to that of the speaker, in every parliament during this
reign.

Every science, as well as polite literature, must be considered as being
yet in its infancy. Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded
the growth of all true knowledge. Sir Henry Saville, in the preamble
of that deed by which he annexed a salary to the mathematical and
astronomical professors in Oxford, says, that geometry was almost
totally abandoned and unknown in England.[*] The best learning of that
age was the study of the ancients. Casaubon, eminent for this species
of knowledge, was invited over from France by James, and encouraged by
a pension of three hundred pounds a year, as well as by church
preferments.[**] The famous Antonio di Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro,
no despicable philosopher, came likewise into England, and afforded
great triumph to the nation, by their gaining so considerable a
proselyte from the Papists. But the mortification followed soon after:
the archbishop, though advanced to some ecclesiastical preferments.[***]
received not encouragement sufficient to satisfy his ambition; he made
his escape into Italy, where he died in confinement.

* Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 217

** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 709.

*** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 96.

NOTES.

[Footnote 1: NOTE A, p. 10. The parliament also granted the queen the
duties of tonnage and poundage; but this concession was at that time
regarded only as a matter of form, and she had levied these duties
before they were voted by parliament. But there was another exertion
of power which she practiced, and which people in the present age,
from their ignorance of ancient practices, may be apt to think a little
extraordinary. Her sister, after the commencement of the war with
France, had, from her own authority, imposed four marks on each tun
of wine imported, and had increased the poundage a third on all
commodities. Queen Elizabeth continued these impositions as long as she
thought convenient. The parliament, who had so good an opportunity
of restraining these arbitrary taxes when they voted the tonnage and
poundage, thought not proper to make any mention of them. They knew that
the sovereign, during that age, pretended to have the sole regulation of
foreign trade, and that their intermeddling with that prerogative
would have drawn on them the severest reproof, if not chastisement. See
Forbes, vol. i. p. 132, 133. We know certainly, from the statutes and