[7] There is no learned man at present who defends this chimera: Bayle, although a protestant, confutes it demonstratively in his Critical Dictionary. [8] The author should not place among those, whose opinion ought to have weight in history, a man, who deals like a mountebank, in nostrums and secrets. [9] We read in many authors, the various opinions that prevailed with respect to the death of Don Carlos; but in very few, that Queen Isabel of France was poisoned by her husband Philip the Second; and her being with child at the same time he was said to have done it, is a circumstance that gives the tragedy an air of incredibility. We ought to conclude, in order to give this transaction a face of probability, that Philip the Second was a very barbarous prince: but as I have my doubts with respect to his deserving that character, I conjecture this was a calumny invented by the malice of some strangers. [10] The mistress of Francis the First, both before and after marriage, and whose behaviour, with regard to her, gave scandal to all Europe. ERRATA. Page 4, line 10, _for_ Cato, _read_ Cæno. Page 72, line 9, _for_ was, _read_ were. Page 83, line 3, _for_ Clildren, _read_ Children. Page 181, line 7, _for_ those, _read_ the conversations. Page 218, line 10, _for_ to print, _read_ to point out. Page 226, line 1, _for_ compared to them, _read_ compared to the moderns. Page 264, line 22, _for_ misfortunes, _read_ sensitive feelings. =Transcriber’s Note:= The errata have been corrected, along with a few other minor printing errors. If the Reader shall find any mistakes or inaccuracies, which are not pointed out in the foregoing Errata, the Translator will be much obliged to him for communicating them to the persons who sell this book; as the Critical Reviewers from such premises, without assigning any other reason for their opinion, have taken occasion to be very severe, and the Translator thinks very unfairly so, on the merit of the translation of the six Essays, made from the same author, and by the same hand these are, which were published about six months ago; and an editor of a monthly publication, intituled, The Town and Country Magazine, who is pretty well known to be the echo of the Critical Review in these matters, has, after their example, thought fit, in a very laconic dogmatical way, to pronounce that it is a very indifferent translation from a very excellent work. But notwithstanding the arbitrary manner in which these people have taken upon them to pronounce this damning sentence, the translator has been told, they understand very little, if any thing at all, of the language from whence the translation was made.