science, an exception from the rule appears a contradiction--but in the science of history, every real exception serves but the better to make us comprehend and judge the rest. Such an exception I have now to point out in reference to my remarks on the intellectual progress of Europe, in those two epochs of its mental cultivation, one of which I designated as the scholastico-romantic era, the other as the era of enthusiasm for the Pagan antique; the former being inadequate to the wants of that age, as well as of posterity, and the other secretly destructive of the old Christian order of things. But on the whole, from the tone prevalent in either period, I do not know I could have otherwise characterized the spirit peculiar to those two epochs. Yet even in those periods, and in the sphere of philosophic and religious meditation, the spirit of Christianity showed itself independent of, and superior to the temper of the times; and between these opposite eras, we meet with works displaying a clear and beautiful simplicity of expression, united with the utmost purity and depth of ascetic feelings. Among several others, I need only cite the German Thomas a Kempis, whose most celebrated work has become a manual of devotion for all the European nations, while those who know the philosophic spirit which reigns in his other writings, can well recognize in this the same clear masterly mind, which throwing off the abstruse forms of the school, pours itself forth in a most lovely simplicity of diction.