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cers of the royal houfhold, armed with fwords and clubs, fhould attend him to and from the council.-A great number alfo of foldiers and armed fervants, were pofted fecretly in fome private places near the church. In this manner was the council opened, and continued to the third day; when the ftatutes digefted into thirty-one articles were read: : after which the clergy, as the author of this account has added, retired with little fatisfaction.' See Spelman, Concil. II. 218.

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Thefe articles, we are told, did not pafs into laws; for Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcéfter, demanded that the pope might be confulted upon this head; and made fuch a zealous oppofition, that the legate affented: and thus the matter refted as it stood before.

The conftitutions of provincial, or diocefan fynods, relating to this fubject, can be but of very flender and preca→ rious authority; fince it cannot be clearly known, whether injunctions of this kind, were established by the fingle power of bishops, and published only to the clergy in their respective fynods, or whether the confent of the clergy alfo, was neceflary to give them the force of laws. However, fuch injunctions could not be of perpetual obligation; but, only remained in force, while the fame bishop continued to prefide over the fame body of clergy; and if the bishops were poffeffed of any fuch power, they were very fparing in the exercife of it, with regard to the duty of refidence. For after a careful examination of the whole body of councils, as collected by Sir William Dugdale and Sir Henry Spelman; from the Norman conqueft to the Reformation, between the years 1070 and 1308, there are but three fynods only, in which this duty is in any manner declared or enjoined: thefe are, the fynod of Worcester, 22 H. III. 1237, the fynod of Exeter, 15 Edw. I. 1287; and that of Winchester, 1 Edw. II. 1308. And in all the fubfequent time, from 1308 to 1529, in which last year the statute of the 21 Hen. VIII, was made, there doth not exift fo much as a fingle rule, or even admonition concerning it: fo remifs were the prelates in this refpect; or fo untractable the clergy. Our author attempts to account for this neglect, by obferving, that if we reflect, upon all that the history of these ages has tranfmitted to us, concerning the fecular views of bishops, and the corrupt lives both of them and the inferior clergy, not in this kingdom only, but throughout all Europe; if we remember, how frequently they stand charged in the

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acts of councils, with a general contempt and violation of all the facred canons; with extortion, ufury, fimony, incontinence, inceft, murthers; we fhall readily acknowlege, that, at a time when the laws of the church, were ineffectual for fuppreffing even the greateft crimes, a fevere and rigorous exercife of power, in matters of mere difcipline, muft have been not only dangerous, but utterly • impracticable.'

It may not be improper here to obferve, from a MS. abridgment of the Rolls of Parliament, fol. 29. [formerly in the poffeffion of Sir Robert Atkins, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Speaker of the House of Peers, from 1689 to 1692.] that in a parliament holden at Westminster, 13 Edw. III. 1339, it was enacted, That every archbifhop and bishop, do before the next parliament, certifie < all benefices in every aliens hands, of the value thereof,

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and of refidence thereon.

We cannot conclude this article without remarking, that when the two acts of parliament relating to non-refidence were made, the whole fpiritual jurifdiction of the kingdom, was falling by degrees into the hands of the civil power; and that, about the fame time likewife, the benefices of the church began to be regarded as freeholds by the law, and confequently, that all proceedings which related to their profits and revenues, to the poffeffion of them, or the forfeiture, were finally to be determined in temporal courts: hence a very strong prefumption will arife, that as the legiflature found it neceffary to correct by civil authority, an irregular practice of the clergy, which their own laws, through weaknefs or remifsnefs, had failed to remedy; fo they in" tended likewife, that the acts now framed, fhould be cont fidered as the principal, if not the only rule, by which, all cafes comprehended in them, were hereafter to be judged. And indeed, from the words of the acts themselves, it may be justly concluded, as well as from two other statutes enacted in the fame reign, that a full and pofitive exemption from the obligation to refide, is conveyed to those who are within the excepted cafes; and that the ordinary has not ANY power to controul it.

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ACCOUNT of FOREIGN BOOKS.

Dictionaire Hiftorique, ou Memoires Critiques et Litteraires, concernant la vie et les ouvrages de divers Perfonages diftingués, particulierement dans la Republique des Lettres. Par Profper Marchand. Folio. Vol. 2d. Hague, 1759. Or,

An Hiftorical Dictionary; or Critical and Literary Memoirs of the Lives and Works of feveral diftinguifhed Perfons, particularly in the Republic of Letters.

HA

AVING given a general account of the design and execution of this work, on the appearance of the first volume, we should have taken a curfory notice only of the publication of the fecond, had not an article, inferted by the ingenious Editor, appeared too interefting to be passed over in filence.

This article contains a critical Hiftory of the Life and Writings of the late Profeffor 'fGravelande; which we could wifh to give entire to our Readers: but, as the limits of our work will not permit us to copy the whole, we must content ourfelves with a general abstract. We fhall not, however, fo ftrictly confine ourselves to the matter or manner of the ori ginal, as not to indulge our own reflections, as well on the remarks of the Writer, as on the matters of fact related.

