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Pope.

Pope. Hyde-Park Corner. He discovered early an inclination to versifying; and the translation of Ogilby and Sandys from Virgil and Ovid first falling in his way, they were his favourite authors. At twelve he retired with his parents to Binfield, in Windsor Forest; and there became acquainted with the writings of Spenser, Waller, and Dryden. Dryden struck him most, probably because the cast of that poet was most congenial with his own; and therefore he not only studied his works intensely, but ever after mentioned him with a kind of rapturous veneration. He once obtained a sight of him at a coffee-house, but never was known to him: a misfortune which he laments in these short but expressive words, Virgilium tantum vidi. Though Pope had been under more tutors than one, yet it seems they were so insufficient for the purpose of teaching, that he had learned very little from them: so that, being obliged afterwards to begin all over again, he may justly be considered as one of the avlodidanla or self-taught. At fifteen he had acquired a readiness in the two learned languages; to which he soon after added the French and Italian. He had already scribbled a great deal of poetry in various ways; and this year set about an epic poem called Alcander. He long after communicated it to Atterbury, with a declared intention to burn it; and that friend concurred with him: "Though (adds he) I would have interceded for the first page, and put it, with your leave, among my curiosities." What the poet himself observes upon these early pieces is agreeable enough; and shows, that though at first a little intoxicated with the waters of Helicon, he afterwards arrived to great sobriety of thinking. "I confess (says he) there was a time when I was in love with myself; and my first productions were the children of Self-love upon Inno

I had made an epic poem, and panegyrics on all the princes; and I thought myself the greatest genius that ever was. I cannot but regret these delightful visions of my childhood, which, like the fine colours we see when our eyes are shut, are vanished for ever." His pastorals, begun in 1704, first introduced him to the wits of the time; among whom were Wycherly and Walsh. This last gentleman proved a sincere friend to him; and soon discerning that his talent lay, not so much in striking out new thoughts of his own, as in improving those of other men, and in an easy versification, told him, among other things, that there was one way left open for him to excel his predecessors in, which was correctness: observing, that though we had several great poets, yet none of them were correct. Pope took the hint, and turned it to good account; for no doubt the distinguishing harmony of his numbers was in a great measure owing to it. The same year, 1704, he wrote the first part of his Windsor Forest, though the whole was not published till 1710. In 1708, he wrote the Essay on Criticism; which production was justly esteemed a masterpiece in its kind, and showed not only the peculiar turn of his talents, but that those talents, young as he was, were ripened into perfection. He was not yet twenty years old; and yet the maturity of judgment, the knowledge of the world, and the penetration into human nature, displayed in that piece, were such as would have done honour to the greatest abilities and experience. But whatever may be the merit of the Essay on Criticism, it was still surpassed, in a poetical view, by the Rape of the Lock, first com

