In all countries, improvements in literature and the arts and sciences, have been impeded, not only by superstition and bigotry among the ignorant, but by the absurd edicts of sovereigns and legislators, as if to bid defiance to all the energies of progressive knowledge. In the 16th century, the Emperor Charles V. of Spain, although himself addicted to crimes of the blackest stain, ordered an assembly of divines to deliberate, whether it were lawful in point of conscience to dissect a dead body. During the prevalence of a malignant fever in Barcelona, the court of Madrid wrote the prescription to be used, and by command of his Catholic Majesty, the physicians were ordered to adhere to it in all cases, and forbidden to prescribe any other remedy. In the days of bitter intolerance, Servetus, a learned Spanish physician, discovered the course of the blood through the lungs, called the lesser circulation; and was afterwards cruelly burnt at the stake, with his books, in consequence of a religious controversy with John Calvin. The immortal Harvey, who, in 1628, was the author of the most important discovery recorded in medical history, the circulation of the blood, was subjected to base calumny and detraction, while bestowing blessings on the world, by his noble efforts and pious example. 'It was, I believe,' says Lady Morgan, 'late in the last century, that Baron de Luch was executed at Turin, for having published that the earth moves round the sun.' The Chevalier La Barre, a minor, was executed in France for an imputed insult offered to the crucifix. But, God be praised, the rack of torture and the lighted fagot never have disgraced our native country; nor are these horrid engines any longer in requisition to punish imaginary crimes and to repress truth and philosophical research. A pious friend and patron of the present writer, dying in the year 1787, without heirs, bequeathed by will his whole estate, except some legacies, to thirteen Congregational Societies in the county in which he lived; the interest of which was to be appropriated, annually, for one hundred years, to the purchase of certain specified religious books, to be distributed among the said Societies. After the expiration of one hundred years, other religious books might be selected by the existing ministers, except, that one year in every four, the books first mentioned only should be purchased. In less than twenty years, the specified books becoming obsolete, new editions were required to be printed for that particular purpose only, which occasioned great expense. The Societies interested became dissatisfied with their restriction to books which were constantly superseded by more recent publications, keeping pace with progressive improvement. They all united in a petition to the legislature that the will might be abolished, which was granted, and the estate sold and the proceeds divided among the several Societies concerned.