No More Learning

If their assemblies have been suddenly dissolved, what was the reason?
Their deliberations were indecent, and their intentions seditious. The
power of dissolution is granted and reserved for such times of
turbulence. Their best friends have been lately soliciting the king to
dissolve his parliament; to do what they so loudly complain of
suffering.

That the same vengeance involves the innocent and guilty, is an evil to
be lamented; but human caution cannot prevent it, nor human power always
redress it. To bring misery on those who have not deserved it, is part
of the aggregated guilt of rebellion.

That governours have been sometimes given them, only that a great man
might get ease from importunity, and that they have had judges, not
always of the deepest learning, or the purest integrity, we have no
great reason to doubt, because such misfortunes happen to ourselves.
Whoever is governed, will, sometimes, be governed ill, even when he is
most "concerned in his own government. "

That improper officers or magistrates are sent, is the crime or folly of
those that sent them. When incapacity is discovered, it ought to be
removed; if corruption is detected, it ought to be punished. No
government could subsist for a day, if single errours could justify
defection.

One of their complaints is not such as can claim much commiseration from
the softest bosom. They tell us, that we have changed our conduct, and
that a tax is now laid, by parliament, on those who were never taxed by
parliament before. To this, we think, it may be easily answered, that
the longer they have been spared, the better they can pay.

It is certainly not much their interest to represent innovation as
criminal or invidious; for they have introduced into the history of
mankind a new mode of disaffection, and have given, I believe, the first
example of a proscription published by a colony against the
mother-country.

To what is urged of new powers granted to the courts of admiralty, or
the extension of authority conferred on the judges, it may be answered,
in a few words, that they have themselves made such regulations
necessary; that they are established for the prevention of greater
evils; at the same time, it must be observed, that these powers have not
been extended since the rebellion in America.

One mode of persuasion their ingenuity has suggested, which it may,
perhaps, be less easy to resist. That we may not look with indifference
on the American contest, or imagine that the struggle is for a claim,
which, however decided, is of small importance and remote consequence,
the Philadelphian congress has taken care to inform us, that they are
resisting the demands of parliament, as well for our sakes as their own.

Their keenness of perspicacity has enabled them to pursue consequences
to a greater distance; to see through clouds impervious to the dimness
of European sight; and to find, I know not how, that when they are
taxed, we shall be enslaved.

That slavery is a miserable state we have been often told, and,
doubtless, many a Briton will tremble to find it so near as in America;
but how it will be brought hither the congress must inform us. The
question might distress a common understanding; but the statesmen of the
other hemisphere can easily resolve it. "Our ministers," they say, "axe
our enemies, and if they should carry the point of taxation, may, with
the same army, enslave us. It may be said, we will not pay them; but
remember," say the western sages, "the taxes from America, and, we may
add, the men, and particularly the Roman catholicks of this vast
continent, will then be in the power of your enemies. Nor have you any
reason to expect, that, after making slaves of us, many of us will
refuse to assist in reducing you to the same abject state. "

These are dreadful menaces; but suspecting that they have not much the
sound of probability, the congress proceeds: "Do not treat this as
chimerical. Know, that in less than half a century, the quitrents
reserved to the crown, from the numberless grants of this vast
continent, will pour large streams of wealth into the royal coffers. If
to this be added the power of taxing America, at pleasure, the crown
will possess more treasure than may be necessary to purchase the remains
of liberty in your island. "

All this is very dreadful; but, amidst the terrour that shakes my frame,
I cannot forbear to wish, that some sluice were opened for these streams
of treasure. I should gladly see America return half of what England has
expended in her defence; and of the stream that will "flow so largely in
less than half a century," I hope a small rill, at least, may be found
to quench the thirst of the present generation, which seems to think
itself in more danger of wanting money, than of losing liberty.

It is difficult to judge with what intention such airy bursts of
malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather
repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation.

In this last terrifick paragraph are two positions, that, if our fears
do not overpower our reflection, may enable us to support life a little
longer. We are told by these croakers of calamity, not only that our
present ministers design to enslave us, but that the same malignity of
purpose is to descend through all their successors; and that the wealth
to be poured into England by the Pactolus of America, will, whenever it
comes, be employed to purchase the "remains of liberty. "

Of those who now conduct the national affairs, we may, without much
arrogance, presume to know more than themselves; and of those who shall
succeed them, whether minister or king, not to know less.

The other position is, that "the crown," if this laudable opposition
should not be successful, "will have the power of taxing America at
pleasure. " Surely they think rather too meanly of our apprehensions,
when they suppose us not to know what they well know themselves, that
they are taxed, like all other British subjects, by parliament; and that
the crown has not, by the new imposts, whether right or wrong, obtained
any additional power over their possessions.

It were a curious, but an idle speculation, to inquire, what effect
these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter
among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really
dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to
communicate the same perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But,
probably, in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries,
that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands
among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the address,
though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet,
probably, wiser than to believe it: but they have been taught, by some
master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political
electricity; to attract, by the sounds of liberty and property; to
repel, by those of popery and slavery; and to give the great stroke, by
the name of Boston.

When subordinate communities oppose the decrees of the general
legislature with defiance thus audacious, and malignity thus
acrimonious, nothing remains but to conquer or to yield; to allow their
claim of independence, or to reduce them, by force, to submission and
allegiance.

It might be hoped, that no Englishman could be found, whom the menaces
of our own colonists, just rescued from the French, would not move to
indignation, like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found
themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves.

That corporations, constituted by favour, and existing by sufferance,
should dare to prohibit commerce with their native country, and threaten
individuals by infamy, and societies with, at least, suspension of
amity, for daring to be more obedient to government than themselves, is
a degree of insolence which not only deserves to be punished, but of
which the punishment is loudly demanded by the order of life and the
peace of nations.

Yet there have risen up, in the face of the publick, men who, by
whatever corruptions, or whatever infatuation, have undertaken to defend
the Americans, endeavour to shelter them from resentment, and propose
reconciliation without submission.

As political diseases are naturally contagious, let it be supposed, for
a moment, that Cornwall, seized with the Philadelphian phrensy, may
resolve to separate itself from the general system of the English
constitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament. A
congress might then meet at Truro, and address the other counties in a
style not unlike the language of the American patriots:

"FRIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,--We, the delegates of the several towns
and parishes of Cornwall, assembled to deliberate upon our own state,
and that of our constituents, having, after serious debate and calm
consideration, settled the scheme of our future conduct, hold it
necessary to declare the resolutions which we think ourselves entitled
to form, by the unalienable rights of reasonable beings, and into which
we have been compelled by grievances and oppressions, long endured by us
in patient silence, not because we did not feel, or could not remove
them, but because we were unwilling to give disturbance to a settled
government, and hoped that others would, in time, find, like ourselves,
their true interest and their original powers, and all cooperate to
universal happiness.

"But since, having long indulged the pleasing expectation, we find
general discontent not likely to increase, or not likely to end in
general defection, we resolve to erect alone the standard of liberty.

"Know then, that you are no longer to consider Cornwall as an English
county, visited by English judges, receiving law from an English
parliament, or included in any general taxation of the kingdom; but as a
state, distinct and independent, governed by its own institutions,
administered by its own magistrates, and exempt from any tax or tribute,
but such as we shall impose upon ourselves.

"We are the acknowledged descendants of the earliest inhabitants of
Britain, of men, who, before the time of history, took possession of the
island desolate and waste, and, therefore, open to the first occupants.
Of this descent, our language is a sufficient proof, which, not quite a
century ago, was different from yours.

