424 UNIVIRSAL ERUDITION. 



empire, a clumfy building, with fo little tafte 

 or knowledge of architedture, as to be a difgrace 

 to the art. No ftatues or bafs- relieves, paintings 

 or fculpturc; neither verfe nor profe -, in a word, 

 nothing has come to us from the If ^ire, 



that does not prove the decadence and difiblution 

 of the arts and fciences in thofe barbarous and 

 fuperflitious times. How then could they be 

 tranfplanted from thence into Europe ? We know 

 very well that certain enthufiaftic Arabs came 

 about that time into Italy, and pretended to 

 great learning-, but their writings fufftciently 

 prove their mediocrity. It was not luch people 

 as thefe that brought the arts and fciences from 

 Afia ii.to Europe, but it was Leo X. Charles V. 

 Francis I. Henry VIII. and the other great 

 princes their cotemporaries, that encouraged and 

 protected them, and had the fatisfadion to lee 

 their benign influence produce men of ability 

 and learning of every kind , luch artifts as Mi- 

 chael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Tafib, Ariofto, 

 &c. That in ancient times the arts came from 

 Greece to Rome, we readily believe, becaufe 

 thofe arts were then cultivated with the utmoft 

 fuccefs in Greece : but it is impoflible to draw 

 any thing from a country where it is not to be 

 had. The re-eftablifhment of letters is there- 

 fore owing folely to the weftern nations. 



XII. 'The fath and laft age is that which M. 

 de Voltaire calls the age of Lewis XIV. It be- 



