artifice of the evil spirit; and not doubting but thefe acts of divine love were a fnare which he [the devil] had laid to interrupt his ftudies, far from leaving the conjugations to • devote himself to God, he quitted God to devote himself to the conjugations.

But to make the devil lofe all hope, he took Ardeball into the church of St. Mary of the fea, threw himfelf upon his ⚫ knees before him, and after making a vow at the foot of the <altar, to continue his ftudies without interruption during two entire years, he moft humbly intreated his mafter to give him a leflon every day, and if he did not learn it well, to punish him like one of the leaft of his scholars. The devil, vanquished by this act of humiliation, quitted our knight, ⚫ and importuned him no more with divine illuminations."

Having accomplished his vow, tho' not greatly improved, he determined to go through a courfe of philofophy and theology at the university of Alcala de Henares: he had already gained fome difciples, who, charmed with his manner of living, attempted to imitate him in all things. Four of thefe he took with him, but being foon difgufted with the little progrefs he made in his ftudies, he quitted Ariftotle and St. Thomas, and with his difciples, as ignorant as himself, betook himfelf to catechizing children, making exhortations to debauched scholars, and teaching the chriftian doctrine to poor ⚫ scholars.' This, joined to their mendicant life, and uniform habit, drew upon them the notice of the Inquifition; Ignatius was fent to prifon, nor was he difcharged but upon condition, that he and his companions fhould take the common habit of scholars; and that, as they were not divines, they should abftain from explaining the myfteries of religion to the people, till they had ftudied divinity four years, under pain of excommunication and banishment.'

Our knight refented this prohibition fo highly, that he left the place, and went with his difciples to Salamanca; where purfuing the fame measures, they were again imprifoned, and obtained their liberty only on the fame terms as had been enjoined them at Alcala.

The oppofitions he met with here, made him refolve not only to quit the ungrateful Salamanca, but even to retire from Spain. He imagined himself at the fame time to feel a ftrong infpiration to go to France, to re-commence his ftudies in Paris, where he arrived the beginning of February 1528: being robbed of what money he had brought with him from Spain, he was reduced to fuch neccffity, that he was obliged

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to put himself into St. James's hofpital, and go about begging his bread. This accident, tho' it was an impediment to his ftudies, did not hinder him from infpiring the young men of

his acquaintance with a paffion for holy indigence;' in which he was fo affiduous and fuccefsful, as to draw on him the refentment of the fuperiors of the univerfity, and it was not without difficulty that he efcaped public punishment. However, all these embarrassments did not prevent his completing his courfes of philofophy and theology, and increafing the number of his difciples; and the more fecurely to attach them to himfelf, he induced them, by an exprefs vow, to oblige themfelves to accompany him to Jerufalem, and renounce entire

ly the things of this world.' This vow was made, with great ceremony, in. the church of Monmartre, on the 15th of August 1534; and renewed annually for two years, at the fame time and place, and in the fame manner. Thefe fpiritual PaLadins were at firft only feven in number, including their director, but were foon after multiplied to ten.-It was agreed among them, that Ignatius fhould return to Spain, to regulate his own and their affairs; from whence he was to proceed to Venice, where they were to join him. He accordingly came to Spain, in the year 1535, where his fermons were fo much followed, that the churches could not contain the numerous auditors; wherefore he was obliged to preach in the open fields.

The bufinefs he came about being fettled, he went by fea to Genoa, and from thence to Venice, where his companions. rejoined him on the 8th of January, 1537: while he had been waiting for them he had not been idle, for he had added to his troop, and obtained the friendship of John Peter Caraffa, afterwards Pope Paul the fourth. Having been at Rome, and procured the Pope's benediction, and permiffion for their voyage to Jerufalem, they returned again to Venice, in order to accomplish their vow: but were prevented in their journey, by a war between the Turks and Venetians, whereby all commerce with the Levant was interrupted.

The order of priesthood was now conferred on Ignatius, and his companions, wherefore, as by their vow they were obliged to ftay at Venice a whole year, to wait for an opportunity of embarking for the Holy Land, thefe new prictts diftributed themselves among the cities and towns of the l'enetian state, to exercise their zcal. A butcher's ftall ferved them for a pul pit, when they preached in the ftreets; and in public places they mounted upon two flools, crying out as loud as they • could

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could, to invite people to come and hear them, waving their hats above their heads, for a fignal to thefe whom their voices could not reach. And after having thus fpent the whole day in preaching in the ftreets and markets, without any other nourishment than a little bread, which they begged <from door to door, they pafied the night in ruined houfes, without any other bed than a little straw.'

The year being expired, and no probability of their being able to go to Palestine, they returned to Rome, to offer their fervices to his holinefs. Here it was that Ignatius concerted the plan of his order, which he got folemnly confirmed by Pope Paul the third, but not without great oppofition, under the name of the Company of Jefus, in the bull de regimine militantis ecclefiæ, publifhed the 27th of September, 1541.

The rapid increase of their order is not lefs remarkable than its origin; but we must content ourfelves with the foregoing sketch of the hiftory of its founder; who died the last day of July, 1556, at the age of fixty-fiv years, with the confolation of feeing his fociety ipread over all the world, and divided into twelve provinces, which altogether had no lefs than a hundred colleges."

As to the performance from whence this article is taken, it appears to us very capable of affording entertainment to an inquifitive reader; who will, in all probability, readily perceive a clofe analogy between thefe original fpiritual knightserrant, and fome of our modern enthusiasts.