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pletely published in 1712. The former excelled in the didactic way, for which we was peculiarly formed, a clear head, strong sense, and a sound judgment, being his characteristical qualities; but it is the creative power of the imagination that constitutes what is properly called a poet; and therefore it is in the Rape of the Lock that Pope principally appears one, there being more vis imaginandi displayed in this poem than perhaps in all his other works put together. In 1713, he gave out proposals for publishing a translation of Homer's Iliad, by subscription; in which all parties concurred so heartily, that he acquired a considerable fortune by it. The subscription amounted to 6000l. besides 1200l. which Lintot the bookseller gave him for the copy. Pope's finances being now in good condition, he purchased a house at Twickenham, whither he removed with his father and mother in 1715: where the former died about two years after. As he was a Papist, he could not purchase, nor put his money to interest on real security; and as he adhered to the cause of King James, he made it a point of conscience not to lend it to the new government; so that, though he was worth near 20,000l. when he laid aside business, yet, living afterwards upon the quick stock, he left but a slender subsistence to his family. Our poet, however, did nut fail to improve it to the utmost he had already acquired much by his publications, and he was all atte to acquire more. In 1717, he published a collection of all he had printed separately; and proceeded to give a new edition of Shakespeare: which, being published in 1721, discovered that he had consulted his fortune more than his fame in that undertaking. The Iliad being finished, he engaged upon the like footing to undertake the Odyssey. Mr Broome and Mr Fenton did part of it, and received 500l. of Mr Pope for their labours. It was published in the same manner, and on the same conditions to Lintot; excepting that, instead of 1200l. he had but 600l. for the copy. This work being finished in 1725, he was afterwards employed with Swift and Arbuthnot, in printing some volumes of Miscellanies. About this time he narrowly escaped losing his life, as he was returning home in a friend's chariot; which, on passing a bridge, happened to be overturned, and thrown with the horses into the river. The glasses were up, and he was not able to break them: so that he had immediately been drowned, if the poetilion had not broke them, and dragged him out to the bank. A fragment of the glass, however, cut him so desperately, that he ever after lost the use of two of bis fingers. In 1727 his Dunciad appeared in Ireland; and the year after in England, with notes by Swift, under the name of Scriblerus. This edition was presented to the king and queen by Sir Robert Walpole; who, probably about this time, offered to procure Pope a pension, which however he refused, as he had formerly done a proposal of the same kind made him by Lord Halifax. He greatly cultivated the spirit of independency; and "Unplac'd, unpension'd, no man's heir or slave," was frequently his boast. He somewhere observes, that the life of an author is a state of warfare: he has shewn himself a complete general in this way of warring. He bore the insults and injuries of his enemies long; but at length, in the Dunciad, made an absolutely universal slaughter of them for even Cibber, who was afterwards advanced to be the

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Pope.

Yet, from Dr Johnson's account of his domestic habits, we have reason to doubt the latter part of this character. His parsimony (he informs us) appeared in very petty matters, such as writing his compositions on the backs of letters, or in a niggardly reception of his friends, and a scantiness of entertainment-as the setting a single pint on the table to two friends, when, having himself taken two small glasses, he would retire, saying I leave you to your wine. He sometimes, however, the Doctor acknowledges, made a splendid dinner; but this happened seldom. He was very full of his fortune, and frequently ridiculed poverty; and he seems to have been of an opinion not very uncommon in the world, that to want money is to want every thing. He was almost equally proud of his connection with the great, and often boasted that he obtained their notice by no meanness or servility. This admiration of the great increased in the advance of life; yet we must acknowledge, that he could derive but little honour from the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke.

