2IO DEFECTION OF THE NETHERLANDS 



refinement, a country where the moft violent political 

 fact ions had always raged, where the blood is kept in 

 continual ferment by a burning climate ; Italy, it may- 

 be objected, more than any almoft of the european 

 nations, kept clear of thefe innovations. But to a ro- 

 mantic people, who, by a warm and genial iky, by 

 a luxuriant nature, ever fportive and ever young, and 

 the moil: di verified charms of art, were kept in a per- 

 petual enjoyment of pleafure ; that religion was moll 

 adapted which captivated the fenfes by pomp and fplen- 

 dor, whofe myiierious fubtilties gave an infinite fcope 

 to the fancy, whofe principal doctrines insinuated, 

 themfelves into the foul under piclurefque and pleafing 

 forms. To a people, on the contrary, who, by the 

 affairs of common civil life, were brought down to an 

 unpoetical actuality, who were more accuftomed to 

 plain notions and terms than to metaphorical figures 

 and phrafes, and followed the dictates of common fenfe 

 rather than the fuggeftions of the imagination ; to fuch 

 a people, that faith would moft recommend itfelf, 

 which had lefs to fear from difcuflion and trial, 

 which inculcated morality more than my ftioifm, was of 

 Vreater comprehenfibiiity but of lefs parade. In jfew 

 words ; The catholic religion is more calculated far 

 a nation of artifts, the proteftant more for a nation of 

 merchants. 



This premifed, the new tenets broached by Luther 

 in Germany, an ^ °) r Calvin in Switzerland, muft in 

 the Netherlands have met with the heartieft welcome. 

 The wav by which it came thither, was the way by 

 which the plague is brought from the Eaft, by which . 

 both wifdom and folly walk to us — the way of commerce. 

 6 ; , The 



