former friend. This was however for the present kept under; and through the instrumentality of Mademoiselle du Moulin, sister to Madame Jurieu, a very eligible match was proposed to Bayle, in the person of a very handsome young lady, with a fortune of 15,000 crowns entirely at her own disposal. Complete independence, and a life of philosophical literature, had however for a long time previously become his sole and ultimate object; and he not only resisted this striking temptation in the present instance, but retained his resolution against wedlock to the termination of his life.

The next publication of Bayle was a "Collection of Curious Pieces relative to the Cartesian Philosophy," which was followed, in May 1684, by the first number of his celebrated monthly journal entitled "Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres," which was founded on the excellent principle of the "Journal des Savans." No one could be better adapted for a critical journal of this nature than Bayle, who conducted it at once with spirit and amenity. In the May of this year, the States of Friesland proffered him the situation of professor of philosophy at Franeker, with a salary nearly the double of that which he received at Rotterdam; but after taking some time to consider of the proposal, he declined it. Much about the same time he received information of the death of his younger brother, who was also in the way of obtaining considerable distinction in the world of letters.

Early in 1685 Bayle enlarged his "Critique Generale” on Maimbourgh's history; and in the May of the same year, received the afflicting intelligence of the death of his father, and of the imprisonment of his elder brother on the score of religion. The sorrow produced by this intelligence must have been considerably increased by the assurance, that resentment on the part of the Catholics for the "Critique Generale" had induced the minister Louvois to this low-minded species of revenge. Being then minister of Carla, officers were sent to arrest Mr Jacob Bayle,

who was dragged out of his house, and thrown into the prison of Pamiers, from which he was removed to the Château Trompette at Bourdeaux, and confined in a close and infectious dungeon. Every attempt was made to induce him to change his religion, but in vain; and after five months' imprisonment, his constitution gave way, and he fell a sacrifice to the cruelty of his persecutors. The extreme length to which this mild and conscientious man carried the doctrine of passive obedience, while it renders its excessive absurdity as a general principle apparent, left those to whose intolerance he fell a victim, no sort of political excuse for the enormity of their conduct towards him. This year was to prove afflictive to Bayle every way, for in it he lost his friend and patron, M. Paets, who had just published a "Letter on Toleration," much praised by the former in his journal for October, on the 8th of which month M. Paets died, leaving a high character behind him as a lawyer, a divine, a politician, and a philosopher.

The impartiality of Bayle soon after engaged him in a dispute with the celebrated Arnauld on the " Pleasure of the Senses," caused by a censure, on the part of the latter, of a passage in father Malebranche, asserting "that all pleasure is a good, and renders the person who enjoys it actually happy." Bayle sided with Malebranche in his journal and some smart controversy ensued, curious enough in itself, but, like most disputes of the kind, of very little intrinsic importance.

In October 1685, that consummation of cruelty, impolicy, and bad faith, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, took place in France, and was followed by all the persecutions, dragoonings, and merciless inflictions, which throw such an air of burlesque on the words great and paternal as applied to Louis XIV. The reflections of Bayle, in his journal, were in the first instance very mild and cautious; but annoyed by the multitude of books wherein nothing was talked of but the "immortal glory'

acquired by Louis in the destruction of heresy, he published, in March 1686, a little book entitled " Ce que c'est que la France toute Catholique sous le Regne de Louis le Grand"-a Character of France entirely Catholic under the Reign of Louis le Grand. In the favourite manner of Bayle, the author assumes the character of a French refugee at London, who writes to a canon in France. The letters, which are three in number, supply a severe and cutting exposure of the outrageous conduct of the Catholics in their pretended conversions, their low and gross cheats, ridiculous artifices, and atrocious cruelties, as exhibited at that time throughout France. He followed up this salutary exposure by a work, pretendedly translated from the English, entitled "A Philosophical Commentary on these words of Jesus Christ-Compel them to come in." It is a fine argumentative exposure of the abuse of that celebrated passage in favour of persecution, and is founded on a principle laid down at the beginning of his work, "That natural reason, or the general principle of our knowledge, forms the fundamental and original rule of all interpretations of Scripture." At this time of day, it may be thought that the proposition and the consequences flowing from it are self-evident; but when Bayle wrote, such was by no means the case; and amounting as it did to an elaborate defence of general toleration, in which all the objections are refuted with logical precision, the utility of the work was very great, not only in the correction of Catholic intolerance, but of a by no means unequivocal tendency to imitate it in a bigoted portion of the Reformed. In speaking of these works in his journal, Bayle of course indirectly sought to enforce his own arguments, and excite an anxiety to peruse them.