William-James 'fGravefande, defcended from an ancient and honourable family of Delft, in the province of Holland, was born in the year 1688. Nothing was fpared in his education, and he discovered a very early turn for mathematical ftudies; to which his talents were, fo happily adapted, that it is faid, he kept his Tutor perpetually employed, by the rapid progrefs he made,

In 1704, he was fent to the univerfity of Leyden; where, tho' he made the Civil Law profeffedly his ftudy, that of his favourite science was not neglected. It was here that he compofed his well-known treatife on Perfpective; which, tho not published till many years after, was finished before he was nineteen years of age.

Notwithstanding all the marks of a juvenile production were confpicuous in this piece, it was greatly admired by fome of the most eminent Mathematicians of the time; par-. ticularly by the celebrated John Bernouilli, whofe opinion of

See-Review, vol. XVIII: p. 476.

it,

it, foon after published in a letter to the Author, conferred no little honour on fo young a Mathematician.

In 1707, our Student took his degree, as Doctor in the Civil Law, his thefis on that occafion, entitled Autocheiria, being a treatise on Suicide, in which the moft prevailing arguments against that unnatural crime, are judicioufly chofen and fupported.

He removed foon after from the college, and fettled at the Hague; where, together with his two brothers and fellowftudents, he applied himfelf to practice at the Bar. In this fituation, he foon cultivated an acquaintance with men of fcience and letters; and in the year 1713, made one of the principal members of the fociety that compofed a periodical Review, entitled Le Journal Litteraire. His affociates in this undertaking were Mr. Marchand, Author of the Dictionary before us, Meffrs. Van Effen, Sallengre, Alexandre, and St. Hyacinthe; at that time all young men, and no lefs diftinguifhed for their knowlege and ingenuity, than for that friendship and esteem, which mutually fubfifted among them.

The publication of this Journal began in the month of May, 1713, and continued without interruption till 1722; Mr. 'Gravefande enriching it with many curious and valuable articles, Indeed, the manner in which this undertaking was carried on, was fuch, as bid the fairest to reach the utmoft perfection a work of this nature is capable of: the articles furnished by every member being read, and examined, in a general meeting of the fociety, and nothing being inferted but what was univerfally approved. At the fame time, however, it must be acknowleged, that nothing lefs than that moderation and regard which thefe Gentlemen actually poffeffed toward each other, was requifite to preserve an harmony abfolutely neceffary to the profecution of a work carried on by men of fuch different fentiments on various occafions. An inftance of this is given us, in what is related of Mr. 'Gravefande's account of Ditton's book on the Refurrection of our Saviour. This article being read to the fociety, St. Hyacinthe, who was a frank Deift, objected to the Critic's having taken the fide of Chriftianity; whereas, in his opinion, as an impartial Journalist, he ought to have appeared totally indifferent. This opinion, however, was over-ruled, and St. Hyacinthe prudently fubmitted.

The parts of this Journal, written or extracted by Mr, Gravefande, were principally thofe relating to Phyfics and Geometry. There are also inferted feveral original pieces,

entirely

entirely of his compofition; particularly in the fourth volume, a paper, entitled Remarks on the conftruction of Pneumatical Machines; and in the fifth, a moral Effay on Lying; in which the ingenious Author enquires into the obligation we are under to speak truth, and how far that obligation binds us on moft occafions in life. This piece is written in form of a letter, and feeming to be produced by a Genius of a very different turn to that of Mr. 'fGravefande; it was long before he was suspected to be the Author.

There are alfo feveral other letters and pieces, of lefs note, fcattered up and down in the first ten volumes; and in the beginning of the twelfth, was first printed his celebrated Effay on the Collifion of Bodies; wherein he fides with the partizans of Leibnitz, in afferting the force of moving bodies to be as the quantity of matter multiplied into the fquare of the velocity; in oppofition to the doctrine of Newton, who maintained it to be as the quantity multiplied fimply into the velocity...

This Effay, with a Supplement foon after published in the fame work, made much, noife in the phyfical world. Hitherto Leibnitz, who was the first that publicly maintained this theory, had made no converts of note out of Germany, except the Bernouillis in Switzerland, and Poleni in Italy. In France and England, the old theory was ftill adhered to; and it was a matter of fome furprize, that Mr. 'fGravefande, who had adopted every other part of the Newtonian Philofophy, fhould diffent from it in this. His treatife was attacked accordingly, on all fides; Dr. Clarke entering the -lifts among others, and, with a very indecent warmth, casting reflections on the Author, very unbecoming himself or the occafion.

Mr. 'fGravefande did not fail, however, to make his party ftrong; and the difpute, after having engaged the attention... of the most celebrated Mathematicians and Philofophers in For, though: Europe, ended not a little to his honour. he had not the fatisfaction of obtaining a compleat victory over his antagonists, he appears to have had by much the best of the conteft.

If the Reviewer now writing, may-venture at this time of day to give his opinion of this controverfy, he must confefs, he thinks the experiments made and repeated on each fide, in a great degree juftified the conclufions drawn from them, while the Reafoners on both, went on the fuppofition of the existence of the vis inertia in all bodies, or in all matter,

without

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