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you think of it.' Mendelssohn's among his very greatest persurprise may be conceived when on opening this volume he found it to be his own work already in print his Philosophical Dialogues, as he had entitled it. Put it into your pocket,' said Lessing, enjoying his amazement, and this Mammon along with it; it is what I got for the copyright.' From this time Mendelssohn took his place in the very front rank of the literary men of Germany. It does not, however, belong to this rapid sketch even to enumerate the long succession of works by which, during almost every year of his remaining life, he sustained and added to his fame. For the classical elegance of his German style he was considered as almost without a rival among his contemporaries. His treatise, in particular, on the immortality of the soul, entitled Phædon, attracted, immediately on its appearance, universal attention; and being translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Danish, and Hebrew, spread the fame of the author over all Europe. But the great effort of his life still continued to be the moral and intellectual improvement of his brethren of the house of Israel. For this purpose he brought all the resources of his learning and genius to the illustration of the Hebrew scriptures; and his translations of the Books of Moses and the Psalms, the latter in verse, are reckoned

formances. The incessant literary labours of this illustrious man were often carried on under the pressure of ill-health, and always amidst the interruptions of business or of society. He eventually became the partner of Mr. Bernard in his silk-manufacturing establishment, and lived in the enjoyment of opulence. In his thirty-third year he married, and had the happiness before his death of seeing his family growing up around him. One of his publications, which he entitles Morning Hours, consists of a series of lectures on natural philosophy, which he was for some years in the habit of delivering to his children every morning for two or three hours after sunrise. His habits of living were extremely simple and abstemious. It was inconceivable,' says Mr. Samuels, to whose Memoir we have been principally indebted for the above facts, 'that the quantity of food to which he restricted himself could sustain a human being; and at the same time it was affecting to see him press. his guests good-humouredly to partake of viands and liquors, which himself, though ever so desirous, durst not venture to taste. He was very fond of company, and never courted solitude, except from four or five o'clock in the morning till about eight or nine, when he adjourned to his counting-house and remained there till noon.

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After dinner he generally attended to business again till about four in the afternoon. About this hour his friends and pupils used to meet at his house; and, on his return, he usually found a numerous assembly in his room, who anxiously awaited his appear ance. There were theologians, literati, philosophers, public functionaries, merchants, na

tives, foreigners, old and young, in promiscuous groups, with whom he conversed till eight o'clock on various topics.' Mendelssohn died, in consequence of a cold which he caught in returning one morning from the synagogue (in his attendance on which he was always extremely regular), on the 4th of January 1786, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

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THE persons with whom we have been occupied in the chapters immediately preceding the present have all belonged to what may almost be called our own times; or, at least, their pursuits have been such as indicate an advanced state of literature, philosophy, and civilisation generally. It is only within the last two or three centuries that anything like a spirit of independent speculation has formed a pervading characteristic of the literature of modern Europe. Up to that period the intellect of our forefathers may be said, in most of its efforts, to have walked in leading-strings. The peculiar circumstances in which literature sprung up a second time in Western Europe after the subversion of the Roman empire, sufficiently explain why it remained so long in a state of pupilage. But the extended period in modern history called the Dark Ages was only the night of the human mind, and by no means its sleep, as it has

sometimes been described. The numbers of those who then dedicated themselves to literary pursuits were very great, and their zeal and industry in many cases such as has never been surpassed. As an evidence of the assiduity with which it was customary for men to apply themselves to the studies then in fashion, we may quote the account which our countryman JOHN OF SALISBURY, who flourished in the twelfth century, gives us of the education he had received. 'He says, that in the year after Henry 1. died he went to the Peripatetic School at Paris, on the Mount of St. Genevieve, and there studied logic; he afterwards adhered to Master Alberic, as opinatissimus dialectus (a dialectician in the highest repute), and an acerrimus impugnator (most keen impugner) of the nominal sect. He was years with him and Robert Metridensis, an Englishman, both men acuti ingenii and studii pervicacis (of acute genius and

