[592] Buckingham and Halifax, the two men who were perhaps best acquainted with Charles II., both declared that he was a deist. Compare Lingard's Hist. of Engl. vol. viii. p. 127, with Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. v. p. 55. His subsequent conversion to Catholicism is exactly analogous to the increased devotion of Louis XIV. during the later years of his life. In both cases, superstition was the natural refuge of a worn-out and discontented libertine, who had exhausted all the resources of the lowest and most grovelling pleasures.

[593] One of the most curious instances of this may be seen in the destruction of the old notions respecting witchcraft. This important revolution in our opinions was effected, so far as the educated classes are concerned, between the Restoration and the Revolution; that is to say, in 1660, the majority of educated men still believed in witchcraft; while in 1688, the majority disbelieved it. In 1665, the old orthodox view was stated by Chief-Baron Hale, who, on a trial of two women for witchcraft, said to the jury: ‘That there are such creatures as witches, I make no doubt at all; for, first, the Scriptures have affirmed so much; secondly, the wisdom of all nations hath provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.’ Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. i. pp. 565, 566. This reasoning was irresistible, and the witches were hung; but the change in public opinion began to affect even the judges, and after this melancholy exhibition of the Chief-Baron, such scenes became gradually rarer; though Lord Campbell is mistaken in supposing (p. 563) that this was ‘the last capital conviction in England for the crime of bewitching.’ So far from this, three persons were executed at Exeter for witchcraft in 1682. See Hutchinson's Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, 1720, pp. 56, 57. Hutchinson says: ‘I suppose these are the last three that have been hanged in England.’ If, however, one may rely upon a statement made by Dr. Parr, two witches were hung at Northampton in 1705; and in ‘1712, five other witches suffered the same fate at the same place.’ Parr's Works, vol. iv. p. 182, 8vo, 1828. This is the more shameful, because, as I shall hereafter prove, from the literature of that time, a disbelief in the existence of witches had become almost universal among educated men; though the old superstition was still defended on the judgment-seat and in the pulpit. As to the opinions of the clergy, compare Cudworth's Intellect. Syst. vol. iii. pp. 345, 348; Vernon Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 302, 303; Burt's Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 220, 221; Wesley's Journals, pp. 602, 713. Wesley, who had more influence than all the bishops put together, says: ‘It is true, likewise, that the English in general, and, indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it…. The giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible…. But I cannot give up, to all the Deists in Great Britain, the existence of witchcraft, till I give up the credit of all history, sacred and profane.’

However, all was in vain. Every year diminished the old belief; and in 1736, a generation before Wesley had recorded these opinions, the laws against witchcraft were repealed, and another vestige of superstition effaced from the English statute-book. See Barrington on the Statutes, p. 407; Note in Burton's Diary, vol. i. p. 26; Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. i. p. 307.

To this it may be interesting to add, that in Spain a witch was burned so late as 1781. Ticknor's Hist. of Spanish Literature, vol. iii. p. 238.

[594] The first edition was published in 1646. Works of Sir Thomas Browne, vol. ii. p. 163.

[595] See the notes in Mr. Wilkin's edition of Browne's Works, Lond. 1836, vol. ii. pp. 284, 360, 361.

[596] The precise date is unknown; but Mr. Wilkin supposes that it was written ‘between the years 1633 and 1635.’ Preface to Religio Medici, in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 4.

[597] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.

[598] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 47.

[599] Or, as he calls it, ‘chiromancy.’ Religio Medici, in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 89.

[600] ‘For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches. They that doubt of these, do not only deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely, and upon consequence, a sort, not of infidels, but atheists.’ Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 43, 44.

[601] ‘From this I do compute or calculate my nativity.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 64.

[602] Religio Medici, sec. ix. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14: unfortunately too long to extract. This is the ‘credo quia impossibile est,’ originally one of Tertullian's absurdities, and once quoted in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyle, as ‘the ancient religious maxim.’ Parl. Hist. vol. xi. p. 802. Compare the sarcastic remark on this maxim in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, book iv. chap. xviii. Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 271. It was the spirit embodied in this sentence which supplied Celsus with some formidable arguments against the Fathers. Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. i. pp. 227, 228.

[603] Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, book iii. chap. xxviii. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 534.

[604] Ibid. book i. chap. vii. vol. ii. p. 225.

