Frontmatter

Titlepage

An
Historical and Critical
Dictionary,
Selected and Abridged from the Great Work
of
Peter Bayle
With a Life of Bayle
In Four Vols - Vol. I.
London, 1826:
Printed for Hunt and Clarke,
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden.

London;—Printed by C. Richards, St. Martin’s Lane

Table of Contents

INDEX.

                                 

	Page.
Aaron	3
Abel	89
Abelard	40
Abelians	49
Abram	51
Abimelechs (The one or the two)	59
Abridgement	60
Absolution	61
Adam	68
Adamism	76
Adultery	84
Adversity and Prosperity	86
Advocacy	89
Agreda	92
Amphiarans	100
Anabaptists	103
Anaxagoras	109
Ancre (Marshall D') and Wife	121
Antinous	129
Apicii (the three)	131
Apollonius Tyanœus	132
Apparitions	141
Abrissel	144
Aristotle	156
Arminianism	158
Atheism	162
Atomism	180
Augustin (St)	188
Babelot	192
Balzac	193
Battles	194
Baudouin	197

                                   

Beasts	199
Benserade	219
Boccaccio's	221
Boleyn	221
Books and Children	229
Borri	230
Bouchin	239
Bourignon	245
Breautè	261
Brezè	265
Buridan's Ass	267
Cæsar	270
Cainism	273
Canonization	280
Capistran	280
Cappadocian Slavery	283
Cardan	283
Cardinal	290
Carneades	291
Cerinthus	298
Challenge	302
Christianity and Mahometanism	307
Chaos	320
Charron	340
Chaste	343
Clerical Tyranny	354
Conscience	356
Controversy	357
Critics and Writers	358
David	363
Demoniac	387
Digression	391
Divinity	393
Dogmatism	397
Dogs	402

ADVERTISEMENT.

The established character of Bayle for erudition, acute ness, and philosophical impartiality, while it supersedes the necessity of all remark on that elaborate storehouse's Fact, Opinion, and illustrative Discussion, the HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL DICTIONARY, it is presumed will sufficiently sanction a judicious selection of its most curious and instructive contents. Happily for the interest of mental freedom and the unfettered exercise of reason, Bayle arose at a period when the Aristotelian, or scholastic philosophy, in the behalf of which priestcraft and bigotry rallied to the last moment, lay prostrate, but not absolutely defunct, and in consequence, when, to a free and investigative spirit, it was necessary to join an accurate notion of the premises and field of knowledge of the doctrines assailed. In the great work of Bayle, therefore, much sound information, subtle disquisition, and curious and instructive fact, is encumbered with a quantity of matter which, however valuable in advertence to gone by studies and associations, Time has for the most part thrown away. This remark leads at once to the grounds of the present undertaking, the object of which is to present to the general reader, in a comparatively small and purchasable form, that portion of the Historical and Critical Dictionary of Bayle, the value of which, in the way of information, is unequivocal, in learning instructive or curious, and in critical and intellectual philosophy universal and permanent.

To some, to whom the Historical and Critical Dictionary is but cursorily known, the attraction of a selection from it may be doubted, at a period distinguished by an engrossing attachment to the results of practical science and positive and applicable information. It is thought, however, by those to whom the completion of the present work has been intrusted, that the foregoing tendency is united to a great avidity for general knowledge, and especially for a keen exercise of the reasoning faculties in reference to speculative points of all kinds. The acute and discriminating mind of Bayle deals with many which w ill be eternally important, at least while extensive superstructures, in a social point of view, are founded upon them. All his comparative and ingenious disquisition on themes

of this leading nature is of course retained, and a healthy exercise of the understanding upon the grander divisions of human opinion secured. In the selection of biographical, traditional, and mythological matter, with a due attention to the curious and the amusing, an endeavour has been made to include whatever is more or less connected with events of lasting importance, or linked, theoretically or otherwise, to existing associations. It is therefore hoped that every order of readers will find something to interest them; while it may prove more especially welcome to the rising and increasing body, who are determined to think upon all subjects for themselves.

With regard to the plan of the work, it is unnecessary to observe to those who are acquainted with the original, that the text is comparatively brief, and that the annotation is the more valuable portion of the able Author’s labours. With a view to compactness, the text and note will be combined in the Selection, although the Editor will supply nothing but the necessary connexion; a method that has already been advantageously adopted in a French work of a kindred nature, entitledAnalyse Raisonnée de Bayle, by the Abbé de Marsy. This latter production, indeed, in some degree led to the present undertaking, and will be partly rendered serviceable to it, although, selected for the French public half a century ago, it can be made only slightly available.

It is only necessary to add, that while the alphabetical form will be preserved, it cannot from the nature of the plan be that of Bayle himself, but of the subjects selected from him, which are frequently introduced quite incidentally under the heads in which they appear in the Dictionary, and consequently cannot be retained in a situation in which the connexion would not appear. To prevent all difficulty, however, each article will accurately refer to those in the original from which it is taken.

A Summary of the Life of Bayle has been deemed necessary, in order to convey a general notion of the learned career of this distinguished writer and philosopher, as well as to give an adequate idea of the era, and the circumstances under which his celebrated labours were performed.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF BAYLE.

Peter Bayle was born at Carla, a small town in the county of Foix, on the 18th November, 1647. His father, who was the Protestant minister of the place, was descended from a respectable family originally of Montauban, and his mother was also allied to persons of consequence in the county of Foix. They had three sons, of whom Peter was the second, having an elder brother Jacob, who became the colleague of his father, and a younger one named Joseph, who, after the French custom, assumed the name ofdu Peyrat from an estate belonging to the family.

From his infancy Bayle discovered a lively and penetrating genius, a facile and quick conception, and a very extraordinary memory, to which natural endowments was added the ardent thirst for information which is so necessary to render them valuable. His father early initiated him in the Greek and Latin languages, and cultivated his happy dispositions with extreme care, until his nineteenth year, when he placed him at the academy of Puylaurens. Here he remained three years, whence he was removed to the Jesuits' College at Toulouse; a practice not then unusual with the children of French Protestants, although forbidden by their synods, and often productive of re-conversions to the Church of Rome. Such in fact proved to be the case with young Bayle, who, arriving there in February 1669, in the course of the next month was induced

to profess himself a Roman Catholic The reader will doubtless be led by this incident to recollect the conduct of Gibbon, no very dissimilar character. It is unnecessary to observe, that young men of great but undisciplined scholastic acquirements, and solitary reading, are more likely to be caught in the toils of practised controversionalists, than any other description of persons, furnishing as they usually do the moat effective arms against themselves.—Ed. ¹. He had already been shaken by some books of controversy, which had fallen in his way at Puylaurens; and the arguments which he had with a priest who lodged in the same house with him at Toulouse, completed his conversion. The candour and rectitude of following up these temporary convictions, will often atone for the simplicity with which they are attained; but possibly, when a step of this nature is taken by an ardent and inquiring young man, it indicates nothing more certainly than that he will change still further.