"Such are the Cornishmen; but who are you? who, but the unauthorised and
lawless children of intruders, invaders, and oppressors? who, but the
transmitters of wrong, the inheritors of robbery? In claiming
independence, we claim but little. We might require you to depart from a
land which you possess by usurpation, and to restore all that you have
taken from us.

"Independence is the gift of nature. No man is born the master of
another. Every Cornishman is a freeman; for we have never resigned the
rights of humanity: and he only can be thought free, who is 'not
governed but by his own consent.

"You may urge, that the present system of government has descended
through many ages, and that we have a larger part in the representation
of the kingdom than any other county.

"All this is true, but it is neither cogent nor persuasive. We look to
the original of things. Our union with the English counties was either
compelled by force, or settled by compact.

"That which was made by violence, may by violence be broken. If we were
treated as a conquered people, our rights might be obscured, but could
never be extinguished. The sword can give nothing but power, which a
sharper sword can take away.

"If our union was by compact, whom could the compact bind, but those
that concurred in the stipulations? We gave our ancestors no commission
to settle the terms of future existence. They might be cowards that were
frighted, or blockheads that were cheated; but, whatever they were, they
could contract only for themselves. What they could establish, we can
annul.

"Against our present form of government, it shall stand in the place of
all argument, that we do not like it. While we are governed as we do not
like, where is our liberty? We do not like taxes, we will, therefore,
not be taxed: we do not like your laws, and will not obey them.

"The taxes laid by our representatives, are laid, you tell us, by our
own consent; but we will no longer consent to be represented. Our number
of legislators was originally a burden, and ought to have been refused;
it is now considered as a disproportionate advantage; who, then, will
complain if we resign it?

"We shall form a senate of our own, under a president whom the king
shall nominate, but whose authority we will limit, by adjusting his
salary to his merit. We will not withhold a proper share of contribution
to the necessary expense of lawful government, but we will decide for
ourselves what share is proper, what expense is necessary, and what
government is lawful.

"Till our counsel is proclaimed independent and unaccountable, we will,
after the tenth day of September, keep our tin in our own hands: you can
be supplied from no other place, and must, therefore, comply, or be
poisoned with the copper of your own kitchens.

"If any Cornishman shall refuse his name to this just and laudable
association, he shall be tumbled from St. Michael's mount, or buried
alive in a tin-mine; and if any emissary shall be found seducing
Cornishmen to their former state, he shall be smeared with tar, and
rolled in feathers, and chased with dogs out of our dominions.

"From the Cornish congress at Truro. "

Of this memorial, what could be said, but that it was written in jest,
or written by a madman? Yet I know not whether the warmest admirers of
Pennsylvanian eloquence, can find any argument in the addresses of the
congress, that is not, with greater strength, urged by the Cornishman.

The argument of the irregular troops of controversy, stripped of its
colours, and turned out naked to the view, is no more than this. Liberty
is the birthright of man, and where obedience is compelled, there is no
liberty. The answer is equally simple. Government is necessary to man,
and where obedience is not compelled, there is no government.

If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of authority to use
compulsion. Society cannot subsist but by the power, first of making
laws, and then of enforcing them.

To one of the threats hissed out by the congress, I have put nothing
similar into the Cornish proclamation; because it is too wild for folly,
and too foolish for madness. If we do not withhold our king and his
parliament from taxing them, they will cross the Atlantick, and enslave
us.

How they will come, they have not told us; perhaps they will take wing,
and light upon our coasts. When the cranes thus begin to flutter, it is
time for pygmies to keep their eyes about them. The great orator
observes, that they will be very fit, after they have been taxed, to
impose chains upon us. If they are so fit as their friend describes
them, and so willing as they describe themselves, let us increase our
army, and double our militia.

It has been, of late, a very general practice to talk of slavery among
those who are setting at defiance every power that keeps the world in
order. If the learned author of the Reflections on Learning has rightly
observed, that no man ever could give law to language, it will be vain
to prohibit the use of the word slavery; but I could wish it more
discreetly uttered: it is driven, at one time, too hard into our ears by
the loud hurricane of Pennsylvanian eloquence, and, at another, glides
too cold into our hearts by the soft conveyance of a female patriot,
bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.

Such has been the progress of sedition, that those who, a few years ago,
disputed only our right of laying taxes, now question the validity of
every act of legislation. They consider themselves as emancipated from
obedience, and as being no longer the subjects of the British crown.
They leave us no choice, but of yielding or conquering, of resigning our
dominion or maintaining it by force.

From force many endeavours have been used, either to dissuade, or to
deter us. Sometimes the merit of the Americans is exalted, and sometimes
their sufferings are aggravated. We are told of their contributions to
the last war; a war incited by their outcries, and continued for their
protection; a war by which none but themselves were gainers. All that
they can boast is, that they did something for themselves, and did not
wholly stand inactive, while the sons of Britain were fighting in their
cause.

If we cannot admire, we are called to pity them; to pity those that show
no regard to their mother-country; have obeyed no law, which they could
violate; have imparted no good, which they could withhold; have entered
into associations of fraud to rob their creditors; and into combinations
to distress all who depended on their commerce. We are reproached with
the cruelty of shutting one port, where every port is shut against us.
We are censured as tyrannical, for hindering those from fishing, who
have condemned our merchants to bankruptcy, and our manufacturers to
hunger.

Others persuade us to give them more liberty, to take off restraints,
and relax authority; and tell us what happy consequences will arise from
forbearance; how their affections will be conciliated, and into what
diffusions of beneficence their gratitude will luxuriate. They will love
their friends. They will reverence their protectors. They will throw
themselves into our arms, and lay their property at our feet; they will
buy from no other what we can sell them; they will sell to no other what
we wish to buy.

That any obligations should overpower their attention to profit, we have
known them long enough not to expect. It is not to be expected from a
more liberal people. With what kindness they repay benefits, they are
now showing us, who, as soon as we have delivered them from France, are
defying and proscribing us.

But if we will permit them to tax themselves, they will give us more
than we require. If we proclaim them independent, they will, during
pleasure, pay us a subsidy. The contest is not now for money, but for
power. The question is not, how much we shall collect, but, by what
authority the collection shall be made.

Those who find that the Americans cannot be shown, in any form, that may
raise love or pity, dress them in habiliments of terrour, and try to
make us think them formidable. The Bostonians can call into the field
ninety thousand men. While we conquer all before us, new enemies will
rise up behind, and our work will be always to begin. If we take
possession of the towns, the colonists will retire into the inland
regions, and the gain of victory will be only empty houses, and a wide
extent of waste and desolation. If we subdue them for the present, they
will universally revolt in the next war, and resign us, without pity, to
subjection and destruction.

To all this it may be answered, that between losing America, and
resigning it, there is no great difference; that it is not very
reasonable to jump into the sea, because the ship is leaky. All those
evils may befall us, but we need not hasten them.

The dean of Gloucester has proposed, and seems to propose it seriously,
that we should, at once, release our claims, declare them masters of
themselves, and whistle them down the wind. His opinion is, that our
gain from them will be the same, and our expense less. What they can
have most cheaply from Britain, they will still buy; what they can sell
to us at the highest price, they will still sell.

It is, however, a little hard, that, having so lately fought and
conquered for their safety, we should govern them no longer. By letting
them loose before the war, how many millions might have been saved. One
wild proposal is best answered by another. Let us restore to the French
what we have taken from them. We shall see our colonists at our feet,
when they have an enemy so near them. Let us give the Indians arms, and
teach them discipline, and encourage them, now and then, to plunder a
plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition.

