quisitions of the learned, would be infinitely short and defective. Seas and deserts hide millions of animals from our observation. Innumerable artifices and stratagems are acted in the "howling wilderness," and in the "great deep," that can never come to our knowledge. Besides that there are infinitely more species of creatures which are not to be seen without, nor indeed with, the help of the finest glasses, than of such as are bulky enough for the naked eye to take hold of. However, from the consideration of such animals as lie within the compass of our knowledge, we might easily form a conclusion of the rest, that the same variety of wisdom and goodness runs through the whole creation, and puts every creature in a condition to provide for its safety and subsistence, in its proper station.

Tully has given us an admirable sketch of natural history, in his second book concerning the nature of the gods; and that in a style so raised by metaphors and descriptions, that it lifts the subject above raillery and ridicule, which frequently fall on such nice observations, when they pass through the hands of an ordinary writer.

It is the great art and secret of Christianity, (if I may use that phrase,) to manage our actions to the best advantage, and direct them in such a manner, that every thing we do may turn to account at that great day when every thing we have done will be set before us.

In order to give this consideration its full weight, we may cast all our actions under the division of

such as are in themselves either good, evil, or indifferent. If we divide our intentions after the same manner, and consider them with regard to our actions, we may discover that great art and secret of religion which I have here mentioned.

A good intention, joined to a good action, gives it its proper force and efficacy; joined to an evil action, extenuates its malignity, and, in some cases, may take it wholly away; and, joined to an indifferent action, turns it to virtue, and makes it meritorious, as far as human action can be so.

In the next place, to consider in the same manner the influence of an evil intention upon our actions. An evil intention perverts the best of actions, and makes them, in reality, what the fathers, with a witty kind of zeal, have termed the virtues of the heathen world, so many shining sins. It destroys the innocence of an indifferent action, and gives an evil action all possible blackness and horror; or, in the emphatical language of sacred writ, makes "sin exceeding sinful."

If, in the last place, we consider the nature of an indifferent intention, we shall find that it destroys the merit of a good action; abates, but never takes away, the malignity of an evil action; and leaves an indifferent action in its natural state of indifference.

It is, therefore, of unspeakable advantage to possess our minds with an habitual good intention, and to aim all our thoughts, words, and actions at some laudable end, whether it be the glory of our Maker, the good of mankind, or the benefit of our own souls.

This is a sort of thrift, or good husbandry, in moral life, which does not throw away any single action, but makes every one go as far as it can. It multiplies the means of salvation, increases the number of our virtues, and diminishes that of our vices.

This zealous and active obedience, however, takes place in the great point we are recommending; for

if, instead of prescribing to ourselves indifferent actions as duties, we apply a good intention to all our most indifferent actions, we make our very existence one continued act of obedience, we turn our diversions and amusements to our eternal advantage, and are pleasing Him whom we are made to please, in all the circumstances and occurrences of life.

It is this excellent frame of mind, this holy officiousness, (if I may be allowed to call it such,) which is recommended to us by the apostle in that uncommon precept wherein he directs us to propose to ourselves the glory of our Creator in all our most indifferent actions, "whether we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do."

A person, therefore, who is possessed with such an habitual good intention as that which I have been here speaking of, enters upon no single circumstance of life, without considering it as well pleasing to the great Author of his being, conformable to the dictates of reason, suitable to human nature in general, or to that particular station in which Providence has placed him. He lives in the perpetual sense of the Divine Presence, regards himself as acting in the whole course of his existence, under the observation and inspection of that Being, who is privy to all his - motions and all his thoughts, who knows his "downsitting and his uprising, who is about his path, and about his bed, and spieth out all his ways." In a word, he remembers that the eye of his Judge is always upon him; and in every action he reflects that he is doing what is commanded or allowed by Him who will hereafter either reward or punish it. This was the character of those holy men of old, who, in that beautiful phrase of Scripture, are said to have "walked with God."

By the general consent of critics, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epic poem; as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner. History must supply the writer with the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate by dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different shades of vice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he has to learn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of the passions, either single or combined; and physiology, must supply him with illustrations and images. To put these materials to poetical use, is required an imagination capable of painting nature, and realizing fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the whole extension of his language, distinguished all the delicacies of phrase, and all the colors of words, and learned to adjust their different sounds to all the varieties of metrical modulation.

Bossu is of opinion, that the poet's first work is to find a moral, which his fable is afterward to illustrate and establish. This seems to have been the process only of Milton; the moral of other poems is incidental and consequent; in Milton's only it is essential and intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful and the most arduous; "to vindicate the ways of God to man:" to shew the reasonableness

of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the Divine Law.

To convey this moral, there must be a fable, a narration artfully constructed, so as to excite curiosity, and surprise expectation. In this part of his work, Milton must be confessed to have equalled every other poet. He has involved, in his account of the fall of man, the events which preceded, and those that were to follow it: he has interwoven the whole system of theology with such propriety, that every part appears to be necessary; and scarcely any recital is wished shorter for the sake of quickening the progress of the main action.

The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His subject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and of earth; rebellion against the supreme King, raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of their host, and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creatures, their original happiness and innocence, their forfeitures of immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.

Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of elevated dignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem, all other greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; with whose actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude, or deviation of will, depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of all the future inhabitants of the globe.

Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is irreverence to name on slight occasions. The rest were lower powers: