How thofe in common all their wealth beftow,
And anarchy without confufion know;
And thefe for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their feparate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaried laws preferve each flate,
Laws wife as Nature, and as fix'd as Fate'.
Great Nature fpake; obfervant Man obey'd;
Cities were built, focieties were made:
Here rofe one little ftate; another near
Grew by like means, and join'd, through love or fear.

FOPE.

The advances from the favage to the civilized ftate of mankind thus appear to be gradual. This is a very concife view of the origin of fociety, which has been adopted by most authors, both ancient and modern; for, not to enumerate the various fanciful theories of others, the origin of society muft, after all, be derived from its real and only fource, Nature herself.

That the affociating principle is instinctive hardly requires a proof. An appeal to the feelings of any human being, and to the universal condition of mankind, is fufficient. Thefe feelings, it may be faid, are acquired by education and habit. By thefe caufes, it is true, our focial feelings are ftrengthened and confirmed; but their origin is coeval with the exiftence of the first human mind. Let any man attend to the eyes, the features, and the geftures of a child upon the breast, when another child is prefented to it; both inftantly, previous to the poffibility of inftruction or habit, exhibit the moft evident expreffions of joy. Their eyes fparkle; their features and geftures demonftrate, in the moft unequivocal manner, a mutual attachment, and a strong defire of approaching each other, not with a hoftile intention, but with an ardent affection, which, in that pure and uncontaminated ftate of our being, does honour to human nature. When further ad

vanced, children who are ftrangers to each other, although their focial appetite is equally ftrong, difcover a mutual thynefs of approach. This thynefs or modefty, however, is foon conquered by the more powerful inftinct of affociation. They daily mingle and fport together. Their natural affections, which, at that period, are ftrong, and unbiaffed by thofe felfish and vitious motives which too often conceal and thwart the intentions of Nature, create warm friendships that frequently continue during their lives, and produce the most beneficial and cordial effects. When we thus fee with our eyes, that the affociating principle appears at a period much more early than many of our other inftincts, who will attend to thofe writers, who deny that man is naturally an affociating animal ?

The advantages which we derive from affociation are innumerable. Man, from the comparatively great number of instincts with which his mind is endowed, neceffarily poffeffes a portion of the reafoning faculty highly fuperior to that of any other animal. He alone enjoys the power of exprefling and communicating his ideas by articulate and artificial language. This ineftimable prerogative is, perhaps, one of the greateft fecondary bonds of fociety, and the greateft fource of improvement to the human intellect. Without artificial language, although Nature has beftowed on every animal a mode of expreffing its wants and defires, its pleafures and pains, what an humiliating figure would the human fpecies exhibit, even upon the fuppofition that they did affociate! But when affociation and language are conjoined, the human intellect, in the progress of time, arrives at a high degree of per-. fection. Society gives rife to virtue, honour, government, fubordination, arts, fcience, order, happinefs. All the individuals of a community conduct themselves upon a regulated system.

Firft gathering men their natural powers combin'd,
And form'd a Public; to the general good
Submitting, aiming, and conducting all. - - -
Hence every form of cultivated life
In order fet, protected, and infpir'd,
Into perfection wrought. Uniting all
Society grew numerous, high, polite,
And happy. Nurfe of art! the city rear'd,
In beauteous pride, her tower-encircl'd head.
Then Commerce brought into the public walk
The bufy merchant.

Then too the pillar'd dome, magnific, heav'd
Her ample roof; and Luxury within

Pour'd out her glittering ftores; the canvas fmooth,
With glowing life protuberant, to the view
Embodied rofe; the ftatue feem'd to breathe,
And foften into flefh, beneath the touch

Of forming Art.

The gift of Social Labour thefe; whate'er
Exalts, embellifhes, and renders life
Delightful: - -

He, the kind fource of every gentle art,
And all the foft civility of life!

- Penfive Winter, cheer'd by him,

Sits at the focial fire, and happy hears
Th' excluded tempeft idly rave along;
His harden'd fingers deck the gaudy Spring;
Without him Summer were an arid waste;
Nor to th' Autumnal months could e'er tranfmit
Thofe full, mature, immeafurable ftores,
That beauteous wave around.

THOMSON..

LXIV. ON THE FEATHERED CREATION.

Videmus

Frondiferafque novis avibus canere undique fylvas.

LUCRETIUS..

Innumerous fongfters, in the freshening fhade
Of new-fprung leaves, their modulations mix

Mellifluous.

THOMSON.

THE vocal groves, and the woodland quirifters, have been favourite themes with the bard, whom the love of Nature infpires, and whofe breaft is formed by virtue to a true relish for her charms.

In Milton, the angel Raphael, defcribing the creation of the world to Adam, forgets not the feas thered tribes:

Mean while the tepid caves, and fens and fhores
Their brood as numerous hatch, from th' egg that foon
Buriting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd

Their callow young, but feather'd foon and fledg'd
They fumm'd their pens, and foaring th' air fublime
With clang defpis'd the ground, under a cloud
In profpect there the eagle and the ftork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build :
Part loosely wing the region, part more wife,
In common, rang'd in figure wedge their way,
Intelligent of feafons, and fet forth

Their aery caravan high over feas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Eafing their flight: fo fteers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, born on winds; the air

Floats, as they pafs, fann'd with unnumber'd plumes:
From branch to branch the fmaller birds with fong
Solaced the woods, and fpread their painted wings
Till ev'n, nor then the folemn nightingale
Ceas'd warbling, but all night tun'd her foft lays:

Others on filver lakes and rivers bath'd
Their downy breaft; the fwan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet; yet oft they quit
The dank, and rifing on fliff pennons, tower
The mid aërial fky. Others on ground

Walk'd firm; the crefted cock whofe clarion founds
The filent hours, and th' other whofe gay train
Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue
Of rainbows and flarry eyes.

Nor can that delightful series of pictures, so truly expreffive of the general fpirit that pervades the Spring, which Thomson has formed on the variety of circumftances attending "the paffion of the groves", efcape the notice and attention of the moft negligent eye. With him, we see the gay troops begin to plume the painted wing, and try again the long-forgotten ftrain. The woods refound wit lavish harmony. Attentive to the voice of love, w behold the gloffy kind pour forth their little fouls in courtship to their mates. Having formed connubial leagues, they retire to their respective haunts, and build their nefts with inimitable skill. The parental cares now engage their attention; and with what courage, and with what art, do they employ the va ried ftratagem, to divert from their tender progeny the rude foot that would moleft them! How fweetly too does the poet lament the barbarous art, that deprives the foft tribes of liberty and boundlefs air! How pathetically bemoan the mifery of the nightingale, when, returning to her young with loaded bill, he finds a vacant neft, robbed by thrd hand of fome unrelenting clown! What a picture does he exhibit, when the feathered youth first attempt to fly; when, the last glad office done, parental love, grown needless, diffolves at once! Nor does he forget the royal eagle, in his towering feat;