While these different opinions are agitated, it seems to be determined,
by the legislature, that force shall be tried. Men of the pen have
seldom any great skill in conquering kingdoms, but they have strong
inclination to give advice. I cannot forbear to wish, that this
commotion may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued
by terrour rather than by violence; and, therefore, recommend such a
force as may take away, not only the power, but the hope of resistance,
and, by conquering without a battle, save many from the sword.

If their obstinacy continues, without actual hostilities, it may,
perhaps, be mollified, by turning out the soldiers to free quarters,
forbidding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the
slaves should be set free, an act which, surely, the lovers of liberty
cannot but commend. If they are furnished with firearms for defence, and
utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government
within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their
masters.

Far be it from any Englishman, to thirst for the blood of his
fellow-subjects. Those who most deserve our resentment are, unhappily,
at less distance. The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed,
undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they
had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by
European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who
were friends only to themselves.

On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out
its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious
contest, they are, themselves, equally detestable. If they wish success
to the colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they wish their
defeat, they are traitors, at once, to America and England. To them, and
them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the
miseries of war, the sorrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood
of those that shall fall.

Since the Americans have made it necessary to subdue them, may they be
subdued with the least injury possible to their persons and their
possessions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be
secured by stricter laws and stronger obligations!

Nothing can be more noxious to society, than that erroneous clemency,
which, when a rebellion is suppressed, exacts no forfeiture, and
establishes no securities, but leaves the rebels in their former state.
Who would not try the experiment, which promises advantage without
expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are
accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less
than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is
always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by
victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps,
gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction
of their port.

Their charters being now, I suppose, legally forfeited, may be modelled,
as shall appear most commodious to the mother-country. Thus the
privileges which are found, by experience, liable to misuse, will be
taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as soldiers,
and domineer as legislators, will sink into sober merchants and silent
planters, peaceably diligent, and securely rich.

But there is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom
the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous,
and who startle at the thoughts of "England free, and America in
chains. " Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are
frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word;
but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations
between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will
be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of
English superiority and American obedience.

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution
of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious
politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious,
how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers
of negroes?

But let us interrupt awhile this dream of conquest, settlement, and
supremacy. Let us remember, that being to contend, according to one
orator, with three millions of whigs, and, according to another, with
ninety thousand patriots of Massachusetts bay, we may possibly be
checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon
equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and forbidden to
violate, a second time, the happy borders of the land of liberty. The
time is now, perhaps, at hand, which sir Thomas Browne predicted,
between jest and earnest:

"When America should no more send out her treasure,
But spend it at home in American pleasure. "

If we are allowed, upon our defeat, to stipulate conditions, I hope the
treaty of Boston will permit us to import into the confederated cantons
such products as they do not raise, and such manufactures as they do not
make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying, like others,
the appointed customs; that, if an English ship salutes a fort with four
guns, it shall be answered, at least, with two; and that, if an
Englishman be inclined to hold a plantation, he shall only take an oath
of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be suffered, while he lives
inoffensively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolested
in his conscience by an oath of abjuration.






LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS.




FATHER PAUL SARPI [33].


Father Paul, whose name, before he entered into the monastick life,
was Peter Sarpi, was born at Venice, August 14, 1552. His father
followed merchandise, but with so little success, that, at his death,
he left his family very ill provided for; but under the care of a
mother, whose piety was likely to bring the blessings of providence
upon them, and whose wise conduct supplied the want of fortune by
advantages of greater value.

Happily for young Sarpi, she had a brother, master of a celebrated
school, under whose direction he was placed by her. Here he lost no
time; but cultivated his abilities, naturally of the first rate, with
unwearied application. He was born for study, having a natural
aversion to pleasure and gaiety, and a memory so tenacious, that he
could repeat thirty verses upon once hearing them.

Proportionable to his capacity was his progress in literature: at
thirteen, having made himself master of school-learning, he turned his
studies to philosophy and the mathematicks; and entered upon logick,
under Capella, of Cremona; who, though a celebrated master of that
science, confessed himself, in a very little time, unable to give his
pupil further instructions.

As Capella was of the order of the Servites, his scholar was induced,
by his acquaintance with him, to engage in the same profession, though
his uncle and his mother represented to him the hardships and
austerities of that kind of life, and advised him, with great zeal,
against it.

But he was steady in his resolutions, and, in 1566, took the habit of
the order, being then only in his fourteenth year, a time of life, in
most persons, very improper for such engagements; but, in him,
attended with such maturity of thought, and such a settled temper,
that he never seemed to regret the choice he then made, and which he
confirmed by a solemn publick profession, in 1572.

At a general chapter of the Servites, held at Mantua, Paul, for so we
shall now call him, being then only twenty years old, distinguished
himself so much, in a publick disputation, by his genius and learning,
that William, duke of Mantua, a great patron of letters, solicited the
consent of his superiours to retain him at his court; and not only
made him publick professor of divinity in the cathedral, but honoured
him with many proofs of his esteem.

But father Paul, finding a court life not agreeable to his temper,
quitted it two years afterwards, and retired to his beloved privacies,
being then not only acquainted with the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and
Chaldee languages, but with philosophy, the mathematicks, canon and
civil law, all parts of natural philosophy, and chymistry itself; for
his application was unremitted, his head clear, his apprehension
quick, and his memory retentive.

Being made a priest, at twenty-two, he was distinguished by the
illustrious cardinal Borromeo with his confidence, and employed by
him, on many occasions, not without the envy of persons of less merit,
who were so far exasperated as to lay a charge against him, before the
inquisition, for denying that the trinity could be proved from the
first chapter of Genesis; but the accusation was too ridiculous to be
taken notice of.

After this, he passed successively through the dignities of his order,
and, in the intervals of his employment, applied himself to his
studies with so extensive a capacity, as left no branch of knowledge
untouched. By him Acquapendente, the great anatomist, confesses, that
he was informed how vision is performed; and there are proofs, that he
was not a stranger to the circulation of the blood.

He frequently conversed upon astronomy with mathematicians; upon
anatomy with surgeons; upon medicine with physicians; and with
chymists upon the analysis of metals, not as a superficial inquirer,
but as a complete master.

But the hours of repose, that he employed so well, were interrupted by
a new information in the inquisition, where a former acquaintance
produced a letter, written by him, in ciphers, in which he said, "that
he detested the court of Rome, and that no preferment was obtained
there, but by dishonest means. " This accusation, however dangerous,
was passed over, on account of his great reputation, but made such
impression on that court, that he was afterward denied a bishoprick by
Clement the eighth. After these difficulties were surmounted, father
Paul again retired to his solitude, where he appears, by some writings
drawn up by him at that time, to have turned his attention more to
improvements in piety than learning. Such was the care with which he
read the scriptures, that, it being his custom to draw a line under
any passage which he intended more nicely to consider, there was not a
single word in his New Testament but was underlined; the same marks of
attention appeared in his Old Testament, Psalter, and Breviary.

But the most active scene of his life began about the year 1615, when
pope Paul the fifth, exasperated by some decrees of the senate of
Venice, that interfered with the pretended rights of the church, laid
the whole state under an interdict.

The senate, filled with indignation at this treatment, forbade the
bishops to receive or publish the pope's bull; and, convening the
rectors of the churches, commanded them to celebrate divine service in
the accustomed manner, with which most of them readily complied; but
the jesuits, and some others, refusing, were, by a solemn edict,
expelled the state.

