d to be in our debt) to borrow from
them. Both the English and we came after the Italians, who have been our
instructors in all the arts, and whom we have surpassed in some. I
cannot determine which of the three nations ought to be honoured with the
palm; but happy the writer who could display their various merits.

LETTER XXIII.--ON THE REGARD THAT OUGHT TO BE SHOWN TO MEN OF LETTERS

Neither the English nor any other people have foundations established in
favour of the polite arts like those in France. There are Universities
in most countries, but it is in France only that we meet with so
beneficial an encouragement for astronomy and all parts of the
mathematics, for physic, for researches into antiquity, for painting,
sculpture, and architecture. Louis XIV. has immortalised his name by
these several foundations, and this immortality did not cost him two
hundred thousand livres a year.

I must confess that one of the things I very much wonder at is, that as
the Parliament of Great Britain have promised a reward of 20,000 pounds
sterling to any person who may discover the longitude, they should never
have once thought to imitate Louis XIV. in his munificence with regard to
the arts and sciences.

Merit, indeed, meets in England with rewards of another kind, which
redound more to the honour of the nation. The English have so great a
veneration for exalted talents, that a man of merit in their country is
always sure of making his fortune. Mr. Addison in France would have been
elected a member of one of the academies, and, by the credit of some
women, might have obtained a yearly pension of twelve hundred livres, or
else might have been imprisoned in the Bastile, upon pretence that
certain strokes in his tragedy of _Cato_ had been discovered which
glanced at the porter of some man in power. Mr. Addison was raised to
the post of Secretary of State in England. Sir Isaac Newton was made
Master of the Royal Mint. Mr. Congreve had a considerable employment.
Mr. Prior was Plenipotentiary. Dr. Swift is Dean of St. Patrick in
Dublin, and is more revered in Ireland than the Primate himself. The
religion which Mr. Pope professes excludes him, indeed, from preferments
of every kind, but then it did not prevent his gaining two hundred
thousand livres by his excellent translation of Homer. I myself saw a
long time in France the author of _Rhadamistus_ ready to perish for
hunger. And the son of one of the greatest