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 formed a kind of literary agency. They sat at the feet of Locke and Newton. They compiled, edited, translated and contributed to the long series of journals published in Holland. Bayle had already paid some attention to English writings in his Nouvelles de la République des Lettres; Le Clerc took up the task more thoroughly, and a whole series of journals dealing with English publications were afterward published in Holland. Knowledge of English philosophy and science, and, by degrees, of English literature, spread from the Hague and Amsterdam to the literary circles of France. Then a Frenchman or two drifted to England, and translated Addison and Swift. A Swiss traveller, Muralt, published some letters upon England about 1724, and drew a genuine portrait of John Bull, who had really good points in the eyes of a Protestant. Muralt admits that the animal can be fierce and misanthropic, and that his 'houmour' turns all things topsy-turvy; but he sympathises heartily with the serious, thoughtful, and vigorous character whose eccentricity is but one side of the independence which had won political liberty. Next came the Abbé Prévost, who passed some years in England, and worked up his experience into various novels,