diftinctions as the effect of a moft odious tyranny. He treated the opulence of ecclefiaftics as a criminal ufurpation. He fhewed celibacy to be a fource of many abufes, and that religious vows which prevent marriage, are contrary to the nature of the gospel. He opened the cloifters, caufed the priests to marry, fet them an example by taking one of the nuns to be his wife, exhorted princes to feize the wealth of the clergy, to take part of it to themfelves, and with the reft, to found colleges and hofpitals, to promote national industry, and repair the public highways.

Thefe rational and praife-worthy views engaged the elecor of Saxony more than ever to protect him. From this time Luther had the happiness to fee his country embrace his doctrine, and adopt the reformation. From Saxony, his opinions paffed into Heffe, which country became alfo reformed, and a great part of the north of Germany.

Multitudes of difciples feconded his efforts. Melancthon, one of the fineft geniufes of his time, was the chief fupport of the Lutheran reformation, and gave it immenfe refpect by his knowledge and moderation *.

At the fame time, pious and zealous men fpread the reformed doctrines through Europe. Bucer introduced them into the Imperial cities upon the Rhine; and Olaus into Sweden, his native country. What triumph for Luther, to fee the half of Europe fhaking off the yoke of Rome; entire kingdoms adopting his opinions, a powerful party consulting him, and receiving his decifions with refpect! How great the glory of this reformer, to have changed the world, enlightened the minds of men, reftored primitive Christianity, and the use of the fcriptures to all, and to die peaceably in the midft of his family, without fear and without remorfe?

Charles V. had been fuccefsful in above thirty battles, where he commanded himself; but in the decline of life his good fortune began to forfake him, and being highly chagrined at this change, and oppreffed by fickness, he refigned

the empire to his brother Ferdinand, and the A. D. 1556. kingdom of Spain, the Netherlands, Italian dominions, &c. to his fon Philip II. He then retired from the world, and paffed the remainder of his days in the monaftery of St. Juftus, in Eftramadura, which he preferred as the place of his retreat. It was feated in a valley of no great extent, watered by a small brook, and furrounded by rifing grounds, covered with lofty trees. In this folitude, Charles lived on a plan that would have fuited a private gentleman of moderate fortune. His table was plain, his do

Mofhein.

meftics

meftics few, and his intercourfe with them familiar. Sometimes he cultivated the plants in his garden with his own hands, fometimes rode out to the neighbouring wood on a little horfe, the only one which he kept, attended by a fingle fervant on foot: and when his infirmities deprived him of thefe more active recreations, he admitted a few gentlemen who refided near the monaftery, to vifit him, and entertained them as equals; or he employed himself in studying the principles, and in framing curious works of mechanism, of which he had always been remarkably fond, and to which his genius was peculiarly turned. But, however he was engaged, or whatever might be the ftate of his health, he always fet apart a confiderable portion of his time to religious exercifes, regularly attending divine fervice in the chapel of the monaftery, morning and evening.

In this manner, not unbecoming a man perfectly difengaged from the affairs of the world, did Charles pafs his time in retirement. But fome months before his death, the gout, after a longer intermiffion than ufual, returned with a proportional increase of violence, and enfeebled both his body and mind to fuch a degree, as to leave no traces of that found and mafculine understanding, which had diftinguifhed him among his cotemporaries. He funk into a deep melancholy. An illiberal and timid fuperftition depreffed his fpirit. He loft all relish for amufements of every kind, and defired no other company but that of monks. With them he chaunted the hymns in the Miffal, and conformed to all the rigours of monaftic life, tearing his body with a whip, as an expiation for his fins. Not fatisfied with thefe acts of mortification, and anxious to merit the favour of Heaven, by fome new and fingular inftance of piety, he refolved to celebrate his own obfequies. His tomb was accordingly erected in the chapel of the monaftery; and his attendants walked thither in funcral proceffion. Charles followed them in his fhroud. He was laid in his coffin, and the fervice of the dead was chaunted over him; he himfelf joining in the prayers that were put up for the repofe of his foul, and mingling his tears with thofe which his attendants fhed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral.

The fatiguing length of this ceremony, or the awful fentiments which it infpired, threw Charles into a fever, of which he died in the fifty-ninth year of his age. His enterprizes fpeak his most eloquent panegyric. As no prince ever governed fo extenfive an empire, including his American doininions, none feems ever to have been endowed with a fuperior

capacity for fway. His abilities as a statesman, and even as a general, were of the first clafs; and he poffeffed in the moft eminent degree, along with indefatigable industry, the science which is of the greatest importance to a monarch, that of discerning the characters of men, and of adapting their talents to the various departments in which they are to be employed. But, unfortunately for the reputation of Charles, his infatiable ambition, which kept himself, his neighbours, and his fubjects in perpetual inquietude, not only fruftrated the chief end of government, the felicity of the nations committed to his care, but obliged him to have recourfe to low artifice, unbecoming his exalted station, and led him into fuch deviations from integrity, as were unworthy of a great prince. This infidious policy, in itself fufficiently deteftable, was rendered ftill more odious by a comparison with the open and undefigning character of Francis I. and ferved, by way of contraft, to turn on the French monarch a degree of admiration, to which neither his own talents, nor his virtues as a fovereign, seem to have entitled him.

CHAP. LXXVI.

