It is known that the word Academy, borrowed from the Greeks, originally signified a society or school of philosophy at Athens, which met in a garden bequeathed to it by Academus. and Racine afterwards belonged, soon became an academy of itself. The establishment of this Academy of Inscriptions, now called that of the Belles-Lettres, may, indeed, be dated from the year 1661, and that of the Academy of Sciences from 1666. We are indebted for both esta-such societies after the revival of letters; blishments to the same minister, who contributed in so many ways to the splendour of the age of Louis XIV. The Italians were the first who instituted the academy Della Crusca is of the sixteenth century. Academies were afterwards established in every town where the sciences were cultivated. The Society of London has never taken the title of Academy. After the deaths of Jean Baptiste Colbert and the Marquis de Louvois, when Count de Pontchartrain, secretary of state, had the department of Paris, he entrusted The provincial academies have been of the government of the new academies to signal advantage. They have given birth his nephew, the abbé Bignon. Then to emulation, forced youth to labour, inwere first devised honorary fellowships troduced them to a course of good readrequiring no learning, and without re-ing, dissipated the ignorance and premuneration; places with salaries dis- judices of some of our towns, fostered a agreeably distinguished from the former; spirit of politeness, and, as far as it is fellowships without salaries; and scholar-possible, destroyed pedantry. ships, a title still more disagreeable, which has since been suppressed. The Academy of the Belles-lettres was put on the same footing; both submitted to the immediate control of the secretary of state, and to the revolting distinction of honoraries, pensionaries, and pupils. Scarcely anything has been written against the French Academy, except frivolous and insipid pleasantries. St. Evremond's comedy of The Academicians had some reputation in its time; but a proof of the little merit it possessed is, that it is now forgotten; whereas, the good satires of Boileau are immortal. ADAM. SECTION I. The abbé Bignon ventured to propose the same regulation to the French Academy, of which he was a member; but he was heard with unanimous indignation. The least opulent in the Academy were the first to reject his offers, and to prefer So much has been said and so much liberty to pensions and honours. The written concerning Adam, his wife, the abbé Bignon, who, in the laudable inten- Preadamites, &c., and the Rabbis have tion of doing good, had dealt too freely put forth so many idle stories respecting with the noble sentiments of his bre-Adam, and it is so dull to repeat what thren, never again set his foot in the French Academy. The word Academy became so celebrated, that when Lulli, who was a sort of favorite obtained the establishment of his Opera, in 1692, he had interest enough to get inserted in the patent, that it was a Royal Academy of Music, in which Ladies and Gentlemen might sing without demeaning themselves. He did not confer the same honour on the dancers; the public, however, have always continued to go to the Opera, but never to the Academy of Music. others have said before, that I shall here hazard an idea entirely new,-one, at least, which is not to be found in any ancient author, father of the church, preacher, theologian, critic, or scholiast, with whom I am acquainted. I mean the profound secresy with respect to Adam which was observed throughout the habitable earth, Palestine only excepted, until the time when the Jewish books began to be known in Alexandria, and were translated into Greek under one of the Ptolemies. Still they were very little known; for large books were very rare and very dear. Besides, the Jews of Jerusalem that the father and mother of the human were so incensed against those of Alex-race have ever been totally unknown to andria, loaded them with so many re- their descendants; so that the names of proaches for having translated their Bible Adam and Eve are to be found in no into a profane tongue, called them so ancient author, either of Greece, of Rome, many ill names, and cried so loudly to the of Persia, or of Syria, nor even amongst Lord, that the Alexandrian Jews concealed the Arabs, until near the time of Mahotheir translation as much as possible: it met It was God's pleasure, that the was so secret, that no Greek or Roman origin of the great family of the world author speaks of it before the time of the should be concealed from all but the emperor Aurelian. smallest and most unfortunate part of that family. The historian Josephus confesses, in his answer to Appian, that the Jews had not long had any intercourse with other nations:-"We inhabit," says he, "a country distant from the sea; we do not apply ourselves to commerce, nor have we any communication with other nations. Is it to be wondered at that our people, { dwelling so far from the sea, and affecting never to write, have been so little known?" Here it will probably be asked, how Josephus could say that his nation affected never to write anything, when they had twenty-two canonical books, without reckoning the Targum by Onkelos. But it must be considered that twenty-two small volumes were very little when compared with the multitude of books preserved in the library of Alexandria, half of which were burned in Cæsar's war. It is certain that the Jews had written and read very little; that they were profoundly ignorant of astronomy, geometry, geography, and physics; that they knew nothing of the history of other nations; and that in Alexandria they first began to learn. Their language was a barbarous mixture of ancient Phoenician and corrupted Chaldee; it was so poor, that several moods were wanting in the conjugation of their verbs. How is it that Adam and Eve have been unknown to all their children? How could it be, that neither in Egypt nor in Babylon was any trace-any tradition of our first parents to be found? Why were they not mentioned by Orpheus, by Linus, or by Thamyris?