intriguers-the inftruments or the accomplices of Tyrants-niuft at length prevail against them.

The glorious day of Univerfal Liberty will thine upon our defcendants, but we at least fhall enjoy the Aurora; and you, Sir, have contributed not a little to accelerate that happy event by your labours, by the example of your virtues, by the indignation which all Europe feels against

your perfecutors, and by the interest and the admiration which a misfortune has excited, that, although it may wound, cannot fubdue your foul.

I am, with an inviolable and respectful attachment,

Sir,

And my very illustrious associate, Your humble and most obedient fervant, CONDORCET.

SIR,

MANY learned Societies have already offered you, and will yet offer you, the tribute of their fenfibility on the lofs which Science has fuffered by the attack made on your property in its moft precious particular, your Cabinet and Manufcripts. In times lefs troublefome, this lofs, afflicting to all claffes of men, would even have affected many of thofe who have now had the cruelty to rejoice in it, and who have entertained against your political principles a hatred which perhaps they do not feel towards you perfonally. You are the victim of the intereft which you have taken in the caufe of human nature, triumphant in the greatest Revolution which ever occurred among men. You have interrupted the courfe of your labours and discoveries in physics, to justify the French nation against the abfurd charges brought against them, and multiplied by their oppreffors, who are driven from a land of liberty. The cries of their de fpair, their exaggerated reproaches, their caluminious imputations, had, for a moment, fpread delufion over neighbouring nations. They defired to inter pofe between them and France a cloud which, in paffing, fhould obfcure, if not totally conceal from their view the glory of the French Revolution. You, Sir, penetrated this cloud, and drew from it fome fparks of light, which fince have not ceafed to illuminate the nations. One of your writings has victoriously repulfed the attack of one of our most unjuft deu actors. From this, y ur name, already dear in Europe to all thofe who cultivate the arts, or who improve their eafon, becomes peculiarly dear to Frenchmen. The Society of the Friends of the Conftitution were able to reckon one friend more; and recently, on the news of the misfortune which has happened to the Sciences and to the world, More than to yourself, they united with

zeal and affection an emotion of indigna

tion against those who excited the criminal attack, already punished by the noble and touching Letter which you addreffed to your Fellow-citizens, and which, without doubt, is expiated in part by the remorse of the most of them. The ignorance of the people is the patrimony of tyrantsbut it ceales-repentance fucceeds, and prefently it chaftifes, on the heads of thofe who inftigate to crimes, the crime of drawing forth popular delufion. The victim forefees the inftant of vengeance, without permitting himself to halten it. He confoles himself in fecing the diffufică through his country and through Europe of the generous principles of fociability, the power of which, every day augmented, is manifested in the innumerable teftimonies of an universal interest in his calamity. We believe, Sir, that we enter into the fecret of your character, in perfuading ourfelves that it is under this point of view alone, that these teftimonies of an affecting esteem cannot be indifferent to you. They are proofs of the progrefs of thefe focial ideas of the public fpirit which calls a free people to the practice of the virtues requifite to the maintenance of liberty, which, ftrengthening at home, concurs in fpreading it around, and even perhaps in perfecting it among thofe nations who enjoved but an incomplete freedom. In fine, thefe teftimonies announce the developement of that philanthropic patriotism which regards all men as in folido affociated in the common intereft of general felicity; an idea fo fuperior to the conceptions of defpots and flaves, as to be the object of their contemptible derision, but which posterity will blefs, as the happy fruit of that philofophy, too modern, which reckons the illuftrious PRIESTLEY among its most ardent propagators. We are, &c.

LET.

a

WE embrace the opportunity of the firft Meeting of the Committee of the Revolution Society, fubfequent to the atrocious riots which have taken place at Birmingham, to exprefs our concern and regret at thofe acts of lawless violence, by which you have been fo great a fufferer, and which have reflected fuch extreme difhonour on this age, and on this nation. It might have been prefumed, that the mok ignorant and lawless favages would not have been induced to commit fuch depredations on the house and property of man of fuch diftinguished merit as yourfelf, to whom the whole fcientific world has been fo eminently indebted, and in whofe works thofe principles of equal Liberty have been afferted and maintained, which would protect even the lowest of the human fpecies from violence and oppreffon.-As a political writer, you have been employed in diffeminating the most just and rational fentiments of Government, and fuch as are in a very high degree calculated to promote general freedom and happiness.

The conduct of the Birminghain Rieters implied in it a complication of ignorance and brutality; which it is aftonifhing to find at the prefent period in fuch a country as Great Britain. Nothing but the most execrable bigotry, united to ignorance the most contemptible, could lead any body of men to fuppofe, that fuch acts of violence as were lately excrcifed at Birmingham against yourself, and other refpectable Diffenters in that town and its neighbourhood, could be juftified by any difference of opinion. We hoped, that the age had been more enlightened, that it had been more univerfally admitted, that so country can be poffeffed of free dom, in which every man is not allowed to worship God according to the dictates of his own confcience, and in which he is not permitted to defend his opinions. We hoped alfo, that the principles of Civil Liberty had been fo well underflood, and fo extensively adopted, that few would have been found in this country, who would not fincerely have rejoiced at the

DULWICH

emancipation of a neighbouring kingdom from tyranny, and in fuch events as are calculated to promote general liberty and happiness.