Peace of Weftphalia.-Prince Eugene.-Peace of Utrecht.Queen of Hungary.-Atchievements of the King of Pruffia, and of Generals Brown and Daun.-Joseph II.- Leopold Jofeph.-Literature and Fine Arts.

D

URING the reigns of feveral fucceeding emperors nothing of great importance is recorded, except the violent commotions which were excited by the Catholics and Lutherans, which defolated the empire, till Ferdinand III. concluded the peace of Weftphalia, by which A. D. 1648. the Catholic and Proteftant religions were equally established. This peace preferved the empire from deftruction; and Germany, from that time, has been gradually increafing in power and splendor.

Ferdinand was fucceeded in the Imperial dignity by his fon

Leopold, a fevere, unamiable, and not very forA. D. 1657. tunate prince. He had two great powers to contend with; France on the one fide, and the Turks on the other; and was a lofer in his wars with both. France took from him Alface, and many other frontier places of the empire. And the Turks would have taken Vienna,

had

had not the fiege been raised by John Sobieski, king of Poland.

A. D. 1699

Prince Eugene, of Savoy, was a young adventurer in arms, about the year 1697; and being one of the Imperial generals, gave the Turks the firft checks they received in Hungary, and by the peace of Carlowitz, Tranfylvania was ceded to the emperor. The empire however could not have withstood the power of France, had not the prince of Orange, afterwards king William III. of England, laid the foundation of the grand confederacy against the French power. The Hungarians, fecretly encouraged by the French, and exasperated by the unfeeling tyranny of Leopold, were ftill in arms, under the protection of the Porte or Turks, when that prince died.

He was fucceeded by his fon Jofeph, who put

the electors of Cologne and Bavaria to the ban A. D.1705. of the empire; but being very ill ferved by prince

Lewis of Baden, the general of the empire, the French partly recovered their affairs, notwithstanding their repeated defeats. The duke of Marlborough, though he obtained very fplendid victories, had not all the fuccefs he expected or deferved. Jofeph himself was fufpected of a defign to fubvert the Germanic liberties; and it was plain by his conduct, that he expected England fhould take the labouring oar in the war, which was chiefly carried on for his benefit. The English were difgufted at his flownefs and felfifhnefs; but he died before he reduced the Hungarians, and leaving no male iffue, was fucceeded in the empire by his brother Charles VI. whom the allies were endeavouring to place on the throne of Spain, in oppofition to Philip, duke of Anjou, grandson to Lewis XIV.

When the peace of Utrecht took place, Charles

at firft made a fhew as if he would continue the A. D. 1713. war; but found himself unable, now that he was

forfaken by the English. He was therefore obliged to conclude a peace with France at Baden, that he

might attend the progrefs of the Turks in Hun- A. D. 1714. gary, where they received a total defeat from

prince Eugene at the battle of Peterwaradin. They received another of equal importance from the fame gene

ral, before Belgrade, which fell into the hands A D.1717. of the Imperialifts; and next year the peace of Paffarowitz, between them and the Turks, was concluded. Charles employed every minute of his leifure in making arrangements for increafing and preferving his hereditary dominions in Italy and the Mediterranean. Happily for him, the crown of Britain devolved to the houfe of Hanover; an

event which gave him a very decifive weight in Europe, by the connections between George I. and II. in the empire. Charles was fenfible of this, and carried matters with fo high a hand, that a breach enfued between him and George I.

and fo unfteady was the fyftem of affairs all A. D. 1724 over Europe at that time, that the capital powers often changed their old alliances, and concluded new ones contradictory to their intereft. Without entering into particulars, it is fufficient to obferve, that the fafety of Hano er, and its aggrandifement, was the main object of the British court; as that of the emperor was the establishment of the pragmatic fanction, in favour of his daughter, the late emprefs-queen, he having no male iffue. Mutual conceffions upon thofe great points retored a good underftanding between George II. and the emperor Charles; and the elector of Saxony being prevailed upon by the profpect of gaining the throne of Poland, relinquithed the great claims he had upon the Auftrian fucceffion.

The emperor, after this, had very bad fuccefs in a war he entered into with the Turks, which he had undertaken chiefly to indemnity himself for the great facrifices he had made in Italy to the princes of the houfe of Bourbon. Prince Eugene was then dead, and he had no general to fupply his place. The fyftem of France under cardinal Fleury, happened at that time to be pacific, and the obtained for him, from the Turks, a better peace than he had reafon to expect. Charles, to keep the German and other European powers eafy, had before his death, given his eldest daughter, the late emprefs-queen, in marriage to the duke of Lorrain, a prince who could bring no acceffion of power to the Auftrian family. Charles died in the year 1740.

He was no fooner in the grave than all he had fo long laboured for must have been overthrown, had it not been for the firmnefs of George II. The pragmatic fanction was attacked on all hands. The young king of Pruffia, with a powerful army entered, and conquered Silefia, which he faid had been wrong ully difmembered from his family. The king of Spain and the elector of Bavaria fet up claims directly incompatible with the pragmatic fanction, and in this they were joined by France; though all thofe powers had folemnly guaranteed it. The Imperial throne A. D. 1742. after a confiderable vacancy, was filled up by the elector of Bavaria, who took the title of Charles VII. The French poured their armies into Bohemia, where they took Prague; and the queen of Hungary, to take off the weight of Pruilia, was forced to cede to that

prince