hero of it, could not forbear owning, that nothing was moral kind; he has avoided trifles, and consequently
ever more perfect and finished in its kind than this poem. has escaped a rock which has proved very injurious to
In 1729, by the advice of Lord Bolingbroke, he turn- Swift's reputation. He has given his imagination full
ed his pen to subjects of morality; and accordingly scope, and yet has preserved a perpetual guard upon
we find him, with the assistance of that noble friend, his conduct. The constitution of his body and mind
who furnished him with the materials, at work this year might really incline them to the habits of caution and
upon the Essay on Man. The following extract of a reserve. The treatment which he met with afterwards,
letter to Swift discovers the reason of his lordship's from an innumerable tribe of adversaries, confirmed this
advice: Bid him (says Bolingbroke) talk to you of habit; and made him slower than the dean in pronoun-
the work he is about, I hope in good carnest; it is a cing his judgment upon persons and things. His prose-
fine one, and will be, in his hands, an original. His writings are little less harmonious than his verse; and
sole complaint is, that he finds it too easy in the exe- his voice in common conversation was so naturally mu-
cution. This flatters his laziness: it flatters my judge- sical, that I remember honest Tom Southern used to
ment; who, always thought, that, universal as his ta- call him the little nightingale. His manners were deli-
lents are, this is eminently and peculiarly his, above all cate, easy, and engaging; and he treated his friends
the writers I know, living or dead; I do not except with a politeness that charmed, and a generosity that
Horace." Pope tells the dean in the next letter, that was much to his honour. Every guest was made happy
"the work Lord Bolingbroke speaks of with such within his doors; pleasure dwelt under his roof, and
abundant partiality, is a system of ethics, in the Ho- elegance presided at his table."
ratian way." In pursuing the same design, he wrote
his Ethic Epistles: the fourth of which, upon Taste,
giving great offence, as he was supposed to ridicule the
duke of Chandos under the character of Timon, is
said to have put him upon writing satires, which he
continued till 1739. He ventured to attack persons of
the highest rank, and set no bounds to his satirical
rage. A genuine collection of his letters were publish
ed in 1737:
In 1738, a French translation of the
Essay on Man, by the Abbé Resnel, was printed at
Paris; and Mr Crousaz, the German professor, animad-
verted upon this system of ethics, which he represented as
nothing else but a system of naturalism. Mr Warburton,
afterwards bishop of Gloucester, wrote a commentary
upon the Essay in which he defends it against Crou-
saz, whose objections he supposes owing to the faulti-
ness of the Abbé Resnel's translation. The poem was
republished in 1740, with the commentary. Our au-
thor now added a fourth book to the Duncaid, which
was first printed separately in 1742; but the year af-
ter, the whole poem came out together, as a specimen
of a more correct edition of his works. He had made
some progress in that design, but did not live to com-
plete it. He had all his life long been subject to the
headach; and that complaint, which he derived from
his mother, was now greatly increased by a dropsy in
his breast, under which he expired the 30th of May
1744, in the 56th year of his age. In his will, dated
December 11. 1743, Miss Blount, a lady to whom he
was always devoted, was made his heir during her life:
and among other legacies, he bequeathed to Mr War-
burton the property of all such of his works, already
printed, as he had written, or should write commenta-
ries upon, and which had not otherwise been disposed of
or alienated; with this condition, that they were pub-
lished without future alterations. In discharge of this
trust, that gentleman gave a complete edition of all Mr
Pope's works, 1751, in nine vols. 8vo. A work, enti-
titled, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, by
Mr Warton, two vols. 8vo, will be read with pleasure by
those who desire to know more of the person, charac-
ter, and writings of this excellent poet. Lord Orrery's
account of him is very flattering: "If we may judge
of him by his works (says this noble author), his chief
aim was to be esteemed a man of virtue. His letters
are written in that style; his last volumes are all of the

By natural deformity, or accidental distortion, bis vital functions were so much disordered, that his life was a long disease; and from this cause arose many of his peculiarities and weaknesses. He stood constantly in need of female attendants; and to avoid cold, of which he was very sensible, he wore a fur doublet under his shirt, &c. The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required, had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man.— When he wanted to sleep, he nodded in company; and once slumbered at his own table when the prince of Wales was talking of poetry. He was extremely troublesome to such of his friends as asked him out, which many of them frequently did, and plagued the servants beyond description. His love of eating is another fault, to which he is said to have fallen a sacrifice. In all his intercourse with mankind, he had great delight in artifice, and endeavoured to attain all bis purposes by indirect and unsuspected methods.

In familiar conversation it is said he never excelled; and he was so fretful and so easily displeased, that he would sometimes leave Lord Oxford's silently without any apparent reason, and was to be courted back by more letters and messages than the servants were willing to carry.

Dr

Pope, Popery.

Dr Johnson also gives a view of the intellectual character of Pope, and draws a parallel between Dryden and him. For particulars, however, we must refer our readers to Johnson's Lives of the Poets.

