out of countenance in his Hudibras,* and the wits of Queen Anne's reign continued the laugh with fo much fuccess, that it never more can fhew its face in an enlightened country.

Scarce any great undertaking in the last century was begun without confulting the stars. The immediate ufe which Charles the first made of a thousand pounds fent him at Brentford, was to fee Lilly the aftrologer to tell him his fortune-" I advised him," fays the Sage, "to march eastward, but he marched weftward, and all the world knows the confequence." In Perfia this art is still

in

* See the adventure of the Knight with Sidrophel, and numberless other open and covert attacks on aftrology dispersed in various parts of the poem. Butler had too much original sense of his own, to join in with popular belief, unless it had truth for its fupport.

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in its full vigour-but Perfia is not the land of knowledge.

As the sciences mutually affift each other, fo ignorance is never demolished in one inftance, but it is put to flight in others. With aftrology departed magic and witchcraft; and all the apparitions which terrified our forefathers are vanished for ever!

Our knowledge of metaphyfics before Locke was but little. Whether he exhaufted the fubject, or whether new light has been thrown upon it by Hartly, Beattie, Priestley, and others, can never be determined, unlefs the fcience itself was capable of fomething like demonftration. Perhaps we may confider the old writers as more learned, and the mo

derns more natural. We agree with

Locke because we are afraid to differ from him; but we join in opinion with Beattie, because he seems to have brought

down

down his pofitions and arguments to a level with our understanding.

As natural history depends upon patient enquiries, and the refult of experiments; it must have been in an imperfect ftate when little attention was paid to fuch fubjects, and few experiments made. It is true that there are some old books upon this fubject, which may be confidered as hints to future enquiries, and have been used as fuch; but the modern additions to natural history are fo very great, arifing from our fuperior opportunities of procuring information, that the works of our predeceffors are of little other ufe, than fhewing the low ftate of the science when they were compofed.

The invention of the microscope opened a new field of enquiry, and from being first used as an instrument for amusement, became the means of discoveries unfuf

pected by times preceding us.

Ε

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Hook in

England,

England, and Lewenhoeck in Holland, were indefatigable and very successful in these studies; together with other ingenious observers, they established a taste for researches into the minute and hidden parts of nature.

In our Age the most inconfiderable animal is confidered as an object worth enquiry; and as many persons have engaged in this line of knowledge, our acquaintance with the different beings that people the globe has most wonderfully encreased within a few years.

But tho' by the affiftance of the microscope, myriads of creatures are found which were not before conceived to exist, it must not be imagined that microscopic objects alone engage the attention of the naturalist. The fuperior order of animals, through all their different departments, have been investigated with an acand attention unknown to former times.

curacy

times. Many new animals have been discovered, and scarce a voyager returns from geographical researches, who does not enrich natural history with fome new addition.

The study of plants is nearly connected with that of animals. The progress and discoveries of modern times, in Botany, would require a much greater length than this effay, merely to enumerate. This is of late become a favourite purfuit, and, being one of the various paths which leads to knowledge, it must be confidered to be useful as well as agreeable-perhaps, fome are deterred from proceeding in this track by the found, and some by the meaning of the terms. Admitting the truth of the theory, might not fuch terms have been used as are lefs pompous, and lefs connected with animal properties?

The