When the news of this conversion reached his family, it necessarily produced considerable sorrow; and M. Bertier, bishop of Rieux, fearing that his support would be in consequence withheld, generously took upon himself the temporary charge of it. By this time, the extraordinary attainments of the youthful convert, and the ardent pursuit of study by which they were acquired, had contributed very materially to distinguish him; and the Catholics very naturally exulted at the conversion of a young man of so much promise, who possessed also the additional merit of being the son of a Protestant minister. When it became his turn to defend theses publicly, it was resolved to give the proceeding all possible éclat; the most distinguished persons of the clergy, parliament, and city, assisted at them; and what will probably amuse the readers of his Dictionary more than all the rest, his theses were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and adorned with her picture. This extraordinary appropriation did

not however obscure the perspicuity and ingenuity displayed in them; and it is only necessary to dip into the general history of disputation, to be satisfied that the finest faculties may be sharpened and exercised upon premises which are purely conventional and imaginary. Many of these may be said to resemble the coral rocks, which, although the production of mere animalculæ, become the support of a species of artificial terra firma on which men eat, drink, sleep, and build edifices, with as much confidence as upon foundations that are solid to the centre, and which with the centre alone can be shaken.

Stimulated by their success with a genius like that of Bayle, the Catholics formed a design of bringing over the whole family; and he was induced by the bishop of Rieux to write a letter of invitation to his elder brother. This epistle, which still exists, forms an admirable example of the texture and complexion of the arguments in support of authority against innovation usually employed by the Catholics; but, as it may be supposed, it made no impression upon a person supported and fortified by the counsels of his father and family.

In the mean time, Bayle, who had renounced one religion without studying it, to embrace another of which he knew still less, when he began to think further on the subject, mistrusted the propriety of the step which he had taken. This doubt he communicated to a Protestant gentleman known to his family, who visited him at Toulouse, by which means the fact was soon communicated to his father. On this hint, Mr Jacob Bayle was sent to Toulouse, and an interview was brought about between the brothers, which proved highly affecting. The rapid result was, the secret departure of Peter from Toulouse to the country-house of a M. Du Vivie, about six leagues from that town, where the very next day (the 21st August 1670) in the presence of his brother, and several Protestant ministers, he abjured his new hastily-embraced religion, and immediately departed for Geneva.

Bayle arrived at Geneva on the 2nd September 1670, and once more resumed the course of his studies. Having been deeply imbued with the Aristotelian philosophy by the Jesuits, he was in the first place led to defend it with considerable warmth. He soon however abandoned the subtleties of the Peripatetic school, for the sounder principles to which they were then rapidly giving way, and gradually adopted an art of reasoning which few men have exercised with equal dexterity. He quickly 6o distinguished himself at Geneva, that M. Normandie, syndic of the republic, intrusted him with the education of his children; and besides forming a strict intimacy with Basnage, Minutoli, and many other learned men, he soon acquired the esteem and good will of the most eminent persons of the republic. At length, by the recommendation of Basnage, he became governor to the sons of the count of Dhona, lord of Copet, which employment he retained for two years, much against his will, and then accepted the charge of the education of a merchant’s son near Rouen, with which engagement he was soon equally disgusted. His great object was now to settle in Paris, where at length, in 1675, he obtained the office of tutor to the MM. de Beringher, brothers to the duchess de la Force. This proved but a poor appointment; and M. Basnage, having successfully combated certain modestly expressed doubts of his capacity, induced him to become candidate for a professorship of philosophy in the Protestant university of Sedan, and strongly interested the celebrated Jurieu, then professor of theology there, in his interest, Thus encouraged, he quitted Paris, and arriving at Sedan, contested the claim with three able rivals, natives of the town, and otherwise very strongly supported; and owing to the great superiority of his talents, was preferred to them. This event took place on the 2nd November 1675; and from the moment of his appointment, he applied himself with his characteristic ardour to the composition of a course of philosophy for

his pupils, the completion of which cost him two years. It is printed in his works, in Latin and French, and is remarkable for the care which he shows in it to exclude futile subtlety and reasoning upon any but certain principles; at least so far as the times would admit, or public professors be allowed to follow them.

Disengaged from the composition of this important undertaking, he now gave himself up to reading, and to the composition of such works as he was led to think eligible by the course of circumstances or of inclination. In 1679 he composed in Latin an examination of a book by M. Poiret, entitled “ Cognationes rationales de Deo, Anima, et Malo,” in which he first showed the depth of his philosophical research, his acumen, and great controversial ability. In 1680 the affair of the duke of Luxemburgh made a great noise. This nobleman had been accused before the Chamber of Poisons, erected in consequence of the discovery of the transactions of the infamous Madame de Brinvilliers and her associates, of impiety, sorcery, and poisonings; of which charges he was declared innocent, and the process against him suppressed. Bayle, who indulged no small portion of covert predilection for satire, and who had acquired many curious particulars on the subject while at Paris, diverted himself by composing a formal harangue for the marshal, whom he supposed to plead his own cause before his judges, and to vindicate himself from the charge of having made a compact with the devil for certain extraordinary purposes. The pleading was made very smart, not only upon the marshal, but upon various other persons; and a pretended critique upon it, also written by Bayle, and given to another hand, was still more severe than the original. This disposition to attack in disguise remained more or less with Bayle as long as he lived, and, as will presently be shewn, occasionally led to some very unpleasant consequences. Apparently one of those persons who could enjoy a ludicrous or important result without caring for the credit of it,

he was at the same time of a disposition to love argument for its own sake, and to be fond of exhibiting his logical acuteness on all sides, and on almost any occasion.

In the month of December 1680 appeared one of the largest comets ever seen; and as the world had not yet got rid of the ancient prejudice which deemed these bodies portentous of some dire calamity, the consternation was extreme. Bayle sought to dissipate these foolish fears by a letter supposed to be addressed to a doctor of the Sorbonne by a Roman Catholic; the only means at that time of getting its publication allowed at Paris. He adopted a theological argument on the occasion, because in the then temper of the people they would listen to no other. “If comets are presages of evil,” he observed, “ God must have performed miracles to confirm idolatry in the world.” It was, after all, not published at Paris, but at Rotterdam, and is the piece afterwards entitled “ Pensées diverses sur la Comète.” Notwithstanding its theological aspect, it partakes of the philosophic spirit of the author, many delicate questions being discussed in relation to assumed miracles and presages among the Pagans, and a comparison instituted between the mischiefs arising from atheism and idolatry, which is extremely curious, interesting, and profound.

In the mean time, the situation of the Reformed in France had become truly melancholy. The merciless perfidy which, in regard to the Edict of Nantes, characterized nearly the whole of the reign of Louis XIV, was now almost at its height; and it was at length resolved, that the academies of the Protestants throughout France should be suppressed. Some hopes were entertained that the university of Sedan would be spared, as that principality had been a sovereign state until 1662, and Louis XIII, to whom it was surrendered by the duke of Bouillon, had agreed to leave all things in the condition he found them in; which treaty Louis XIV had confirmed, and even extended in respect to the toleration of

the Protestant religion. So far however from these stipulations forming any additional obstacle, the latter monarch, in the genuine spirit of his sort of faith, decreed that the academy of Sedan should be the first dissolved; and in July 1681 its dissolution took place accordingly.