Both parties having proceeded to extremities, employed their ablest
writers to defend their measures: on the pope's side, among others,
cardinal Bellarmine entered the lists, and, with his confederate
authors, defended the papal claims, with great scurrility of
expression, and very sophistical reasonings, which were confuted by
the Venetian apologists, in much more decent language, and with much
greater solidity of argument.

On this occasion father Paul was most eminently distinguished, by his
Defence of the Rights of the Supreme Magistrate; his treatise of
Excommunications, translated from Gerson, with an Apology, and other
writings, for which he was cited before the inquisition at Rome; but
it may be easily imagined that he did not obey the summons.

The Venetian writers, whatever might be the abilities of their
adversaries, were, at least, superiour to them in the justice of their
cause. The propositions maintained on the side of Rome were these:
that the pope is invested with all the authority of heaven and earth:
that all princes are his vassals, and that he may annul their laws at
pleasure: that kings may appeal to him, as he is temporal monarch of
the whole earth: that he can discharge subjects from their oaths of
allegiance, and make it their duty to take up arms against their
sovereign: that he may depose kings without any fault committed by
them, if the good of the church requires it: that the clergy are
exempt from all tribute to kings, and are not accountable to them,
even in cases of high treason: that the pope cannot err; that his
decisions are to be received and obeyed on pain of sin, though all the
world should judge them to be false; that the pope is God upon earth;
that his sentence and that of God are the same; and that to call his
power in question, is to call in question the power of God; maxims
equally shocking, weak, pernicious, and absurd; which did not require
the abilities or learning of father Paul, to demonstrate their
falsehood, and destructive tendency.

It may be easily imagined, that such principles were quickly
overthrown, and that no court, but that of Rome, thought it for its
interest to favour them. The pope, therefore, finding his authors
confuted, and his cause abandoned, was willing to conclude the affair
by treaty, which, by the mediation of Henry the fourth of France, was
accommodated upon terms very much to the honour of the Venetians.

But the defenders of the Venetian rights were, though comprehended in
the treaty, excluded by the Romans from the benefit of it; some, upon
different pretences, were imprisoned, some sent to the galleys, and
all debarred from preferment. But their malice was chiefly aimed
against father Paul, who soon found the effects of it; for, as he was
going one night to his convent, about six months after the
accommodation, he was attacked by five ruffians, armed with
stilettoes, who gave him no less than fifteen stabs, three of which
wounded him in such a manner, that he was left for dead. The murderers
fled for refuge to the nuncio, and were afterwards received into the
pope's dominions, but were pursued by divine justice, and all, except
one man who died in prison, perished by violent deaths.

This and other attempts upon his life, obliged him to confine himself
to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the council
of Trent, a work unequalled for the judicious disposition of the
matter, and artful texture of the narration, commended by Dr. Burnet,
as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr.
Wotton, as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the
reader finds "liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy,
freedom of speech without neglect of decency, severity without rigour,
and extensive learning without ostentation.
"

In this and other works of less consequence, he spent the remaining
part of his life, to the beginning of the year 1622, when he was
seized with a cold and fever, which he neglected, till it became
incurable. He languished more than twelve months, which he spent
almost wholly in a preparation for his passage into eternity; and,
among his prayers and aspirations, was often heard to repeat, "Lord!
now let thy servant depart in peace. "

On Sunday, the eighth of January of the next year, he rose, weak as he
was, to mass, and went to take his repast with the rest; but, on
Monday, was seized with a weakness that threatened immediate death;
and, on Thursday, prepared for his change, by receiving the viaticum
with such marks of devotion, as equally melted and edified the
beholders.

Through the whole course of his illness, to the last hour of his life,
he was consulted by the senate in publick affairs, and returned
answers, in his greatest weakness, with such presence of mind, as
could only arise from the consciousness of innocence.

On Sunday, the day of his death, he had the passion of our blessed
saviour read to him out of St. John's gospel, as on every other day of
that week, and spoke of the mercy of his redeemer, and his confidence
in his merits.

As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to
pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his
thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, "Esto
perpetua," mayst thou last for ever; which was understood to be a
prayer for the prosperity of his country.

Thus died father Paul, in the seventy-first year of his age; hated by
the Romans, as their most formidable enemy, and honoured by all the
learned for his abilities, and by the good for his integrity. His
detestation of the corruption of the Roman church appears in all his
writings, but particularly in this memorable passage of one of his
letters: "There is nothing more essential than to ruin the reputation
of the jesuits; by the ruin of the jesuits, Rome will be ruined; and
if Rome is ruined, religion will reform of itself. "

He appears, by many passages of his life, to have had a high esteem of
the church of England; and his friend, father Fulgentio, who had
adopted all his notions, made no scruple of administering to Dr.
Duncomb, an English gentleman that fell sick at Venice, the communion
in both kinds, according to the Common Prayer, which he had with him
in Italian.

He was buried with great pomp, at the publick charge, and a
magnificent monument was erected, to his memory.




BOERHAAVE.


The following account of the late Dr. Boerhaave, so loudly celebrated,
and so universally lamented through the whole learned world, will, we
hope, be not unacceptable to our readers: we could have made it much
larger, by adopting flying reports, and inserting unattested facts: a
close adherence to certainty has contracted our narrative, and
hindered it from swelling to that bulk, at which modern histories
generally arrive.

Dr. Herman Boerhaave was born on the last day of December, 1668, about
one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles distant from
Leyden: his father, James Boerhaave, was minister of Voorhout, of whom
his son [34], in a small account of his own life, has given a very
amiable character, for the simplicity and openness of his behaviour,
for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune, and the
prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous
family of nine children: he was eminently skilled in history and
genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.

His mother was Hagar Daelder, a tradesman's daughter of Amsterdam,
from whom he might, perhaps, derive an hereditary inclination to the
study of physick, in which she was very inquisitive, and had obtained
a knowledge of it, not common in female students.

This knowledge, however, she did not live to communicate to her son;
for she died, in 1673, ten years after her marriage.

His father, finding himself encumbered with the care of seven
children, thought it necessary to take a second wife, and in July,
1674, was married to Eve du Bois, daughter of a minister of Leyden,
who, by her prudent and impartial conduct, so endeared herself to her
husband's children, that they all regarded her as their own mother.

Herman Boerhaave was always designed, by his father, for the ministry,
and, with that view, instructed by him in grammatical learning, and
the first elements of languages; in which he made such a proficiency,
that he was, at the age of eleven years, not only master of the rules
of grammar, but capable of translating with tolerable accuracy, and
not wholly ignorant of critical niceties.

At intervals, to recreate his mind and strengthen his constitution, it
was his father's custom to send him into the fields, and employ him in
agriculture, and such kind of rural occupations, which he continued,
through all his life, to love and practise; and, by this vicissitude
of study and exercise, preserved himself, in a great measure, from
those distempers and depressions, which are frequently the
consequences of indiscreet diligence and uninterrupted application;
and from which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of
the human body, sometimes fly for relief, to wine instead of exercise,
and purchase temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful
consequences.

The studies of young Boerhaave were, about this time, interrupted by
an accident, which deserves a particular mention, as it first inclined
him to that science, to which he was, by nature, so well adapted, and
which he afterwards carried to so great perfection.

