Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

SWEDENBORG.—Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish noble, a mathematician and naturalist of large attainments, communicated, in copious writings, what he sincerely professed to consider special revelations made to him respecting God, the unseen world, and the sense of the Scriptures. His adherents are called "The New Church," or Swedenborgians.

THE JESUIT ORDER.—Under the influences that had sway in the eighteenth century, the authority of the popes sank in the Catholic countries. The spirit of innovation was rife. One of the remarkable incidents of the time, characteristic of its tendency, was the conflict of Portugal and the Bourbon courts of France and Spain, with the Society of Jesuits. The Jesuits had secretly established, unobserved, a state under their own exclusive control in Paraguay, a part of which, by a treaty of Portugal with Spain, fell to Portugal. Other charges, some relating to interference in political affairs, and some to other and different grounds of complaint, led to the expulsion of the order from all Portuguese territory (1757); and soon after, it was suppressed in France and in Spain, and in several of the Italian states. The Jesuit order was formally abolished by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773, to be again restored by papal authority in 1814.

ESSAYS AT POLITICAL REFORM.

RUSSIA: GERMANY.—The minds of men were unsettled, not only by the prevalent tone of literature and speculation, but by governmental changes and reforms. The disposition was to introduce French methods of administration. Catherine II. of Russia (1762-1796) tried the experiment of various judicial and educational reforms. Frederick the Great, with more wisdom and consistency, introduced many changes for the benefit of the industrial class. The most sweeping reforms were undertaken by the Emperor Joseph II. (1780-1790), after the death of his mother, Maria Theresa. His measures for the reduction of the power of the clergy and of the nobility, the closing of monasteries, and the weakening of the connection of the Austrian Church with Rome, were of a very radical character. He himself finally became convinced that they were too radical to be completely realized, in the existing state of opinion among his subjects. Two of his reforms—the abolition of serfdom, and the edict of religious toleration—remained in force. The other changes did not survive him. The attempts to impose his reforms in the Austrian Netherlands provoked an insurrection. Leopold II. (1790-1792), Joseph's successor, suppressed the Belgian revolt, but repealed the ordinances of his brother which had occasioned it.

TUSCANY.—In Tuscany, the brother of Joseph II., Leopold, prior to his becoming emperor, undertook likewise a great plan of ecclesiastical reform in the same line as that of Joseph (1786); but there the opposition of the bishops prevented him from practically carrying out his scheme.

PORTUGAL.—In Portugal, the house of Braganza had ascended the throne in 1640. Joseph Emanuel (1750-1777) left the management of the government to his minister, Pombal. His measures were contrived to weaken the power of the nobles and the clergy. By him the warfare against the Jesuits was carried forward. The fall of Pombal, which followed the death of the king, led to the abolition of all his reforms, which had the same fate as those undertaken later in Austria by Joseph II.

LITERATURE.—See the lists of works on pp. 16, 395, 450, and Adams's Manual of Historical Literature; SCHLOSSER'S History of the Eighteenth Century (8 vols,); NOORDEN'S Europaische Gesch. im 18tn. Jahr.: Der Spanische Erbfolgekrieg (2 vols.); Lord John Wakeman, European History, 1598-1715; Hassall, European History, 1715-1789; Perlcins, Regency and Louis XV, (3 vols.); St. Simon, The Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XIV. and the Regency [an abridgment, 3 vols.]; Voltaire, Age of Louis XIV.; PHILIPPSON (in Oncken's Series), Das Zeitalter Ludwigs d. Vierzehten; A. de Broglie, Louis XV: The King's Secret Correspondence with his Agents, etc. (2 vols.); A. Thiers, The Mississippi Bubble; Morley's Life of Voltaire, and Life of Rousseau.

A. v, Arneth, Geschichte Maria Theresas (10 vols., 1863-79): DUNCKER, Aus der Zeit Friedrichs d. Grossen, etc.; RANKE, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (3 vols); CARLYLE'S History of Frederick the Second (6 vols.); Tuttle, History of Prussia (4 vols.); Von Raumer, Frederick the Second and his Times; A. de Broglie, Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa (2 vols.); ONCKEN, Das Zeitalter Friedrich d. Grossen (2 vols.).

The Diaries of PEPYS and EVELYN; R. Vaughan, Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell; MACAULAY'S History of England from the Accession of James II. (4 vols.); MAHON'S History of England (1701-13), also History of England (1713 to 1783) (7 vols.); BURTON, History of the Reign of Queen Anne; E.E.MORRIS, The Age of Anne; Alison, Military Life of the Duke of Marlborough; Life of Marlborough, by Gleig, by Coxe (3 vols.); LECKY'S History of England in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols.); Froude, The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (2 vols.); Mahan, Influence of the Sea Power on History; Egerton, Short History of British Colonial Policy; Seeley, The Expansion of England; Payne, European Colonies; Lucas, Introduction to a Historical Geography of the British Colonies; H. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (3 vols.), and of George III. (4 vols.); J. G. Phillimore, History of England during the Reign of George III.; J. Adolphus, History of England [1760 83] (3 vols.); Wraxall (1751-1831), Historical Memoirs of his own Time (4 vols.). and Posthumous Memoirs of his own Time, (3 vols.); May, Constitutional History of England [1760-1860] (2 vols.); STOUGHTON, History of Religion in England from the Opening of the Long Parliament to the End of the Eighteenth Century (6 vols.); TYERMAN'S Life of Wesley; SOUTHEY'S Life of Wesley; TYERMAN'S Life of Whitefield; TYLER'S History of American Literature; VAN LAUN, History of French Literature (3 vols.); MORLEY'S Series of English Men of Letters; TAINE'S History of English Literature.

Schuyler's Life of Peter the Great; Catherine II., Memoirs written by herself; RAM-BAUD'S History of Russia.