This event formed another striking epoch in the life of Bayle, who was now entirely without employ. Happily, a young Hollander, named Van Zoelen, was at the time resident at Sedan, who had become acquainted with him, and entertained towards him a high degree of esteem and good-will. This gentleman volunteered his good offices with his relation, M. Paets, an influential magistrate of Rotterdam, who, being himself a learned man, as well as a patron of learning, was readily brought to interest himself in the favour of a scholar like Bayle. This he did so successfully, that when the latter, doubtful of the result, was debating whether he should repair to Rotterdam or depart for England, he received a letter acquainting him that the city of Rotterdam had assigned him a salary, with a permission to teach philosophy. At the instance of Bayle, the same generous person had been induced to make similar exertions in favour of Jurieu, which very soon after succeeded. The town of Rotterdam instituted what was termed an “Illustrious School, ’in their favour, in which M. Jurieu was appointed professor of theology, and M. Bayle professor of philosophy and history, with a yearly salary of 500 gilders. On the 5th December 1681, the latter delivered his inaugural oration with universal applause, and a few days afterwards he gave his first lecture on philosophy to a crowded assembly of students.

In the commencement of 1682 his work on the comet appeared at Rotterdam, as already described. The author sought in vain to conceal himself; and the fame consequent on the discovery is thought to have given the first rise to those symptoms of jealousy in Jurieu, which afterwards led to so much rancour and to so manv ill offices,

About this time also Maimbourgh published his History of Calvinism, in which he laboured with all his power to stigmatize the spirit and conduct of the Reformed throughout France, and to draw upon them the contempt and hatred of the Catholics. Bayle, indignant at the disingenuousness of this author, and still more at the sinister object of his work, wrote an answer to it in the form of letters, under the following title—“ Critique Generale de l'Histoire du Calvinisme de M. Maimbourgh, par Peter Le Blanc.” In this production, composed in fifteen days, he did not think it necessary to follow his opponent step by step; deeming it sufficient, by a series of general observations, and a poignant species of satire and raillery, to exhibit the malignity with which the history of Calvinism had been written, and the absurd and barbarous principles it was intended to inculcate. Maimbourgh of course was highly piqued at this attack, of which a great many copies found their way into France; and by carrying his complaints to the king, he obtained an order for it to be burnt by the executioner, and to forbid the sale of it on pain of death. Of this sentence no less than 3000 copies were posted in Paris, which as usual formed the finest advertisement of the work that could have been devised; and no reading Frenchman could afterwards be satisfied without a perusal of the Critique on Maimbourgh.

It was a long time before this publication was attributed to Bayle, the style of it being very different from that of his “ Thoughts on the Comet but it was at length discovered by the inadvertent exposure of a letter from the author to his bookseller. M. Jurieu also answered the work of Maimbourgh, in a more formal and elaborate manner than Bayle, but altogether destitute of the easy and natural turn of the latter, who was keen without rancour, and severe without bitterness. The different estimation obtained by the two books again offended the jealous disposition of the pastor, and added force to the secret ill-will with which he had begun to regard his

former friend. This was however for the present kept under; and through the instrumentality of Mademoiselle du Moulin, sister to Madame Jurieu, a very eligible match was proposed to Bayle, in the person of a very handsome young lady, with a fortune of 15,000 crowns entirely at her own disposal. Complete independence, and a life of philosophical literature, had however for a longtime previously become his sole and ultimate object; and he not only resisted this striking temptation in the present instance, but retained his resolution against wedlock to the termination of his life.

The next publication of Bayle was a “Collection of Curious Pieces relative to the Cartesian Philosophy,” which was followed, in May 1684, by the first number of his celebrated monthly journal entitled “ Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,” which was founded on the excellent principle of the “Journal des Savans.” No one could be better adapted for a critical journal of this nature than Bayle, who conducted it at once with spirit and amenity. In the May of this year, the States of Friesland proffered him the situation of professor of philosophy at Franeker, with a salary nearly the double of that which he received at Rotterdam; but after taking some time to consider of the proposal, he declined it. Much about the same time he received information of the death of his younger brother, who was also in the way of obtaining considerable distinction in the world of letters.

Early in 1685 Bayle enlarged his “ Critique Generate” on Maimbourgh’s history; and in the May of the same year, received the afflicting intelligence of the death of his father, and of the imprisonment of his elder brother on the score of religion. The sorrow produced by this intelligence must have been considerably increased by the assurance, that resentment on the part of the Catholics for the “ Critique Generale” had induced the minister Louvois to this low-minded species of revenge. Being then minister of Carla, officers were sent to arrest Mr Jacob Bayle,

who was dragged out of his house, and thrown into the prison of Pamiers, from which he was removed to the Château Trompette at Bourdeaux, and confined in a close and infectious dungeon. Every attempt was made to induce him to change his religion, but in vain; and after five months' imprisonment, his constitution gave way, and he fell a sacrifice to the cruelty of his persecutors. The extreme length to which this mild and conscientious man carried the doctrine of passive obedience, while it renders its excessive absurdity as a general principle apparent, left those to whose intolerance he fell a victim, no sort of political excuse for the enormity of their conduct towards him. This year was to prove afflictive to Bayle every way, for in it he lost his friend and patron, M. Paets, who had just published a “Letter on Toleration,” much praised by the former in his journal for October, on the 8th of which month M. Paets died, leaving a high character behind him as a lawyer, a divine, a politician, and a philosopher.

The impartiality of Bayle soon after engaged him in a dispute with the celebrated Arnauld on the “Pleasure of the Senses,” caused by a censure, on the part of the latter, of a passage in father Malebranche, asserting “that all pleasure is a good, and renders the person who enjoys it actually happy.” Bayle sided with Malebranche in his journal and some smart controversy ensued, curious enough in itself, but, like most disputes of the kind, of very little intrinsic importance.