In the twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painful, and malignant
ulcer, broke out upon his left thigh; which, for near five years,
defeated all the art of the surgeons and physicians, and not only
afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but exposed him to such
sharp and tormenting applications, that the disease and remedies were
equally insufferable. Then it was, that his own pain taught him to
compassionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the
methods then in use, incited him to attempt the discovery of others
more certain.

He began to practise, at least, honestly, for he began upon himself;
and his first essay was a prelude to his future success, for having
laid aside all the prescriptions of his physicians, and all the
applications of his surgeons, he at last, by tormenting the part with
salt and urine, effected a cure.

That he might, on this occasion, obtain the assistance of surgeons
with less inconvenience and expense, he was brought, by his father, at
fourteen, to Leyden, and placed in the fourth class of the publick
school, after being examined by the master: here his application and
abilities were equally conspicuous. In six months, by gaining the
first prize in the fourth class, he was raised to the fifth; and, in
six months more, upon the same proof of the superiority of his genius,
rewarded with another prize, and translated to the sixth; from whence
it is usual, in six months more, to be removed to the university.

Thus did our young student advance in learning and reputation, when,
as he was within view of the university, a sudden and unexpected blow
threatened to defeat all his expectations.

On the 12th of November, in 1682, his father died, and left behind him
a very slender provision for his widow, and nine children, of which
the eldest was not yet seventeen years old.

This was a most afflicting loss to the young scholar, whose fortune
was by no means sufficient to bear the expenses of a learned
education, and who, therefore, seemed to be now summoned, by
necessity, to some way of life more immediately and certainly
lucrative; but, with a resolution equal to his abilities, and a spirit
not so depressed and shaken, he determined to break through the
obstacles of poverty, and supply, by diligence, the want of fortune.

He, therefore, asked, and obtained the consent of his guardians, to
prosecute his studies, so long as his patrimony would support him;
and, continuing his wonted industry, gained another prize.

He was now to quit the school for the university, but on account of
the weakness yet remaining in his thigh, was, at his own entreaty,
continued six months longer under the care of his master, the learned
Winschotan, where he was once more honoured with the prize.

At his removal to the university, the same genius and industry met
with the same encouragement and applause. The learned Triglandius, one
of his father's friends, made soon after professor of divinity at
Leyden, distinguished him in a particular manner, and recommended him
to the friendship of Mr. Van Apphen, in whom he found a generous and
constant patron.

He became now a diligent hearer of the most celebrated professors, and
made great advances in all the sciences, still regulating his studies
with a view, principally, to divinity, for which he was originally
intended by his father; and, for that reason, exerted his utmost
application to attain an exact knowledge of the Hebrew tongue.

Being convinced of the necessity of mathematical learning, he began to
study those sciences in 1687, but without that intense industry with
which the pleasure he found in that kind of knowledge, induced him
afterwards to cultivate them.

In 1690, having performed the exercises of the university with
uncommon reputation, he took his degree in philosophy; and, on that
occasion, discussed the important and arduous subject of the distinct
natures of the soul and body, with such-accuracy, perspicuity, and
subtilty, that he entirely confuted all the sophistry of Epicurus,
Hobbes, and Spinosa, and equally raised the characters of his piety
and erudition.

Divinity was still his great employment, and the chief aim of all his
studies. He read the scriptures in their original languages; and when
difficulties occurred, consulted the interpretations of the most
ancient fathers, whom he read in order of time, beginning with Clemens
Romanus.

In the perusal of those early writers [35], he was struck with the
profoundest veneration of the simplicity and purity of their
doctrines, the holiness of their lives, and the sanctity of the
discipline practised by them; but, as he descended to the lower ages,
found the peace of Christianity broken by useless controversies, and
its doctrines sophisticated by the subtilties of the schools: he found
the holy writers interpreted according to the notions of philosophers,
and the chimeras of metaphysicians adopted as articles of faith: he
found difficulties raised by niceties, and fomented to bitterness and
rancour: he saw the simplicity of the christian doctrine corrupted by
the private fancies of particular parties, while each adhered to its
own philosophy, and orthodoxy was confined to the sect in power.

Having now exhausted his fortune in the pursuit of his studies, he
found the necessity of applying to some profession, that, without
engrossing all his time, might enable him to support himself; and
having obtained a very uncommon knowledge of the mathematicks, he read
lectures in those sciences to a select number of young gentlemen in
the university.

At length, his propension to the study of physick grew too violent to
be resisted; and, though he still intended to make divinity the great
employment of his life, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of
spending some time upon the medical writers, for the perusal of which
he was so well qualified by his acquaintance with the mathematicks and
philosophy.

But this science corresponded so much with his natural genius, that he
could not forbear making that his business, which he intended only as
his diversion; and still growing more eager, as he advanced further,
he at length determined wholly to master that profession, and to take
his degree in physick, before he engaged in the duties of the
ministry.

It is, I believe, a very just observation, that men's ambition is,
generally, proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any
into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have
not abilities, likewise, to perform them. To have formed the design of
gaining a complete knowledge of medicine, by way of digression from
theological studies, would have been little less than madness in most
men, and would have only exposed them to ridicule and contempt. But
Boerhaave was one of those mighty geniuses, to whom scarce any thing
appears impossible, and who think nothing worthy of their efforts, but
what appears insurmountable to common understandings.

He began this new course of study by a diligent perusal of Vesalius,
Bartholine, and Fallopius; and, to acquaint himself more fully with
the structure of bodies, was a constant attendant upon Nuck's publick
dissections in the theatre, and himself very accurately inspected the
bodies of different animals.

Having furnished himself with this preparatory knowledge, he began to
read the ancient physicians, in the order of time, pursuing his
inquiries downwards, from Hippocrates through all the Greek and Latin
writers.

Finding, as he tells us himself, that Hippocrates was the original
source of all medical knowledge, and that all the later writers were
little more than transcribers from him, he returned to him with more
attention, and spent much time in making extracts from him, digesting
his treatises into method, and fixing them in his memory.

He then descended to the moderns, among whom none engaged him longer,
or improved him more, than Sydenham, to whose merit he has left this
attestation, "that he frequently perused him, and always with greater
eagerness. "

His insatiable curiosity after knowledge engaged him now in the
practice of chymistry, which he prosecuted with all the ardour of a
philosopher, whose industry was not to be wearied, and whose love of
truth was too strong to suffer him to acquiesce in the reports of
others.

Yet did he not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention
from others: anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, nor
chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany, in which he
was no less skilled than in other parts of physick. He was not only a
careful examiner of all the plants in the garden of the university,
but made excursions, for his further improvement, into the woods and
fields, and left no place unvisited, where any increase of botanical
knowledge could be reasonably hoped for.

In conjunction with all these inquiries, he still pursued his
theological studies, and still, as we are informed by himself,
"proposed, when he had made himself master of the whole art of
physick, and obtained the honour of a degree in that science, to
petition regularly for a license to preach, and to engage in the cure
of souls;" and intended, in his theological exercise, to discuss this
question, "why so many were formerly converted to Christianity by
illiterate persons, and so few at present by men of learning. "

In pursuance of this plan he went to Hardewich, in order to take the
degree of doctor in physick, which he obtained in July, 1693, having
performed a publick disputation, "de utilitate explorandorum
excrementorum in aegris, ut signorum. "

Then returning to Leyden, full of his pious design of undertaking the
ministry, he found, to his surprise, unexpected obstacles thrown in
his way, and an insinuation dispersed through the university, that
made him suspected, not of any slight deviation from received
opinions, not of any pertinacious adherence to his own notions in
doubtful and disputable matters, but of no less than Spinosism, or, in
plainer terms, of atheism itself.

