t you may remark the forms, the
ceremonies, and the exterior state of it. At least see everything that
you can see, and know everything that you can know of it, by asking
questions. See likewise everything at the fair, from operas and plays,
down to the Savoyard's raree-shows.

Everything is worth seeing once; and the more one sees, the less one
either wonders or admires.

Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and tell him that I have just now
received his letter, for which I thank him. I am called away, and my
letter is therefore very much shortened. Adieu.

I am impatient to receive your answers to the many questions that I have
asked you.

LETTER XXXVII

LONDON, April 26, O. S. 1748.

DEAR BOY: I am extremely pleased with your continuation of the history of
the Reformation; which is one of those important eras that deserves your
utmost attention, and of which you cannot be too minutely informed. You
have, doubtless, considered the causes of that great event, and observed
that disappointment and resentment had a much greater share in it, than a
religious zeal or an abhorrence of the errors and abuses of popery.

Luther, an Augustine monk, enraged that his order, and consequently
himself, had not the exclusive privilege of selling indulgences, but that
the Dominicans were let into a share of that profitable but infamous
trade, turns reformer, and exclaims against the abuses, the corruption,
and the idolatry, of the church of Rome; which were certainly gross
enough for him to have seen long before, but which he had at least
acquiesced in, till what he called the rights, that is, the profit, of
his order came to be touched. It is true, the church of Rome furnished
him ample matter for complaint and reformation, and he laid hold of it
ably.

This seems to me the true cause of that great and necessary, work; but
whatever the cause was, the effect was good; and the Reformation spread
itself by its own truth and fitness; was conscientiously received by
great numbers in Germany, and other countries; and was soon afterward
mixed up with the politics of princes; and, as it always happens in
religious disputes, became the specious covering of injustice and
ambition.

Under the pretense of crushing heresy, as it was called, the House of
Austria meant to extend and establish its power in the empire; as, on the
other hand, many Protestant princes, under the pretense of extirpating
idolatry, or at least of securing tol