128 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



niftred but confolation : when application, is made 

 to them, for example, at the age of innocence, of 

 the woes pronounced by Jesus Christ, againfl 

 the Pharifees, the do6tors, and the other tyrants 

 of the Jewifli nation ; or when their tender organs 

 are fliocked by certain monftrous images fo com- 

 mon in our churches. I knew a young man who, 

 in his infancy, was fo terrified with the dragon of 

 St. Marguerite, with which his preceptor had 

 threatened him in the village-church, that he ac- 

 tually fell fick of horror, believing that he favv 

 the monfter conftantly at his pillow, ready to de- 

 vour him. His father, in order to quiet his dif- 

 turbed imagination, was under the neceffity of 

 appearing fword in hand to attack the dragon, and 

 of pretending that he had killed him. Thus, as 

 our method is, one error was driven out by an- 

 other. When grown up, the firft ufe which he 

 made of his reafon was to refledt, that the perfons 

 intruded with the formation of that faculty, had 

 impofed upon him twice. 



After having elevated a poor boy above his 

 equals, by the title of Emperor, and even above the 

 whole Human Race, by that of Son of the Church, 

 he is cruelly brought low by rigorous and degrading 

 punifliments. " Among other things," fays Mon- 

 tagne *, '' that part of the police of moft of our 



* Eflays, book i. chap. 25. 



fchools. 