How so injurious a report came to be raised, circulated, and credited,
will be, doubtless, very eagerly inquired; we shall, therefore, give
the relation, not only to satisfy the curiosity of mankind, but to
show that no merit, however exalted, is exempt from being not only
attacked, but wounded, by the most contemptible whispers. Those who
cannot strike with force, can, however, poison their weapon, and, weak
as they are, give mortal wounds, and bring a hero to the grave; so
true is that observation, that many are able to do hurt, but few to do
good.

This detestable calumny owed its rise to an incident, from which no
consequence of importance could be possibly apprehended. As Boerhaave
was sitting in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the
passengers, upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa,
which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all
religion. Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for
some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by
his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument,
began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent
invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that, at last,
he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author
he declaimed against.

The orator, not being able to make much answer, was checked in the
midst of his invectives, but not without feeling a secret resentment
against the person who had, at once, interrupted his harangue, and
exposed his ignorance.

This was observed by a stranger who was in the boat with them; he
inquired of his neighbour the name of the young man, whose question
had put an end to the discourse, and having learned it, set it down in
his pocket-book, as it appears, with a malicious design, for in a few
days it was the common conversation at Leyden, that Boerhaave had
revolted to Spinosa.

It was in vain that his advocates and friends pleaded his learned and
unanswerable confutation of all atheistical opinions, and particularly
of the system of Spinosa, in his discourse of the distinction between
soul and body. Such calumnies are not easily suppressed, when they are
once become general. They are kept alive and supported by the malice
of bad, and, sometimes, by the zeal of good men, who, though they do
not absolutely believe them, think it yet the securest method to keep
not only guilty, but suspected men out of publick employments, upon
this principle, that the safety of many is to be preferred before the
advantage of few.

Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his
pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against
his design of assuming the character of a divine, thought it neither
necessary nor prudent to struggle with the torrent of popular
prejudice, as he was equally qualified for a profession, not, indeed,
of equal dignity or importance, but which must, undoubtedly, claim the
second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind.

He, therefore, applied himself to his medical studies with new ardour
and alacrity, reviewed all his former observations and inquiries, and
was continually employed in making new acquisitions.

Having now qualified himself for the practice of physick, he began to
visit patients, but without that encouragement which others, not
equally deserving, have sometimes met with. His business was, at
first, not great, and his circumstances by no means easy; but still,
superiour to any discouragement, he continued his search after
knowledge, and determined that prosperity, if ever he was to enjoy it,
should be the consequence not of mean art, or disingenuous
solicitations, but of real merit, and solid learning.

His steady adherence to his resolutions appears yet more plainly from
this circumstance: he was, while he yet remained in this unpleasing
situation, invited by one of the first favourites of king William the
third, to settle at the Hague, upon very advantageous conditions; but
declined the offer; for having no ambition but after knowledge, he was
desirous of living at liberty, without any restraint upon his looks,
his thoughts, or his tongue, and at the utmost distance from all
contentions and state-parties. His time was wholly taken up in
visiting the sick, studying, ntaking chymical experiments, searching
into every part of medicine with the utmost diligence, teaching the
mathematicks, and reading the scriptures, and those authors who
profess to teach a certain method of loving God [36].

This was his method of living to the year 1701, when he was
recommended, by Van Berg, to the university, as a proper person to
succeed Drelincurtius in the professorship of physick, and elected,
without any solicitations on his part, and almost without his consent,
on the 18th of May.

On this occasion, having observed, with grief, that Hippocrates, whom
he regarded not only as the father, but as the prince of physicians,
was not sufficiently read or esteemed by young students, he pronounced
an oration, "de commendando studio Hippocratico;" by which he restored
that great author to his just and ancient reputation.

He now began to read publick lectures with great applause, and was
prevailed upon, by his audience, to enlarge his original design, and
instruct them in chymistry. This he undertook, not only to the great
advantage of his pupils, but to the great improvement of the art
itself, which had, hitherto, been treated only in a confused and
irregular manner, and was little more than a history of particular
experiments, not reduced to certain principles, nor connected one with
another: this vast chaos he reduced to order, and made that clear and
easy, which was before, to the last degree, difficult and obscure.

His reputation now began to bear some proportion to his merit, and
extended itself to distant universities; so that, in 1703, the
professorship of physick being vacant at Groningen, he was invited
thither; but he refused to leave Leyden, and chose to continue his
present course of life.

This invitation and refusal being related to the governours of the
university of Leyden, they had so grateful a sense of his regard for
them, that they immediately voted an honorary increase of his salary,
and promised him the first professorship that should be vacant.

On this occasion he pronounced an oration upon the use of mechanicks
in the science of physick, in which he endeavoured to recommend a
rational and mathematical inquiry into the causes of diseases, and the
structure of bodies; and to show the follies and weaknesses of the
jargon introduced by Paracelsus, Helmont, and other chymical
enthusiasts, who have obtruded upon the world the most airy dreams,
and, instead of enlightening their readers with explications of
nature, have darkened the plainest appearances, and bewildered mankind
in errour and obscurity.

Boerhaave had now for nine years read physical lectures, but without
the title or dignity of a professor, when, by the death of professor
Hotten, the professorship of physick and botany fell to him of course.

On this occasion he asserted the simplicity and facility of the
science of physick, in opposition to those that think obscurity
contributes to the dignity of learning, and that to be admired it is
necessary not to be understood.

His profession of botany made it part of his duty to superintend the
physical garden, which improved so much by the immense number of new
plants which he procured, that it was enlarged to twice its original
extent.

In 1714, he was deservedly advanced to the highest dignities of the
university, and, in the same year, made physician of St. Augustin's
hospital in Leyden, into which the students are admitted twice a week,
to learn the practice of physick.

This was of equal advantage to the sick and to the students, for the
success of his practice was the best demonstration of the soundness of
his principles.

When he laid down his office of governour of the university, in 1715,
he made an oration upon the subject of "attaining to certainty in
natural philosophy;" in which he declares, in the strongest terms, in
favour of experimental knowledge; and reflects, with just severity,
upon those arrogant philosophers, who are too easily disgusted with
the slow methods of obtaining true notions by frequent experiments;
and who, possessed with too high an opinion of their own abilities,
rather choose to consult their own imaginations, than inquire into
nature, and are better pleased with the charming amusement of forming
hypotheses, than the toilsome drudgery of making observations.

The emptiness and uncertainty of all those systems, whether venerable
for their antiquity, or agreeable for their novelty, he has evidently
shown; and not only declared, but proved, that we are entirely
ignorant of the principles of things, and that all the knowledge we
have, is of such qualities alone as are discoverable by experience, or
such as may be deduced from them by mathematical demonstration.

This discourse, filled as it was with piety, and a true sense of the
greatness of the supreme being, and the incomprehensibility of his
works, gave such offence to a professor of Franeker, who professed the
utmost esteem for Des Cartes, and considered his principles as the
bulwark of orthodoxy, that he appeared in vindication of his darling
author, and spoke of the injury done him with the utmost vehemence,
declaring little less than that the cartesian system and the Christian
must inevitably stand and fall together; and that to say that we were
ignorant of the principles of things, was not only to enlist among the
skepticks, but to sink into atheism itself.

So far can prejudice darken the understanding, as to make it consider
precarious systems as the chief support of sacred and invariable
truth.

