of the antiquarian refearches are to be included in the last Number. We are glad that the author has changed his intention of referving all his mifcellaneous remarks for that part of his volume, fince he has rendered the rest of it much more interefting and entertaining. In the language, the reader muft have remarked a little of our author's former confufion; but it is much less than in his Diflertation on the Antiquity of the Earth: indeed he appears now in his proper fphere; but, in this refpe&t, on a careful revifal of his language, he will find fomething to amend. In the chemical part there are a few remains of herefy. We know not how he analyzes linen but by burning; and, from the fpecimens defcribed, no afhes but what are mixed with the calces of metals can be discovered. It is a more important remark, and deferves attention, that the approximation of metals preferves animal fubftances. This is particularly true of brafs and copper, and probably depends on their efflorescence during calcination. The Hiftory of the Lives of Abeillard and Heloifa. With their Genuine Letters, from the Collection of Ambcife. By the Rev. Jofeph Berington. 4to. 11. 1s. in Boards. Robinfons. A Beillard and Heloifa, Mr. Pope tells us, were diftinguished for their beauty and their misfortunes; but the poet's numbers have outlived the fchoolman's hiftory of his calamities;' and both have been tranfmitted to pofterity in colours not their own. Abeillard has perhaps been received with more diftinction than he deserved; and Heloifa's name has been stained with a licentioufnefs which belonged not to her character. It was time to repair the ravages of antiquity, and to deftroy the artificial glofs which poetical invention had prepared, and fpread with no common care. Mr. Berington has attempted the taík, and has executed it well: we expected a tale twice told; but he has given us a hiftory, not only with an air of novelty, but often really new. The hiftorian has drawn the events of the fame period together, and alludes to a connection that we have not difcovered, to concealed links which we have not perceived. The work, in reality, but we fpeak on this fabject with diffidence, fince it depends on feeling rather than reafoning; the work, we fay, appears to us rather an heterogeneous mafs, compofed of diftinct materials, which no art could blend into a whole; and we must add, that, whatever may be the author's opinion, centraft rather than uniformity is confpicuous. In the fecond book, for inftance, when the mind is hurried away with the vindictive 1 dictive contrivances of Fulbert, and every indignant feeling is excited by his infamous and unmanly revenge, we cannot, in a moment, turn to the ambitious intrigues of Pascal the Second. The reader fhould have first been informed of the effects this incident had on the future conduct of his hero. Mr. Berington gives an account of the fources from whence his work is derived, and appreciates their merit with the strict feverity of criticism. What really are the qualities to conftitute the best historian, is hard to fay. To require that he should be of no country, is requiring a thing impoffible; and to fay that he fhould have no religion, is a puerile demand. The philofophical unbeliever is generally intolerant in his practice, and always prejudiced in his ideas. The race has been tried as hiftorians without fuccefs. Till a man can be found without paffions, and then he would be infipid; without prejudice, and then he would want interest; without party, and then he would not be read; we must be fatisfied with fuch hiftorians as the common lot of humanity can supply, and read their writings, with the fame indulgence, as we do a romance. If they give us pleasure, it will be well; and the most fanguine author feldom looks for a better reward to his labours. I mean not this as any apology for my own work; for I profefs to be as accurate as I can, and as truthful as the character of my records will allow.' We have selected this paffage, as a fpecimen of our author's good fenfe and fpirit. The effect of his own religion, in the fubfequent parts of the volume, we have looked for, and occafionally found; but we have not perceived that it has warped his judgment, or changed the appearance of the facts. On the fubject of Abeillard and Heloifa, he has had recourse to the best authorities, and many were to be found in ecclefiaftical hiftory, he has followed Fleury and Natalis Alexander; in fecular affairs, Daniel and Hume. Platina and Maimbarg have furnished the hiftory of the crufades and the popes. The ecclefiaftical hiftorians are