It is highly proper upon this occasion, to observ that the invention of arts ought not to be attribut to human industry alone, but to a peculiar pro dence, which usually concealing itself under such c cumstances as seem to be the effect of chance, co ducts mankind by degrees to wonderful discoveri in order to procure for them, at appointed s sons, the necessities and conveniences of life. T is a truth confessed by the heathens themselves; a [t] Tully, running over what was the most use and valuable in nature, owns that all this world wo have remained in oblivion, and buried in the bow of the earth, if God had not disclosed the knowled and use of it to man.

To confirm this reflection, and render the tr more evident, it may be proper to explain at la to youth, the particular circumstance of the compa and such an account cannot but be very pleasing them. The compass then, they may be told, i small box, in which there is inclosed a needle, t has been touched by a loadstone, and so support that it may easily be turned every way. This need by virtue of the loadstone which has touched it, ways constantly directs itself so as to fix very near on the meridian line, turning one of its extremi towards the north, and the other towards the sou and by this means discovers to the pilot the cou he steers. The ancients, before the invention of compass, could not sail very far in the open sea, they had no other guidance than the sun and sta and when this assistance failed them, they went on chance, and knew not what course the vessel to for which reason they never removed very far fr the coasts, nor ventured to undertake any long v ages. The compass has removed these difficult as it constantly shews where the north and south let the weather be what it will, by day or night; by a necessary consequence, shews which is the e and which is the west, and certainly points out course the vessel is to take.

[1] Cic. lib. i. de Divin. n. 116.

παρε και αυout

Iuaས༔ཅས སྦྱ་ The ancients were perfectly acquainted with one of he two specific virtues of the loadstone, to wit, that of attracting and supporting iron; how came they not o discover the other, of fixing and turning itself always towards the north and south, which now appears o us so easy and natural a discovery? Who does not learly see, that God, who makes men attentive to he effects of nature, or heedless of them, according o his own designs or good pleasure, had reserved his important discovery in his eternal decrees, for he season in which he was pleased that the gospel hould be transported into those countries, which ill then were inaccessible to our ships, as they were eparated from us by immense tracts of sea, which could not be crossed over, as God had not yet taken way the obstacle to our entrance into them? In speaking of the vessels of the ancients to the pu pils, it will be proper to inform them, that the learned liffer much about the manner in which the ranks of ars were disposed. There are some, says F. de Montfaucon, who will have them placed longways, Imost in the same manner as the ranks of oars are how placed in galleys; others, and amongst this umber himself, are of opinion that the ranks of the iremes, the triremes, the quinqueremes, or pentiemes, and the rest, which have been multiplied to The number of forty in certain vessels, were set one bove another, not perpendicularly, for this would e imposible, but obliquely, and as it were by steps; nd this they prove by abundance of passages from ncient authors. But what is till more decisive in faour of this opinion, the ancient monuments, and specially the column of Trajan, represent these anks one above another; yet adds F. Montfaucon,

subject, some of which are persons of the first dis tinction, and of abilities known to the whole world agree in the same opinion.

Without any great skill in matters relating to th sea, it is easily conceived, that there must have bee an almost insuperable difficulty in the working of ve sels of extraordinary bigness, such as were those [u] Ptolemy, Philopater king of Egypt, and Hier king of Syracuse. The vessels of Hiero, built by th direction of Archimedes, had one of them twen ranks of oars, and the other forty. This last was tw hundred and eighty cubits long, thirty-eight broa and about fifty cubits high. The oars of those w held the highest rank, were thirty-eight cubits lon It appears by the column of Trajan, that in the b remes and triremes, there was only one rower, every oar. It is not easy to decide for the rest. Th [x] Plutarch observes, that the vessel of Ptolem which was more like an immoveable building, than ship, was only for pomp and show, and not for use. Li says almost the same thing of the ship of Philip ki of Macedon, which had sixteen ranks of oars. [ Jussus Philippus naves omnes tectas tradere; quin regiam unam inhabilis prope magnitudinis, que sexdecim versus remorum agebant. Vegetius recko only among ships of a reasonable bigness, and fit f war, the quinqueremes and those of less rank; a there is scarce mention made of any others amon authors. It seems farther evident, that from the time Augustus, they scarce ever made use of vessels w inore ranks of oars, than the triremes and the birem

But to pass a right judgment upon the working these vessels of such extraordinary bigness, a man m have seen them with his own eyes. [2] We read of t ships of Demetrius king of Syria, which had sixte ranks of oars. Before his time there never had be seen anything like them. Their agility, says Plutar

[u] A description of them may be seen in Athenæus, lib. v. [x] In Vit. Demetr.

[y] Lib. xxxiii. n. 30. [x] Plut. in Vit. Demetr. D Sic. lib. xx.

the admiration of mankind in his age, who could not have believed this had been possible, if they had not seen it.

I have made these remarks, to shew how important t is, in reading the Greek and Latin authors, to be very careful to observe exactly whatever relates to the building of vessels, their forms and different kinds, nd to the different alterations that have happened in ea affairs, with reference to navigation, in the descripions they give us of fleets and engagements at sea.

I must however advertise youth in general, that here are certain wonderful facts related by the anients, of which they would do well to suspend their elief a while, till they have been more carefully exmined. [a] Pliny says, that in the time of Tiberius, hey had found out the secret of making glass malleale, but this invention was entirely stifled for fear it hould lessen the price and value of gold, silver, and Il sorts of metals. [b] Dion tells us of a workman, ho designedly letting a glass vessel, which he offered o Tiberius, fall to the ground, presently gathered up he pieces, and after he had handled them a little, hewed the vessel whole and without a fracture. Other uthors after Pliny have related the same fact; and et the learned declare, that this pretended malleabity of glass is a mere chimera, absolutely rejected by und physics. And Pliny himself owns, that what was said of it was grounded more on report, than any ertain foundation.

I question whether more credit is due to what the ame [c] Pliny relates of a small fish, called by the Greeks Echeneis, and by the Latins Remora, which stening itself in the rudder of the galley that carried he emperor Caligula, stopt its course in such manner,

that four hundred rowers were unable to remove i one way or other.

II. HONOURS PAID TO LEARNED MEN.

There are many things proper to be observed i ancient history, concerning the honours paid to suc as have been inventors of arts, or have carried them t perfection, or in general to the learned of the fir rank, who have been distinguished in a particula manner. But my design does not admit me to dwe long upon this subject, affecting as it is to us.

[d] One cannot read the letter, which Philip ki of Macedon wrote to Aristotle, without admiring find, that it was a greater satisfaction to this prince have the first philosopher of his age, and the mo learned man the world ever produced, for a tutor his son, than it was to have been his father.

The singular value that Alexander the Great h for the poems of Homer, and the respect he paid the memory of Pindar, when he stormed the city Thebes, have gained him no less reputation than his conquests; and we almost as much admire hi when, dismissing the pomp of royalty, he chuses discourse familiarly with the famous painters a sculptors of his time, as when, marching at the he of his army, he spreads an universal terror.

The glorious protection which Mecenas gave m of letters, employing all the interest he had with prince in doing them service, has rendered his na immortal, and acquired the age of Augustus the gl of being always regarded as the golden age of lite ture, and the rule of good taste in every kind learning.

[e] When we read that the king of Spain and c dinal Ximenes, going one day to a public act, wh was held in the new university of Alcala, insis upon the rector's walking between them, (a prero tive which that university has ever since preserved [d] Aul. Gel. lib, ix. c. 3. [e] Hist. de Ximen, par M. Fléchier, lív