A journal like that carried on by Bayle could scarcely fail of engaging him in occasional exchanges both of courtesy and wrangling. The French Academy, to whom he presented it, were unanimous in acknowledging its merit ;

change of correspondence with the author. On the other nand, unpleasant disputes would sometimes arise; and a something of that nature, which took place on the occasion of an allusion to the celebrated ex-queen of Sweden, Christina, as it caused Bayle no small anxiety and uneasiness, may merit a brief mention.

In his journal for May 1686, in speaking of a printed letter, then said to be an answer from the queen of Sweden to the chevalier de Terlon, in which she condemned the persecution of the French Protestants, he used the following words:" Christina is the true author of the letter attributed to her against the persecutions in France. It is a remnant of Protestantism." It has been observed of apostates and converts (very often convertible terms) that doubts of their sincerity are peculiarly offensive to them. Such was the case in the present instance with Christina, who wrote or caused a letter to be written to Bayle, complimentary to his wit and learning, but complaining of his implied doubt of her sincere conversion to the Church of Rome, conveyed in the expression "remnant of Protestantism;" also hinting that the word Christina, without the title of queen, was somewhat too familiar. Bayle acted with his usual address, by transforming with considerable ingenuity the omission of the word queen into a compliment, the name Christina had been rendered too illustrious to need any adjunct. This passed as to that point; but all his explanation in relation to the "remnant of Protestantism" could not make the expression palatable; and in a second letter he was required to acknowledge its inadvertence, with something like a threat of annoyance in the event of refusal. This intimation was however rendered palatable by expressions of great respect for his abilities, and a hint that a letter to the queen would be acceptable, who however, notwithstanding her abdication, must be addressed as "her majesty," and not sereHe accordingly wrote to Christina, who replied with her own hand, and after handsomely accepting his

nissime.

excuses, employed him to send her new books and his journal. The correspondence is too long for insertion in a sketch of this brief nature, but the whole proceeding merits perusal on the part of those who, in the caprices and punctilio of abdicated sovereignty and doubtful conversion, will discover precisely the same passions which actuate much smaller people on similar occasions.

At this time the literary labours of Bayle, followed up as they were with unremitting assiduity, began to operate very seriously to the injury of his health. He was seized with a fever in February 1687, and continued for some time so indisposed that he engaged M. Beauval to carry on his journal for a while, and afterwards to take it altogether; that writer accordingly continued it, from the month of September following, under the title of "Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans"- -"the History of the Works of the Learned."

Bayle had taken immense pains to prevent the "Philosophical Commentary" from being assigned to himself, and when suspicions of that kind prevailed, descended even to some scarcely pardonable equivocations to allay them. Much however may be allowed to a person holding his formal situation of professor, who was also conscious that his free and sceptical mode of handling subjects might not be always palatable to the bigots of any creed. By writing anonymously, he was certainly able to argue with less restriction; no small reason for a lenient judgment on this score. Whatever may be thought of such plea, or of the justifiableness of his motives, the guise assumed by Bayle on the present occasion completely deceived the furious Jurieu, who, without knowing the author, was extremely displeased with a book which inculcated toleration. He accordingly undertook to refute it in a work entitled "Des Droits des deux Souverains," &c. "The Rights of the two Sovereigns, Conscience and the Prince, in matters of religion." He