POPERY, in ecclesiastical history, comprehends the religious doctrines and practices adopted and maintained by the church of Rome. The following summary, extracted chiefly from the decrees of the council of Trent, continued under Paul III. Julius III. and Pius IV. from the year 1545 to 1563, by successive sessions, and the creed of Pope Pius IV. subjoined to it, and bearing date November 1564, may not be unacceptable to the reader. One of the fundamental tenets, strenuously maintained by Popish writers, is the infalli bility of the church of Rome; though they are not agreed whether this privilege belongs to the pope or a general council, or to both united; but they pretend that an infallible living judge is absolutely necessary to determine controversies, and to secure peace in the Christian church. However, Protestants allege, that the claim of infallibility in any church is not justified by the authority of Scripture; much less does it pertain to the church of Rome; and that it is inconsistent with the nature of religion, and the personal obligations of its professors; and that it has proved ineffectual to the end for which it is supposed to be granted, since popes and councils have disagreed in matters of importance, and they have been incapable, with the advantage of this pretended infallibility, of maintaining union and peace.

Another essential article of the popish creed is the supremacy of the pope, or his sovereign power over the universal church. See POPE.

Farther, the doctrine of the seven sacraments is a peculiar and distinguishing doctrine of the church of Rome; these are baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony.

The council of Trent (sess. 7. can. 1.) pronounces an anathema on those who say, that the sacraments are more or fewer than seven, or that any one of the above number is not truly and properly a sacrament. And yet it does not appear that they amounted to this number before the 12th century, when Hugo de St Victore and Peter Lombard, about the year 1144, taught that there were seven sacraments. The council of Florence, held in 1438, was the first council that determined this number. These sacraments confer grace, according to the decree of the council of Trent, (sess. 7. can. 8.) ex opere operato, by the mere administration of them; three of them, viz. baptism, confirmation, and orders, are said, (can. 9.) to impress an indelible character, so that they cannot be repeated without sacrilege; and the efficacy of every sacrament depends on the intention of the priest by whom it is administered (can. 11.). Pope Pius expressly enjoins, that all these sacraments should be administered according to the received and approved rites of the Catholic church. With regard to the eucharist in particular, we may here observe, that the church of Rome holds the doctrine of transubstantiation; the necessity of paying divine worship to Christ under the form of the consecrated bread, or host; the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, according to their ideas of which Christ is truly and properly offered as a sacrifice as often as the priest says mass; it practises likewise solitary mass, in which the

priest alone, who consecrates, communicates, and allows Popery communion only in one kind, viz. the bread, to the laity. Sess. 14.

The doctrine of merits is another distinguishing tenet of popery; with regard to which the council of Trent has expressly decreed (sess. 6. can. 32.) that the good works of justified persons are truly meritorious; deserving not only an increase of grace, but eternal life, and an increase of glory; and it has anathematized all who deny this doctrine. Of the same kind is the doctrine of satisfaction; which supposes that penitents may truly satisfy, by the afflictions they endure under the dispensations of Providence, or by voluntary penances to which they submit, for the temporary penalties of sin, to which they are subject, even after the remission of their eternal punishment. Sess. 6. can. 30. and sess. 14. can. 8. and 9. In this connection we may mention the popish distinction of venial and mortal sins: the greatest evils arising from the former are the temporary pains of purgatory; but no man, it is said, can obtain the pardon of the latter without confessing to a priest, and performing the penances which he imposes.

The council of Trent (sess. 14. can. 1.) has expressly decreed, that every one is accursed, who shall affirm that penance is not truly and properly a sacrament, instituted by Christ in the universal church, for reconciling those Christians to the divine majesty, who have fallen into sin after baptism: and this sacrament, it is declared, consists of two parts, the matter and the form; the matter is the act of the penitent, including contrition, confession, and satisfaction; the form of it is the act of absolution on the part of the priest. Accordingly it is enjoined, that it is the duty of every man, who hath fallen after baptism, to confess his sins, once a year at least, to a priest: that this confession is to be secret; for public confession is neither commanded nor expedient; and that it must be exact and particular, including every kind and act of sin, with all the circumstances attending it. When the penitent has so done, the priest pronounces an absolution; which is not conditional or declarative only, but absolute and judicial. This secret or auricular confession was first decreed and established in the fourth council of Lateran, under Innocent III. in 1215, (cap. 21.). And the decree of this council was afterwards confirmed and enlarged in the council of Florence, and in that of Trent; which ordains, that confession was instituted by Christ, that by the law of God it is necessary to salvation, and that it has been always practised in the Christian church. As for the penances imposed on the penitent by way of satisfaction, they have been commonly the repetition of certain forms of devotion, as paternosters, or ave-marias, the payment of stipulated sums, pilgrimages, fasts, or various species of corporal discipline. But the most formidable penance, in the estimation of many who have belonged to the Romish communion, has been the temporary pains of purgatory. But under all the penalties which are inflicted or threatened in the Romish church, it has provided relief by its indulgences, and by its prayers or masses for the dead, performed professedly for relieving and rescuing the souls that are detained in purgatory.