In October 1685, that consummation of cruelty, impolicy, and bad faith, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, took place in France, and was followed by all the persecutions, dragoonings, and merciless inflictions, which throw such an air of burlesque on the wordsgreat andpaternal as applied to Louis XIV. The reflections of Bayle, in his journal, were in the first instance very mild and cautious; but annoyed by the multitude of books wherein nothing was talked of but the “immortal glory”

acquired by Louis in the destruction of heresy, he published, in March 1685, a little book entitled “Ce que c'est que la France toute Catholique sous le Régne de Louis le Grand”—a Character of France entirely Catholic under the Reign of Louis le Grand. In the favourite manner of Bayle, the author assumes the character of a French refugee at London, who writes to a canon in France. The letters, which are three in number, supply a severe and cutting exposure of the outrageous conduct of the Catholics in their pretended conversions, their low and gross cheats, ridiculous artifices, and atrocious cruelties, as exhibited at that time throughout France. He followed up this salutary exposure by a work, pretendedly translated from the English, entitled “ A Philosophical Commentary on these words of Jesus Christ—Compel them to come in.” It is a fine argumentative exposure of the abuse of that celebrated passage in favour of persecution, and is founded on a principle laid down at the beginning of his work, “ That natural reason, or the general principle of our knowledge, forms the fundamental and original rule of all interpretations of Scripture.” At this time of day, it may be thought that the proposition and the consequences flowing from it are self-evident; but when Bayle wrote, such was by no means the case; and amounting as it did to an elaborate defence of general toleration, in which all the objections are refuted with logical precision, the utility of the work was very great, not only in the correction of Catholic intolerance, but of a by no means unequivocal tendency to imitate it in a bigoted portion of the Reformed. In speaking of these works in his journal, Bayle of course indirectly sought to enforce his own arguments, and excite an anxiety to peruse them.

A journal like that carried on by Bayle could scarcely fail of engaging him in occasional exchanges both of courtesy and wrangling. The French Academy, to whom he presented it, were unanimous in acknowledging its merit: and the Royal Society of England requested an inter-

change of correspondence with the author. On the other hand, unpleasant disputes would sometimes arise; and a something of that nature, which took place on the occasion of an allusion to the celebrated ex-queen of Sweden, Christina, as it caused Bayle no small anxiety and uneasiness, may merit a brief mention.

In his journal for May 1686, in speaking of a printed letter, then said to be an answer from the queen of Sweden to the chevalier de Terlon, in which she condemned the persecution of the French Protestants, he used the following words:—“ Christina is the true author of the letter attributed to her against the persecutions in France.It is a remnant of Protestantism.”It has been observed of apostates and converts (very often convertible terms) that doubts of their sincerity are peculiarly offensive to them. Such was the case in the present instance with Christina, who wrote or caused a letter to be written to Bayle, complimentary to his wit and learning, but complaining of his implied doubt of her sincere conversion to the Church of Rome, conveyed in the expression “remnant of Protestantism;” also hinting that the word Christina, without the title of queen, was somewhat too familiar. Bayle acted with his usual address, by transforming with considerable ingenuity the omission of the word queen into a compliment,—the name Christina had been rendered too illustrious to need any adjunct. This passed as to that point; but all his explanation in relation to the “ remnant of Protestantism” could not make the expression palatable; and in a second letter he was required to acknowledge its inadvertence, with something like a threat of annoyance in the event of refusal. This intimation was however rendered palatable by expressions of great respect for his abilities, and a hint that a letter to the queen would be acceptable, who however, notwithstanding her abdication, must be addressed as “her majesty,” and notserenissime. He accordingly wrote to Christina, who replied with her own hand, and after handsomely accepting his

excuses, employed him to send her new books and his journal. The correspondence is too long for insertion in a sketch of this brief nature, but the whole proceeding merits perusal on the part of those who, in the caprices and punctilio of abdicated sovereignty and doubtful conversion, will discover precisely the same passions which actuate much smaller people on similar occasions.

At this time the literary labours of Bayle, followed up as they were with unremitting assiduity, began to operate very seriously to the injury of his health. He was seized with a fever in February 1687, and continued for some time so indisposed that he engaged M. Beauval to carry on his journal for a while, and afterwards to take it altogether; that writer accordingly continued it, from the month of September following, under the title of “ Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans”—“the History of the Works of the Learned.”

Bayle had taken immense pains to prevent the “ Philosophical Commentary” from being assigned to himself, and when suspicions of that kind prevailed, descended even to some scarcely pardonable equivocations to allay them. Much however may be allowed to a person holding his formal situation of professor, who was also conscious that his free and sceptical mode of handling subjects might not be always palatable to the bigots of any creed. By writing anonymously, he was certainly able to argue with less restriction; no small reason for a lenient judgment on this score. Whatever may be thought of such plea, or of the justifiableness of his motives, the guise assumed by Bayle on the present occasion completely deceived the furious Jurieu, who, without knowing the author, was extremely displeased with a book which inculcated toleration. He accordingly undertook to refute it in a work entitled “Des Droits des deux Souverains,”&c. “The Rights of the two Sovereigns, Conscience and the Prince, in matters of religion.” He pleasantly enough commences his book by assuring the

reader that the “ Philosophical Commentary” was not the work of one man, but of a cabal of French refugees; and that, by the inculcation of toleration, religious indifference was intended. Bayle answered his unconscious critic in a letter prefixed to the third part of his Commentary, and found little difficulty in controverting an antagonist so heated and bigoted as Jurieu. He not only proved him to have involuntarily admitted the principles he had undertaken to refute, but involved him most amusingly in a logical embarrassment, from which he extricated himself with so ill a grace, that his defeat became apparent to all the world.

Towards the close of the year 1687, the health of Bayle was in a great degree restored; but the death of M. Paets and the annoyance which he received from the violent temper of Jurieu, rendered Rotterdam so unpleasant to him that he sought an establishment at Berlin. Owing however, to the death of the then elector of Brandenburgh, some negotiations which had been entered into for that purpose were rendered abortive, and he was obliged to remain at Rotterdam. About this time Jurieu published a book entitled “L'Accomplissement des Prophecies, ou la Deliverance prochaine del’Eglise.” In this rhapsodical production, the heated author endeavoured to prove from the Apocalypse, that in three years and a half from the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the reformation would be established all over France by the king's own authority. All were declared impious and profane who doubted these oracular declarations, the fallacy of which becoming apparent in 1689, he changed his battery, and asserted that the same tiling would take place by force of arms. Owing to these and similar extravagances by other refugees, a couple of works appeared, one in the beginning of 1689, and the other in the April of 1690, both of which have been attributed to Bayle, one of them on testimony which even his own formal contradiction has not been sufficient to controvert. The first of these

productions was entitled “ The Answer of a New Convert to the Letter of a Refugee.” The character assumed in it was that of a Catholic convert from Protestantism, and in a certain sense it may be deemed supplementary to the Phi losophical Commentary on the subject of toleration. The object apparently was to stigmatize the Protestant intolerance of Jurieu, and others of his character, by showing that persecution could not be defended in any form without giving up the cause of religious freedom to the Catholic writers. Whether Bayle was really the concealed author of this ambi-dexterous production seems doubtful, but his property in the second work of a kindred nature above alluded to, is in a manner proved. It is entitled “ Avis important aux Réfugiés sur leur prochain retour en France,” and is in the form of a letter from Paris to a friend. The title of the book is a sneer at Jurieu's prophecy, which is ridiculed in the commencement with great pleasantry. In other respects it will scarcely advance its author in the opinion of the friends of political liberty, being a formal defence of the absolute power of princes, and an explicit inculcation of the doctrine of passive obedience. The refugees are reproached with the republican notions they have imbibed in the places of their retreat, and the spirit of satire and slander with which they assail the government of France. A spirit of sedition and anarchy, it is asserted, had so deeply prevailed among certain classes of the Reformed, that a quarantine would be absolutely necessary before France could allow of their return. In this curious production the death of Charles I is alluded to as the reproach of Presbyterianism, and the fidelity of the French Catholics to Henry IV is extolled in comparison with that of the English Protestants to James 11. The glory of Louis XIV is also much dwelt upon; and the piece concludes with an earnest wish that the refugees may at least remain endued with “ sentiments which every honest man ought to have for his country.”

