your religion the doctrine of Bellarmine or Baroninus, or any other private man amongst you; nor the doctrine of the Sorbonne, or of the Jesuits, or of the Dominicans, or of any other particular company among you, but that wherein you all agree, or profess to agree, the doctrine of the Council of Trent;' so accordingly on the other side, by the 'religion of protestants,' I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon; nor the Confession of Augusta, or Geneva, nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, nor the Articles of the Church of England, no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of their faith and actions; that is, the BIBLE. The BIBLE, I say, the BIBLE only, is the religion of protestants! Whatsoever else they believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but as matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of 'the true way to eternal happiness,' do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this rock only. I see plainly and with mine own eyes, that there are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age against the church of another age. Traditive interpretations of scripture are pretended; but there are few or none to be found: no tradition, but only of scripture, can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of scripture only for any considering man to build upon.

reason

This therefore, and this only, I have

to believe this I will profess, according to this I will live, and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me.

Reason in Religion.

But you that would not have men follow their reason, what would you have them follow? their passions? or pluck out their eyes, and go blindfold? No, you say; you would have them follow authority. In God's name, let them; we also would have them follow authority; for it is upon the authority of universal tradition that we would have them believe Scripture. But then, as for the authority which you would have them follow, you will let them see reason why they should follow it. And is not this to go a little about?-to leave reason for a short turn, and then to come to it again, and to do that which you condemn in others? It being indeed a plain impossibility for any man to submit his reason but to reason; for he that doth it to authority, must of necessity think himself to have greater reason to believe that authority.

There is a Life by Des Maizeaux (1725), and one by Birch prefixed to his edition of the works (1742), which includes also nine Another edition was published in 1838 in 3 vols. See Tulloch's Rational Theology in England.

sermons.

John Gauden (1605-1662) was born at Mayland, near Maldon, in Essex ; was educated at Bury St Edmunds and St John's College, Cambridge; and on the commencement of the Civil War complied with the Presbyterian party. He received several church preferments, which he continued to hold even after the Parliament proceeded against monarchy. When the army resolved to impeach and try the king, in 1648, he published A Religious and Loyal Protestation against their purposes and proceedings, and other polemical tractates. But his grand service to the royal cause consisted in his writing Εἰκὼν Βασιλική; the Pourtraicture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings, a work which bears to be from the pen of Charles I. himself, and to contain the devout meditations of his later days. There appears to have been an intention to publish this Pourtraicture before the execution of the king, as an attempt to save his life by working on the feelings of the people; but it did not make its appearance till a day or two after His Majesty's death. The sensation which it produced in his favour was extraordinary. 'It is not easy,' says Hume, 'to conceive the general compassion excited towards the king by the publishing, at so critical a juncture, a work so full of piety, meekness, and humanity. Many have not scrupled to ascribe to that book the subsequent restoration of the royal family. Milton compares its effects to those which were wrought on the tumultuous Romans by Antony's reading to them the will of Cæsar.' So eagerly and universally was the book perused by the nation that it passed through forty-seven editions in a year. Milton, in his Eikonoclastes, alludes to the doubts which prevailed as to the authorship of the work, but at this time the real history was unknown. The first statements that it was by Gauden seem to have been made, by persons well qualified to know, as early as 1674, and rumours were plentifully current when in 1692 the book was expressly said to be Gauden's composition in a circumstantial

narrative published by Gauden's former curate, Walker. Several writers then entered the field on both sides of the question; the principal defender of the king's claim being Wagstaffe, a nonjuring clergyman, who published an elaborate Vindication of King Charles the Martyr in 1693. For ten years subsequently the literary war continued; but after this there ensued a long interval of repose. When Hume wrote his History, the evidence on the two sides appeared so equally balanced that, 'with regard to the genuineness of that production, it is not easy,' says he, 'for a historian to fix any opinion which will be entirely to his own satisfaction.' In 1786, however, the scale of evidence was turned by the publication, in the third volume of the Clarendon State Papers, of some of Gauden's letters, the most important of which are six addressed by him to Lord Chancellor Clarendon after the Restoration. He there complains of the poverty

