THREE:When we pass from Plutarch to Maximus Tyrius and Apuleius, the darkness grows perceptibly thicker, and is no longer broken by the lucida tela diei with which the Theban thinker had combated at least one class of mistaken beliefs. These writers are so occupied with developing the positive aspects of supernaturalismdaemonology, divination, and thaumaturgythat they can find no place for a protest against its extravagances and perversions; nor is their mysticism balanced by those extensive applications of philosophy to255 real life, whether under the form of biography or of discourses on practical morality, which enabled Plutarchs mind to preserve an attitude of comparative sobriety and calmness. Hence while Maximus is absolutely forgotten, and Apuleius remembered only as an amusing story-teller, Plutarch has been perhaps the most successful interpreter between Greek humanity and modern thought. His popularity is now rapidly declining, but the influence exercised by his writings on characters differing so much from one another and from his own as those of Montaigne, Rousseau, and Wordsworth, suffices to prove, if any proof be needed, how deep and wide were the sympathies which they once evoked.The Committee of Inquiry, stimulated by the disappointment of the public, began preparations for a fresh report; but their labours were cut short by the termination of the Session. In order to conciliate in some degree public opinion, Ministers hastened to allow the passing of a Bill to exclude certain officers from the House of Commons; they passed another to encourage the linen manufacture; a third, to regulate the trade of the Colonies; and a fourth, to prevent the marriage of lunatics. They voted forty thousand seamen and sixty-two thousand landsmen for the service of the current year. The whole expenditure of the year amounted to nearly six million pounds, which was raised by a land-tax of four shillings in the pound; by a malt-tax; by a million from the sinking fund; and by other resources. They provided for the subsidies to Denmark and Hesse-Cassel, and voted another five hundred thousand pounds to the Queen of Hungary. On the 15th of July the king prorogued Parliament; at the same time assuring the two Houses that a peace was concluded between the Queen of Hungary and the King of Prussia, through his mediation; and that the late successes of the Austrian arms were in a great measure owing to the generous assistance of the British nation.
