hard IV., King of England, at the
instigation of the Duchess of Burgundy, and who disputed the crown with
Henry VII., the Lord Bacon writes as follows:--

"At this time the King began again to be haunted with sprites, by the
magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the ghost of
Richard, Duke of York, second son to King Edward IV., to walk and vex the
King.

"After such time as she (Margaret of Burgundy) thought he (Perkin
Warbeck) was perfect in his lesson, she began to cast with herself from
what coast this blazing star should first appear, and at what time it
must be upon the horizon of Ireland; for there had the like meteor strong
influence before."

Methinks our sagacious Thuanus does not give in to such fustian, which
formerly was looked upon as sublime, but in this age is justly called
nonsense.

LETTER XIII.--ON MR. LOCKE

Perhaps no man ever had a more judicious or more methodical genius, or
was a more acute logician than Mr. Locke, and yet he was not deeply
skilled in the mathematics. This great man could never subject himself
to the tedious fatigue of calculations, nor to the dry pursuit of
mathematical truths, which do not at first present any sensible objects
to the mind; and no one has given better proofs than he, that it is
possible for a man to have a geometrical head without the assistance of
geometry. Before his time, several great philosophers had declared, in
the most positive terms, what the soul of man is; but as these absolutely
knew nothing about it, they might very well be allowed to differ entirely
in opinion from one another.

In Greece, the infant seat of arts and of errors, and where the grandeur
as well as folly of the human mind went such prodigious lengths, the
people used to reason about the soul in the very same manner as we do.

The divine Anaxagoras, in whose honour an altar was erected for his
having taught mankind that the sun was greater than Peloponnesus, that
snow was black, and that the heavens were of stone, affirmed that the
soul was an aerial spirit, but at the same time immortal. Diogenes (not
he who was a cynical philosopher after having coined base money) declared
that the soul was a portion of the substance of God: an idea which we
must confess was very sublime. Epicurus maintained that it was composed
of parts in the same manner as the body.

Aristotle, who has been explained a thousand ways, because he is
unintelligible, was of opini