priests. Pope Osius himself was the son of the subdeacon Stephen; and pope Boniface I. son of the priest Jocondo. Pope Felix III. was the son of Felix, a priest, and was himself one of the grandfathers of Gregory the great. The priest Projectus was the father of John II.; and Gordian, the father of Agapet. Pope Sylvester was the son of pope Hormisdas. Theodore I. was born of a marriage of Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem: a circumstance which should produce the reconciliation of the two churches.

At length, after several councils had been held without effect, on the subject of the celibacy which ought always to accompany the priesthood, pope Gregory excommunicated all married priests; either to add respectability to the church, by the greater rigour of its discipline, or to attach more closely to the court of Rome the bishops and priests of other countries, who would thus have no other family than the church. This law was not established without great opposition.

It is a very remarkable circumstance, that the council of Basil, having deposed, at least nominally, pope Eugenius IV. and elected Amadeus of Savoy, many bishops, having objected against that prince that he had been married, Eneas Sylvius, who was afterwards pope, under the name of Pius II. supported the election of Amadeus in these words-" Non solum qui uxorem habuit, sed uxorem habens, potest assume.' "Not only may he be made a pope who has been married, but also he who is so."

This Pius II. was consistent. Peruse his letters to his mistress, in the collection of his works. He was convinced, that to defraud nature of her rights was absolute insanity, and that it was the duty of man not to destroy, but to control her.

However this may be, since the council of Trent there has no longer been any dispute about the celibacy of the Roman catholic clergy; there have been only desires.

All protestant communions are, on this point, in opposition to Rome.

In the Greek church, which at present extends from the frontiers of China to cape Matapan, the priests may marry once. Customs every where vary; discipline changes conformably to time and place. We here only record facts; we enter into no controversy. Of Clerks of the Closet (Clercs du Secret), since denominated Secretaries of State and Ministers.

Clerks of the closet, clerks of the king, more recently denominated secretaries of state, in France and England, were originally the "king's notaries." They were afterwards called "secretaries of orders"-(sécrétaires des commandémens). This we are informed of by the learned and laborious Pasquier. His authority is unquestionable, as he had under his inspection the registers of the chamber of accompts, which, in our own times, have been destroyed by fire.

At the unfortunate peace of Chateau Cambresis, a clerk of Philip II. having taken the title of secretary of state, L'Aubepine, who was secretary of orders to the king of France, and his notary, took that title likewise, that the honours of both might be equal, whatever might be the case with their emoluments.

In England, before the reign of Henry VIII. there was only one secretary of the king, who stood while he presented memorials and petitions to the council. Henry VIII. appointed two, and conferred on them the same titles and prerogatives as in Spain. The great nobles did not, at that period, accept these situations; but, in time, they have become of so much consequence, that peers of the realm and commanders of armies are now invested with them. Thus every thing changes. There is at present no relic in France of the government of Hugh Capet, nor in England of the administration of William the bastard.

CLIMATE.

It is certain that the sun and atmosphere mark their empire on all the productions of nature, from man to mushrooms.

In the grand age of Louis XIV. the ingenious Fontenelle remarked:

"One might imagine that the torrid and two frigid zones are not well suited to the sciences. Down to the present day, they have not travelled beyond Egypt and Mauritania, on the one side, nor on the other beyond Sweden. Perhaps it is not owing to mere chance that they are retained within Mount Atlas and the Baltic Sea. We know not whether these may not be the limits appointed to them by nature, or whether we may ever hope to see great authors among Laplanders or negroes."

Chardin, one of those travellers who reason and investigate, goes still farther than Fontenelle, when speaking of Persia.* "The temperature of warm climates," says he," enervates the mind as well as the body, and dissipates that fire which the imagination requires for invention. In such climates men are incapable of the long studies and intense application which are necessary to the production of first-rate works in the liberal and mechanic arts," &c.

Chardin did not consider that Sadi and Lokman were Persians. He did not recollect that Archimedes belonged to Sicily, where the heat is greater than in threefourths of Persia. He forgot that Pythagoras formerly taught geometry to the Brahmins.

The abbé Dubos supported and developed, as well as he was able, the opinion of Chardin.

One hundred and fifty years before them, Bodin made it the foundation of his system, in his " Republic" and in his "Method of History;" he asserts that the influence of climate is the principle both of the government and the religion of nations.

Diodorus of Sicily was of the same opinion long before Bodin.

The author of the "Spirit of Laws," + without quoting any authority, carried this idea farther than Chardin and Bodin. A certain part of the nation believed him to have first suggested it, and imputed it to him

* Chardin, chap. vii.

+ Book xiv.

as a crime. This was quite in character with that part of the nation alluded to. There are everywhere men who possess more zeal than understanding.

We might ask those who maintain that climate does everything, why the emperor Julian, in his Misopogon, says, that what pleased him in the Parisians, was the gravity of their characters and the severity of their manners; and why these Parisians, without the slightest change of climate, are now like playful children at whom the government punishes and smiles at the same moment, and who themselves, the moment after, also smile and sing lampoons upon their masters.

Why are the Egyptians, who are described as having been still more grave than the Parisians, at present the most lazy, frivolous, and cowardly of people, after having, as we are told, conquered the whole world for their pleasure, under a king called Sesostris?

Why are there no longer Anacreons, Aristotles, or Zeuxises at Athens?

Whence comes it that Rome, instead of its Ciceros, Catos, and Livys, has merely citizens who dare not speak their minds, and a brutalized populace, whose supreme happiness consists in having oil cheap, and in gazing at processions?

Cicero, in his letters, is occasionally very jocular upon the English. He desires his brother Quintus, Cæsar's lieutenant, to inform him whether he has found any great philosophers among them, in his expedition to Britain. He little suspected that that country would one day produce mathematicians whom he could not understand. Yet the climate has not at all changed, and the sky of London is as cloudy now as it was then.

Every thing changes, both in bodies and minds, by time. Perhaps the Americans will in some future period cross the sea to instruct Europeans in the arts.

Climate has some influence, government a hundred times more; religion and government combined, more still.

Influence of Climate.

Climate influences religion in respect to ceremonies and usages. A legislator could have experienced no difficulty in inducing the Indians to bathe in the Ganges at certain appearances of the moon; it is a high gratification to them. Had any one proposed a like bath to the people who inhabit the banks of the Dwina, near Archangel, he would have been stoned. Forbid pork to an Arab, who after eating this species of animal food (the most miserable and disgusting in his own country) would be affected by leprosy, he will obey you with joy; prohibit it to a Westphalian, and he will be tempted to knock you down.

Abstinence from wine is a good precept of religion in Arabia, where orange, citron, and lemon waters are necessary to health. Mahomet would not have forbidden wine in Switzerland, especially before going to battle.

There are usages merely fanciful. Why did the priests of Egypt devise circumcision? It was not for the sake of health. Cambyses, who treated as they deserved both them and their bull Apis, the courtiers of Cambyses, and his soldiers, enjoyed perfectly good health without any such mutilation. Climate

has no peculiar influence over this particular portion of the person of a priest. The offering in question was made to Isis, probably on the same principle as the firstlings of the fruits of the earth were everywhere offered. It was typical of an offering of the first fruits of life.

Religions have always turned upon two pivots,-forms or ceremonies, and faith; forms and ceremonies depend much on climate; faith not at all. A doctrine will be received with equal facility under the equator or near the pole. It will be afterwards equally rejected at Batavia and the Orcades, while it will be maintained, unguibus et rostro-with tooth and nail-at Salamanca, This depends not on sun and atmosphere, but solely upon opinion, that fickle empress of the world.

Certain libations of wine will be naturally enjoined