[605] ‘A supinity, or neglect of inquiry.’ Ibid. book i. chap. v. vol. ii. p. 211.

[606] ‘A third cause of common errors is the credulity of men.’ Book i. chap. v. vol. ii. p. 208.

[607] See two amusing instances in vol. ii. pp. 267, 438.

[608] Vulgar and Common Errors, book vii. chap. xi., in Browne's Works, vol. iii. p. 326.

[609] Monk (Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 37) says, that Boyle's discoveries ‘have placed his name in a rank second only to that of Newton;’ and this, I believe, is true, notwithstanding the immense superiority of Newton.

[610] Compare Powell on Radiant Heat (Brit. Assoc. vol. i. p. 287), with Lloyd's Report on Physical Optics, 1834, p. 338. For the remarks on colours, see Boyle's Works, vol. ii. pp. 1–40; and for the account of his experiments, pp. 41–80; and a slight notice in Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. i. pp. 155, 156, 236. It is, I think, not generally known, that Power is said to be indebted to Boyle for originating some of his experiments on colours. See a letter from Hooke, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. p. 533.

[611] Dr. Whewell (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 266) well observes, that Boyle and Pascal are to hydrostatics what Galileo is to mechanics, and Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton to astronomy. See also on Boyle, as the founder of hydrostatics, Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, pp. 397, 398; and his Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 204.

[612] This was discovered by Boyle about 1650, and confirmed by Mariotte in 1676. See Whewell's Hist. of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 557, 588; Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 215; Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 41, 200; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 363. This law has been empirically verified by the French Institute, and found to hold good for a pressure even of twenty-seven atmospheres. See Challis on the Mathematical Theory of Fluids, in Sixth Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 226; and Herschel's Nat. Philos. p. 231. Although Boyle preceded Mariotte by a quarter of a century, the discovery is rather unfairly called the law of Boyle and Mariotte; while foreign writers, refining on this, frequently omit the name of Boyle altogether, and term it the law of Mariotte! See, for instance, Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 126; Monteil Divers Etats, vol. viii. p. 122; Kaemtz's Meteorology, p. 236; Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. i. pp. 583, 645, vol. ii. pp. 484, 615; Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. i. p. 339, vol. ii. pp. 58, 183.

[613] ‘L'un des créateurs de la physique expérimentale, l'illustre Robert Boyle, avait aussi reconnu, dès le milieu du dix-septième siècle, une grande partie des faits qui servent aujourd'hui de base à cette chimie nouvelle.’ Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 30. The ‘aussi’ refers to Rey. See also Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences Naturelles, part ii. pp. 322, 346–349. A still more recent writer says, that Boyle ‘stood, in fact, on the very brink of the pneumatic chemistry of Priestley; he had in his hand the key to the great discovery of Lavoisier.’ Johnston on Dimorphous Bodies, in Reports of Brit. Assoc. vol. vi. p. 163. See further respecting Boyle, Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 576, 577, 579, vol. ii. p. 24; and Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 177.

[614] This disregard of ancient authority appears so constantly in his works, that it is difficult to choose among innumerable passages which might be quoted. I will select one which strikes me as well expressed, and is certainly very characteristic. In his Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 359), ‘For I am wont to judge of opinions as of coins: I consider much less, in any one that I am to receive, whose inscription it bears, than what metal it is made of. It is indifferent enough to me whether it was stamped many years or ages since, or came but yesterday from the mint.’ In other places he speaks of the ‘schoolmen’ and ‘gownmen’ with a contempt not much inferior to that expressed by Locke himself.

[615] In his Considerations touching Experimental Essays, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 197), ‘Perhaps you will wonder, Pyrophilus, that in almost every one of the following essays I should speak so doubtingly, and use so often perhaps, it seems, it is not improbable, and such other expressions as argue a diffidence of the truth of the opinions I incline to,’ &c. Indeed, this spirit is seen at every turn. Thus his Essay on Crystals, which, considering the then state of knowledge, is a remarkable production, is entitled ‘Doubts and Experiments touching the curious Figures of Salts.’ Works, vol. ii. p. 488. It is, therefore, with good reason that M. Humboldt terms him ‘the cautious and doubting Robert Boyle.’ Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 730.

[616] On the sincere Christianity of Boyle, compare Burnet's Lives and Characters, edit. Jebb, 1833, pp. 351–360; Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. i. pp. 32, 33; Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 273. He made several attempts to reconcile the scientific method with the defence of established religious opinions. See one of the best instances of this, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp. 38, 39.

