ments derived from principles which infidels admit in common with believers; arguments, which appear to me altogether irrefiftable; and fuch as I am fatisfied will have great weight with all who give themselves the fmall trouble of looking feriously into their own bofoms, and of obferving, with any tolerable degree of attention, what daily paffes round about them in the world. If fome arguments fhall here occur, which others have declined, they are fubmitted, with all deference, to better judgments, in this, of all points, the most important. For, as to the being of a God that is no longer difputed; but it is undifputed, for this reafon only, viz. becaufe, where the leaft pretence to reafon is admitted, it must for ever be indifputable. And, of confequence, no man can be betrayed into a difpute of that nature by vanity, which has a principal share in animating our modern combatants against other articles of our belief.

HE* (for I know not yet her name in heav'n) Not early like NARCISSA, left the scene; Nor fudden, like PHILANDER. What avail ? This feeming mitigation but inflames; This fancy'd med'cine heightens the disease. The longer known, the closer till she grew; And gradual parting is a gradual death. "Tis the grim tyrant's engine, which extorts, By tardy preffure's ftill increafing weight, From hardest hearts, confeffion of diftrefs.

O the long, dark approach, through years of pain, Death's gall'ry! (might I dare to call it fo) With difmal Doubt, and fable Terror, hung; Sick Hope's pale lamp, its only glimmʼring ray; There, Fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,

*Referring to Night the fifth.

Forbid Self-love itself to flatter, there.
How oft I gaz'd, prophetically fad!
How oft I faw her dead, while yet in fmiles!
In fmiles fhe funk her grief, to leffen mine.
She fpoke me comfort, and increas'd my pain.
Like pow'rful armies trenching at a town,
By flow, and filent, but refiftlefs fap,
In his pale progrefs gently gaining ground,
Death urg'd his deadly fiege; in fpite of art,
Of all the balmy bleffings Nature lends
To fuccour frail humanity. Ye ftars!
(Not now first made familiar to my fight),
And thou, Ŏ moon! bear witnefs; many a night
He tore the pillow from beneath my head,
Ty'd down my fore attention to the shock,
By ceafelefs depredations on a life

Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful poft
Of obfervation! darker ev'ry hour!

Lefs dread the day that drove me to the brink,
And pointed at eternity below;

When my foul fhudder'd at futurity;

When, on a moment's point, th' important dye
Of life and death fpun doubtful, ere it fell,
And turn'd up life; my title to more wo.

But why more wo? More comfort let it be. Nothing is dead, but that which wish'd to die ; Nothing is dead but wretchedness and pain ; Nothing is dead, but what incumber'd, gall'd, Block'd up the pafs, and barr'd from real life.

Where dwells that with moft ardent of the wife? Too dark the fun to fet it; higheft ftars

Too low to reach it: Death, great Death alone, O'er ftars and fun, triumphant, lands us there. Nor dreadful our tranfition; though the mind, An artit at creating felf-alarms,

Rich in expedients for inquietude,

Is prone to paint it dreadful. Who can take
Death's portrait true? the tyrant never fat.

Our sketch all random ftrokes, conjecture all;
Close shuts the grave, nor tells one fingle tale.
Death, and his image rifing in the brain,
Bear faint refemblance; never are alike :
Fear shakes the pencil; Fancy loves excefs
Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades :
And these the formidable picture draw.

But grant the worit; 'tis paft; new profpects rife, And drop a veil eternal o'er her tomb.

Far other views our contemplations claim,
Views that o'erpay the rigours of our life;
Views that fufpend our agonies in death.
Wrapt in the thought of immortality,
Wrapt in the fingle, the triumphant thought!
Long life might lapfe; age unperceiv'd come on!
And find the foul unfated with her theme.
Its nature, proof, importance, fire my fong.
O that my fong could emulate my foul!
Like her, immortal. No!-the foul difdains
A mark fo mean; far nobler hope inflames;
If endless ages can ontweigh an hour,
Let not the laurel, but the palm, infpire.***
Thy nature, Immortality! who knows?
And yet, who knows it not? It is but life
In ftronger thread of brighter colour spun,
And fpun for ever. Dipt by cruel Fate
In Stygian dye, how black, how brittle here!
How fhort our correfpondence with the fun!
And while it lafts, inglorious! our beft deeds,
How wanting in their weight! Our higheft joys
Small cordials to fupport us in our pain,
And give us ftrength to fuffer. But how great
To mingle int'refts, converfe, amities,
With all the fons of Reafon, fcatter'd wide
Through habitable space, wherever born,
Howe'er endow'd! to live free citizens
Of univerfal nature! to lay hold,