The Catholic mask assumed by Bayle in this

publication may account for much of the most offensive portion of the colouring; but having allowed thus much, it is not to be denied that it was the work of a man who was still too much a Frenchman nut to participate in the successes of Louis, and to view with uneasiness every symptom of a state of things which was likely to check the power and endanger the ascendancy of France. The recent English revolution was one of these events; and the turn things were taking in the way of a confederacy under the auspices of the new king of England, could not be unapparent to Bayle. The formal and allowed return of the Protestants to France, seems also to have been one of his most ardent wishes and objects; and he felt that the republican and comparatively free notions acquired by the refugees in England and Holland, were forming a political opposition to their return of the most formidable description. How far all these notions may excuse Bayle as a Frenchman may be left to casuists to determine. They will certainly not acquit him as a philosopher, and still less as a friend of civil and political liberty. In fact the mere closet-student seldom is so; it requires a healthy mixture of action with speculation, to instil a due notion of the robust health and energy of freedom. The pale waster of midnight oil may indeed sometimes become a theorist in that direction; but generally speaking he shrinks from the concussion produced by the actual collision of interests and opinions, and can see safety only under the wing of uncontrolled, or at least of very predominant authority.

To this letter Bayle, in the usual spirit of his masquerading, appended a preface, the supposed work of the refugee to whom the letter is addressed, rebutting some of its allegations. The author of this preface is made as zealous a Protestant as his correspondent is a Catholic, and reasons accordingly; and then, with great apparent impartiality, our argumentative Proteus hits Louis XIV and James II as harden passant as he had their opponents

in the body of the work, but evidently with less sincerity, and merely to keep up the verisimilitude of the assumed origin and intention of the production. He carried his finesse still further; for in an avowed publication he alludes to the service which it had effected by producing able answers. It had proved, he said, that the sense of the ablest members of the exiled party was against the scurrilous productions so much complained of as disgraceful to the refugees with whom they originated. This it must be confessed is curious, and exhibits the extraordinary pliability of the mind of Bayle very amusingly. If led to doubt its value in this way of employing it, we must pardon the abuse in consideration of the use; for in this versatile power of arguing on every side of a question, the extraordinary superiority of his famous Dictionary chiefly consists. Hence, too, his strength and his weakness; for as no man ever equalled him for marshalling opposing arguments in battle-array, so entirely did this habit of mind master him, that he exhibits it often in regard to points where the belligerent arrangement on each side appears as ridiculous as that of the frogs and the mice. The disputed date of one of the most insignificant facts in the world will sometimes occupy him a folio page or two, and nothing appears too great or too little, where a difference of opinion can exist, for a muster of arguments on all sides of the question from the logical laboratory of Bayle.

The Advice to the Refugees had been nearly forgotten, when Jurieu was led by some means or other to attribute it to Bayle, and to follow up his assertion by an examination of the book, and an exposure of its partiality to Louis XIV, and enmity to, the English revolution. Situated as Bayle was, nothing could be more calculated to injure him than this imputation, which was enforced with all the theological rancour, heat, and inconsistency of that vindictive divine. A silly plan for a general peace wag at this time projected by a merchant of Geneva of the

name of Goudet, and sent by him to Bayle. This chimerical scheme, which exhibited some marks of a favourable feeling to France, Jurieu imputed to his opponent, whom he accused of being a member of a cabal at Geneva in the pay of that country. At this serious accusation, Bayle waited upon the chief magistrate of Rotterdam and offered to go to prison, if his accuser would go with him and submit to punishment if he failed in his accusation. He would have done well to have rested here; but an adept like himself could not refrain from a formal reply. Jurieu of course rejoined, and petitioned the burgomaster of Amsterdam for justice against hislibeller. The magistrate acted a calm and dignified part in the squabble, by recommending forbearance to both sides, and forbidding them to write against each other. It would be an absolute waste of paper to detail more of this curious controversy between men so unequally gifted. Suffice it to observe, that Jurieu brought upon himself innumerable mortifications. The pretended cabal of Geneva drew upon him the indignation of all the inhabitants of that city; and the assignment of so very foolish a plan of peace to Bayle himself was only laughed at and deemed absurd. His formal accusation of atheism, when pressed by the latter, he was obliged to recall; and nothing remained of all his crimination but the reputed authorship of the advice to the refugees. This was also denied by Bayle with a pertinacity which does little honour to his sincerity, if really the author; and if the positive testimony of persons who saw the manuscript and knew his handwriting may be credited, such he was. While, in a high and unassailable sense this conduct cannot be defended, in the way of mitigation it is certainly allowable to observe, that few men will avow productions that may ruin their worldly prospects; and that if an anonymous work contain only general reasoning, and be free from personal accusation or attack, no author can be fairly called upon to an acknowledgment which may prove injurious to himself without affecting his arguments. That, seduced by his peculiar expertness of logic, Bayle was too fond of disguise, is however evident; and one of the contingencies attendant upon deception of every kind was the almost unavoidable penalty— the necessity of covering one lapse by another.

When in some degree released from the annoyance produced by his controversy with Jurieu, Bayle assiduously pursued an object which he had entertained for some years before; and in May 1792 he sent out his “ Projet et 1642 Fragments d'une Dictionnaire Critique.” This production was given as a specimen of a dictionary which should detect all the falsehoods and errors in fact, of other dictionaries, and form a supplement of their omissions under every article. The plan was not relished; and Bayle gave it up at once, and laid the foundation of the great work which has rendered his name so highly celebrated. In the mean time his indefatigable persecutor, Jurieu, a sort of living personification of the “ odium theologium,” irritated at his previous defeats, accused him before the Dutch consistory of impiety and heresy, and supported his charge by a list of passages, which he deemed suspicious and dangerous, from his long-published work upon the Comet. The apparent result of this charge was, the deprivation of Bayle of his salary and professorship; for it afterwards appeared that the malignant accusation of Jurieu merely formed an excuse for an act of severity which took place at the instigation of king William, who was opposed to the party which had principally stood forward as his protector. William, who detested the idea of a peace with France, having discovered that some intrigues were going on with a view to bring it about, thought something more might belong to the silly story of the project attributed by Jurieu to Bayle, than was at first apprehended, and at all events was angry at the circulation of schemes of the kind, the diffusion of which he knew had contributed to bring about the

