College, Oxford; who, at the ripe age of twenty-eight years, was
persuaded to elope from Oxford, to the English seminary at Douay in
Flanders. Some disputes with Fisher, a subtle jesuit, might first
awaken him from the prejudices of education; but he yielded to his
own victorious argument, "that there must be somewhere an infallible
judge; and that the church of Rome is the only Christian society
which either does or can pretend to that character." After a short
trial of a few months, Mr. Chillingworth was again tormented by
religious scruples: he returned home, resumed his studies,
unravelled his mistakes, and delivered his mind from the yoke of
authority and superstition. His new creed was built on the
principle, that the Bible is our sole judge, and private reason our
sole interpreter: and he ably maintains this principle in the
Religion of a Protestant, a book which, after startling the doctors
of Oxford, is still esteemed the most solid defence of the
Reformation. The learning, the virtue, the recent merits of the
author, entitled him to fair preferment: but the slave had now
broken his fetters; and the more he weighed, the less was he
disposed to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles of the church of
England. In a private letter he declares, with all the energy of
language, that he could not subscribe to them without subscribing to
his own damnation; and that if ever he should depart from this
immoveable resolution, he would allow his friends to think him a
madman, or an atheist. As the letter is without a date, we cannot
ascertain the number of weeks or months that elapsed between this
passionate abhorrence and the Salisbury Register, which is still
extant. "Ego Gulielmus Chillingworth,...... omnibus hisce
articulis....... et singulis in iisdem contentis volens, et ex
animo subscribo, et consensum meum iisdem praebeo. 20 die Julii
1638." But, alas! the chancellor and prebendary of Sarum soon
deviated from his own subscription: as he more deeply scrutinized
the article of the Trinity, neither scripture nor the primitive
fathers could long uphold his orthodox belief; and he could not but
confess, "that the doctrine of Arius is either the truth, or at
least no damnable heresy." From this middle region of the air, the
descent of his reason would naturally rest on the firmer ground of
the Socinians: and if we may credit a doubtful story, and the
popular opinion, his anxious inquiries at last subsided in
philosophic indifference. So conspicuous, however, were the candour
of his nature and the innocence of his heart, that this apparent
levity did not affect the reputation of Chillingworth. His frequent
changes proceeded from too nice an inquisition into truth. His
doubts grew out of himself; he assisted them with all the strength
of his reason: he was then too hard for himself; but finding as
little quiet and repose in those victories, he quickly recovered, by
a new appeal to his own judgment: so that in all his sallies and
retreats, he was in fact his own convert.
Bayle was the son of a Calvinist minister in a remote province of
France, at the foot of the Pyrenees. For the benefit of education,
the protestants were tempted to risk their children in the catholic
universities; and in the twenty-second year of his age, young Bayle
was seduced by the arts and arguments of the jesuits of Toulouse.
He remained about seventeen months (Mar. 19 1669--Aug. 19 1670) in
their hands, a voluntary captive: and a letter to his parents, which
the new convert composed or subscribed (April 15 1670), is darkly
tinged with the spirit of popery. But Nature had designed him to
think as he pleased, and to speak as he thought: his piety was
offended by the excessive worship of creatures; and the study of
physics convinced him of the impossibility of transubstantiation,
which is abundantly refuted by the testimony of our senses. His
return to the communion of a falling sect was a bold and
disinterested step, that exposed him to the rigour of the laws; and
a speedy flight to Geneva protected him from the resentment of his
spiritual tyrants, unconscious as they were of the full value of the
prize, which they had lost. Had Bayle adhered to the catholic
church, had he embraced the ecclesiastical profession, the genius
and favour of such a proselyte might have aspired to wealth and
honours in his native country: but the hypocrite would have found
less happiness in the comforts of a benefice, or the dignity of a
mitre, than he enjoyed at Rotterdam in a private state of exile,
indigence, and freedom. Without a country, or a patron, or a
prejudice, he claimed the liberty and subsisted by the labours of
his pen: the inequality of his voluminous works is explained and
excused by his alternately writing for himself, for the booksellers,
and for posterity; and if a severe critic would reduce him to a
single folio, that relic, like the books of the Sibyl, would become
still more valuable. A calm and lofty spectator of the religious
tempest, the philosopher of Rotterdam condemned with equal firmness
the persecution of Lewis the Fourteenth, and the republican maxims
of the Calvinists; their vain prophecies, and the intolerant bigotry
which sometimes vexed his solitary retreat. In reviewing the
controversies of the times, he turned against each other the
arguments of the disputants; successively wielding the arms of the
catholics and protestants, he proves that neither the way of
authority, nor the way of examination can afford the multitude any
test of religious truth; and dexterously concludes that custom and
education must be the sole grounds of popular belief. The ancient
paradox of Plutarch, that atheism is less pernicious than
superstition, acquires a tenfold vigor, when it is adorned with the
colours of his wit, and pointed with the acuteness of his logic.