By more than feeble faith, on the Supreme!
To call heav'ns rich unfathom❜d mines

Mines which fupport archangels in their state) Our own to rife in fcience, as in bliss,

Initiate in the fecrets of the skies!

To read creation; read its mighty plan
In the bare bofom of the Deity!

The plan, and execution, to collate!

To fee, before each glance of piercing thought,
All cloud, all fhadow, blown remote ; and leave
No mystery--but that of love divine,
Which lifts us on the feraph's flaming wing,
From earth's Aceldama, this field of blood,
Of inward anguish, and of outward ill,
From darkness, and from duft, to fuch a scene!
Love's element! true joy's illuftrious home!
From earth's fad contraft (now deplor'd) more fair!
What exquifite viciffitude of fate!

Bleft abfolution of our blackest hour!

LORENZO! these are thoughts that make man man, The wife illumine, aggrandize the great.

How great, (while yet we tread the kindred clod,
And ev'ry moment fear to fink beneath

The clod we tread; foon trodden by our fons)
How great, in the wild whirl of Time's pursuits,
To top, and paufe, involv'd in high prefage,
Thro' the long vifto of a thousand years,
To ftand contemplating our diftant felves,
As in a magnifying mirror feen,

Enlarg'd, ennobled, elevate divine!

To prophefy our own futurities!

To gaze in thought on what all thought tranfcends! To talk, with fellow candidates, of joys,

As far beyond conception, as defert,

Ourselves th' aftonifh'd talkers, and the tale!
LORENZO, fwells thy bofom at the thought?
The fwell becomes thee: 'Tis an honeft pride.
Revere thy felf:--and yet thy felf defpife.
His nature no man can o'er-rate; and none
Can under-rate his merit. Take good heed,
Nor there be modest where thou fhould't be proud ;

That almoft univerfal error fhun.

How just our pride, when we behold thofe heights!
Not thofe Ambition paints in air, but those
Reafon points out, and ardent Virtue gains;
And angels emulate; our pride how juft!

[quit

When mount we? when these shackels caft? when
This cell of the creation? this small neft,
Stuck in a corner of the universe,
Wrapt up in fleecy cloud, and fine spun air?
Fine-fpua to fenfe; but grofs and feculent
To fouls celeftial; fouls ordain'd to breathe
Ambrofial gales, and drink a purer sky;
Greatly triumphant on Time's farther fhore,
Where Virtue reigns enrich'd with full arrears;
While Pomp Imperial begs an alms of peace.

vn.

In empire high, or in proud science deep,
Ye born of earth! on what can you confer,
With half the dignity, with half the gain,
The guft, the glow of rational delight,
As on this theme, which angels praife, and share ?
Man's fates and favours are a theme in Hea'v
What wretched repetition cloys us here!
What periodic potions for the fick!
Diffemper'd bodies! and diftemper'd minds!
In an eternity, what fcenes fhall ftrike!
Adventures thicken! novelties furprise!
What webs of wonder fhall unravel there!
What full day pour on all the paths of heav'n,
And light th' Almighty's footsteps in the deep!
How shall the bleffed day of our discharge
Unwind, at once, the labyrinths of fate,
And ftraighten its inextricable maze!

If inextinguishable thirst in man

To know how rich, how full our banquet, there!
There, not the moral world alone unfolds ;
The world material, lately feen in fhades,
And in thofe fhades by fragments only feen,
And feen those fragments by the lab'ring eye,
Unbroken, then, illuftrious, and entire,