[617] The Sceptical Chemist is in Boyle's Works, vol. i. pp. 290–371. It went through two editions in the author's lifetime, an unusual success for a book of that kind. Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 375, vol. iv. p. 89, vol. v. p. 345. I find from a letter written in 1696 (Fairfax Correspondence, vol. iv, p. 344), that Boyle's works were then becoming scarce, and that there was an intention of reprinting the whole of them. In regard to the Sceptical Chemist, it was so popular, that it attracted the attention of Monconys, a French traveller, who visited London in 1663, and from whom we learn that it was to be bought for four shillings, ‘pour quatre chelins.’ Voyages de Monconys, vol. iii. p. 67, edit. 1695; a book containing some very curious facts respecting London in the reign of Charles II.; but, so far as I am aware, not quoted by any English historian. In Sprengel's Hist. de la Médecine, vol. v. pp. 78–9, there is a summary of the views advocated in the Sceptical Chemist, respecting which Sprengel says, ‘Ce fut cependant aussi en Angleterre que s'élevèrent les premiers doutes sur l'exactitude des explications chimiques.’

[618] ‘From the nature and constitution of the Royal Society, the objects of their attention were necessarily unlimited. The physical sciences, however, or those which are promoted by experiment, were their declared objects; and experiment was the method which they professed to follow in accomplishing their purpose.’ Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 6. When the society was first instituted, experiments were so unusual, that there was a difficulty of finding the necessary workmen in London. See a curious passage in Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, 1848, vol. ii. p. 88.

[619] Dr. Paris (Life of Sir H. Davy, 1831, vol. ii. p. 178) says, ‘The charter of the Royal Society states, that it was established for the improvement of natural science. This epithet natural was originally intended to imply a meaning, of which very few persons, I believe, are aware. At the period of the establishment of the society, the arts of witchcraft and divination were very extensively encouraged; and the word natural was therefore introduced in contradistinction to supernatural.’ The charters granted by Charles II. are printed in Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. ii. pp. 481–521. Evelyn (Diary, 13 Aug. 1662, vol. ii. p. 195) mentions, that the object of the Royal Society was ‘natural knowledge.’ See also Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. p. 358; Pulteney's Hist. of Botany, vol. ii. pp. 97, 98; and on the distinction thus established in the popular mind between natural and supernatural, compare Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 455, vol. iv. pp. 288, 359.

[620] The speculative view of this tendency has been recently illustrated in the most comprehensive manner by M. Auguste Comte, in his Philosophie Positive; and his conclusions in regard to the earliest stage of the human mind are confirmed by everything we know of barbarous nations; and they are also confirmed, as he has decisively proved, by the history of physical science. In addition to the facts he has adduced, I may mention, that the history of geology supplies evidence analogous to that which he has collected from other departments.

A popular notion of the working of this belief in supernatural causation may be seen in a circumstance related by Combe. He says, that in the middle of the eighteenth century the country west of Edinburgh was so unhealthy, ‘that every spring the farmers and their servants were seized with fever and ague.’ As long as the cause of this was unknown, ‘these visitations were believed to be sent by Providence;’ but after a time the land was drained, the ague disappeared, and the inhabitants perceived that what they had believed to be supernatural was perfectly natural, and that the cause was the state of the land, not the intervention of the Deity. Combe's Constitution of Man, Edinb. 1847, p. 156.

[621] I say apparent mystery, because it does not at all lessen the real mystery. But this does not affect the accuracy of my remark, inasmuch as the people at large never enter into such subtleties as the difference between Law and Cause; a difference, indeed, which is so neglected, that it is often lost sight of even in scientific books. All that the people know is, that events which they once believed to be directly controlled by the Deity, and modified by Him, are not only foretold by the human mind, but are altered by human interference. The attempts which Paley and others have made to solve this mystery by rising from the laws to the cause, are evidently futile, because to the eye of reason the solution is as incomprehensible as the problem; and the arguments of the natural theologians, in so far as they are arguments, must depend on reason. As Mr. Newman truly says, ‘A God uncaused and existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible as a world uncaused and existing from eternity. We must not reject the latter theory as incomprehensible; for so is every other possible theory.’ Newman's Natural History of the Soul, 1849, p. 36. The truth of this conclusion is unintentionally confirmed by the defence of the old method, which is set up by Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 262–5; because the remarks made by that able writer refer to men who, from their vast powers, were most likely to rise to that transcendental view of religion which is slowly but steadily gaining ground among us. Kant, probably the deepest thinker of the eighteenth century, clearly saw that no arguments drawn from the external world could prove the existence of a First Cause. See, among other passages, two particularly remarkable in Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant's Werke, vol. ii. pp. 478, 481, on ‘der physikotheologische Beweis.’