treaty of Nimeguen. To these doubts and surmises Bayle was therefore sacrificed, although possibly his known predilection for his native country and sovereign might hasten the resolve. Be this as it may, he lost his appointment; but so few were his wants, and so habitual his frugality and economy, that he was more pleased at his increased leisure for study than inconvenienced by his loss of income. He declined the generous offer of a tutorship from count Guiscard of Sedan, and declared his intention to seek no other employment, but calmly to finish his dictionary and pursue his studies. These labours however did not prevent him from attacking his enemy Jurieu, in a pamphlet entitled “ La Nouvelle Heresie dans la Morale, touchant la Haine du Prochain.” The envious pastor it seems had preached two sermons in which he delivered from the pulpit maxims similar to those which had regulated his conduct to Bayle:—that feelings of hate, indignation, and anger, are allowable, good, and praiseworthy, against the enemies of God, that is to say against Socinians and other heretics, against the superstitious, the idolatrous, &c.&c.; that such hatred should be shown by refusing all intercourse with these people, and never either saluting or eating with them; that not only their heresy and bad qualities are to be hated, but they are to be hated personally. Doctrine of this amiable nature it was not difficult to expose; and Bayle further baffled his antagonist by a brief appendix to a new edition of his “ Thoughts on the Comet,” which, although but the labour of a few days, so effectually repelled these accusations of the acrimonious theologian, that he was completely silenced by it.

At length, in the month of August 1695, the first volume of the Dictionary appeared; and the expectation of the public was as great as the modesty of the author was fearful. The demand was so great, especially from the book-sellers of other countries, that the publisher had to print one thousand additional copies, and to estimate the

succeeding volumes at a correspondent number. So high was the opinion of it entertained in England, that the duke of Shrewsbury wished it to be dedicated to him, and caused it to be intimated to Bayle that a douceur of two hundred guineas would follow the compliment. His friends, particularly Basnage, wished him to gratify that nobleman; but he excused himself on the score of the ridicule he had often thrown on dedications. His real objection however was to the paying of a compliment to the minister of a a king at war with his country, and who he thought had acted towards him with severity and injustice.

The second volume appeared in October 1697, and so far from the prepossession of the public in favour of the work abating, as feared by its author, it went on augmenting, and in less than three years a new edition was called for. With some trifling and extraneous matter, variety of information, sound criticism, forcible reasoning, and curious and interesting research—all were found within its pages; and, to crown the whole, its philosophical discussion was felt to be masterly. His free and investigative treatment of points of religion, morals, and philosophy is also very interesting, and in nothing more valuable than in the discomfiture of that dogmatic spirit which is so inimical at once to mutual charity and general improvement. The real purpose of Bayle seems to have been to make his Dictionary a kind of commonplace for all the ancient and philosophical knowledge, all the curious information as to fact, and all the subtilty of argumentation, which he had spent his life in acquiring. That the execution of a plan should embrace matter both pleasing and displeasing to every taste is unavoidable; but that reader may very safely be pronounced a very dull or prejudiced personage, who can find nothing to amuse and inform him while turning over the pages of the Dictionary of Bayle.

A book composed in a spirit of inquiry so free and unrestrained could not pass without reply or censure.

The everlasting M. Jurieu of course sounded the tocsin— and not without provocation, for he is frequently handled with critical severity in the pages of the Dictionary. Whatever is condemnatory of a theologian of this very fiery description, is necessarily an open war against heaven and religion; and consequently nothing could be more natural than the labour of the worthy pastor in collecting opinions against the Dictionary, including a condemnation of it by the French censor, the abbé Renaudot. This disinterested compilation he chose to publish under the title of “ The Judgment of the Public upon the Critical Dictionary the best answer to which good-natured collection was possibly the call for another edition of the Dictionary in a few months afterwards. The object of Jurieu however was to get it condemned by the ecclesiastical assemblies; in pursuance of which angry design he had his libel presented to the synod at that time sitting at Delft, which took no manner of notice of it. The consistory of Rotterdam listened to the charge, but acted with great moderation. They granted Bayle a hearing, and expressed themselves satisfied with his answers, but directed him to acquaint the public with the tenor of their observations and his own reply to them. This he did in a single sheet, with which the consistory was not altogether satisfied; but without acting in the furious manner recommended by Jurieu, they com-posed a memorial, recommending the following corrections, which are here inserted in order to show the ope-ration of a religious censorship of any kind upon a free exercise of reason.

1. To retrench all prurient and coarse expressions.

2. To entirely alter the article David.

3. To refute the Manicheans, instead of giving new force to their objections and arguments.

4. To act in the same manner in regard to the Pyrrhonians, and the artiçle Pyrrhonism.

5. Not to highly praise the good qualities of Atheists and Epicureans.

6. Not to lightly refute what theological Protestants have said of vicious popes.

7. To review the articles Nicole and Pelisson, which contain divers matters that seem to lead to Pyrrhonism.

8. In speaking of providence, to avoid enlarging upon and exaggerating the difficulties started by profane writers.

9. To be more reserved and careful in the use of Scriptural language.

10. And lastly,—to treat M. Jurieu with moremoderation, as a pastor whose ministry and labours had been of singular edification to the church.

Bayle paid no very strict regard to these recommendations, some of which indirectly prescribed misrepresentation and falsehood. He indeed retrenched a few lines and expressions, and contracted the article David; which so injured the sale of the edition, that his bookseller without his knowledge appended a separate sheet to every copy, to get over the difficulty. With respect to Manicheism, Atheism, Pyrrhonism, and pruriency, Bayle added a formal defence and explanation of his meaning, at the end of the volume, and thus ended the matter to the infinite mortification of Jurieu.

But of course a work which, like the Historical and Critical Dictionary, handled all opinions so very freely, would call opponents to the field of more temper and talents than the infuriated theologist of Rotterdam. M. Le Clerc, for instance, in a well tempered production entitled “ Parrhasiana,” maintained that the system of Origen, abandoned by almost every sect of Christians, would fully refute the Manichean doctrine of the “Origin of Evil.” The salvo of Origen is, that the pains of hell are not eternal—a doctrine peculiarly harsh to orthodoxy, both Catholic and Protestant; and

consequently M. Le Clerc was on the whole not thanked for this interference.

In 1700, Sophia, the electress dowager of Hanover, and her daughter, the electress of Brandenhurgh, passed through Flanders and Holland, and sought an interview with Bayle, which passed with much respect and consideration on the part of the princesses, one of whom declared that his Dictionary always formed a part of her travelling equipage.

It is impossible within these brief limits to enter into the various controversies of the author of the Historical and Critical Dictionary, with Le Clerc on Cudworth's Theory of Plastic and Vital Natures, with Teissier on the correctness of his “ Eloges des Hommes Savans and with Jaquelot and various other writers in respect to Manicheism and the “ Origin of Evil.” It may however be briefly observed, that his long-promised defence of his “ Thoughts on the Comet” published in 1703, involved him in a dispute with M. Bernard on the following two questions:—“ Is the general consent of all people a proof of the existence of God?” and “ Is Paganism more injurious than Atheism?” In regard to the first, Bayle held that the assent of all people is not in itself a satisfactory proof of a supreme existence; and as to the second, he deems Paganism worse than Atheism—an opinion which / hitherto at least has not been very satisfactorily confuted.