Catholics, exclaims the reader; true, fays Mr. Berington, and they must be fo, for Protestantifm did not exift till near 400 years afterwards. The life of Abeillard was indeed diftinguished by misfortunes, by errors, perhaps by crimes. His genius expanded early it was a premature fruit, for it was not mellowed as yet by judgment; and it rendered him overbearing, vain, and petulant. He was early initiated in the prevailing doctrines of the times: he was acute, attentive, eloquent, and confequently formidable: his faculties he did not bear with meekness; and, in his early youth, excited envy and malevolence, which, in his future life, lay in wait to catch every accidental fally, every inadvertent word. His petulance gave fre frequent occafion for their exertion. The learning and brilliancy difplayed in his lectures attracted crowds of ftudents; for he had fcarcely ceafed to be a fcholar when he became a profeffor. In these fituations there is feldom any medium; and we fee him alternately flattered and oppreffed; crowded by difciples, or deserted in confinement; and it was only by disappointments, and advancing age, that his fpirits, his overbearing petulance, were at laft broken. We have fpoken of the learning of the time; let us fee what it is. Our author's account is a correct one. • The rules of grammar, which, in every country, should be primarily applied to its native tongue, were then folely directed to the ftudy of the Latin language; though Latin had ceafed to be spoken, and all the infant tongues of Europe were in a ftate of the lowest barbarifm. Nor yet was this privileged tongue itself raised to any degree of claffical perfection. So true is it, that the arts and sciences, in their most minute ramifications, keep an exact pace with the ebbs and flows of human nature. Rhetoric they alfo ftudied; but it was a rhetoric which taught them to depart from the noble fimplicity of truth, and in its tead to fubftitute an affected jargon of language, and a whimfical difplay of metaphorical figures. The writings of Alcuin himself atteft the justness of thefe obfervations.-Nor was their famous logic, which attracted the attention of the admiring world a jot more valuable. It was no longer what it had been, under its first masters, in the fchools of Greece, the art of accurate reasoning, whereby truth was difcovered, and its bounds enlarged, by an eafy procefs, and error was detected; but it now confifted in the mere exercise of difputation, in the fubtle arrangement of unmeaning terms, which clouded reafon and enveloped truth. Applaufe, and not inftruction, was the object of the masters; and he was the greatest adept who, by captious quibbles, could diftrefs his adversary the most. As the mind was thus bewildered in a maze of fophiftry, fo was the real fcience of man and of nature utterly neglected. They knew nothing of the mechanical powers of the world, and every uncommon appearance was confidered as a certain prefage of extraordinary events: they afcribed them to myftic or to moral caufes. Their ethics ran out into idle fpeculations, into definitions and divifions of vice and virtue, whilst practical documents and the high duties of life were little regarded. The important bufinefs of criticism, to which modern times are indebted for all they poffefs, in the line of fcientific improvement, was equally unknow as the ways of nature. Fables they received as genuine facts, and the more extraordinary an event was, the greater was its claim to credibility.' Mr. Berington introduces Abeillard in the bloom of expectation, already in poffeffion of extenfive reputation; young, hand handfome, witty, and agreeable.' After various literary contefts, he ftudies theology, and adds still farther to his reputation. His hopes were now full blown, when he became acquainted with Heloifa. The heroine, our hiftorian defcribes with a glowing pencil; nor can we accufe him of exaggeration. Though the colours are vivid, the likeness is not raised above real life. She was in her eighteenth year; her perfon was expanding into beauty; her mind had acquired much real knowlege; it had acquired too dignity, firmnefs, and intrepidity. In an age of barbarifm, the had read the polished models of Roman elegance; and, from a congenial tafte, the had felected what was beautiful, elegant, and correct. By reflection it was incorporated in her own mind. Such was Heloifa, when he became the victim of the intrigues of Abeillard. The lovers feem to have correfponded as literati, before they were acquainted; and Abeillard's ardor for a more inti. mate connection, was forwarded by an unexpected