[622] This is tersely expressed by M. Lamennais: ‘Pourquoi les corps gravitent-ils les uns vers les autres? Parceque Dieu l'a voulu, disaient les anciens. Parceque les corps s'attirent, dit la science.’ Maury, Légendes du Moyen Age, p. 33. See to the same effect Mackay's Religious Development, 1850, vol. i. pp. 5, 30, 31, and elsewhere. See also a partial statement of the antithesis in Copleston's Inquiry into Necessity and Predestination, p. 49; an ingenious but overrated book.

[623] I much regret that I did not collect proof of this at an earlier period of my reading. But having omitted taking the requisite notes, I can only refer, on the superstition of sailors to Heber's Journey through India, vol. i. p. 423; Richardson's Travels in the Sahara, vol. i. p. 11; Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 347; Davis's Chinese, vol. iii. pp. 16, 17; Travels of Ibn Batuta in the Fourteenth Century, p. 43; Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. i. p. 9; Works of Sir Thomas Browne, vol. i. p. 130; Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. iv. p. 566; Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, vol. iii. p. 53; Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, 1850, vol. ii. p. 255; Cumberland's Memoirs, 1807, vol. i. pp. 422–425; Walsh's Brazil, vol. i. pp. 96, 97; Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. i. p. 93; Holcroft's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 207, vol. iii. p. 197.

[624] Andokides, when accused before the dikastery at Athens, said, ‘No, dikasts; the dangers of accusation and trial are human, but the dangers encountered at sea are divine.’ Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. xi. p. 252. Thus, too, it has been observed, that the dangers of the whale-fishery stimulated the superstition of the Anglo-Saxons. See Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 390, 391. Erman, who mentions the dangerous navigation of the Lake of Baikal, says, ‘There is a saying at Irkutsk, that it is only upon the Baikal, in the autumn, that a man learns to pray from his heart.’ Erman's Travels in Siberia, vol. ii. p. 186.

[625] In Europe, in the tenth century, an entire army fled before one of those appearances, which would now scarcely terrify a child: ‘Toute l'armée d'Othon se dispersa subitement à l'apparition d'une éclipse de soleil, qui la remplit de terreur, et qui fut regardée comme l'annonce du malheur qu'on attendait depuis longtemps.’ Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 368. The terror inspired by eclipses was not finally destroyed before the eighteenth century; and in the latter half of the seventeenth century they still caused great fear both in France and in England. See Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 52, vol. iii. p. 372; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 366; Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 36. Compare Voyages de Monconys, vol. v. p. 104, with Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2nd series, pp. 194, 195. There probably never has been an ignorant nation whose superstition has not been excited by eclipses. For evidence of the universality of this feeling, see Symes's Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 296; Raffles' Hist. of Java, vol. i. p. 530; Southey's Hist. of Brazil, vol. i. p. 354, vol. ii. p. 371; Marsden's Hist. of Sumatra, p. 159; Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 105; Moffat's Southern Africa, p. 337; Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 414; Moorcroft's Travels in the Himalayan Provinces, vol. ii. p. 4; Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 305; Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 331; Mackay's Religious Development, vol. i. p. 425; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 176, vol. vi. p. 16; Wilson's Note in the Vishnu Purana, p. 140; Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part ii. p. 90; Montucla, Hist. des Mathématiques, vol. i. p. 444; Asiatic Researches, vol. xii. p. 484; Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 101; Prescott's Hist. of Peru, vol. i. p. 123; Kohl's Russia, p. 374; Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, vol. iii. p. 440, vol. vi. p. 216; Murray's Life of Bruce, p. 103; Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 289; Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. vii. p. 432, vol. xii. pp. 205, 557; Journal Asiatique, I^e série, vol. iii. p. 202, Paris, 1823; Clot-Bey, de la Peste, Paris, 1840, p. 224.

