land; the like is to be understood of Robbery and Theft. In all other cafes, particularly in those for Debt, it is propofed that this, like the other Courts of Whitehall and St. James's, may be held a Place of Privilege. And whereas it has been found, that an obligation to fatisfy paultry Creditors has been a Discouragement to Men of Letters, if any Perfon of Quality or others shall send for any Poet or Critic of this Society to any remote quarter of the town, the faid Poet or Critic fhall freely pafs and repafs without being liable to an Arrest.

11. The forementioned Scheme in its feveral regulations may be fupported by Profits arifing from every Third-night throughout the year. And as it would be hard to suppose that so many perfons could live without any food (though from the former courfe of their lives, a very little will be deemed sufficient) the mafters of calculation will, we believe, agree, that out of those Profits, the faid Perfons might be fubfifted in a fober and decent manner. We will venture to affirm further, that not only the proper magazines of Thunder and Lightning, but Paint, Diet-drinks, Spitting-pots, and all other Neceffaries of Life, may in like manner fairly be provided for.

12. If fome of the Articles may at first view feem liable to Objections, particularly those that give so vast a power to the Council of Six (which is indeed larger

than

than any entrusted to the great Officers of State) this may be obviated, by fwearing thofe Six Perfons of his Majesty's Privy Council, and obliging them to pass every thing of moment previously at that most

honourable Board.

AMONG all the enquiries which have been pursued

by the curious and inquifitive, there is none

more worthy the fearch of a learned head, than the fource from whence we derive thofe arts and sciences, which raise us so far above the vulgar, the countries in which they rofe, and the channels by which they have been conveyed. As those who first brought them amongst us attained them by travelling into the remotest parts of the earth, I may boast of some advantages by the fame means, fince I write this from the deserts of Ethiopia, from thofe plains of fand, which have buried the pride of invading armies, with

VOL. VI.

T

my

my foot perhaps at this inftant ten fathom over the grave of Cambyfes; a folitude to which neither Pythagoras nor Appollonius ever penetrated.

It is univerfally agreed that arts and fciences were derived to us from the Egyptians and Indians; but from whom they firft received them is yet a fecret. The highest period of time to which the learned attempt to trace them, is the beginning of the Affyrian monarchy, when their inventors were worfhipped as gods. It is therefore neceffary to go backward into times even more remote, and to gain some knowledge of their hiftory, from whatever dark and broken hints may any way be found in ancient authors concerning them.

a

Nor Troy nor Thebes were the first empires; we have mention, though not hiftories, of an earlier warlike people called the Pygmæans. I cannot but perfuade myself, from thofe accounts in Homer, Aristotle, and others, of their History, Wars, and Revolutions, and from the very air in which those authors speak of them as of things known, that they were then a part of the ftudy of the learned. And though all we directly hear is of their military atchievements in the brave defence of their country, from the annual invafions of a powerful enemy; yet I cannot doubt but that they excelled as much in the arts of peaceful government, though there remain no traces of their civil inftitutions. Empires as great have been fwallowed

a Il. iii. Hom.

fwallowed up in the wreck of time; and fuch fudden periods have been put to them as occafion a total ignorance of their story. And if I fhould conjecture that the like happened to this nation from a general extirpation of the people by thofe flocks of monstrous birds, wherewith antiquity agrees they were continually infested, it ought not to feem more incredible than that once the Baleares was wafted by rabbits, Smynthe by mice, and of late Bermudas almost depopulated by rats. Nothing is more natural to imagine, than that the few furvivors of that empire retired into the depths of their deferts where they lived undisturbed, till they were found out by Ofiris, in his travels to inftruct mankind.

b

с

"He met," fays Diodorus", "in Æthiopia, a fort "of little Satyrs, who were hairy one half of their

66

body, and whofe leader, Pan, accompanied him in "his expedition for the civilizing of mankind.” Now of this great perfonage Pan we have a very particular description in the ancient writers, who unanimously agreed to represent him fhaggy-bearded, hairy all over, half a man and half a beast, and walking erect with a staff (the posture in which his race do to this day appear among us); and fince the chief thing to which he applied himself was the civilizing of mankind, it should seem that the first principle of science muft