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queen, daughter to Henry the fourth of France, were paffionately fond of them.

ONE Mr. Prynne, a man of most furioufly fcrupulous principles, who would have thought himself damn'd had he wore a caffock instead of a short cloak, and have been glad to fee one half of mankind cut the other to pieces for the glory of God, and the propaganda fide; took it into his head to write a moft wretched fatire against fome pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very innocently every night before their Majefties. He quoted the authority of the Rabbies, and some paffages from St. Bonaventure, to prove that the Edipus of Sophocles was the work of the evil fpirit; thatTerence was excommunicated ipfo facto; and added, that doubtless Brutus, who was a very fevere Janfenift, affaffinated Julius Cæfar, for no other reafon, but be. caufe he, who was pontifex maximus, prefumed to write a tragedy, the fubject of which was Edipus. Laftly, he declared, that all who frequented the theatre were excommunicated, as they thereby renounced their baptifm. This was cafting the highest infult on the King and all the royal family; and, as the English loved their prince at that time, they could not bear to hear a writer talk of excommunicating him, though they themselves afterwards cut his head off. Prynne was fummoned

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fummoned to appear before the Star-chamber; his wonderful book, from which father Le Brun stole his, was fentenced to be burnt by the common hangman, and himfelf to lofe his ears. His trial is now extant.

THE Italians are far from attempting to cast a blemish on the opera, or to excommunicate Signior Senefino or Signora Cuzzoni. With regard to myself, I could prefume to wish that the magistrates would fupprefs I know not what contemptible pieces, written against the stage. For when the English and Italians hear, that we brand with the greatest mark of infamy an art in which we excel; that we excommunicate perfons who receive fallaries from the king that we condemn as impious a fpectacle exhibited in convents and monasteries; that we dishonour sports in which Lewis the fourteenth, and Lewis the fifteenth performed as actors; that we give the title of the devil's works, to pieces which are received by magiftrates of the most severe character, and reprefented before a virtuous queen; when, I fay, foreigners are told of this infolent conduct, this contempt for the royal authority, and this Gothic rufti city, which fome prefume to call Chriftian feverity, what an idea must they entertain of our nation? And how will it be poffible. for 'em to conceive, either that our laws give a fanction to an art which is declared infamous,

infamous, or that fome perfons dare to ftamp with infamy an art which receives a fanction from the laws, is rewarded by kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greatest men, and admired by whole nations? And that father Le Brun's impertinent libel against the ftage, is feen in a bookfeller's fhop, ftanding the very next to the immortal labours of Racine, of Corneille, of Molliere, &c.

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HE English had an Academy of Sciences many years before us; but then it is not under fuch prudent regulations as ours: The only reafon of which very poffibly is, because it was founded before the Academy of Paris; for had it been founded after, it would very probably have adopted fome of the fage laws of the former, and improved upon others.

Two things, and those the most effential to man, are wanting in the Royal Society of London, I mean rewards and laws. A feat in the Academy at Paris is a fmall but fecure fortune to a Geometrician or a Chemist; but this is so far from being the cafe at London, that the feveral members

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of the Royal Society are at a continual, tho' indeed fmall expence. Any man in England who declares himself a lover of the mathematicks and natural philofophy, and expreffes an inclination to be a member of the Royal Society, is immediately elected into it. But in France 'tis not enough that a man who aspires to the honour of being a member of the academy, and of receiving the royal ftipend, has a love for the sciences; he must at the same time be deeply skill'd in them; and is oblig'd to difpute the feat with competitors who are fo much the more formidable as they are fir'd by a principle of glory, by intereft, by the difficulty itself, and by that inflexibility of mind, which is generally found in those who devote themfelves to that pertinacious ftudy, the mathematicks.

THE Academy of Sciences is prudently confin'd to the ftudy of nature, and, indeed, this is a field fpacious enough for fifty or threefcore perfons to range in. That of London mixes indifcriminately literature with phyficks: but methinks the founding

The Reader will call to mind that thefe letters were written about 1728 or 30, fince which time the names of the feveral candidates are, by a law of the Royal Society, pofted up in it, in order that a choice may be made of fuch perfons only as are qualified to be members. The celebrated Mr. de Fontenelle had the honour to pass thro' this Ordeal.

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