Sir William Temple, who made a point of degrading the moderns, asserts that they have nothing in architecture that can be compared to the temples of Greece and Rome; but, Englishman as he was, he should have admitted that St. Peter's at Rome is incomparably more beautiful than the capitol. There is something curious in the assurance with which he asserts that there is nothing new in our astronomy, nor in our knowledge of the human body, _except_, says he, _it be the circulation of the blood._ The love of his opinion, founded on his extreme self-love, makes him forget the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, of Saturn's five moons and ring, of the sun's rotation on his axis, the calculation of the positions of three thousand stars, the development by Kepler and Newton of the law by which the heavenly bodies are governed, and the knowledge of a thousand other things of which the ancients did not even suspect the possibility. The discoveries in anatomy have been no less numerous. A new universe in miniature, discovered by the microscope, went as nothing with Sir William Temple; he closed his eyes to the wonders of his contemporaries, and opened them only to admire ancient ignorance. He even goes so far as to regret that we have nothing left of the magic of the Indians, Chaldæans, and Egyptians. By this magic, he understands a profound knowledge of nature, which enabled them to work miracles--of which, however, he does not mention one, because the truth is that they never worked any. "What," says he, "has become of the charms of that music which so often enchanted men and beasts, fishes, birds, and serpents, and even changed their nature?" This enemy to his own times believed implicitly in the fable of "Orpheus," and, it should seem, had never heard of the fine music of Italy, nor even of that of France, which _do not_ charm serpents, it is true, but which _do_ charm the ears of the connoisseur. It is still more strange that, having all his life cultivated the belles-lettres, he reasons no better on our good authors than on our philosophers. He considers Rabelais a great man, and speaks of _"les Amours des Gaules"_ ("The Loves of the Gauls"), as one of his best works. He was, nevertheless, a learned man, a courtier, a man of considerable wit, and an ambassador, who had made profound reflections on all that he had seen; he possessed great knowledge; one prejudice sufficed to render all this merit unavailing.