This treatment of Boerhaave was so far resented by the governours of
his university, that they procured from Franeker a recantation of the
invective that had been thrown out against him: this was not only
complied with, but offers were made him of more ample satisfaction; to
which he returned an answer not less to his honour than the victory he
gained, "that he should think himself sufficiently compensated, if his
adversary received no further molestation on his account. "

So far was this weak and injudicious attack from shaking a reputation
not casually raised by fashion or caprice, but founded upon solid
merit, that the same year his correspondence was desired upon botany
and natural philosophy by the academy of sciences at Paris, of which
he was, upon the death of count Marsigli, in the year 1728, elected a
member.

Nor were the French the only nation by which this great man was
courted and distinguished; for, two years after, he was elected fellow
of our Royal society.

It cannot be doubted but, thus caressed and honoured with the highest
and most publick marks of esteem by other nations, he became more
celebrated in the university; for Boerhaave was not one of those
learned men, of whom the world has seen too many, that disgrace their
studies by their vices, and, by unaccountable weaknesses, make
themselves ridiculous at home, while their writings procure them the
veneration of distant countries, where their learning is known, but
not their follies.

Not that his countrymen can be charged with being insensible of his
excellencies, till other nations taught them to admire him; for, in
1718, he was chosen to succeed Le Mort in the professorship of
chymistry; on which occasion he pronounced an oration, "De chemia
errores suos expurgante," in which he treated that science with an
elegance of style not often to be found in chymical writers, who seem
generally to have affected, not only a barbarous, but unintelligible
phrase, and to have, like the Pythagoreans of old, wrapt up their
secrets in symbols and enigmatical expressions, either because they
believed that mankind would reverence most what they least understood,
or because they wrote not from benevolence, but vanity, and were
desirous to be praised for their knowledge, though they could not
prevail upon themselves to communicate it.

In 1722, his course, both of lectures and practice, was interrupted by
the gout, which, as he relates it in his speech after his recovery, he
brought upon himself, by an imprudent confidence in the strength of
his own constitution, and by transgressing those rules which he had a
thousand times inculcated to his pupils and acquaintance. Rising in
the morning before day, he went immediately, hot and sweating, from
his bed into the open air, and exposed himself to the cold dews.

The history of his illness can hardly be read without horrour: he was
for five months confined to his bed, where he lay upon his back
without daring to attempt the least motion, because any effort renewed
his torments, which were so exquisite, that he was, at length, not
only deprived of motion but of sense. Here art was at a stand; nothing
could be attempted, because nothing-could be proposed with the least
prospect of success. At length, having, in the sixth month of his
illness, obtained some remission, he took simple medicines [37] in
large quantities, and, at length, wonderfully recovered.

His recovery, so much desired, and so unexpected, was celebrated on
Jan. 11, 1723, when he opened his school again, with general joy and
publick illuminations.

It would be an injury to the memory of Boerhaave, not to mention what
was related by himself to one of his friends, that when he lay whole
days and nights without sleep, he found no method of diverting his
thoughts so effectual, as meditation upon his studies, and that he
often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments, by the
recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of
knowledge, which he had reposited in his memory.

This is, perhaps, an instance of fortitude and steady composure of
mind, which would have been for ever the boast of the stoick schools,
and increased the reputation of Seneca or Cato. The patience of
Boerhaave, as it was more rational, was more lasting than theirs; it
was that "patientia Christiana," which Lipsius, the great master of
the stoical philosophy, begged of God in his last hours; it was
founded on religion, not vanity, not on vain reasonings, but on
confidence in God.

In 1727, he was seized with a violent burning fever, which continued
so long, that he was once more given up by his friends.

From this time he was frequently afflicted with returns of his
distemper, which yet did not so far subdue him, as to make him lay
aside his studies or his lectures, till, in 1726, he found himself so
worn out, that it was improper for him to continue any longer the
professorships of botany or chymistry, which he, therefore, resigned,
April 28, and, upon his resignation, spoke a "Sermo academicus," or
oration, in which he asserts the power and wisdom of the creator from
the wonderful fabrick of the human body; and confutes all those idle
reasoners, who pretend to explain the formation of parts, or the
animal operations, to which he proves, that art can produce nothing
equal, nor any thing parallel. One instance I shall mention, which is
produced by him, of the vanity of any attempt to rival the work of
God. Nothing is more boasted by the admirers of chymistry, than that
they can, by artificial heats and digestion, imitate the productions
of nature. "Let all these heroes of science meet together," says
Boerhaave; "let them take bread and wine, the food that forms the
blood of man, and, by assimilation, contributes to the growth of the
body: let them try all their arts, they shall not be able, from these
materials, to produce a single drop of blood. So much is the most
common act of nature beyond the utmost efforts of the most extended
science! "

From this time Boerhaave lived with less publick employment, indeed,
but not an idle or an useless life; for, besides his hours spent in
instructing his scholars, a great part of his time was taken up by
patients, which came, when the distemper would admit it, from all
parts of Europe to consult him, or by letters which, in more urgent
cases, were continually sent to inquire his opinion and ask his
advice.

Of his sagacity, and the wonderful penetration with which he often
discovered and described, at first sight of a patient, such distempers
as betray themselves by no symptoms to common eyes, such wonderful
relations have been spread over the world, as, though attested beyond
doubt, can scarcely be credited. I mention none of them, because I
have no opportunity of collecting testimonies, or distinguishing
between those accounts which are well proved, and those which owe
their rise to fiction and credulity.

Yet I cannot but implore, with the greatest earnestness, such as have
been conversant with this great man, that they will not so far neglect
the common interest of mankind, as to suffer any of these
circumstances to be lost to posterity. Men are generally idle, and
ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by
calling that impossible which is only difficult. The skill to which
Boerhaave attained, by a long and unwearied observation of nature,
ought, therefore, to be transmitted, in all its particulars, to future
ages, that his successors may be ashamed to fall below him, and that
none may hereafter excuse his ignorance, by pleading the impossibility
of clearer knowledge.

Yet so far was this great master from presumptuous confidence in his
abilities, that, in his examinations of the sick, he was remarkably
circumstantial and particular. He well knew that the originals of
distempers are often at a distance from their visible effects; that to
conjecture, where certainty may be obtained, is either vanity or
negligence; and that life is not to be sacrificed, either to an
affectation of quick discernment, or of crowded practice, but may be
required, if trifled away, at the hand of the physician.

About the middle of the year 1737, he felt the first approaches of
that fatal illness that brought him to the grave, of which we have
inserted an account, written by himself, Sept. 8, 1738, to a friend at
London [38]; which deserves not only to be preserved, as an historical
relation of the disease which deprived us of so great a man, but as a
proof of his piety and resignation to the divine will.

In this last illness, which was, to the last degree, lingering,
painful, and afflictive, his constancy and firmness did not forsake
him. He neither intermitted the necessary cares of life, nor forgot
the proper preparations for death. Though dejection and lowness of
spirits was, as he himself tells us, part of his distemper, yet even
this, in some measure, gave way to that vigour, which the soul
receives from a consciousness of innocence.

About three weeks before his death he received a visit, at his country
house, from the reverend Mr. Schultens, his intimate friend, who found
him sitting without-door, with his wife, sister, and daughter: after
the compliments of form, the ladies withdrew, and left them to private
conversation; when Boerhaave took occasion to tell him what had been,
during his illness, the chief subject of his thoughts. He had never
doubted of the spiritual and immaterial nature of the soul; but
declared that he had lately had a kind of experimental certainty of
the distinction between corporeal and thinking substances, which mere
reason and philosophy cannot afford, and opportunities of
contemplating the wonderful and inexplicable union of soul and body,
which nothing but long sickness can give. This he illustrated by a
description of the effects which the infirmities of his body had upon
his faculties, which yet they did not so oppress or vanquish, but his
soul was always master of itself, and always resigned to the pleasure
of its maker.