The reputation of Bayle was by this time so extended, and his character stood so high among men of intellect, that many persons of distinction, especially in England, were solicitous to have him near them, in order to profit by his knowledge and conversation. The earls of Huntingdon and Albemarle made him express and urgent invitations; but the love of independence was strongly implanted in him, and he exceedingly feared entanglement in the gilded chain of noble patronage. But while his admirers increased with his fame, his adversaries equally multiplied;

and not content with representing him as an enemy to religion, he was now to be accused as a foe to the state. They affected to regard his refusal to visit England as arising from a consciousness of his intrigues with France, and advised lord Sunderland of his holding suspicious conferences with the French ambassador, the marquis d’Allegre. From this storm he was saved by the interference of his friend lord Shaftesbury, the celebrated author of the “ Characteristics,” who recommended him to take some occasion to speak of the war with France, and praise the duke of Marlborough. Bayle with much dignity replied, that in print he had never censured either, and could not deign to remove unjust suspicions by dint of panegyric and flattery. In the end lord Shaftesbury otherwise convinced lord Sunderland of his innocence, and he was left unmolested.

The attacks which were made upon Bayle from all quarters about this time brought Jurieu again into the field, who published a little book entitled “ Le Philosophe de Rotterdam accusé, attaint, et convaincu !” As it contained nothing but what he had often refuted, Bayle took no notice of it; but it illustrates the inbred nature of that curious Christian divine, that he compliments in his book the writers Jaquelot and Bernard, whom he had previously accused of heresy, and Le Clerc, whom he personally hated, simply in consequence of their opposition to the author of the Critical and Historical Dictionary. What is still more curious, he so involved himself in his premises, that he ended with being of the opinion of Bayle himself, and in contradiction to that of his adversaries:

O prudent discipline—from north to south,
Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.
King John.

In the midst of these disputes, Bayle bad been seized with a disorder in his lungs, which, being an hereditary distemper, he from the first accounted mortal, and would not be induced to annoy himself with medical

treatment, being convinced it would prove unavailable. A philosopher in temperament as well as in pursuits, he witnessed the approach of the termination of his mortal career without either fearing or desiring it; and a great proof of the strength of the “ ruling passion strong in death” was supplied by his uninterrupted labour in refutation of his opponents, and by the manner in which he remarks upon it in a letter to the earl of Shaftesbury. “ I should have thought,” he observes to that nobleman, “ that a dispute with divines would have put me out of humour; but I find by experience that it serves as an amusement to me in the solitude to which I have reduced myself. My disease being a disorder in the lungs, nothing pains me more than speaking: I therefore neither make nor receive visits, but divert myself with answering M. Le Clerc and M. Jaquelot, whom I find constantly guilty of insincerity.”

This characteristic epistle was dated the 29th October 1706; and he died on the 28th of the following December, having printed his answer to Le Clerc, and all but completed his reply to Jaquelot. The manner of his death was in peculiar accordance with the tranquillity of his temper, and the privacy of his habits. The evening before his death, having studied all day, he gave the corrector of the press who waited upon him some copy of his answer to Jaquelot, and told him he was exceedingly indisposed. The next morning at nine o’clock, when his landlady entered his chamber, he faintly asked her if his fire had been lighted, and died the next moment, without apparent pain or struggle of any kind, at the age of fifty-nine years, one month, and ten days.

Although deprived of his income for a long time, such was the economy and frugality of this extraordinary man, that, aided by what it may be presumed would in his time be deemed a handsome remuneration for his literary labours, he left behind him upwards of 10,000 guilders.— He bad in the first instance left his property to

Mademoiselle Bayle, his elder brother's daughter; but that young lady dying, he made M. Bruguiere, his cousin by his mother's side, his heir. On this occasion, one of those disgraceful exhibitions of selfish baseness took place, on the part of the heirs-at-law, which are so frequently favoured by the imperfection, and—as in the present case—the iniquity of legal enactments. A suit was entered by them against the will of Bayle in the parliament of Toulouse, on the ground that as he was a fugitive on account of religion, and had died in a Protestant country, he was not entitled to bequeath his wealth, and consequently that his testament was null against his nearest relations. To the discredit of France, many edicts, declarations, and ordinances, bore out the appellants in their sordid view of the case; and it casts an additional stigma on the character of this sort of legislation, that there was no opportunity to be just without being illegal. National vanity was however too strong for law on this striking occasion; the gentlemen of the grand chamber of Toulouse thought that they were permitted to infringe a rule in favour of so “illustrious a personage,” and confirmed his will. One of the judges (M. Senaux) who had been acquainted with him, exerted himself exceedingly on the occasion, and succeeded on the following specious considerations, which the reader will perceive are no reasons at all against positive law, however happily demonstrative of its impolicy or injustice: “Learned men,” he observed, “are denizens of all countries, and it is not allowable to regard as a fugitive a student whom the love of literature has led to inhabit another country. As to his being civilly dead, it was ridiculous to speak thus of one whose name was in perpetual recurrence from one end of Europe to the other.” All this is very true; but the legal fiction in the case of Bayle was not more absurd than many other legal fictions; and gratifying as it is that common sense and humanity triumphed in favour of his testament, France was doubly disgraced in the affair; first by making iniquitous laws, and then on untenable grounds infringing them. That country however has not been alone in the construction of similar enactments. Other nations have existed in which the Protestant next of kin might sue a Catholic possessor for his landed estate. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and its consequences, no doubt look disgracefully enough in history; but it may be doubted whether the transactions which followed the treaty of Limerick are at all more defensible, on the score of policy, humanity, or human suffering, than the Gallic persecution so much more historically conspicuous and decried.

The moral character of Bayle was peculiarly unblemished, being in all respects that of a genuine philosopher. Tranquil, sober, and disinterested, in the highest degree, it was with difficulty he could be made to accept even the common testimonials of good will in the way of present; and although courted by many among the nobility both of England and France, he seems scrupulously to have resisted every species of courtesy which, by placing him under obligations, might eventually control his independence. He was, at the same time, stedfast and kind in friendship, and signally modest and unassuming in his intercourse generally; the only exception having arisen out of a firm attachment to the glory and welfare of his native country, the government of which he could never hear attacked or depreciated, on any subject but that of persecution, without a considerable loss of his usual equanimity. No pleasures but those of mind seem to have had any charms for him; a fact which rendered a scandalous report of an improper attention to Madame Jurieu being the source of the enmity of her husband, utterly discredited, and indeed ridiculous. It was however some compliment to human nature to imagine that a strong private cause must exist for so much rancour and ill-will; but unhappily the history of theological controversy affords too many melancholy proofs that, as

the love of Jonathan was beyond that of women, the hatred of a persecuting theologist may exceed that of demons.