Another article that has been long authoritatively enjoined and observed in the church of Rome, is the celibacy of her clergy. This was first enjoined at Rome by Gregory VII. about the year 1074, and established

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Popery. in England by Anselm archbishop of Canterbury about the year 1175; though his predecessor Lanfranc had imposed it upon the prebendaries and clergy that lived in towns. And though the council of Trent was repeatedly petitioned by several princes and states to abolish this restraint, the obligation of celibacy was rather established than relaxed by this council; for they decreed, that marriage contracted after a vow of continence, is neither lawful nor valid; and thus deprived the church of the possibility of ever restoring marriage to the clergy. For if marriage, after a vow, be in itself unlawful, the greatest authority upon earth cannot dispense with it, nor permit marriage to the clergy, who have already vowed continence.

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To the doctrines and practices above recited may be farther added the worship of images, of which Protestants accuse the Papists. But to this accusation the PaPapist mis- pist replies, that he keeps images by him to preserve in represented his mind the memory of the persons represented by sented. them; as people are wont to preserve the memory of their deceased friends by keeping their pictures. He is taught (he says) to use them so as to cast his eyes upon the pictures or images, and thence to raise his heart to the things represented, and there to employ it in meditation, love, and thanksgiving, desire of imitation, &c. as the object requires.

Ibid.

These pictures or images have this advantage, that they inform the mind by one glance of what in reading might require a whole chapter. There being no other difference between them, than that reading represents leisurely and by degrees; and a picture, all at once. Hence he finds a convenience in saying his prayers with some devout pictures before him, he being no sooner distracted, but the sight of these recals his wandering thoughts to the right object; and as certainly brings something good into his mind, as an immodest picture disturbs his heart with filthy thoughts. And because he is sensible that these holy pictures and images represent and bring to his mind such objects as in his heart he loves, honours, and venerates; he cannot but upon that account love, honour, and respect, the images themselves.

The council of Trent likewise decreed, that all bishops and pastors who have the cure of souls, do diligently instruct their flocks, that it is good and profitable to desire the intercession of saints reigning with Christ in heaven. And this decree the Papists endeavour to defend by the following observations. They confess that we have but one Mediator of redemption; but affirm that it is acceptable to God that we should have many mediators of intercession. Moses (say they) was such a mediator for the Israelites; Job for his three friends; Stephen for his persecutors. The Romans were thus desired by St Paul to be his mediators; so were the Corinthians, so the Ephesians, Ep. ad Rom. Cor. Eph. so almost every sick. man desires the congregation to be his mediators, by remembering him in their prayers. And so the Papist desires the blessed in heaven to be his mediators; that is, that they would pray to God for him. But between these living and dead mediators there is no similarity: the living mediator is present, and certainly hears the request of those who desire him to intercede for them; the dead mediator is as certainly absent, and cannot possibly hear the requests of all those who at the same instant may be begging him to intercede for them, unless