His critical dictionary is a vast repository of facts and opinions;
and he balances the false religions in his sceptical scales, till
the opposite quantities (if I may use the language of algebra)
annihilate each other. The wonderful power which he so boldly
exercised, of assembling doubts and objections, had tempted him
jocosely to assume the title of the {Greek expression} Zeus, the
cloud-compelling Jove; and in a conversation with the ingenious Abbe
(afterwards Cardinal) de Polignac, he freely disclosed his universal
Pyrrhonism. "I am most truly (said Bayle) a protestant; for I
protest indifferently against all systems and all sects."
The academical resentment, which I may possibly have provoked, will
prudently spare this plain narrative of my studies, or rather of my
idleness; and of the unfortunate event which shortened the term of
my residence at Oxford. But it may be suggested, that my father was
unlucky in the choice of a society, and the chance of a tutor. It
will perhaps be asserted, that in the lapse of forty years many
improvements have taken place in the college and in the university.
I am not unwilling to believe, that some tutors might have been
found more active than Dr. Waldgrave, and less contemptible than
Dr.****. About the same time, and in the same walk, a Bentham was
still treading in the footsteps of a Burton, whose maxims he had
adopted, and whose life he had published. The biographer indeed
preferred the school-logic to the new philosophy, Burgursdicius to
Locke; and the hero appears, in his own writings, a stiff and
conceited pedant. Yet even these men, according to the measure of
their capacity, might be diligent and useful; and it is recorded of
Burton, that he taught his pupils what he knew; some Latin, some
Greek, some ethics and metaphysics; referring them to proper masters
for the languages and sciences of which he was ignorant. At a more
recent period, many students have been attracted by the merit and
reputation of Sir William Scott, then a tutor in University College,
and now conspicuous in the profession of the civil law: my personal
acquaintance with that gentleman has inspired me with a just esteem
for his abilities and knowledge; and I am assured that his lectures
on history would compose, were they given to the public, a most
valuable treatise. Under the auspices of the present Archbishop of
York, Dr. Markham, himself an eminent scholar, a more regular
discipline has been introduced, as I am told, at Christ Church; a
course of classical and philosophical studies is proposed, and even
pursued, in that numerous seminary: learning has been made a duty, a
pleasure, and even a fashion; and several young gentlemen do honour
to the college in which they have been educated. According to the
will of the donor, the profit of the second part of Lord Clarendon's
History has been applied to the establishment of a riding-school,
that the polite exercises might be taught, I know not with what
success, in the university. The Vinerian professorship is of far
more serious importance; the laws of his country are the first
science of an Englishman of rank and fortune, who is called to be a
magistrate, and may hope to be a legislator. This judicious
institution was coldly entertained by the graver doctors, who
complained (I have heard the complaint) that it would take the young
people from their books: but Mr. Viner's benefaction is not
unprofitable, since it has at least produced the excellent
commentaries of Sir William Blackstone.
After carrying me to Putney, to the house of his friend Mr. Mallet,
by whose philosophy I was rather scandalized than reclaimed, it was
necessary for my father to form a new plan of education, and to
devise some method which, if possible, might effect the cure of my
spiritual malady. After much debate it was determined, from the
advice and personal experience of Mr. Eliot (now Lord Eliot) to fix
me, during some years, at Lausanne in Switzerland. Mr. Frey, a
Swiss gentleman of Basil, undertook the conduct of the journey: we
left London the 19th of June, crossed the sea from Dover to Calais,
travelled post through several provinces of France, by the direct
road of St. Quentin, Rheims, Langres, and Besancon, and arrived the
30th of June at Lausanne, where I was immediately settled under the
roof and tuition of Mr. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister.