In regard to the feelings inspired by comets, and the influence of Bayle in removing those superstitions late in the seventeenth century, compare Tennemann, Gesch. der Philosoph., vol. xi. p. 252; Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. iii. p. 415; Lettres de Sevigné, vol. iv. p. 336; Autobiography of Sir S. D'Ewes, edit. Halliwell, vol. i. pp. 122, 123, 136.

[626] On the peculiar complications which have retarded meteorology, and thus prevented us from accurately predicting the weather, compare Forbes on Meteorology, in Second Report of British Association, pp. 249–251; Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. pp. 69, 248; Kaemtz's Meteorology, pp. 2–4; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 290–295; Somerville's Physical Geog. vol. ii. pp. 18, 19. But all the best authorities are agreed that this ignorance cannot last long; and that the constant advance which we are now making in physical science will eventually enable us to explain even these phenomena. Thus, for instance, Sir John Leslie says, ‘It cannot be disputed, however, that all the changes which happen in the mass of our atmosphere, involved, capricious, and irregular as they may appear, are yet the necessary results of principles as fixed, and perhaps as simple, as those which direct the revolutions of the solar system. Could we unravel the intricate maze, we might trace the action of each distinct cause, and hence deduce the ultimate effects arising from their combined operation. With the possession of such data, we might safely predict the state of the weather at any future period, as we now calculate an eclipse of the sun or moon, or foretell a conjunction of the planets.’ Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 405: see also p. 185, and the remarks of Mr. Snow Harris (Brit. Assoc. for 1844, p. 241), and of Mr. Hamilton (Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. xix. p. xci.) Thus, too, Dr. Whewell (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 3) says, that ‘the changes of winds and skies are produced by causes, of whose rules “no philosophical mind” will doubt the fixity.’

[627] This connexion between ignorance and devotion is so clearly marked, that many nations have a separate god for the weather, to whom they say their prayers. In countries where men stop short of this, they ascribe the changes to witchcraft, or to some other supernatural power. See Mariner's Tonga Islands, vol. ii. pp. 7, 108; Tuckey's Expedit. to the Zaire, pp. 214, 215; Ellis's Hist. of Madagascar, vol. ii. p. 354; Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. pp. 193, 194, 297, vol. xvi. pp. 223, 342; Southey's Hist. of Brazil, vol. iii. p. 187; Davis's Chinese, vol. ii. p. 154; Beausobre, Hist. de Manichée, vol. ii. p. 394; Cudworth's Intellect. Syst. vol. ii. p. 539. The Hindus refer rain to supernatural causes in the Rig Veda, which is the oldest of their religious books; and they have held similar notions ever since. Rig Veda Sanhita, vol. i. pp. xxx. 10, 19, 26, 145, 175, 205, 224, 225, 265, 266, vol. ii. pp. 28, 41, 62, 110, 153, 158, 164, 166, 192, 199, 231, 258, 268, 293, 329; Journal of Asiatic Soc. vol. iii. p. 91; Coleman's Mythol. of the Hindus, p. 111; Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 38. See further two curious passages in the Dabistan, vol. i. p. 115, vol. ii. p. 337; and on the ‘Rain-makers,’ compare Catlin's North-American Indians, vol. i. pp. 134–140, with Buchanan's North-American Indians, pp. 258, 260: also a precisely similar class in Africa (Moffat's Southern Africa, pp. 305–325), and in Arabia (Niebuhr, Desc. de l'Arabie, pp. 237, 238).

Coming to a state of society nearer our own, we find that in the ninth century it was taken for granted in Christian countries that wind and hail were the work of wizards (Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. vi. pp. 118, 139); that similar views passed on to the sixteenth century, and were sanctioned by Luther (Maury, Légendes Pieuses, pp. 18, 19); and finally, that when Swinburne was in Spain, only eighty years ago, he found the clergy on the point of putting an end to the opera, because they ‘attributed the want of rain to the influence of that ungodly entertainment.’ Swinburne's Travels through Spain in 1775 and 1776, vol. i. p. 177, 2nd edit. London, 1787.

[628] See some remarks by the Rev. Mr. Ward, which strike me as rather incautious, and which certainly are dangerous to his own profession, as increasing the hostility between it and science, in Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, p. 278. What Coleridge has said, is worth attending to: see The Friend, vol. iii. pp. 222, 223.

