RECAPITULATION. 389 



influence to the Romans, ^who traced upward, in 

 his fublime poetical effufions, the genealogy of the 

 founder, and of the fovereigns of their Empire, as 

 the Greeks had found in him the rudiments of 

 their Republics, and of their Laws. His auguft 

 fhade ftill prefides over the poetry, the liberal Arts, 

 the Academies, and the Monuments of Europe : 

 fuch is the power over the human mind, exercifed 

 by the perfpedives of Deity which he has pre- 

 fented to it 1 Thus, the Word which created the 

 World ftill governs it; but when it had defcended 

 itfelf from Heaven, and had (hewn to Man the 

 road to happinefs in Virtue alone, a light more pure 

 than that which had flied a luftre over the iflands 

 of Greece, illuminated the forefts of Gaul. The 

 Savages, who inhabited them, would have been the 

 happieft of Mankind, had they enjoyed liberty ; 

 but they were fubjeéled to tyrants, and thofe ty- 

 rants plunged them back into a facred barbarifm, by 

 prefenting to them phantoms fo much the more 

 tremendous, that the objeds of their confidence 

 were transformed into thofe of their terror. 



The caufe of human felicity, and of Religion 

 herfelf, was on the brink of defperation, when two 

 men of letters, Rabelais, and Michael Cervantes, 

 ^rofe, the one in France and the other in Spain, 

 and fhook, at once, the foundations of monaftic 



c c 3 . power 



