fourth of them, in particular, is eminently beau

tiful.

"Or sadly told how many hopes lie here!"

The three couplets are also very good:* and the composition on the whole has considerable merit.

The Criticism on Pope's Epitaph on himself, appears to be founded on principles that will not apply.

Under this marble, or under this sill,

'Or under this turf, or e'en what they will;
'Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,
'Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head,
'Lies one who ne'er car'd, and still cares not a pin,
• What they said, or may say, of the mortal within,
But who, living and dying, serene still and free.
'Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be.'

Lines which like the present, appear, on the face of them, to be written by him whose Epitaph they affect to be, are not in substance, although they may be in form, monumental inscriptions; nor subject to the rules which govern that species of composition. It is true, that "when a man is once "buried, the question, under what he is buried, is "easily decided." But at the time when a man writes the lines, the probability is, that he has not

"The six last lines are the best; but not excellent." Ib. + As these do, from the fourth line. "Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head."

Johnson's Criticism.

been yet interred; and then the question under what he may be buried, is unanswered.

These lines import-not that the friend who might inscribe his tomb should insert alternatives, seeming to make that doubtful, which when the writer was in his grave could be so no longer, but that he should state, as the case might be, that the person who lay beneath the marble,—or beneath the turf, (if the fact were so,)—was, when alive, of such principles and dispositions, as the subsequent verses proceed to describe. This composition would be a silly one indeed, if it were inscribed upon the author's tomb; or even if it appeared, that in writing it, he had this in contemplation. But evidently this was not the

case.

Having now closed my examination of the criticisms of Doctor Johnson, I shall take the liberty of terminating this paper, by the insertion of an Epitaph, intended for one of my ancestors, and written by his Son.

For ever doubly sacred be the earth,

That wraps his dear remains, who gave me birth!

No rude disturbance may it ever know,

Nor near it let one bitter thistle grow!

But may the sweetest flowers that deck the ground

In lovely wildness ever bloom around!

And when at length, life's trifling drama o'er,

He who now writes and weeps, shall be no more,
O! be his Spirit with his Father's blest-
While, mingled here, their kindred ashes rest!

S.

HAVE derived great pleasure from the perusal of your Paper upon Light;* where you collect instances in which the Divine Presence has been manifested, by supernatural emanations of overwhelming brightness; and the sublimet yodw w been thus as it were repeated, for the beneficent purpose of illuminating the spiritual world. The paper would indeed be valuable, if it were only as supplying proof, that he who has undertaken to write periodically for the Public, is a Christian.-I mean a believer. For if + See Longinus,

* Number XI.

none can be called Christians, save those who conform their lives to the sacred doctrines of this Faith, who amongst us can aspire to the meek and glorious title?

The pious scruples which induced you to refrain, throughout your essay, from all reference to pagan story, I am more disposed to reverence than to blame. Having resorted to the sacred Records for your proofs, you doubtless were unwilling to blemish those pure sources, by the contact, or even neighbourhood, of any thing profane.

You must however be aware, that some illustrations of your hypothesis might be drawn from Heathen Fable; which, in its mythological department, is little else than a wild and extravagant corruption of sacred truths. By GoD's permission, in consequence of our fall, the Divine Irradiation has indeed been darkened by the Enemy of Man; and at once shattered and refracted, in it's passage to the pagan world. But though by these means it ceased to be a steady light to enlighten the Gentiles, and made the Gospel illuminations necessary, to guide bewildered creatures to the path of life,—yet the particles, into which the holy traditionary beam has been broken amongst the Heathen, have not lost all their ".original brightness." Incrusted and obscured, by sin, error, and deceit, they yet retain some lucid traces of their heavenly source; and, like him whose

46

malice scattered them, look majestick, though in

ruins.

The perversion has indeed been gross: nor can depravation more abominable be well conceived, than that impious idolatry into which the World had fallen, when our Saviour appeared, to restore true worship upon Earth. Indeed so lamentably profane and frivolous, at that bright æra, these pollutions were, as to be worse than the comparatively philosophic, though perniciously erroneous systems, adopted by the less credulous, because better-informed Pagans of the day. Comprehending their own darkness, these latter rationally doubted. Thus Cicero, as an Academic, held, that although The probable was within the scope of our discernment, Certainty was what, on earth, we never could attain :* and,-to soar from a great, to a yet greater man,-Socrates proved his wisdom, by distrusting it;-his knowledge, by discovering that he knew nothing well;-and while he consistently proclaimed that Man wanted a Divine Instructor, predicted, in "something like "prophetic strain," that he would have one.+

"Neque inter nos, et eos qui se scire arbitrantur, quidquam interest, nisi quod illi non dubitant quin ea vera sint quæ defendunt: nos probabilia multa habemus; quæ sequi facile, affirmare vix possumus."

Acad: Lucul. III. 8.

↑ Socrates lived about four centuries before Christ.

This remarkable prediction, uttered by the wisest of the Gen