he be possessed of the divine attribute of omnipresence; Popery, and he who gives that attribute to any creature is un- Popham. questionably guilty of idolatry. And as this decree is contrary to one of the first principles of natural religion, so does it receive no countenance from Scripture, or any Christian writer of the three first centuries. Other practices peculiar to the Papists are the religious honour and respect that they pay to sacred relicks; by which they understand not only the bodies and parts of the bodies of the saints, but any of those things that appertained to them, and which they touched; and the celebration of divine service in an unknown tongue: to which purpose the council of Trent hath denounced an anathema on any one who shall say that mass ought to be cele brated only in the vulgar tongue; sess. 25. and sess. 22. can. 9. Though the council of Lateran under Innocent III. in 1215 (can. 9.) had expressly decreed, that because in many parts within the same city and diocese there are many people of different manners and rites mixed together, but of one faith, the bishops of such cities or dioceses should provide fit men for celebrating divine offices, according to the diversity of tongues and rites, and for administering the sacraments.

We shall only add, that the church of Rome maintains, that unwritten traditions ought to be added to the holy Scriptures, in order to supply their defect, and to be regarded as of equal authority; that the books of the Apocrypha are canonical scripture; that the vulgate edition of the Bible is to be deemed authentic; and that the Scriptures are to be received and interpreted according to that sense which the holy mother church, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense, hath held, and doth hold, and according to the unanimous consent of the fathers.

Such are the principal and distinguishing doctrines of Popery, most of which have received the sanction of the council of Trent, and that of the creed of Pope Pius IV. which is received, professed, and sworn to by every one who enters into holy orders in the church of Rome; and at the close of this creed, we are told that the faith contained in it is so absolutely and indispensably necessary, that no man can be saved without it.

Many of the doctrines of Popery were relaxed, and very favourably interpreted by M. de Meaux, bishop of Condom, in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, first printed in the year 1671: but this edition, which was charged with perverting, in endeavouring to palliate, the doctrine of the church, was censured by the doctors of the Sorbonne, and actually suppressed; nor does it appear that they ever testified their approbation in the usual form of subsequent and altered editions. It has, however, been published in this country, by a clergyman of the Romish church, whose integrity, piety, and benevolence, would do honour to any communion.

POPHAM, SIR JOHN, lord chief justice of the common pleas in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was the eldest son of Edward Popham, Esq. of Huntworth in Somersetshire, and born in the year 1531. He was some time a student of Baliol college in Oxford; "being then (says Ant. Wood) given at leisure hours to many sports and exercises." After quitting the university, he fixed in the Middle Temple; where, during his novitiate, he is said to have indulged in that kind of dissipation to which youth and a vigorous constitution more

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that of Scotland, see the different counties, and for the Population general population, see SCOTLAND.

POPULUS, the POPLAR, a genus of plants belong- Porcelain. ing to the diocia class; and in the natural method ranking under the 50th order, Amentaceæ. See BoTANY Index.

The poplar, one of the most beautiful of the aquatic trees, has frequently been introduced into the poetical descriptions of the ancients; as by Virgil, Ecl. vii. 66. ix. 41. Georg. ii. 66. iv. 511. Æn. viii. 31. 276.; by Ovid, Amom. Parid. 27.; by Horace, Carm. ii. 3. and by Catullus, Nupt. Phil. et Thet. 290, &c. &c. POQUELIN, or POCQUELIN, JOHN BAPTIST. See MOLIERE.

Popham naturally incline than to the study of voluminous reports: but, satiated at length with what are called the Population. pleasures of the town, he applied sedulously to the study of his profession, was called to the bar, and in 1568 became summer or autumn reader. He was soon after made serjeant at law, and solicitor-general in 1579. In 1581 he was appointed attorney-general, and treasurer of the Middle Temple. In 1592 he was made lord chief justice of the king's bench, and the same year received the honour of knighthood. In the year 1601 his lordship was one of the council detained by the unfortunate earl of Essex, when he formed the ridiculous project of defending himself in his house: and, on the earl's trial, he gave evidence against him relative to their detention. He died in the year 1607, aged 76; and was buried in the south aisle of the church at Wellington in Somersetshire, where he generally resided as often as it was in his power to retire. He was thought somewhat severe in the execution of the law against capital offenders but his severity had the happy effect of reducing the number of highway robbers. He wrote, 1. Reports and cases adjudged in the time of Queen Elizabeth. 2. Resolutions and judgments upon cases and matters agitated in all the courts at Westminster in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

POPLAR. See POPULUS, BOTANY Index. POPLITÆUS, in Anatomy, a small muscle obliquely pyramidal, situated under the ham. See ANATOMY, Table of the Muscles.