-for if they had said but one word of them, it would undoubtedly have been caught by Hesiod, and especially by Homer, who speak of everything except the authors of the human race. Clement of Alexandria, who collected so many ancient testimonies, would not have failed to quote any passage in which mention had been made of Adam and Eve. Eusebius, in his Universal History, has examined even the most doubtful testimonies, and would assuredly have made the most of the smallest allusion, or appearance of an allusion, to our first parents. It is, then, sufficiently clear, that they were always utterly unknown to the nations. We do, it is true, find among the Brahmins, in the book entitled the Ezourveidam, the names of Adimo and of Procriti his wife. But though Adimo has some little resemblance to our Adam, the Indians reply-"We were a great people established on the banks of the Moreover, as they communicated nei-Indus and the Ganges many ages before ther their books nor the titles of them to any foreigner, no one on earth except themselves had ever heard of Adam, or Eve, or Abel, or Cain, or Noah, Abraham alone was, in course of time, known to the Oriental nations: but no ancient people allowed that Abraham was the root of the Jewish nation. Such are the secrets of Providence, the Hebrew horde moved towards the Jordan. The Egyptians, the Persians, and the Arabs, came to us for wisdom and spices when the Jews were unknown to the rest of mankind. We cannot have taken our Adimo from their Adam⚫ our Procriti does not in the least resemble Eve; besides, their history and ours are entirely different. "Moreover, the Veidam, on which the Ezourveidam is a commentary, is believed by us to have been composed at a more remote period of antiquity than the Jewish books; and the Veidam itself is a newer law given to the Brahmins, fifteen hundred years after their first law, called Shasta or Shasta-bad." Such, or nearly such, are the answers which the Brahmins of the present day have often made to the chaplains of merchant vessels who have talked to them of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, when the traders of Europe have gone, with arms in their hands, to buy their spices and lay waste their country. The Phoenician Sanchoniathon, who certainly lived before the period at which we place Moses, and who is quoted by Eusebius as an authentic author, gives ten generations to the human race, as does Moses down to the time of Noah; but, in these ten generations, he mentions neither Adam nor Eve, nor any of their descendants, not even Noah himself. The names, according to the Greek translation by Philo of Biblos, are Æon, Genos, Phox, Liban, Usou, Halieus, Chrisor, Tecnites, Agrove, Amine; these are the first ten generations. We do not see the name of Noah or of Adam in any of the ancient dynastics of Egypt they are not to be found among the Chaldeans; in a word, the whole earth has been silent respecting them. It must be owned that such a silence is unparelleled. Every people has attributed to itself some imaginary origin, yet none has approached the true one. We cannot comprehend how the father of all nations has so long been unknown, while, in the natural course of things, his name should have been carried from mouth to mouth to the farthest corners of the earth. Let us humble ourselves to the decrees of that Providence which has permitted so astonishing an oblivion. All was mysterious and concealed in the nation guided by God himself, which prepared the way for Christianity, and was the wild olive on which the fruitful one has been grafted. That the names of the authors of mankind should be unknown to mankind, is a mystery of the highest order. I will venture to affirm, that it has required a miracle thus to shut the eyes and ears of all nations-to destroy every monument, every memorial of their first father. What would Cæsar, Anthony, Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, Marcellus, or Metellus have thought, if a poor Jew, while selling them balm, had said, "We all descend from one father, named Adam." All the Roman senate would have cried, "Show us our genealogical tree." Then the Jew would have displayed his ten generations, down to the time of Noah, and the secret of the universal deluge. The senate would have asked him, how many persons there were in the Ark, to feed all the animals for ten whole months, and during the following year in which no food would be produced? The pedlar would have said, "We were eight-Noah and his wife, their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives. All this family descended in a right line from Adam. Cicero, would, doubtless, have enquired for the great monuments, the indisputable testimonies which Noah and his children had left of our common father. After the deluge, he would have said, the whole world would have resounded with the names of Adam and Noah, one the father, the other the restorer of every race. These names would have been in every mouth as soon as men could speak, on every parchment as soon as they could write, on the door of every house as soon as they could build, on every temple, on every statue, and have you known so great a secret, yet concealed it from us! The Jew would have answered-It is because we are pure and you are impure. The Roman senate would have laughed and the Jew would have been whipped: so much are men attached to their prejudices! SECTION. II. The pious Madame de Bourignon was sure that Adam was an hermaphrodite, like the first men of the divine Plato. date of the Veidam, of the Shanscrit, or any other of the ancient Asiatic books. It is important to remark, that the Jews were not permitted to read the first chapter God had revealed a great secret to her; of Genesis before they were twenty-five but as I have not had the same revela-years old. Many rabbis have regarded tion, I shall say nothing of the matter. the formation of Adam and Eve and their The Jewish Rabbis have read Adam's adventure as an allegory. Every celebooks, and know the names of his pre-brated nation of antiquity has imagined ceptor and his second wife; but as I some similar one; and, by a singular have not read our first parent's books, I concurrence, which marks the weakness shall remain silent. Some acute and of our nature, all have endeavoured to very learned persons are quite astonished explain the origin of moral and physical when they read the Veidam of the ancient evil, by