ENGLAND. 197 



general regularity than had ever been known before in architecture. 

 Nor was sir Christopher Wren merely distinguished by his skill as 

 an architect ; his knowledge was very extensive ; and his discoveries 

 in philosophy, mechanics, &c. contributed much to the reputation of 

 the newly established Royal Society. Some excellent English pain- 

 ters (for Lely and Kneller were foreigners) also flourished in this 

 reign. 



That of James II, though he likewise had a taste for the fine arts, 

 is chiefly distinguished in the province of literature by those compo* 

 sitions that were published by the English divines against popery, and 

 which, for strength of reasoning and depth of erudition, never were 

 equalled in any age or country. 



The names of Newton and Locke adorned the reign of William 

 III, and he had a particular esteem for the latter, as he had also for, 

 Tillotson and Burnet. 



The most uninformed readers ai*e not unacquainted with the im- 

 provements which learning, and all the polite arts, received under 

 the auspices of queen Anne, and which placed her court at least on a 

 footing with that of Lewis XIV, in its most splendid days. Many of 

 the great men who had figured in the reigns of the Stuarts and Wil- 

 liam, were still alive, and in the full exercise of their faculties, when. 

 .a new race sprang up in the republic of learning and the arts. Addi- 

 son, Prior, Pope, Swift, lord Bolingbroke, lord Shaftesbury, Arbuth- 

 not, Congreve, Steele, Rowe, and many other excellent writers both 

 in verse and prose, need but to be mentioned to be admired. 



The ministers of George I, were the patrons of erudition, and some 

 of them were no mean proficients themselves. George II, was him- 

 self no Maecenas ; yet his reign yielded to none of the preceding, in 

 the .number of learned and ingenious men it produced. The b€nch 

 of bishops was never known to be so well provided with able prelates 

 as it was in the early years of his reign ; a full proof that his nobility 

 and ministers were judges of literary qualifications. In other depart- 

 ments of erudition, the favour of the public generally supplied the 

 coldness of the court. In the present reign, a great progress has 

 been made in the polite arts in England. The Royal Academy has 

 been instituted, some very able artists have arisen, and the annual 

 public exhibitions of painting and sculpture have been extremely 

 favourable to the arts, by promoting a spirit of emulation, and exciting 

 a greater attention to works of genius of this kind among the public 

 in general. But, notwithstanding these favourable circumstances, 

 the fine arts have been far from meeting with that public patronage 

 to which they have so just a claim. Few of our public edifices are 

 adorned with paintings or with statues. The sculptors meet with little 

 employment ; nor is the historical painter much patronised ; though 

 British artists of the present age have proved that their genius for 

 the fine arts is equal to that of any other nation. 



Medicine and surgery, botany, anatomy, chemistry, and all the arts 

 or studies for preserving life, have been carried to a great degree of 

 perfection by the English. The same may be said of music, and 

 theatrical exhibitions. Even agriculture is now reduced in England 

 to a science, and that, too, without any public encouragement but such 

 as is given by private noblemen and gentlemen, who associate them- 

 selves for that purpose. 



Universities. ...The two universities of Oxford and Cambridge 

 have produced more learned men than any in Europe. Their magni- 