It is with exultation and triumph that we fee the fuccefs of the late juft, neceffary, and glorious Revolution in France; an event fo pregnant with the most important benefits to the world, that not to rejoice in it would be unworthy of us as Freemen, and as friends to the general rights of human nature; and to ascribe to the commemoration of the French Revolution the late devastations committed at Birmingham, would be to infult the un-, derstandings of mankind.

We are forry to find that fo many of our countrymen ftill need to be inftructed in the first principles of civil and religious freedom. But we ftill hope, that the period is not far diftant, when the common rights of mankind will be univerfally acknowledged-when civil and ecclefiaftical tyranny shall be banished from the face of the earth, and when it will not be found practicable to procure any licentious mobs, to fupport the cause of an ignorant and interested intolerance.

We again exprefs our deep concern at the iniquitous riots which have lately happened at Birmingham, at the acts of violence and injuftice which have been exercifed against you and your friends; and at the lofs fcience and literature have fuftained in the deftruction of your books, manufcripts, and philofophical apparatus.

We rejoice in the fecurity of your perfon, notwithstanding the malevolence of your adverfaries, and at the magnanimity with which you have fuftained the injuries that you have received.

Permit us to intreat you to convey our cordial and affectionate condolence to your fellow-fufferers in the caufe of freedom and public virtue.-As to yourself, we defire to testify in the most public manner the high fenfe we entertain of your merit, and we beg leave to fubfcribe ourfelves, with great refpect and regard, Reverend Sir,

Your most obedient, and
Moft humble servants, &c.

COLLEGE.

ULWICH COLLEGE, fituated in Surry, five miles from London, was founded and endowed, in 1619,

by Mr. Edward Allevn, who named it "The College of God's Gift." This Gentleman was an after of great reputa,

tion

tion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and James the Ift. An idle tradition, which is fufficiently exploded by Mr. Oldys in the Biographia Britannica, hath affigned the following as his motive for this endowment: That once perfonating the Devil, he was fo terrified at feeing a real Devil (as he imagined) upon the Stage, that he foon after totally quitted his profeffion, and devoted the remainder of his life to religious exercises. He founded this College for a master and warden who are always to be of the name of Alleyn or Allen, with four fellows, three of whom were to be divines, and the fourth an organist; and for fix poor men, as many poor women, and twelve poor boys, to be educated in the College by one of the Fellows as fchool-mafter, and by another as Ufher. In his original endowments he excluded all future benefactions to it, and conítituted for vifitors the churchwardens of St. Botolph's Bifhopfgate, St. Giles's Cripplegate, and St. Saviour's Southwark; who, upon occafion, were to appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, before whom all the members were to be fworn at their admiffion. To this College belongs a Chapel, in which the founder himfelf, who was for feveral years mafter, lies buried. The mafter of this College is Lord of the Manor for a confiderable extent of ground, and enjoys all the luxurious affluence and cafe of the prior of a monaftery. Both he and the warden muft be unmarried, and are for ever debarred the privilege of entering into that state, on pain of being excluded the College but as the warden always fucceeds upon the death of the mafter, great intereft is conftantly made by the unmarried men of the name of Allen to obtain the port of warden.

:

The original edifice, which was begun about the year 1614, after a plan of Inigo Jones, is in the old tafte, and contains the chapel, mafter's apartments, &c. in the front, and the lodgings of the other inhabitants in the wings, whereof that on the east fide was handsomely new-built in 1739, at the expence of the College. Among the obfervables therein, they have a fmall library of books, and once had a good collection of plays given by old Mr. William Cartwright, a comedian, and faid to be an acquaintance of the founder's he was alfo a Bookfeller, and lived at the end of Turnitile Alley by Lincoln's Inn Fields. Not far from the Library there is, in the Weft wing, a long gallery full of pictures, whereof the beft were thofe left by the founder himself; to

which were added alfo Mr. Cartwright's collections; and amongst them a curious picture of London, from a view faid to be taken by Mr. John Norden, the topogra pher, in 1603, with the reprefentation of the city proceffion on the Lord Mayor's day. The founder's picture is at full length, in a robe or gown; but the refemblance of his face is faid to have been drawn when he lay dead in his coffin. There is alfo a portrait of his former wife, of Mary Queen of Scots, of Henry prince of Wales, of Sir Thomas Grelham, of both the Cartwrights, elder and younger, and many other perfons of note, as appears by an old catalogue preserved of them. A late mafter's picture painted by Mr. Charles Stoppelaer, formerly of Covent Garden Theatre, is alfo here. The mafter's rooms are richly adorned with old furniture, which he purchases on entering into his ftation, and there is a library, to which every master is expected to add fome books. The College is alfo accommodated with a very pleafant garden, adorned with walks, and a great profufion of fruit-trees and flowers.

Over the entrance into the College is the following infcription, written by Mr. James Hume, fchoolmaster of the College: Regnante Jacobo,

Primo totius Britanniæ Monarcha,
EDVARDUS ALLEYN, Arm.
Theromachiæ Regiæ Præfectus,
Theatri Fortunæ dicti Choragus,
Evique fui Rofcius,

Hoc Collegium inftituit,
Atque ad duodecim fenes egenos,
Sex fc. viros, et totidem fæminas,
Commode fuftentandos,
Paremque puerorum numerum alendum,
Et in Chrifti difciplina, et bonis literis,
erudiendum,

Re fatis ampla inftruxit.

Porro,