How happy may a lord bishop render a peasant at the hour of death, by bestowing on him his blessing, and giving him assurance of salvation! It is the same with regard to religious opinions in general; they may be confirmed and established to their hearts' content, because they assent implicitly to the opinions of men, who, they think, should know. A person of distinguished parts and learning has no such advantages; friendless, wavering, solitary, and, through his very situation, incapable of much assistance: if the rustic's tenor of behaviour approach nearer to the brutes, he also appears to approach nearer to their happiness.

You pray for happiness-consider the situation or disposition of your mind at the time, and you will find it naturally tends to produce it.

In travelling, one contrives to allow day-light for the worst part of the road; but in life, how hard is it, that every unhappiness seems united towards the close of our journey! pain, fatigue, and want of spirits; when spirits are more immediately necessary to our support! of which, nothing can supply the place beside religion and philosophy: but then, the foundation must be laid in meditation and inquiry! at an unmolested season, when our faculties are strong and vigorous; or the tempest will most probably thrown down the superstruc

ture.

How is a man said to be guilty of incredulity? Are there not sizes of understandings adapted to the different sorts, and, as it were, sizes of narrations ?

Conscience is adscititious; I mean, influenced by conviction, which may be well or ill grounded;

therefore no certain test of truth, but, at most times, a very faithful and a very prudent admonitor. The attraction of bodies and social affection of minds, seem, in many respects, analogous.

Attractions of either kind are less perspicuous, and less perceptible, through a variety of counterattractions that diminish their effect. Were two persons to meet in Ispahan, though quite strangers to each other here, would they not go near to feel a kind of friendship, on the single score of their being Englishmen ? would they not pass a cheerful evening together over rice and sherbet? In like manner, suppose two or three contemporaries only, to meet on the surface of the globe, amid myriads of persons of all other ages whatsoever, would they not discover a mutual tenderness, even though they had been enemies when living? What, then, remains, but that we revive the memory of such relations now, in order to quicken our benevolence? that we are all countrymen, is a consideration that is more commonly inculcated, and limits our benevolence to a smaller number also. That we are contemporaries, and persons whom future history shall unite, who, great part of us, however imperceptibly, receive and confer reciprocal benèfits: this, with every other circumstance that tends to heighten our philanthropy, should be brought to mind as much as possible, during our abode upon earth hereafter, may be just and requisite to comprehend all ages of mankind.

The best notion we can conceive of God, may be, that he is to the creation, what the soul is to the body:

"Deus est quodcumque vides, ubicumque moveris."

What is man, while we reflect upon a Deity, whose very words are works, and all whose works are wonders?

:

Prayer is not used to inform, for God is omniscient not to move compassion, for God is without passions: not to show our gratitude, for God knows our hearts. May not a man, that has true notions, be a pious man, though he be silent?

"To honour God, is to conceive right notions of him," says some ancient that I have forgot.

I know not how Mr. Pope's assertion is consistent with the scheme of a particular Providence :

"the Almighty cause

Acts not by partial, but by general laws."

What one understands by a general Providence, is that attention of the Almighty to the works of his creation, by which they pursue their original course, without deviating into such eccentric motions as must immediately tend to the destruction of it. Thus a philosopher is enabled to foretell eclipses with precision; and a stone thrown upward drops uniformly to the ground: thus an injury awakes resentment, and good offices endear to us our benefactor: and it seems no unworthy idea of Omnipotence, perhaps, to suppose he at first constituted a system, that stood in no need either of his counteracting or suspending the first laws of

motion.

But, after all, the mind remains; and can we show it to be either impossible or improbable, that God directs the will? Now whether the Divine Being occasions a ruin to fall miraculously, or in direct opposition to the ordinary laws of

nature, upon the head of Chartres; or whether he inclines Chartres to go near a wall whose centre of gravity is unsupported, makes no material difference.

XXXII. ON TASTE.

I BELIEVE that, generally speaking, persons eminent in one branch of taste, have the principles of the rest ; and to try this, I have often solicited a stranger to hum a tune, and have seldom failed of success this, however, does not extend to talents beyond the sphere of taste; and Handel was evidently wrong, when he fancied himself born to command a troop of horse.

Mankind, in general, may be divided into persons of understanding and persons of genius; each of which all admit of many subordinate degrees. By persons of understanding, I mean persons of sound judgment, formed for mathematical deductions and clear argumentation; by persons of genius, I would characterize those in whom true and genuine fancy predominates; and this, whether assisted or not by cultivation.

I have thought that genius and judgment may, in some respects, be represented by a liquid and a solid; the former is, generally speaking, remarkable for its sensibility, but then loses its impression soon; the latter is less susceptible of impression, but retains it longer.

Dividing the world into a hundred parts, I am

Persons of original taste, improved by art 5

There is hardly any thing so uncommon, as a true native taste improved by education.

The object of taste is corporeal beauty; for

though there is manifestly a το πρέπον, a pul" and decorum," in

honestum,"

66

chrum," an moral actions; and although a man of taste that is not virtuous commits a greater violence upon his sentiments than any other person; yet, in the ordinary course of speaking, a person is not termed a man of taste, merely because he is a man of virtue.

All beauty may be divided into absolute and relative, and what is compounded of both.

It is not uncommon to hear a modern Quixote insist upon the superiority of his idol or Dulcinea; and, not content to pay his own tribute of adoration, demand that of others in favour of her accomplishments. Those of grave and sober sense, cannot avoid wondering at a difference of opinions, which are, in truth, supported by no criterion. Every one, therefore, ought to fix sonte measure of beauty, before he grows eloquent upon the subject.

Every thing seems to derive its pretensions to