ideas nearly alike. The ChalBrahmins, to find that the first man was deans, the Indians, the Persians, and the created in India, and called Adimo, which Egyptians, have accounted, in similar signifies the begetter, and his wife, Pro-ways, for that mixture of good and evil criti, signifying life. They say that the sect of the Brahmins is incontestably more ancient than that of the Jews; that it was not until a late period that the Jews could write in the Canaanitish language, since it was not until late that they established themselves in the little country of Canaan. They say that the Indians were always inventors, and the Jews always imitators; the Indians always ingenious, and the Jews always rude. They say it is very hard to believe that Adam, who was fair and had hair on their head, was father to the Negroes, who are entirely black, and have black wool. What, indeed, do they not say? As for me, I say nothing: I leave these researches to the reverend Father Berruyer, of the Society of Jesus. He is the most perfect Innocent I have ever known: the book has been burned, as that of a man who wished to turn the Bible into ridicule; but I am quite sure he had no such wicked end inning animal, they had no great difficulty in endowing it with understanding a speech. view. SECTION III. which seems to be a necessary appendage to our globe. The Jews, who went out of Egypt, rude as they were, had yet heard of the allegorical philosophy of the Egyptians. With the little knowledge thus acquired, they afterwards mixed that which they received from the Phonicians, and from the Babylonians during their long slavery. But as it is natural and very common for a rude nation to imitate rudely the conceptions of a polished people, it is not surprising that the Jews imagined a woman formed from the side of a man, the spirit of life breathed from the mouth of God on the face of Adam-the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Oxus, having all the same source in a garden, and the forbidden fruit, which brought death into the world, as well as physical and moral evil. Full of the idea which prevailed among the ancients, that the serpent was a very cun This people, who then inhabited only a small corner of the earth, which they believed to be long, narrow, and flat, could easily believe that all men came from Adam. They did not even know that the Negroes, with a conformation different from their own inhabited immense regions; still less could they have any idea of America. ADORATION. The Greeks and Romans, at least, did not fall into this extravagant profanation. Horace does not say that he adores Lalage; Tibullus does not adore Delia ; nor is even the term adoration to be found in Petronius. It is, however, very strange that the Jewish people were permitted to read the books of Exodus, where there are so Is it not a great fault in some modern many miracles which shock reason, yet languages, that the same word which is were not allowed to read before the age used in addressing the Supreme Being, of twenty-five, the first chapter of Genesis, { is also used in addressing a mistress? We in which all is necessarily miracle, since not unfrequently go from hearing a serthe creation is the subject. Perhaps it mon, in which the preacher has talked of was, because God, after creating the man nothing but adoring God in spirit and in and woman in the first chapter, makes truth, to the Opera, where nothing is to them again in another, and it was thought be heard but the charming object of my expedient to keep this appearance of con- adoration, &c. tradiction from the eyes of youth. Perhaps it is, because it is said, that God made man in his own image, and this expression gave the Jews too corporeal an idea of God. Perhaps it was because it is said, that God took a rib from Adam's side to form the woman; and the young and inconsiderate, feeling their sides, and finding the right number of ribs, might have suspected the author of some infidelity. Perhaps it was, because God, who always took a walk at noon in the garden of Eden, laughed at Adam after his fall, and this tone of ridicule might tend to give youth too great a taste for pleasantry. In short, every line of this chapter furnishes very plausible reasons for interdicting the read-singer. ing of it; but such being the case, one cannot very clearly see how it was that the other chapters were permitted. It is, besides, surprising that the Jews were not to read this chapter until they were twenty-five. One would think that it should first have been proposed to childhood, which receives everything without examination, rather than to youth, whose pride is to judge and to laugh. On the other hand, the Jews of twenty-five years old, having their judgments prepared and strengthened, might be more fitted to receive this chapter than inexperienced έ minds. We shall say nothing here of Adam's second wife, named Lillah, whom the ancient Rabbis have given him. It must be confessed that we know very few anecdotes of our family. If anything can excuse this indecency, it is the frequent mention which is made in our operas and songs of the Gods of ancient fable. Poets have said that their mistresses were more adorable than these false divinities; for which no one could blame them. We have insensibly become familiarised with this mode of expression, until at last, without any perception of the folly, the God of the universe is addressed in the same terms as an opera But to return to the important part of our subject.-There is no civilized nation which does not render public adoration to God. It is true, that neither in Asia nor in Africa is any person forced to the mosque or temple of the place: each one goes of his own accord. This custom of assembling together should tend to unite the minds of men, and render them more gentle in society; yet have they been seen raging against each other, even in the consecrated abode of Peace. The Temple of Jerusalem was deluged with blood by zealots who murdered their brethren; { and our churches have more than once been defiled by carnage. In the article China, it will be seen that the Emperor is the Chief Pontiff, and that the worship is august and simple. There are other countries in which it is simple without any magnificence, as E |