of the see of Exeter, to which he had already been appointed, and urgently solicits a further reward for the important secret service which he had performed to the royal cause. Some of these letters, containing allusions to the circumstance, had formerly been printed, though in a less authentic form; but now for the first time appeared one, dated the 13th of March 1661, in which he explicitly grounds his claim to additional remuneration, 'not on what was known to the world under my name, but what goes under the late blessed king's name, the Eikon or Portraiture of his Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings. This book and figure,' he adds, 'was wholly and only my invention, making, and design; in order to vindicate the king's wisdom, honour, and piety.' He professed to have begun it in 1647, and to have submitted a MS. copy to the king in the Isle of Wight. Clarendon seems to have spoken in the last year of his life as if he did not admit Gauden's authorship; but in his History of the Rebellion, undertaken at the desire of Charles I. and avowedly intended as a vindication of the royal character and cause, he maintains the most rigid silence with respect to the Eikon Basilike. The troublesome solicitations of Gauden were so effectual as to lead to his promotion, in 1662, to the bishopric of Worcester; a dignity, however, which he did not long enjoy, for he died in the same year. The controversy as to the authorship of the Eikon Basilike is by some still decided in favour of the king. Such was the conclusion arrived at in a work published in 1824 by Dr Wordsworth, Master of Trinity College; Southey took the same view, which was energetically maintained in Mr E. J. L. Scott's edition of the Eikon (1880). But the arguments of Malcolm Laing, Todd, Sir James Mackintosh, Hallam, Lingard, and most historians down to Green accept Gauden's claim (acquiesced in by many of his royalist contemporaries) to be considered the author. Doble in the Academy for May and June 1883 makes out a strong case for Gauden's authorship. Internal evidence supports Gauden's claim;

The various successes of this unhappy war have at least afforded me variety of good meditations. Sometimes God was pleased to try me with victory, by worsting my enemies, that I might know how with moderation and thanks to own and use his power, who is only the true Lord of Hosts, able when he pleases to represse the confidence of those that fought against me with so great advantages for power and number.

From small beginnings on my part, he let me see that I was not wholly forsaken by my people's love or his protection. Other times God was pleased to exercise my patience, and teach me not to trust in the arm of flesh, but in the living God. My sins sometimes prevailed against the justice of my cause; and those that were with me wanted not matter and occasion for his just chastisement both of them and me. Nor were my enemies lesse punished by that prosperity, which hardened them to continue that injustice by open hostility, which was begun by most riotous and unparliamentary tumults. There is no doubt but personall and private sins may ofttimes overbalance the justice of public engagements; nor doth God account every gallant man (in the world's esteeme) a fit instrument to assert in the way of war a righteous cause. The more men are prone to arrogate to their own skill, valour, and strength, the lesse doth God ordinarily work by them for his own glory. I am sure the event or successe can never state the justice of any cause, nor the peace of men's consciences, nor the eternal fate of their soules.

Those with me had (I think) clearly and undoubtedly for their justification the Word of God and the laws of the land, together with their own oathes; all requiring obedience to my just commands; but to none other under heaven without me, or against me, in the point of raising armes. Those on the other side are forced to flie to the shifts of some pretended fears, and wild fundamentals of state (as they call them) which actually overthrow the present fabrick both of church and state; being such imaginary reasons for self-defence as are most impertinent for those men to alledge, who, being my subjects, were manifestly the first assaulters of me and the lawes: first by unsuppressed tumults, after by listed forces. The same allegations they use, will fit any faction that hath but power and confidence enough to second with the sword all their demands against the present lawes and governours, which can never be such as some side or other will not find fault with, so as to urge what they call a reformation of them to a rebellion against them. Some parasitick preachers have dared to call those martyrs who died fighting against me, the lawes, their oathes, and the religion established.

Arthur Wilson (1595-1652), born at Yarmouth, became secretary to Robert, Earl of Essex, afterwards Parliamentary general in the Civil Wars, whom he accompanied on his Continental campaigns (1620-25); and in 1633, after two years' study at Oxford, entered the service of the second Earl of Warwick, colonial adventurer and Parliamentary admiral. Wilson too was hostile to the

Stewart régime; and his Life and Reign of King James I., published in 1653, was called by Heylyn 'a most famous pasquil.' The Inconstant Lady, his only extant drama, was printed in 1814.

Sir Anthony Weldon gives an even more unfavourable picture of the same period in his Court and Character of King James. Having as Clerk of the Kitchen accompanied the king to Scotland in 1617, Weldon wrote a highly depreciatory account of Scotland, and was dismissed from office. He revenged himself by drawing up this sketch of the court and its monarch, in which a graphic but bitterly overcharged description of James's personal appearance, habits, and oddities is given. Weldon seems to have died about 1649.

