Old and New Testament, and his Essay in favour of the Truth of Christianity, in the same year. The last of these works he particularly valued himself upon, because he there founds the evidence of Christianity chiefly on its moral purity. In these, and other works, he, however, maintained several heterodox opinions; as the noneternity of future punishments,-the inequality of the three Persons of the Trinity, the insufficiency of the atonement for our sins by the death of Jesus Christ, &c. Constantly persecuted in his theological career, he would have fallen the victim of his incautious zeal, if the Count de Bernstoff, minister of state, and J. A. Cramer, another officer of the court of Copenhagen, had not taken him under their protection. He left off giving lessons, without losing his salary; and, towards the end of 1767, he abandoned theology to devote himself with the same ardour to education, of which he conceived the project of a general reform in Germany. He began by publishing An Address to the Friends of Humanity, and to Persons in Power, on Schools, on Education, and its Influence on public Happiness, with the Plan of an Elementary Treatise on human Knowledge, Hamburgh, 1768. He proposed the reform of schools, of the common methods of instruction, the establishment of an institute for qualifying teachers; and solicited subscriptions for the printing of his Elementary work, where his principles were to be explained at length, and accompanied with plates. For this object, he required 5050 crowns. The subscriptions presently mounted up to 15,000 crowns: the Empress of Russia, Catherine II. sent a thousand crowns, the King of Denmark nine hundred. In 1770, appeared at Altona, the first volume of his Method for Fathers and Mothers of Families, and for the Chiefs of the People; and six months after, the three first parts of his Elementary Treatise, in 8vo. with 54 plates. This work, which was praised in all the journals, was translated into French by Huber, and into Latin by Mangelsdorf; but Schlozer, in the German translation of the Essay on National Education, by M. de la Chalotais, accused Basedow of having omitted in his plan

various branches of science, and of having had in view only a pecuniary speculation. Basedow, in despair, offered to return the price of his book to those who were not satisfied with it. Only one man, a Swiss, demanded his subscription. _Encouraged by the success of the Treatise, our author continued to write other works on the same subject, and on the same principles; among others, his Treatise on Arithmetic, 1773, and Elements of pure Mathematics, 1772. His Agathocrator, or the Education of Teachers to come, 1771, procured him a medal from the Emperor Joseph II.; and the visits which he made to Brunswick, to Leipsic, Dessau, Berlin, and Halle, to in. quire into the state of public instruction, having enabled him to enlarge and correct his ideas, and convinced him that his Elementary work contained many erroneous and hasty assertions, he published a new and improved edition of this work in 1774. The same year, he published his Legacy for Consciences, or Manual of Natural and Revealed Religion; a work which be composed in order to make known the real state of his religious opinions, and to clear himself from the imputation of wishing to found a new sect. In his travels, he had been well received by the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, who promised him his protection. From that time, he had resolved to establish an institute for education at Dessau, and to apply his principles himself in forming disciples who might spread them over all Germany. Little calculated, by nature or habit, to succeed in an employment which requires the greatest regularity, patience and attention, he, however, engaged in this new project with all his accustomed ardour. The name of Philanthropinon appeared to him the most expressive of his views; and he published at Leipsic in 1774 a pamphlet, entitled, The Philanthropinon founded at Dessau, containing the details of his plan. He immediately set about carrying it into execution; but he had few scholars, and the success by no means answered his hopes. The institution, badly managed, became the theatre of the quarrels between Basedow and the masters who taught in it under his direction. The assistance of the celebrated Campe, a journal

Writers, from 1750 to 1800, and a farther account of his life in Schlichtegroll's Necrology for 1790. Goethe tells an anecdote of going a journey in company with him and Lavater, who fell into a violent dispute about the Trinity. Basedow consoled himself with the hope of getting some beer and a pipe of tobacco at au inn which he saw before them on the road. When they came to it, Goethe made the coachman drive on, to the great chagrin of Basedow, to whom he excused himself by saying, that the sign of the inn was two triangles, and as he had such an aversion to one triangle (the scholastic emblem of the Trinity), he was afraid the sight of two might overcome him. This conceit, according to Goethe, pacified our Anti-trinitarian divine.