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resolute studiousness). He then his history affords us so admirfor three years transferred him- able an example of the successself to William de Conchin, to ful pursuit of knowledge in the imbibe his grammatical know- midst of all sorts of difficulties ledge. After this he followed and discouragements, that we Richard called the Bishop, re- shall devote a few pages to tracing with him all he had present it with some fulness of learned from others, and the detail. Bacon was born at Quadrivium;1 and also heard Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in the German Harduin. He re- the year 1214. After remaining studied rhetoric, which he had for some years at the University learned from Master Theodoric, of Oxford, he went to finish his and more completely from education at that of Paris, then Father Helias. Being poor, he the most distinguished seat of supported himself by teaching learning in Europe. Here he the children of the noble, and received his doctor's degree; contracted an intimate acquain- after which he returned to his tance with Master Adam, an own country, and, entering himEnglishman, and a stout Aris-self a brother of the Franciscan totelian. He prosecuted after-order, again took up his resiwards the study of logic with William of Soissons. Returning at the end of three years, he heard Master Gilbert on logic and on divine subjects; then Robert Pullen, and also Simon Periacensis, a faithful reader, but a heavy disputer. These two last were his only teachers in theology. Thus, he adds, I passed twelve years, occupied by these various

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dence at Oxford. At this time all the four orders of mendicant friars had establishments both at Oxford and Cambridge; and their members were in truth, especially the Franciscans, the great support and ornaments of both Universities. At the period, however, when Bacon commenced his career, the Aristotelian metaphysics and logic, although they had already begun to be studied, had not acquired in this country that extraordinary ascendency of which we find them only a few years after in possession. self from the first chiefly to He, at all events, applied himthe mathematical and natural sciences, the principal of which, as cultivated at this time, may be enumerated under the heads of chemistry or alchemy, astronomy or astrology, medicine,

and mechanics. To these may be added, as having engaged a considerable share of Bacon's attention, the minor departments of geography, music, and optics; which last especially was one of his favourite studies, and that in which he displayed, more perhaps than in any other, his brilliant and inventive genius. Nearly all these sciences were as yet mixed up with the wildest errors and follies, which were, however, universally looked upon as their most fundamental and unquestionable principles, and were accordingly steadily kept in view by all who taught or studied either the theory or the practical applications of any of them. The grand object of chemistry, at the time to which we refer, was the discovery of the philosopher's stone, or the secret of manufacturing gold; but the experiments which were constantly being made with a view to this end had incidentally given birth to some real discoveries, especially in regard to the fusibility, malleability, and other properties of the different metals. Of these we may just state that lead and copper were the two which the most persevering efforts were made to convert into gold, the former exciting the hope of a favourable result by its great weight, and the latter by its colour; no bad example of the purely imaginary grounds which formed the whole theory and foundation of this art. Medicine was in much the same condition

with chemistry, being studied, also, chiefly in the writings of the Arabian doctors, who had taken a particular pleasure in mystifying this science with all manner of occult speculation, and bedizening it with their frivolous fancies and inventions. Its natural alliance with chemistry in the first place subjected it to be corrupted by all the absurdities of the Hermetic philosophy. But as these had originated chiefly in one of men's strongest passions, the love of wealth, so another passion still stronger, the fear of disease and death, operated in the case of medicine to give birth to a variety of other delusions, which retained their hold upon the public credulity with even yet more invincible obstinacy. In the unphilosophical times to which we now refer, it was little more than a heap of quackeries and superstitions; or, at least, the truths which it taught were so mixed up with the merest dreams and imaginations, and these latter were held to be so much the more important and essential

pursuit of the philosopher's stone was 1 The science occupied with the so called in memory of the Egyptian philosopher Hermes, styled also Trismegistus, or the thrice-great (supposed by some to be the same personage with the heathen god Mercury), who, it was pretended, had first cultivated it about two thousand years before the birth of Christ, and to whom several existing works upon the subject were ascribed, although, it is almost needless to say, without any foundation.

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