XXII.

INAUGURAL ORATION AT LAYING THE FIRST
STONE OF THE LONDON INSTITUTION.

ANOTHER literary production, subjoined to the History of the Confessions of Faith, was an Inaugural Oration spoken by the Writer on the 4th of May 1815, at the ceremony of laying the first Stone of the London Institution for the Diffusion of Science and Literature. The ceremony took place on a part of a spacious piece of ground in Moorfields, which had been purchased for the Institution of the city of London. Mr. Birch, then the lord mayor of that city, the sheriffs and aldermen, lord Carrington, the president of the Institution, and several other persons of distinction, went in procession to the spot, preceded by banners and a band of music, through Cornhill, Cheapside, Old Jewry, Colemanstreet, and Fore-street. The lord mayor laid the first stone, with the usual ceremonies, and addressed the surrounding audience in an elegant discourse, delivered with a dignity and grace, that would do honour to the most eloquent senator. The party then adjourned to the London tavern to hear the Inaugural Address: the purport of it was to show the advantages which science and commerce derive from each other. It was printed by the desire and at the expense of the Institution: the Reminiscent had, at the formation of that establishment, been appointed its standing counsel.-A copy of

it is transcribed in the Appendix to these Reminis cences*.

The Reminiscent began a Life of Christ, and printed and circulated among his friends, a specimen of it. His design was to frame an harmony of the four evangelists, by translating them, verse for verse, -without any addition or omission,-in such words and phrases, as it might be supposed, the evangelists themselves might have used, if they had written in the English language:-an arduous and an useful undertaking,—but which, with great regret, he was obliged to abandon on account of its extreme difficulty, and the time, which a proper execution of it would require.

The only other literary work, which the Reminis cent has begun and left unfinished, was an History of the Binomial Theorem ;-for he too has had his algebraic hours and disported with imaginary quantities: but he found the allurements of these so strong, as to make it absolutely necessary, as he wished to continue his professional labour, to divorce himself entirely from them. Perhaps the reasoning on impossible quantities and exterminating them by alge braic operations, till the impossible symbols disappear, and an equation of real quantities is produced, is the highest and most delightful effort of the human understanding: but its hold on the mind, makes it absolutely incompatible with professional duty. The writer was therefore obliged to abandon it :

"Et multum formosa vale!"

* APPENDIX, Note III.

was his exclamation, when he parted from algebra and consigned his binomial lucubration to the flames*

If the Reminiscent were desired to mention the moment of his literary life, in which he experienced the greatest literary delight, he should, without hesitation, mention that, in which, for the first time, he perused the first problem of Euclid, and saw the new world of intellectual gratification which was opened for him; but he soon found it his duty to turn from it altogether.

* The profound and extensive classical knowledge of the late Mr. Porson is well known: his knowledge also of algebra and geometry was respectable. He had meditated a new edition of Diophantus, and an illustration of it by the modern discoveries. A short time before he died he gave the Reminiscent an algebraic problem, which, though not of the highest order, is certainly curious. We suppose some of our readers may wish to see it, we therefore insert it, and our solution of it, in the Appendix t.

† APPENDIX, Note IV.

XXIII.

HISTORICAL MEMOIRS OF THE CHURCH OF FRANCE, IN THE REIGNS OF LEWIS THE FOURTEENTH, LEWIS THE FIFTEENTH, LEWIS THE SIXTEENTH, AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

THE Reminiscent then published his Historical Memoirs of the Church of France, in the reigns of Lewis the fourteenth, Lewis the fifteenth, Lewis the sixteenth, and the French Revolution, 1 vol. 8vo.

To an investigation of these events in the history of the Gallican church, he was led by the attention, which he had been frequently obliged to pay, to the questions on the nature and extent of the temporal and spiritual power of the popes, which, since the reformation, have too frequently agitated the body of English catholics; and which, during the reigns of the monarchs, whom we have mentioned, and throughout the whole period of the French revolution, have convulsed the church of France. gave him an opportunity of producing before his protestant readers, a view of the general splendour of that great hierarchy, and of the many illustrious examples, too little known in this country, of true religion and piety, with which the highest ranks both in the church and state of France then abounded.

It also

The Reminiscent's researches in the composition of this work considerably elevated, in his estimation, the character of Lewis the fourteenth. That monarch's persecution of the jansenists cannot be defended;

his revocation of the edict of Nantes* was a violation of public faith; the variety and ostentation of his early amours contributed much to the debasement of the morals of the nation; and his expensive wars exhausted her resources. The two last of these circumstances contributed more than all others, to the tremendous revolutions, which we have witnessed, and unfortunately yet behold. Still, the Reminiscent sees no reason to deny that Lewis the fourteenth possessed much sound sense, great discrimination of character, unconquerable firmness, real dignity, just notions of propriety,—and, when he was not misled by his passions, great respect for moral principle.

* In this, Lewis was highly to be blamed; but he was also to be pitied, as great misrepresentation was used to lead him into the measure. The principal performer in this deed of iniquity was Louvois: Madame de Maintenon disapproved it. The Reminiscent earnestly requests his anti-catholic readers, if he has any, to peruse the account of it, in his Historical Memoirs of the Church of France.

The representations published in this country of the cruelties exercised over the protestants at Nismes, have been read by him with horror; he has reason to think them exaggerated; but he believes them sufficiently true to cover with infamy all who instigated, perpetrated, or connived at them, or who permitted them to go unpunished. Still, it should be always kept in view, that these dreadful scenes took place, during the height of mutual exasperation, and had been preceded by the perpetration of most barbarous outrages upon the catholics in the same districts:Of these, an authentic, and the Reminiscent believes, an uncontradicted account, may be found in the Abbé Barruel's Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme.

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