Basedow, in his general writings, endeavoured to apply philosophy to practical purposes, and to give a more popular air to his reasonings than had been usual with his countrymen before his time. He held truth to be of little value without practice, and, indeed, he held its essence to depend chiefly on its utility. He considered external or speculative truth to be a very vague and doubtful thing; and that it is principally the consequences of things to the mind itself, that is, a moral necessity, which determines it to believe strongly and consistently on any point, so that that is true to each individual which makes the most lasting impression on his mind, and which he feels to be necessary to his happiness. Thus he regarded practical good as the test of speculative truth. He gave great weight to the principle of analogy, and founded the doctrine of a Providence on this principle. He considered common sense as one ingredient in philosophical reasoning, and rejected all systems which appeared to him to exclude it; such as idealism, the doctrine of monads, and a pre-established harmony. His favourite adage in his system of education, was to follow Nature. He wished

the mind to be led to knowledge, virtue and religion, by gentle means, instead of those of constraint and terror. Indeed, his principles on this subject are very nearly the same as those of Locke and Rousseau; and he seems to have done little else than to have given currency in Germany to the same reasonings which those philosophers had taught before him in England and France. He insisted on the disuse of the preposterous and unhealthy dresses used by children and their parents, such as stays, swaddling-clothes, tight bandages round the neck, the knees, &c. He recommended exercise and hardy sports as necessary to the health and activity of the body. He proposed to exercise the judgment by teaching a knowledge of things, and not merely to load the memory with words. He preferred the practical sciences to the speculative, the living to the dead languages, modern to ancient history, things which are more near to those which are more remote. In fine, most of his principles were in themselves sound and good, and have in fact exerted their influence on the actual progress of civilization: they were only erroneous from the excess to which he sometimes appears to have carried them; partly from the natural vehemence of his mind, partly from the natural tendency to paradox on the side of new opinions. Paradox, by exciting attention, and enlisting the passions, is perhaps necessary to contend against prejudice; common sense and reason are lost sight of by both parties during the combat; but in the end they prevail, if they have fair play allowed them. Thus, in the present instance, it is now generally admitted, that something besides the classics is necessary to a liberal education; nor is it thought requisite to arrive at this conclusion through the antithesis to the vulgar opinion of his day set up by Basedow, viz. that the classics are of no use at all in a rational system of education.

Letters by the Earl of Northampton
and Bishop Compton.
[Communicated by Mr. Rutt.]

SIR,
Clapton, Sept. 1, 1817.
THE enclosed papers are copies of

been written by two public men, who flourished during very different periods of the English history. I have compared the copies with the M.SS. in the British Museum. They are correct, and, so far as I know, have never been printed.

The first, which describes an affecting and humiliating close of a courtier's prosperous life, was "com municated to the Rev. Dr. Birch, in a letter from Mr. M. Lort. Trin. Coll. Camb. Dec. 2, 1764, being [copied from] one of 22 M.S. Letters, by Northampton, there." It is described as" written with a shaking hand, and endorsed E. of Northampton to myself; Ld. N.'s seal on it, and thus superscribed: To the R. honorable my special good Lord the Erle of Somerset of his Majesty's Privy Council." Bibl. Birch. 4312.

The writer of this letter was Henry Howard, created by King James, in 1608, Earl of Northampton, the youngest of the two sons of Henry, Earl of Surry, whose execution was an atrocity which the first Defender of the Faith, just survived to perpetrate. That Earl is described by Wood as "the learnedest among the nobility, and the most noble among the learned." His conviction, at Guildhall, on a most frivolous accusation, strikingly displays the too frequent example of a servile jury, beguiled by legal subtleties, or misled by the plausible directions of a courtly judge.

It was in 1546, only nine days before the King's death, that the Earl of -Surry was thus judicially murdered, at about twenty-six years of age, when this son must have been an infant. Of Lord Howard's attainments in early life, Lloyd says, that he "was as serious a student in King's College and Trinity Hall in Cambridge, as a discerning observator in Rome and Florence and Italy;" and that "his Defensative against the supposed Poyson of Prophecies, dedicated to Sir Francis

liars that speak in trunks, were repelled from their harbour, for fear of discovery, the blocks almighty lost their senses." Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, B. viii. C. vi. It is remarkable, that one who could thus expose the pious frauds of the Pagan priesthood, should have adhered, as he appears to have done, through life, though covertly, to the unreformed religion of his ancestors in which he had been educated. Lord Howard's Defensative is also mentioned by Spenser, on Vulgar Prophecies. Wood says of him, that "though he was not respected by Queen Elizabeth, yet he wrote a learned book, entitled, An Apology for the Government of Women, which is in M.S. in Bodley's library." A. O. Fasti, I. 730. Lord Orford attributes to him "a specyal prayer to God the Father, the fyrst persone in Trynetye, made and practised by the Lord Henrye Howard, Erle of Northamptone."