L

ART. LV. Letters concerning Tafte. 8vo. 2s. DodЛley.

W

E fhall not attempt to give our readers a distinct view of every thing contained in thefe letters, as the author has touched upon a great variety of fubjects, and as a performance of this nature cannot well admit of a regular abtract. A juft idea of the whole piece, however, may eafily be formed, by a difcerning reader, from the few ensuing extracts.

In the first letter we have the following definition of a good tafte. It is, fays our author, that inftantaneous glow of pleafure which thrills through our whole frame, and feizes 6 upon the applaufe of the heart, before the intellectual power, Reason, can defcend from the throne of the mind to ratify its approbation, either when we receive into the foul beautiful images through the organs of bodily fentes; or the decorum

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Written by John Gilberte Copenh fun

of an amiable character, through the faculties of moral perception; or when we recall, by the imitative arts, both of them through the intermediate powers of the imagination.' Immediately af er this definition he adds,- Nor is this deC lightful and immediate fenfation to be excited in an undiftempered foul, but by a chain of truths, dependent upon one another, till they terminate in the fource of all perfection, the divine ARCHITECT of the whole.'

In the fifth letter he speaks of tafte in the following manner. Tafle does not wholly depend upon the natural ftrength and acquired improvement of the intellectual powers; nor wholly upon a fine conftruction of the organs of the body; nor wholly upon the intermediate powers of the imagination; but upon an union of them all happily blended, without too great a prevalency in either. Hence it falls out, that one man may be a very great reafoner; another have the fineft genius for poetry; and a third be bleft with the most delicate organs of fenfe; and yet every one of thefe be deficient in that internal fenfation, called taste. On the contrary, a fourth, in whofe frame indulgent nature has twifted this triple cord, fhall feel it conftantly vibrate within, whenever the fame unifon of harmony is ftruck from without; either in the original works of nature, in the mimetic arts, or in characters and manners. That worthy man, and amiable writer, Mr. Addifon, was no great fcholar; he was a very indifferent critic, and a worfe poet; yet from the happy mixture juft mentioned, he was bleffed with a tafte truly delicate and re•fined. This rendered him capable of diftinguifhing what C were beauties in the works of others, tho' he could not account fo well why they were fo, for want of that deep philofophical fpirit whi h is requiiite in works of criticism. He likewife tranflated the poetical defcriptions of Ovid, very elegantly and faithfully, into his own language; tho' he fell infinitely fhort of them in his own original compofitions, for want of that unconstrained fire of imagination which conftitutes the true poet. Hence we may be enabled to account for that peculiar fatality which attends Mr. Addifon's writings, that his tranflations feem originals, whilft his own compofitions have the confined air of translations."

In his fifteenth letter our author paffes a fevere cenfure on that common remark, that we have no poetical genius left among us: hear what he fays. For my part, I am of opinion, that there is now living a poet of the moft genuine genius this kingdom ever produced, Shakespear alone excepted. By poetical genius, I do not mean the mere talent of making

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verfes, but that glorious enthufiafm of foul, that fine frenzy, as Shakespear calls it, rolling from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, which, like an able magician, can bring every object of the creation, in any fhape whatever, before the reader's eyes. This alone is poetry; ought elfe is a mecha~ nical art of putting fyllables harmonioufly together. The gentleman I mean is Dr. Akinfide, the worthy author of the Pleafures of the Imagination, the most beautiful didactic < poem that ever adorned the English, or any other, language. A work in which the great author has united Virgil's tafte, Milton's colouring, and Shakespear's incidental expreffion, with a warmth peculiar to himself, to paint the finest features ⚫ of the human mind, and the moft lovely forms of true religion and morality. Besides this leader of the mufes train, we have others now living, who, in their refpective compofitions, leave not only all our deceafed poets, and those of France and Italy, far behind them, but even bear the palm away from any of their competitors of antient Rome, and, as Homer defcribes in his games the fteeds of Diomedes preffing clofe on the chariot of Eumelus, (II.Y.) they breathe, in the race, on the shoulders ⚫ of their Grecian mafters. I fhould not hesitate a moment to prefer the Elegy in a country church-yard, written by Mr. Grey, of Peterhoufe, in Cambridge, to the best performance, in that kind, of Ovid, Tibullus, or Propertius. Has Horace any moral ode equal to Mr. Nugent's Ode to Mankind, or any defcriptive one, to Mr. Collins's Ode to the Evening? I fhould pay Mr. Mafon no compliment, to compare all the excellencies in Seneca together to his elegant Elfrida; nor do I think I fhould at all degrade the Athenian tage to say, that the palm of tragic glory hangs wavering betwixt the conjoined merit of Sophocles's Philoctetes, and the Oedipus Coloneus, and this modern tragedy, did not Shakespear, like a champion of old, infpired by all the Gods, ftep majestically in, to bear it away by fupernatural power from the utmost • force of human abilities. I dare fay his Monody on the death of Mr. Pope, wherein he has imitated the ftile of four of out English poets, has given you, and every man of true tafte, more pleasure than the joined efforts of all the wits in the • celebrated court of Leo the tenth. There is another little piece written by the fame.author, which has no rival in the court of Auguftus, entitled, An Ode to a water-nymph. Thefe opinions, you'll fay, are very bold ones to give under my hand; but as I think I can fupport them by juft criticism, I fhall not fear the mifplaced imputation of being particular, for I am fure I fhall not ftand alone in my judgment.'

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