[629] M. Kohl, whose acuteness as a traveller is well known, has found that the agricultural classes are the ‘most blindly ignorant and prejudiced’ of all. Kohl's Russia, p. 365. And Sir R. Murchison, who has enjoyed extensive means of observation, familiarly mentions the ‘credulous farmers.’ Murchison's Siluria, p. 61. In Asia, exactly the same tendency has been noticed: see Marsden's Hist. of Sumatra, p. 63. Some curious evidence of agricultural superstitions respecting the weather may be seen in Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. iii. pp. 31, 39.

[630] In this point of view, the opposite tendencies of agriculture and manufactures are judiciously contrasted by Mr. Porter, at the end of his essay on the Statistics of Agriculture, Journal of the Statist. Soc. vol. ii. pp. 295, 296.

[631] Indeed, there never has been a period in England in which physical experiments were so fashionable. This is merely worth observing as a symptom of the age, since Charles II. and the nobles were not likely to add, and did not add, anything to our knowledge; and their patronage of science, such as it was, degraded it rather than advanced it. Still, the prevalence of the taste is curious; and in addition to the picture drawn by Mr. Macaulay (Hist. of England, 1st edit. vol. i. pp. 408–412), I may refer the reader to Monconys' Voyages, vol. iii. p. 31; Sorbiere's Voyage to England, pp. 32, 33; Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. pp. 199, 286; Pepys' Diary, vol. i. p. 375, vol. ii. p. 34, vol. iii. p. 85, vol. iv. p. 229; Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. pp. 171, 322, vol. ii. p. 275; Burnet's Lives, p. 144; Campbell's Chief-Justices, vol. i. p. 582.

[632] His treatment of his young wife immediately after marriage is perhaps the worst thing recorded of this base and contemptible prince. Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. ii. pp. 145–153. This is matter of proof; but Burnet (Own Time, vol. i. p. 522, and vol. ii. p. 467) whispers a horrible suspicion, which I cannot believe to be true, even of Charles II., and which Harris, who has collected some evidence of his astounding profligacy, does not mention, though he quotes one of the passages in Burnet. Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. v. pp. 36–43. However, as Dr. Parr says, in reference to another accusation against him, ‘There is little occasion to blacken the memory of that wicked monarch, Charles II., by the aid of invidious conjectures.’ Notes on James II. in Parr's Works, vol. iv. p. 477. Compare Fox's History of James II. p. 71.

[633] Even Clarendon has been charged with receiving bribes from Louis XIV.; but for this there appears to be no good authority. Compare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 66, 67 note, with Campbell's Chancellors, vol. iii, p. 213.

[634] Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 377; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iv. pp. 340–344.

[635] Immediately after the Restoration, the custom began of appointing to naval commands incompetent youths of birth, to the discouragement of those able officers who had been employed under Cromwell. Compare Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. p. 290, with Pepys' Diary, vol. ii. p. 413, vol. iii. pp. 68, 72.

[636] Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. v. pp. 323–328. The court was so bent on abrogating the charter of the city of London, that Saunders was made chief-justice for the express purpose. See Campbell's Chief-Justices, vol. ii. p. 59. Roger North says (Lives of the Norths, vol. ii. p. 67), ‘Nothing was accounted at court so meritorious as the procuring of charters, as the language then was.’ Compare Bulstrode's Memoirs, pp. 379, 388.

[637] The panic caused by this scandalous robbery is described by De Foe; Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 52. See also Calamy's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 78; Parker's Hist. of his Own Time, pp. 141–143. The amount stolen by the king is estimated at 1,328,526l. Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, vol. i. p. 315. According to Lord Campbell, ‘nearly a million and a half.’ Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 113.

[638] There is a very curious account in Pepys' Diary, vol. iii. pp. 242–264, of the terror felt by the Londoners on this occasion. Pepys himself buried his gold (p. 261 and pp. 376–379). Evelyn (Diary, vol. ii. p. 287) says: ‘The alarme was so greate, that it put both country and citty into a paniq, feare, and consternation, such as I hope I shall never see more; every body was flying, none knew why or whither.’

[639] The most important of these reforms were carried, as is nearly always the case, in opposition to the real wishes of the ruling classes. Charles II. and James II. often said of the Habeas Corpus Act, ‘that a government could not subsist with such a law.’ Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 104. Lord-Keeper Guilford was even opposed to the abolition of military tenures. ‘He thought,’ says his brother, ‘the taking away of the tenures a desperate wound to the liberties of the people of England.’ Lives of the Norths, vol. ii. p. 82. These are the sort of men by whom great nations are governed. A passage in Life of James, by Himself, edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 621, confirms the statement in Dalrymple, so far as James is concerned. This should be compared with a letter from Louis XIV., in the Barillon correspondence. Appendix to Fox's James II. p. cxxiv.