When the crafty courtier Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, would ingratiate himself with James, by promoting his succession to the Crown of England, Lord Howard was engaged, in 1601, to manage the intrigue with the King of Scots, and his agents, the Earl of Mar and Mr. Bruce. The correspondence was published in 1766, by Sir David Dalrymple. Lord Or. ford complains of Lord Howard's intricate style, which, probably, might have been designedly obscure. His flattery of James is quite intelligible.

upon him-First, the office of PrivySeal, then his Wardenship of the Cinque-Ports, and lastly, the refusal of being Treasurer." The author adds, "This man was of subtile and fiue wit, of a good proportion, excellent in outward courtship, famous for secret insinuation and fortuning flatteries, and by reason of those qualities, became a fit man for the condition of these times." 12mo. p. 6.

Lord Howard was, in 1606, one of the Commissioners for the trial of the gunpowder conspirators, and distinguished himself by a speech on the arraignment of Sir Everard Digby. Here, if the well-reputed historian whom I have just quoted may be credited, ended all the transactions which can recommend his memory, even to unscrupulous courtiers. In 1611, the disgusting fondness of King James was lavished on Robert Carr, "a man of mean parentage, inhabiting in a village near Edinburgh, and one of his Majesty's Pages in Scotland." He was now introduced to the King at a tilting, and attracted him by "a bold disposition, comely visage and proportionable personage, mixed with a courtly presence." The Earl of Northampton appears to have attached himself to the rising fortunes of this favourite, who was, at length, created Earl of Somerset, and to have been deeply involved with him and his own niece, the Countess of Essex, in their criminal intrigues. (Truth, &c. Ch. viii. x. xix. xxv. and Bacon's Speech on Somerset's Arraignment.)

It must be surprising to a reader of the following letter, that he could address himself, to the favourite, in his last hours, without adverting to their participation in those enormities, which ended in Overbury's murder, but which were not brought to light till two years after the death of Northampton. That event appears to have been hastened by the discovery of some treasonable communication with Papists, and is thus described by the Historian. Having mentioned a speech made in the Star-chamber, by my Lord of Canterbury [Abbot,] he says

"He pulls out a letter, written by my Lord to Cardinal Bellarmine, to this effect, That howsoever the condition of the times compelled him to turn Protestant, yet nevertheless, his heart stood with the Papists, and that

he would be ready to farther them in any attempt.' This and much more being said, about the latter end of Easter-term, in the year 1614, my Lord being hereat much discouraged, after the court brake up, took his barge and went to Greenwich, there made his will, wherein he published himself to die in the same faith wherein he was baptized-retired back to his house at London, and before Midsum mer following was dead. Many were the rumours that were raised of this man after his death, that he was a traitor to the state, and that he was not dead, but carried beyond sea to blind the world, and the reason was, because he would be buried at Dover, and not at London." Truth, &c. pp. 76, 77.

It is remarkable, that if the date be given correctly, the Earl had just discovered his filial piety, by removing his father's remains from the chapel of the Tower to Framlingham, in Suffolk, where the Countess of Surry had been buried, and placing over their tomb a Latin epitaph, with this conclusion: Henricus Howardus Comes Northamp toniæ filius secundo genitus, hoc supremum pietatis in parentes monumentum posuit. A. D. 1614. Cibber's Lives, I. p. 52.

The circumstances of this Earl's death, which happened June 15, 1614, appear to have been as ill ascertained as the religious profession of his life. Sir Henry Wotton thus writes to his nephew, Sir Edmund Bacon, the day succeeding the event. "London, June 16, 1614. The Earl of Northampton having, after a lingering fever, spent more spirits than a younger body could well have borne, by the incision of a wennish tumour grown on his thigh, yesternight, between eleven and twelve of the clock, de-. parted out of this world: where, as he had proved much variety and vicissitude of fortune, in the course of his life, so peradventure he hath prevented another change thereof, by the opportunity of his end;" referring to the Earl's supposed connexion with Sir Charles Cornwallis, respecting a high dispute between James and the Parlia ment. He adds, “ Yet did he clear my Lord of Northampton from any manner of understanding with him therein, upon his salvation, which yet is not enough (as I perceive among the peo