The first marks of my father's displeasure rather astonished than
afflicted me: when he threatened to banish, and disown, and
disinherit a rebellious son, I cherished a secret hope that he would
not be able or willing to effect his menaces; and the pride of
conscience encouraged me to sustain the honourable and important
part which I was now acting. My spirits were raised and kept alive
by the rapid motion of my journey, the new and various scenes of the
Continent, and the civility of Mr. Frey, a man of sense, who was not
ignorant of books or the world. But after he had resigned me into
Pavilliard's hands, and I was fixed in my new habitation, I had
leisure to contemplate the strange and melancholy prospect before
me. My first complaint arose from my ignorance of the language. In
my childhood I had once studied the French grammar, and I could
imperfectly understand the easy prose of a familiar subject. But
when I was thus suddenly cast on a foreign land, I found myself
deprived of the use of speech and of hearing; and, during some
weeks, incapable not only of enjoying the pleasures of conversation,
but even of asking or answering a question in the common intercourse
of life. To a home-bred Englishman every object, every custom was
offensive; but the native of any country might have been disgusted
with the general aspect of his lodging and entertainment. I had now
exchanged my elegant apartment in Magdalen College, for a narrow,
gloomy street, the most unfrequented of an unhandsome town, for an
old inconvenient house, and for a small chamber ill-contrived and
ill-furnished, which, on the approach of Winter, instead of a
companionable fire, must be warmed by the dull invisible heat of a
stove. From a man I was again degraded to the dependence of a
schoolboy. Mr. Pavilliard managed my expences, which had been
reduced to a diminutive state: I received a small monthly allowance
for my pocket-money; and helpless and awkward as I have ever been, I
no longer enjoyed the indispensable comfort of a servant. My
condition seemed as destitute of hope, as it was devoid of pleasure:
I was separated for an indefinite, which appeared an infinite term
from my native country; and I had lost all connexion with my
catholic friends. I have since reflected with surprise, that as the
Romish clergy of every part of Europe maintain a close
correspondence with each other, they never attempted, by letters or
messages, to rescue me from the hands of the heretics, or at least
to confirm my zeal and constancy in the profession of the faith.
Such was my first introduction to Lausanne; a place where I spent
nearly five years with pleasure and profit, which I afterwards
revisited without compulsion, and which I have finally selected as
the most grateful retreat for the decline of my life.
But it is the peculiar felicity of youth that the most unpleasing
objects and events seldom make a deep or lasting impression; it
forgets the past, enjoys the present, and anticipates the future. At
the flexible age of sixteen I soon learned to endure, and gradually
to adopt, the new forms of arbitrary manners: the real hardships of
my situation were alienated by time. Had I been sent abroad in a
more splendid style, such as the fortune and bounty of my father
might have supplied, I might have returned home with the same stock
of language and science, which our countrymen usually import from
the Continent. An exile and a prisoner as I was, their example
betrayed me into some irregularities of wine, of play, and of idle
excursions: but I soon felt the impossibility of associating with
them on equal terms; and after the departure of my first
acquaintance, I held a cold and civil correspondence with their
successors. This seclusion from English society was attended with
the most solid benefits. In the Pays de Vaud, the French language
is used with less imperfection than in most of the distant provinces
of France: in Pavilliard's family, necessity compelled me to listen
and to speak; and if I was at first disheartened by the apparent
slowness, in a few months I was astonished by the rapidity of my
progress. My pronunciation was formed by the constant repetition of
the same sounds; the variety of words and idioms, the rules of
grammar, and distinctions of genders, were impressed in my memory
ease and freedom were obtained by practice; correctness and elegance
by labour; and before I was recalled home, French, in which I
spontaneously thought, was more familiar than English to my ear, my
tongue, and my pen. The first effect of this opening knowledge was
the revival of my love of reading, which had been chilled at Oxford;
and I soon turned over, without much choice, almost all the French
books in my tutor's library. Even these amusements were productive
of real advantage: my taste and judgment were now somewhat riper. I
was introduced to a new mode of style and literature: by the
comparison of manners and opinions, my views were enlarged, my
prejudices were corrected, and a copious voluntary abstract of the
Histoire de l'Eglise et de l'Empire, by le Sueur, may be placed in a
middle line between my childish and my manly studies. As soon as I
was able to converse with the natives, I began to feel some
satisfaction in their company my awkward timidity was polished and
emboldened; and I frequented, for the first time, assemblies of men
and women. The acquaintance of the Pavilliards prepared me by
degrees for more elegant society. I was received with kindness and
indulgence in the best families of Lausanne; and it was in one of
these that I formed an intimate and lasting connection with Mr.