Baker's Chronicle, long the standard English history, takes its name from Sir Richard Baker (1568–1645), who, born in Kent and educated at Oxford, was knighted in 1603. High-Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1620, in 1635 he was thrown for debt into the Fleet Prison, where he died. There he wrote his famous but far from accurate Chronicle of the Kings of England unto the Death of King James (1643). Other works penned in prison were Meditations and Disquisitions on portions of Scripture, translations of Balzac's Letters and Malvezzi's Discourses on Tacitus, and two pieces in defence of the theatre. Probably no part of Baker's own Chronicle was more popular with country gentlemen than its continuation by Edward Phillips (1630-96?), Milton's nephew, who, carefully trained by the poet, became a hack writer, producing poems, dictionaries, bombastic novels, an edition of Drummond's poems, &c. His most considerable effort was his continuation of the Chronicle to the coronation of Charles II. The critical period of the civil troubles was wholly the work of Phillips, who wrote from the standpoint of a decided royalist; for the Restoration he had the help (if not the MS.) of Monk's brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges. The fourth edition (1662) became the standard one; the eighth appeared in 1684. Addison makes the Chronicle the favourite reading of Sir Roger de Coverley, who kept it lying in his hall window. Doubtless Sir Roger often read the story of the king's execution (much 'contracted' in the 1730 and later editions):

On Tuesday the 30th of January, which was the fatal day on which the king was put to death, the Bishop of London did in the morning read divine service in his presence; to which duty the xxvii. chapter of St Matthew, being the history of our Saviours passion, was appointed by the Church-Calendar for the second lesson: but he, supposing it to have been selected on purpose, thanked him afterwards for his seasonable choice. But the bishop modestly declining those undue thanks, told him that it came by course to be read on that day, which very much comforted His Majesty, who proceeded to the remaining duties of receiving from the bishop the holy sacrament, and the other preparations for his approaching passion. His devotions being ended, about ten a clock he was brought from St James's to White-hall by a regiment of

foot, with colours flying, and drums beating (through the Park), part marching before and part behind, with a private guard of partisans abou: him, the bishop on the one hand and Colonel Tomlinson (who had the charge of him) on the other bare-headed. The guards marching a slow pace, as on a solemn and sad occasion to their illtuned drums, he bid them go faster (as his usual manner of walking was), saying, That he now went before them to strive for an heavenly crown with less sollicitude than he had often encouraged his souldiers to fight for an earthly diadem.

Being come to the end of the Park, he went up the stairs leading to the Long Gallery in White-Hall, where he used formerly to lodge. There finding an unexpected delay in being brought upon the scaffold, which they had begun but that morning, he past the most of that time (having received a letter from the prince in the interim by Mr Seymor) in prayer.

About twelve a clock, His Majesty (refusing to dine) eat onely a bit of bread, and drank a glass of claret; and about an hour after Colonel Hacker, with other officers and souldiers, brought him with the bishop and Colonel Tomlinson through the banquetting-house to the scaffold, whereto the passage was made through a window. A strong guard of several regiments of horse and foot were placed on all sides, which hindred the near approach of his miserable and distracted subjects (who for manifesting their sorrow, were most barbarously used), and the king from speaking what he had designed for their ears: whereupon finding himself disappointed, he omitted much of his intended matter, but having viewed the scaffold (which had irons driven in it to force him down to the block by ropes, if that he should have resisted) and the ax (of whose edge he was very careful), having minded one present of touching it with his cloak [sic]. . .

Being upon the scaffold, he looked very earnestly upon the block, and asked Colonel Hacker if it could be no higher and then spoke thus (directing his speech chiefly to the bishop and Colonel Tomlinson). . . .

[Then follows the king's speech in full.]

Bishop. Though your Majesties affections may be very well known to religion, yet it may be expected that you should say somewhat thereof for the worlds satisfaction.

King. I thank you very heartily, my lord, for that I had almost forgotten it; in troth, sirs, my conscience in religion I think is very well known to all the world, and therefore I declare before you all that I die a Christian, according to the profession of the Church of England, as I found it left me by my father, and this honest man I think will witness it. Then speaking to the executioner he said, I shall say but very short prayers, and when I thrust out my hands-let that be your sign.

Then he called to the bishop for his night-cap, and having put it on, he said to the executioner, Does my hair trouble you? who desired him to put it all under his cap, which the king did accordingly by the help of the executioner and the bishop: then the king turning to the bishop said, I have a good cause and a gracious God on my side.

Bishop. There is but one stage more, this stage is turbulent and troublesome, it is a short one: but you may consider it will soon carry you a very great way: it will carry you from earth to heaven, and there you will find a great deal of cordial joy and comfort.

King. I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.

Bishop. You are exchanged from a temporary to an eternal crown, a good exchange.

The king then said to the executioner, Is my hair well? and took off his cloak and his George, giving his George to the bishop, saying, Remember. Then he put off his doublet, and being in his wastcoat, he put his cloak on again; then looking upon the block, he said to the executioner, You must set it fast.

Executioner. It is fast, sir.

King. When I put my hands out this way-stretching them out-then do your work.

