nts, morning visits, and other recreations necessary to many
students, as they tell us, were none of my business. I wasted no time on
them, nor in any domestic cares,--never soliciting for preferment, nor
busied in any other way. I have been happily delivered from many
occupations which were not suitable to my humour; and I have enjoyed the
greatest and the most charming leisure that a man of letters could
desire. By such means an author makes a great progress in a few years."

Bayle, at Rotterdam, was appointed to a professorship of philosophy and
history; the salary was a competence to his frugal life, and enabled him
to publish his celebrated Review, which he dedicates "to the glory of
the city," for _illa nobis haec otia fecit_.

After this grateful acknowledgment, he was unexpectedly deprived of the
professorship. The secret history is curious. After a tedious war, some
one amused the world by a chimerical "Project of Peace," which was much
against the wishes and the designs of our William the Third. Jurieu, the
head of the Reformed party in Holland, a man of heated fancies,
persuaded William's party that this book was a part of a secret cabal in
Europe, raised by Louis the Fourteenth against William the Third; and
accused Bayle as the author and promoter of this political confederacy.
The magistrates, who were the creatures of William, dismissed Bayle
without alleging any reason. To an ordinary philosopher it would have
seemed hard to lose his salary because his antagonist was one

Whose sword is sharper than his pen.

Bayle only rejoiced at this emancipation, and quietly returned to his
Dictionary. His feelings on this occasion he has himself perpetuated.

"The sweetness and repose I find in the studies in which I have engaged
myself, and which are my delight, will induce me to remain in this city,
if I am allowed to continue in it, at least till the printing of my
Dictionary is finished; for my presence is absolutely necessary in the
place where it is printed. I am no lover of money, nor of honours, and
would not accept of any invitation should it be made to me; nor am I
fond of the disputes, and cabals, and professorial snarlings which reign
in all our academies: _Canam mihi et Musis_." He was indeed so charmed
by quiet and independence, that he was continually refusing the most
magnificent offers of patronage, from Count Guiscard, the French
ambassador; but particularly from our English nobility. The Ea