Deyverdun, a young man of an amiable temper and excellent
understanding. In the arts of fencing and dancing, small indeed was
my proficiency; and some months were idly wasted in the
riding-school. My unfitness to bodily exercise reconciled me to a
sedentary life, and the horse, the favourite of my countrymen, never
contributed to the pleasures of my youth.
My obligations to the lessons of Mr. Pavilliard, gratitude will not
suffer me to forget: he was endowed with a clear head and a warm
heart; his innate benevolence had assuaged the spirit of the church;
he was rational, because he was moderate: in the course of his
studies he had acquired a just though superficial knowledge of most
branches of literature; by long practice, he was skilled in the arts
of teaching; and he laboured with assiduous patience to know the
character, gain the affection, and open the mind of his English
pupil. As soon as we began to understand each other, he gently led
me, from a blind and undistinguishing love of reading, into the path
of instruction. I consented with pleasure that a portion of the
morning hours should be consecrated to a plan of modern history and
geography, and to the critical perusal of the French and Latin
classics; and at each step I felt myself invigorated by the habits
of application and method. His prudence repressed and dissembled
some youthful sallies; and as soon as I was confirmed in the habits
of industry and temperance, he gave the reins into my own hands.
His favourable report of my behaviour and progress gradually
obtained some latitude of action and expence; and he wished to
alleviate the hardships of my lodging and entertainment. The
principles of philosophy were associated with the examples of taste;
and by a singular chance, the book, as well as the man, which
contributed the most effectually to my education, has a stronger
claim on my gratitude than on my admiration. Mr. De Crousaz, the
adversary of Bayle and Pope, is not distinguished by lively fancy or
profound reflection; and even in his own country, at the end of a
few years, his name and writings are almost obliterated. But his
philosophy had been formed in the school of Locke, his divinity in
that of Limborch and Le Clerc; in a long and laborious life, several
generations of pupils were taught to think, and even to write; his
lessons rescued the academy of Lausanne from Calvinistic prejudice;
and he had the rare merit of diffusing a more liberal spirit among
the clergy and people of the Pays de Vaud. His system of logic,
which in the last editions has swelled to six tedious and prolix
volumes, may be praised as a clear and methodical abridgment of the
art of reasoning, from our simple ideas to the most complex
operations of the human understanding. This system I studied, and
meditated, and abstracted, till I have obtained the free command of
an universal instrument, which I soon presumed to exercise on my
catholic opinions. Pavilliard was not unmindful that his first
task, his most important duty, was to reclaim me from the errors of
popery. The intermixture of sects has rendered the Swiss clergy
acute and learned on the topics of controversy; and I have some of
his letters in which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and
my gradual concessions after a firm and well-managed defence. I was
willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome share of the
honour of my conversion: yet I must observe, that it was principally
effected by my private reflections; and I still remember my solitary
transport at the discovery of a philosophical argument against the
doctrine of transubstantiation: that the text of scripture, which
seems to inculcate the real presence, is attested only by a single
sense--our sight; while the real presence itself is disproved
by three of our senses--the sight, the touch, and the taste. The
various articles of the Romish creed disappeared like a dream; and
after a full conviction, on Christmas-day, 1754, I received the
sacrament in the church of Lausanne. It was here that I suspended
my religious inquiries, acquiescing with implicit belief in the
tenets and mysteries, which are adopted by the general consent of
catholics and protestants.
Such, from my arrival at Lausanne, during the first eighteen or
twenty months (July 1753--March 1755), were my useful studies, the
foundation of all my future improvements. But every man who rises
above the common level has received two educations: the first from
his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.