incident. Fulbert, the uncle of Heloifa, thought the inftructions of Abeillard were ftill wanting to render his niece perfect and accomplished. For that purpose he invited him to his house. Heloifa, already prepoffeffed in his favour, foon learned the fatal leffon which ended in her ruin. Opportunity might have undermined the most virtuous refolutions; but Abeillard cannot wholly be acquitted, even from his own words, of defigned feduction. The connection was discovered by a living witness; they eloped, and were at last married. That Heloifa loved him with no common fervour, that her paffion was strong and lafting, wants no evidence. But we think too, that her delicacy was equalled only by her paffion. We know not what the arguments were by which he was conquered; and, if we did know them, we could not judge of their force, except in the fame fituation. In the eye of Heaven, the might think herself his wife, for fhe knew that he could marry no other; and her own refolution was, at least in her own opinion, undoubted. When preffed to marriage,' fhe refufed him with violence, and repeated, with feeling, the fentiments which the poet, with a more impaffioned air, has given to her pen. But the refufed him for his own fake; nor would she fuffer her fituation to be put in competition with thofe fchemes of greatnefs which were already ripening, with the mitre that was dropping on his head, with the crozier almoft within his grafp. At the fame moment fhe emphatically declares her pafion, by alledging that he would reject the empire of Cæfar, with his hand, that the might be the miftrefs of Abeillard. < Ufed Ufed to contemplate in ourselves and others, human nature, as caft in common moulds, we view its eccentricities with the mixed emotions of aftonishment and pleasure. Of this defcription was Heloifa. She was born in a century remarkable for ignorance and a blind attachment to the weakest follies; her education, within the walls of a convent, had been little adapted to improve her understand or to enlarge her heart; and, at the time she began and finished the bold tragedy I have defcribed, the bloffom of life was but in its first stage of expanfion : yet already she was learned, to the admiration of France, and her mind had acquired a boldness of conception, and a fufficiency in itself, which carried her far beyond the ideas of her fex, and the adopted maxims of the age. In the most brilliant days of Roman greatnefs, Heloifa would have beeen a splendid character. Her notions of moral and religious duty may be deemed too free: but my furprise rather is, from whence fhe could have drawn them. She had read, we know, the fcriptures, and fhe had meditated on the works of the fathers of the church: but, as in the fenfe and application of the doctrine they contained, fhe was told to adhere to low comments and trifling interpretations, her mind was unfatisfied: the did not find in them that fublimity of thought and fullness of idea, which could meet the expanded energy of her foul. She turned to the compofitions of the old philofophers; and the dwelt, with raptute, on the poets of Greece and Rome. Here he was free to range, unhackled by rules, and unoppreffed by authority. In them the romantic caft of her foul found fomething which accorded with its feelings; and she became a difciple of Epicurus, of Seneca, and of Ovid, without perceiving that he had quitted the amiable purity of the Chriftian fcheme, and the feverer morality of ecclefiaftical difcipline.-When guides are ignorant, or when maxims are fuggefted unfounded on truth, or clogged with puerilities, a great mind is difgufted; it begins to think for itfelf; and imperceptibly adopts fingularities, perhaps extravagancies but they are the extravagancies of genius, and the errors of bold nature. When the eagle rifes to meet the fun, it leaves the earth and all its beaten paths far below it.' At last they were married; for the ftrongest arguments offer little refiftance when put in competition with even the hints of love. Befides, this marriage was to reconcile her and Abeillard to her uncle, without impeding the promotion of her husband; for the marriage was to be kept a fecret. Swift might have had this fact in his mind, and imitated the conduct of Abeillard from very different motives. The connection between Swift and Stella, in every thing but the feduction, is nearly like that between Abeillard and Heloifa. This part of the story is as difant from a resemblance, as the perfonal qualifications of the heroes: but to return. Fulbert discovered the marriage; Heloifa flies to Argenteuil, and Abeillard fuffers the |