He related, with great concern, that once his patience so far gave way
to extremity of pain, that, after having lain fifteen hours in
exquisite tortures, he prayed to God that he might be set free by
death.

Mr. Schultens, by way of consolation, answered, that he thought such
wishes, when forced by continued and excessive torments, unavoidable
in the present state of human nature; that the best men, even Job
himself, were not able to refrain from such starts of impatience. This
he did not deny; but said, "he that loves God, ought to think nothing
desirable, but what is most pleasing to the supreme goodness. "

Such were his sentiments, and such his conduct, in this state of
weakness and pain: as death approached nearer, he was so far from
terrour or confusion, that he seemed even less sensible of pain, and
more cheerful under his torments, which continued till the 23rd day of
September, 1738, on which he died, between four and five in the
morning, in the 70th year of his age.

Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature for great designs, and
guided by religion in the exertion of his abilities. He was of a
robust and athletick constitution of body, so hardened by early
severities, and wholesome fatigue, that he was insensible of any
sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was tall, and
remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was, in his air and
motion, something rough and artless, but so majestick and great, at
the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration,
and a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.

The vigour and activity of his mind sparkled visibly in his eyes; nor
was it ever observed, that any change of his fortune, or alteration in
his affairs, whether happy or unfortunate, affected his countenance.

He was always cheerful, and desirous of promoting mirth by a facetious
and humorous conversation; he was never soured by calumny and
detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they
are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of
themselves. "

Yet he took care never to provoke enemies by severity of censure, for
he never dwelt on the faults or defects of others, and was so far from
inflaming the envy of his rivals, by dwelling on his own excellencies,
that he rarely mentioned himself or his writings.

He was not to be overawed or depressed by the presence, frowns, or
insolence of great men, but persisted, on all occasions, in the right,
with a resolution always present and always calm. He was modest, but
not timorous, and firm without rudeness.

He could, with uncommon readiness and certainty, make a conjecture of
men's inclinations and capacity by their aspect.

His method of life was to study in the morning and evening, and to
allot the middle of the day to his publick business. His usual
exercise was riding, till, in his latter years, his distempers made it
more proper for him to walk: when he was weary, he amused himself with
playing on the violin.

His greatest pleasure was to retire to his house in the country, where
he had a garden stored with all the herbs and trees which the climate
would bear; here he used to enjoy his hours unmolested, and prosecute
his studies without interruption.

The diligence with which he pursued his studies, is sufficiently
evident from his success. Statesmen and generals may grow great by
unexpected accidents, and a fortunate concurrence of circumstances,
neither procured nor foreseen by themselves; but reputation in the
learned world must be the effect of industry and capacity. Boerhaave
lost none of his hours, but, when he had attained one science,
attempted another; he added physick to divinity, chymistry to the
mathematicks, and anatomy to botany. He examined systems by
experiments, and formed experiments into systems. He neither neglected
the observations of others, nor blindly submitted to celebrated names.
He neither thought so highly of himself, as to imagine he could
receive no light from books, nor so meanly, as to believe he could
discover nothing but what was to be learned from them. He examined the
observations of other men, but trusted only to his own.

Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommending truth by
elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with polite literature: he
knew that but a small part of mankind will sacrifice their pleasure to
their improvement, and those authors who would find many readers, must
endeavour to please while they instruct.

He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he
might, by a roughness and barbarity of style, too frequent among men
of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours
less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and
poetry. Thus was his learning, at once, various and exact, profound
and agreeable.

But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds, in his character, but the
second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.
He was an admirable example of temperance, fortitude, humility, and
devotion. His piety, and a religious sense of his dependance on God,
was the basis of all his virtues, and the principle of his whole
conduct. He was too sensible of his weakness to ascribe any thing to
himself, or to conceive that he could subdue passion, or withstand
temptation, by his own natural power; he attributed every good
thought, and every laudable action, to the father of goodness. Being
once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience under great
provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry, and by what
means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and ungovernable
passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he
was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had, by daily prayer
and meditation, at length attained to this mastery over himself.

As soon as he arose in the morning, it was, throughout his whole life,
his daily practice to retire for an hour to private prayer and
meditation; this, he often told his friends, gave him spirit and
vigour in the business of the day, and this he, therefore, commended,
as the best rule of life; for nothing, he knew, could support the
soul, in all distresses, but a confidence in the supreme being; nor
can a steady and rational magnanimity flow from any other source than
a consciousness of the divine favour.

He asserted, on all occasions, the divine authority and sacred
efficacy of the holy scriptures; and maintained that they alone taught
the way of salvation, and that they only could give peace of mind. The
excellency of the Christian religion was the frequent subject of his
conversation. A strict obedience to the doctrine, and a diligent
imitation of the example of our blessed saviour, he often declared to
be the foundation of true tranquillity. He recommended to his friends
a careful observation of the precept of Moses, concerning the love of
God and man. He worshipped God as he is in himself, without attempting
to inquire into his nature. He desired only to think of God, what God
knows of himself. There he stopped, lest, by indulging his own ideas,
he should form a deity from his own imagination, and sin by falling
down before him. To the will of God he paid an absolute submission,
without endeavouring to discover the reason of his determinations; and
this he accounted the first and most inviolable duty of a Christian.
When he heard of a criminal condemned to die, he used to think: Who
can tell whether this man is not better than I? or, if I am better, it
is not to be ascribed to myself, but to the goodness of God.

Such were the sentiments of Boerhaave, whose words we have added in
the note [39]. So far was this man from being made impious by
philosophy, or vain by knowledge, or by virtue, that he ascribed all
his abilities to the bounty, and all his goodness to the grace of God.
May his example extend its influence to his admirers and followers!
May those who study his writings imitate his life! and those who
endeavour after his knowledge, aspire likewise to his piety!

He married, September 17, 1710, Mary Drolenveaux, the only daughter of
a burgomaster of Leyden, by whom he had Joanna Maria, who survived her
father, and three other children, who died in their infancy. The works
of this great writer are so generally known, and so highly esteemed,
that, though it may not be improper to enumerate them in the order of
time, in which they were published, it is wholly unnecessary to give
any other account of them.

He published, in 1707, Institutiones medicae; to which he added, in
1708, Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis.

1710, Index stirpium in horto academico.

1719, De materia medica, et remediorum formulis liber; and, in 1727, a
second edition.

1720, Alter index stirpium, &c. adorned with plates, and containing
twice the number of plants as the former.

1722, Epistola ad cl. Ruischium, qua sententiam Malpighianam de
glandulis defendit.

1724, Atrocis nee prius descripti morbi historia illustrissimi baronis
Wassenariae.

1725, Opera anatomica et chirurgica Andreae Vesalii; with the life of
Vesalius.

1728, Altera atrocis rarissimique morbi marchionis de Sancto Albano
historia.

Auctores de lue Aphrodisiaca, cum tractatu praefixo.

1731, Aretaei Cappadocis nova editio.

1732, Elementa Chemiae.

1734, Observata de argento vivo, ad Reg. Soc. et Acad. Scient.

These are the writings of the great Boerhaave, which have made all
encomiums useless and vain, since no man can attentively peruse them,
without admiring the abilities, and reverencing the virtue of the
author. [40]




BLAKE.