He will not, like the fanatics of the last age, define the moment of
grace; but he cannot forget the aera of his life, in which his mind
has expanded to its proper form and dimensions. My worthy tutor had
the good sense and modesty to discern how far he could be useful: as
soon as he felt that I advanced beyond his speed and measure, he
wisely left me to my genius; and the hours of lesson were soon lost
in the voluntary labour of the whole morning, and sometimes of the
whole day. The desire of prolonging my time, gradually confirmed
the salutary habit of early rising, to which I have always adhered,
with some regard to seasons and situations; but it is happy for my
eyes and my health, that my temperate ardour has never been seduced
to trespass on the hours of the night. During the last three years
of my residence at Lausanne, I may assume the merit of serious and
solid application; but I am tempted to distinguish the last eight
months of the year 1755, as the period of the most extraordinary
diligence and rapid progress. In my French and Latin translations I
adopted an excellent method, which, from my own success, I would
recommend to the imitation of students. I chose some classic
writer, such as Cicero and Vertot, the most approved for purity and
elegance of style. I translated, for instance, an epistle of Cicero
into French; and after throwing it aside, till the words and phrases
were obliterated from my memory, I re-translated my French into such
Latin as I could find; and then compared each sentence of my
imperfect version, with the ease, the grace, the propriety of the
Roman orator. A similar experiment was made on several pages of the
Revolutions of Vertot; I turned them into Latin, returned them after
a sufficient interval into my own French, and again scrutinized the
resemblance or dissimilitude of the copy and the original. By
degrees I was less ashamed, by degrees I was more satisfied with
myself; and I persevered in the practice of these double
translations, which filled several books, till I had acquired the
knowledge or both idioms, and the command at least of a correct
style. This useful exercise of writing was accompanied and
succeeded by the more pleasing occupation of reading the best
authors. The perusal of the Roman classics was at once my exercise
and reward. Dr. Middleton's History, which I then appreciated above
its true value, naturally directed the to the writings of Cicero.
The most perfect editions, that of Olivet, which may adorn the
shelves of the rich, that of Ernesti, which should lie on the table
of the learned, were not in my power. For the familiar epistles I
used the text and English commentary of Bishop Ross: but my general
edition was that of Verburgius, published at Amsterdam in two large
volumes in folio, with an indifferent choice of various notes. I
read, with application and pleasure, all the epistles, all the
orations, and the most important treatises of rhetoric and
philosophy; and as I read, I applauded the observation of
Quintilian, that every student may judge of his own proficiency, by
the satisfaction which he receives from the Roman orator. I tasted
the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I
imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense
of a man. Cicero in Latin, and Xenophon in Greek, are indeed the
two ancients whom I would first propose to a liberal scholar; not
only for the merit of their style and sentiments, but for the
admirable lessons, which may be applied almost to every situation of
public and private life. Cicero's Epistles may in particular afford
the models of every form of correspondence, from the careless
effusions of tenderness and friendship, to the well guarded
declaration of discreet and dignified resentment. After finishing
this great author, a library of eloquence and reason, I formed a
more extensive plan of reviewing the Latin classics, under the four
divisions of, 1. historians, 2. Poets, 3. orators, and 4.
philosophers, in a chronological series, from the days of Plautus
and Sallust, to the decline of the language and empire of Rome: and
this plan, in the last twenty-seven months of my residence at
Lausanne (Jan. 1756--April 1758), I nearly accomplished. Nor was
this review, however rapid, either hasty or superficial. I indulged
myself in a second and even a third perusal of Terence, Virgil,
Horace, Tacitus, &c.; and studied to imbibe the sense and spirit
most congenial to my own. I never suffered a difficult or corrupt
passage to escape, till I had viewed it in every light of which it
was susceptible: though often disappointed, I always consulted the
most learned or ingenious commentators, Torrentius and Dacier on
Horace, Catrou and Servius on Virgil, Lipsius on Tacitus, Meziriac
on Ovid, &c.; and in the ardour of my inquiries, I embraced a large
circle of historical and critical erudition. My abstracts of each
book were made in the French language: my observations often
branched into particular essays; and I can still read, without
contempt, a dissertation of eight folio pages on eight lines
(287-294) of the fourth Georgic of Virgil. Mr. Deyverdun, my
friend, whose name will be frequently repeated, had joined with
equal zeal, though not with equal perseverance, in the same
undertaking. To him every thought, every composition, was instantly
communicated; with him I enjoyed the benefits of a free conversation
on the topics of our common studies.
But it is scarcely possible for a mind endowed with any active
curiosity to be long conversant with the Latin classics, without
aspiring to know the Greek originals, whom they celebrate as their
masters, and of whom they so warmly recommend the study and
imitation;
--Vos exemplaria Graeca
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.