As an author, it is scarcely necessary to add, that in the nature of things opinion has not been so general in his favour. Usually placed at the head of the school of modern scepticism, he is necessarily discountenanced by dogmatists of every class; nor is the fact, that he is one of those who have most contributed to the freedom of discussion, in modern times, a claim touniversal good will. The nature of the sceptical tendencies of Bayle seems however to have been frequently misconceived. In canvassing the negative and the affirmative of the various schools of philosophy and opinion, his earnestness and good faith are undeniable; and a falling short of decisive conclusion is rather the result than the object of his labours. A celebrated writer, who greatly admired him, styled him “the advocate-general of philosophers and it is said that he called himself—after Jupiter—the cloud-compeller, or pleader of doubts and objections. This indeed appears to be pretty nearly the case; but then it is usually with regard to points on which the human understanding has almost avowedly toiled in vain. It has at the same time been observed, that he labours more successfully in the detection of error than in the establishment of truth; but this, it is to be apprehended, will ever be the case in a wide examination of human theories and opinions. He does however occasionally conclude; but it is generally in a negative manner, as in regard to the Manichean objection upon the origin of evil, which he declares to be insolvable. At the same time nothing can be more honest than his statement of all sorts of opinions; a quality allowed him by some of his opponents, who admit that he often places a position, which according to the jargon of his theological accusers his impiety should lead him to impugn, in a point of view the most

favourable and predominant; and the wisdom which, in the article Simonides, he brings forward to prove the existence of a God, is regarded as one of these instances. In short, when he doubted, he decided not; and it appears to have formed a part of his intention to collect materials for judgment, instead of pronouncing it. In the mean time, the fair philosophical spirit of impartiality, by which he is often led to combat hurtful prejudices and unwarrantable dogmatism, is unequivocally salutary and praiseworthy. The labour which he employs in detecting and refuting the calumnies of party writers on all sides, is also worthy of the highest applause; and the difficulty of discovering in his Dictionary under what banners of country, sect, or party, he ranges himself, may be regarded as a proof of his peculiar fitness for philosophical and historical discussion.

On the other hand, it may be as frankly allowed, that the fruitfulness of his imagination, and the extent of his knowledge, not unfrequently betray him into unnecessary digression, the necessity of which to his subject is not always evident to spirits less discerning and scrupulous than his own. His style, also, although bold and natural, is not always very correct; nor can it be denied, that he frequently indulges in a species of prurient matter, which, if not calculated to inflame, cannot by any means improve, where nothing is to be deduced from the information; for on such occasions an excess of delicacy is sacrificing a major to a minor consideration. The disposition of his Dictionary into text and commentary, in which attention is called backward and forward from one to the other, with a sort of fatiguing caprice, would be also unbearable in an author less fertile in knowledge and expert in illustration, and even in Bayle it too frequently seduces into a disproportionate attention to minutiae and trifles. The reader however easily accommodates himself to an arrangement which he perceives so well adapted to the discursive

powers of the writer, and is careless of wandering out of the road, when so certain of being frequently recompensed for the ramble. Whatever indeed the alloy, or matter which time and improvement may have rendered comparatively obsolete or uninteresting, the quantity of sterling ore will always be conspicuous and valuable. Certainly no work ever did more than his Critical and Historical Dictionary to clear away the lingering lumber of the schools, and to open a more free and vigorous exercise of intellect in the way of rational inference and logical deduction. As to defect of plan, it is trite, at this time of day, to talk of the impossibility of forming rules for genius; but without descending to fatiguing common places of that kind, it may be reasonably observed, that every writer of extraordinary power adopts something in his manner of conveying his information, which, if not the best in the abstract, is almost certain to be one that is most adapted to the peculiar form and modifications of his own mind.

Speaking of Bayle as an author, in other respects, it is impossible not to be struck with his disposition to concealment, and to literary production in an assumed character. There may be two allowable reasons for this propensity; the one, an unspeakable share of shyness and modesty; the other, the difficulty of saying inpropriâ personâ what he might wish to say. No one had more reason than he to deprecate the rancorous, persecuting, inquisitorial spirit, of the sect of which he ostensibly formed a part; a fact which he very pathetically laments in a letter to a friend in France, in which he asserts that the Protestant religion is beheld to advantage only in that country where it was mild, tolerant, and submissive, under persecution. Where it was free or predominant, he observes, it was uncharitable, captious, eternally splitting into schisms and divisions, and wrangling on every occasion. Like Dr Johnson, Bayle almost seemed to wish to escape into the bosom of an infallible church,

out of this degrading scene of contention, of which complete and unequivocal toleration is obviously the only sound and philosophical cure. Under circumstances of this kind, and surrounded with malignant observers of all sorts, it is not wonderful that, anxious as he was to write at his ease, he should often like to wear a mask, and at length get to love the spirit of disguise for its own sake. This doubtless became finally the case, in conformity with an evidently quiet enjoyment of the bustle which he sometimes created; and to this cause also many of the works which he wrote in the character of a Roman Catholic are apparently to be attributed; and it is to be hoped that good patriots will pardon him. In a word, he idolized his own country; and, aware of the wound inflicted upon it by the banishment of the Protestants, sought to modify their spirit into a form which might, sooner or later, render their recall not impossible. Hence, in the productions in question, his support of the absolute power of the prince, and other arguments in favour of passive obedience, which in his own character he could scarcely advance without both suspicion and censure.

Whatever the amount of the practical or speculative errors of Bayle, either as an author or a man, the friends of unfettered discussion must ever regard him as a benefactor to his species, who has persevered in that bold and fearless spirit of inquiry, without which human reason is impeded by cobwebs at every turning, and entangled in ligatures which, however despicable in themselves, baleful interests, sinister influence, and prejudiced and vitiated imagination, can twist into ropes as strong as those which bound Samson,—bonds which, when the hair is duly grown, it is to be hoped will be snapped in the one case as effectually as they were in the other.

The principal works of Bayle, excluding such as he never acknowledged, may be thus stated, translating the French titles into English:—

I. Thoughts on the Comet which appeared in 1680.

II. News from the Republic of Letters, from May 1684, to March 1687.

III. Philosophical Commentary on the words of the Gospel, Compel them to come in.

IV. Replies to the Questions of a Provincial.

V. Collection of Letters, &c.

VI. Historical and Critical Dictionary.

The best French editions of his Dictionary are those of 1720 and 1746, in four volumes folio, and a very recent one in sixteen volumes octavo. The best English translation is that of Des Maizeaux in five volumes folio, from whose life of Bayle, prefixed thereto, this summary, as to matter of fact, has been chiefly collected. The miscellaneous and various works of Bayle, exclusive of the Dictionary, have been collected in four additional volumes folio, under the title of “ Œuvres Diverses which collection has supplied a few additional articles for the present publication.