asserts, it is a very remarkable passage, observes the noble editor of his memoirs. The prognostics or presages of this revolution it may now be difficult to recover; but it is evident that Child, before the time when Lord Orford wrote this passage, predicted the separation on true and philosophical principles. Even when the event does not always justify the prediction, the predictor may not have been the less correct in his principles of divination. The catastrophe of human life, and the turn of great events, often prove accidental. Marshal Biron, whom we have noticed, might have ascended the throne instead of the scaffold; Cromwell and De Retz might have become only the favourite general or the minister of their sovereigns. Fortuitous events are not comprehended in the reach of human prescience; such must be consigned to those vulgar superstitions which presume to discover the issue of human events, without pretending to any human knowledge. There is nothing supernatural in the prescience of the philosopher. Sometimes predictions have been condemned as false ones, which, when scrutinised, we can scarcely deem to have failed: they may have been accomplished, and they may again revolve on us. In 1749 Dr. Hartley published his "Observations on Man," and predicted the fall of the existing governments and hierarchies in two simple propositions; among others-- Prop. 81. It is probable that all the civil governments will be overturned. Prop. 82. It is probable that the present forms of church-government will be dissolved.