[640] Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 48; Campbell's Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 431. This destruction of the writ De Hæretico comburendo was in 1677. It is noticed in Palmer's Treatise on the Church, vol. i. p. 500; and in Collier's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. viii. p. 478.

[641] This was in 1664. See the account of it in Collier's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. viii. pp. 463–466. Collier, who is evidently displeased by the change, says: ‘The consenting, therefore, to be taxed by the temporal Commons, makes the clergy more dependent on a foreign body, takes away the right of disposing of their own money, and lays their estates in some measure at discretion.’ See also, on the injury this has inflicted on the church, Lathbury's Hist. of Convocation, pp. 259, 260. And Coleridge (Literary Remains, vol. iv. pp. 152, 153) points this out as characterizing one of the three ‘grand evil epochs of our present church.’ So marked, however, was the tendency of that time, that this most important measure was peaceably effected by an arrangement between Sheldon and Clarendon. See the notes by Onslow in Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. p. 340, vol. iv. pp. 508, 509. Compare Lord Camden's statement (Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 169) with the speech of Lord Bathurst (vol. xxii. p. 77); and of Lord Temple on Tooke's case (vol. xxxv. p. 1357). Mr. Carwithen (Hist. of the Church of England, vol. ii. p. 354, Oxford, 1849) grieves over ‘this deprivation of the liberties of the English clergy.’

[642] 13 Car. II. c. 12. Compare Stephens's Life of Tooke, vol. i. pp. 169, 170, with Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iii. p. 101. Mr. Hallam (Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 197, 198) has adduced evidence of the way in which the clergy were accustomed to injure their opponents by the ex-officio oath.

[643] This was the issue of the famous controversy respecting Skinner, in 1669; and ‘from this time,’ says Mr. Hallam, ‘the Lords have tacitly abandoned all pretensions to an original jurisdiction in civil suits.’ Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 184. There is an account of this case of Skinner, which was connected with the East-India Company, in Mill's Hist. of India, vol. i. pp. 102, 103.

[644] Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 189–192; and Eccleston's English Antiquities, p. 326. The disputes between the two houses respecting taxation, are noticed very briefly in Parker's Hist. of his Own Time, pp. 135, 136.

[645] The ‘famous rights of purveyance and preemption’ were abolished by 12 Car. II. c. 24. Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 11. Burke, in his magnificent speech on Economical Reform, describes the abuses of the old system of purveyance. Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 239. See also Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. ii. p. 88, note; Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 183–185, 237; Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. ii. pp. 338, 339; Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, vol. i. p. 232; Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1299. These passages will give an idea of the iniquities practised under this ‘right,’ which, like most gross injustices, was one of the good old customs of the British constitution, being at least as ancient as Canute. See Allen on the Royal Prerogative, p. 152. Indeed, a recent writer of considerable learning (Spence, Origin of the Laws of Europe, p. 319) derives it from the Roman law. A bill had been brought in to take it away in 1656. See Burton's Cromwellian Diary, vol. i. p. 81. When Adam Smith wrote, it still existed in France and Germany. Wealth of Nations, book iii. chap. ii. p. 161.

[646] On the Habeas Corpus Act, which became law in 1679, see Campbell's Chancellors, vol. iii. pp. 345–347; Mackintosh, Revolution of 1688, p. 49; and Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. viii. p. 17. The peculiarities of this law, as compared with the imitations of it in other countries, are clearly stated in Meyer, Esprit des Institutions Judiciaires, vol. ii. p. 283. Mr. Lister (Life of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 454) says: ‘Imprisonment in gaols beyond the seas was not prevented by law till the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act, in 1679.’

[647] Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 439) calls this ‘a great and necessary security to private property;’ and Lord Campbell (Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 423) terms it ‘the most important and most beneficial piece of juridical legislation of which we can boast.’ On its effects, compare Jones's valuable Commentary on Isæus (Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iv. p. 239) with Story's Conflict of Laws, pp. 521, 522, 627, 884; and Tayler on Statute Law, in Journal of Statistical Society, vol. xvii. p. 150.

[648] Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 247) says, that the struggle in 1667 ‘put an end to general impeachments.’