POPPY. See PAPAVER, BOTANY Index, and OPIUM, MATERIA MEDICA Index.

POPULAR, something that relates to the common people.

POPULATION, means the state of a country with respect to the number of people. See Bills of MORTALITY, and POLITICAL Arithmetic.

The question concerning the number of men existing upon earth has been variously determined by different writers. Riccioli states the population of the globe at 1000 millions, Vossius at 500; the journalists of Trevoux at 720; and the editor (Xavier de Feller) of the small Geographical Dictionary of Vosgien, reprinted at Paris in 1778, at 370 millions. This last estimate is perhaps too low, although the writer professes to have taken considerable pains to ascertain the point with as much accuracy as the nature of the subject will admit. It may, perhaps, not be deemed unworthy the attention of the curious speculatist to observe, that assuming the more probable statement of the learned Jesuits of Trevoux, and that the world has existed about 6006 years in its present state of population, then the whole number of persons who have ever existed upon earth since the days of Adam amounts only to about one hundred and thirty thousand millions; because 720,000,000 X 182(the number of generations in 6006 years)=131,040,000,000. See on this subject the authors above mentioned, as likewise Beausobre's Etude de la Politique.

With regard to the population of England, the reader may consult, together with our article POLITICAL Arithmetic, An Inquiry into the present State of Population, &c. by W. Wales, F. R.S.; and Mr Howlett's Examination of Dr Price's Essay on the same subject. But for a later account of the population of England, see the different counties under their proper names; for

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PORCELAIN, in its more general signification, Nature of comprehends all kinds of earthen ware, which are white, porcelain. semitransparent, and have some degree of a vitreous texture. Hence, in this extensive meaning of the term, it includes all kinds of pottery, stoneware, delft ware, &c. but in a more limited sense, the word Porcelain is employed to denote only the finer kinds of earthen ware; and because this kind of ware has been, from time immemorial, manufactured in the greatest degree of perfection in China, it has obtained the name of Chinese Porcelain, or China Ware.

2

In the Chinese language, porcelain is denoted by the Derivation word tse-ki, so that the derivation of the term is not to of the be sought for in that language; and hence it is suppos- name. ed to be of European extraction, and to be derived from the Portuguese language; for in this language the word porcellana signifies a cup or vessel.

3

The first porcelain which was seen in Europe was Porcelain brought from Japan and China. Its whiteness, transfirst brought from Japan parency, fineness of texture, with its elegance and and China, beautiful colours, soon introduced it as an ornament of and afterthe tables of the rich and powerful, while at the same wards made time it excited the admiration and industry of the Eu- in Europe. ropean manufacturer. Accordingly attempts were made to imitate this kind of ware, in different countries of Europe. These attempts have succeeded so well, that the produce of the manufacture has acquired the name of Porcelain. The first European porcelains were made in Saxony; the manufacture was afterwards introduced into France, and successively into England, Germany, and Italy, where it has arrived at various degrees of perfection, according to the nature of the materials which can be obtained, and the industry and ingenuity of the artist who superintends and directs it; but after all, to whatever degree of perfection the manufacture of this ware has reached in Europe, it must still yield, in excellence and perfection, to the porcelain of eastern countries.

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Of the antiquity of the manufacture of porcelain in Antiquity China, little precise information can be expected from a of the Chipeople who have always shown themselves so extremely factory, averse to the freedom of intercourse with other nations; but it is said that the village or town of King-te-ching has furnished the emperors of China with porcelain since the year 442 of the Christian era, and that it is an object of so much attention to the Chinese government, that the manufacture is carried on under the superintendance of one or two mandarins sent from court.

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