After that, having said two or three words (as he stood) to himself, with hands and eyes lift up, immediately stooping down, he laid his neck upon the block : and then the executioner again putting his hair under his cap, the king (thinking he had been going to strike) said, Stay for the sign.

Executioner. Yes, I will, and it please your Majesty. And after a very little pause, the king stretching forth his hands, the executioner at one blow severed his head from his body; the head being off, the executioner held it up, and shewed it to the people, which done, it was with the body put in a coffin covered with black velvet for that purpose, and conveyed into his lodgings at White-Hall; and from thence it was carried to his house at Saint James's, where his body was embalmed and put in a coffin of lead, and laid there a fortnight to be seen by the people: and on Wednesday seven-night after, his corps embalmed and coffin'd in lead, was delivered chiefly to the care of four of his servants, viz. Mr Herbert, Capt. Anthony Mildmay, his sewers, Captain Preston, and John Joyner (formerly cook to his Majesty), who with others in mourning, accompanied the herse that night to Windsor, and placed it in that which was formerly the kings bedchamber whence it was next day removed into the Deans Hall, and from thence by the Duke of Richmond, the Marquess of Hertford, the Marquess of Dorchester, and the Earl of Lindsey, conveyed to St George his chappel, and the corps there interred in the vault (as is supposed) of King Henry the VIII. and Queen Jane, with this inscription upon the coffin,

:

CHARLES KING OF ENGLAND.

M. DC. XL. VIII.

Apropos of the carp Izaak Walton quoted the Chronicle to this effect:

Hops and turkeys, carps and beer,
Came into England all in a year.

Sir William Dugdale (1605-86), antiquary, was born at Shustoke, near Coleshill, in Warwickshire. He studied law and history under his father, soon after whose death he purchased the neighbouring manor of Blythe (1625). Created Rouge Croix pursuivant (1640), he during the Great Rebellion adhered to the royalist cause, and from 1642 to 1646 was at Oxford, the king's headquarters, being made M.A. and Chester herald. He lived in obscurity during the Commonwealth, but on the Restoration received the office of Norroy, and in 1677 was promoted to be Garter Principal King of Arms and knight. His works are the Monasticon Anglicanum (165561-73), a Latin history of English religious founda

tions (Eng. ed. 6 vols. 1817-30); Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656; 3d ed. 1763-65); History of St Paul's Cathedral (1658); History of Imbanking and Drayning (1662); Origines Juridiciales (1666); and Baronage of England (3 vols. 1675-76). See his Life, Diary, and Correspondence, edited by William Hamper (1827).

Elias Ashmole (1617–92), antiquary, was born at Lichfield, and became a solicitor, but, a hearty royalist, entered Brazenose College, Oxford, where he applied himself to mathematics, natural philosophy, astronomy, astrology, and alchemy. In 1646 he became acquainted with Lilly and other astrologers; and in 1650 he edited a work of Dr Dee's, to which he subjoined a treatise of his own. In 1652 he issued his Theatrum Chymicum, and in 1672 his magnum opus, a History of the Order of

the Garter. At the Restoration various honours were conferred upon him, and thenceforward he mainly devoted himself to heraldic and antiquarian studies. In 1682 he presented to the University of Oxford a fine collection of rarities, bequeathed him by his old friend John Tradescant (1608–62), gardener to Charles I., which, originally the Museum Tradescantianum, was thereafter known as the Ashmolean Museum. Among his friends were Selden and Dugdale, whose daughter became his third wife. His Diary (1717) is entertaining.

Sir Thomas Browne,

the learned, desultory, eloquent writer of the Religio Medici, was born in London in 1605, and after being educated at Winchester and Oxford, travelled in Ireland, and also in France, Italy, and Holland. He took his doctor's degree at Leyden, and settled in 1637 as a medical practitioner at Norwich. He was knighted by Charles II. on his visit to Norwich in 1671. Browne's first and greatest work, Religio Medici (The Religion of a Physician'), written about 1635, was published surreptitiously in 1642, and next year a perfect copy was issued by himself; this, his confession of faith, revealing a deep insight into the mysteries of the spiritual life, immediately rendered the author famous in the literary world. Here he gives a minute account of his opinions, not only on religion, but on an endless variety of philosophical and abstruse questions, besides affording the reader glimpses into the eccentricities of his personal character. The language of the work is bold and poetical, adorned with picturesque imagery, though frequently pedantic, rugged, and obscure. His most elaborate work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into . . . Vulgar Errors, appeared in 1646, and is a strange and discursive amalgam of humour, acuteness, learning, and credulity. The following enumeration of some of the errors which he endeavours to dispel will serve both to show the kind of subjects he was fond of investigating, and to exemplify the notions which prevailed in the seventeenth century: