N° 453

Saturday, August 9.

Non ufitata nec tenui ferar
Penna

Hor. Od. 20. 1. 2. v. I.

No weak, no common wing fhall bear.
My rifing body through the air.

T

CREECH.

HERE is not a more pleafing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with fuch an inward fatisfaction, that the duty is fufficiently rewarded by the performance. It is not like the practice of many other virtues, difficult and painful, but attended with fo much pleasure, that were th re no pofitive command which enjoin'd it, nor any recompence laid up for it hereafter, a generous mind would indulge in it, for the natural gratification that accompanies it.

If gratitude is due from man to man, how much more from man to his Maker? The Supreme Being does not only confer upon us these bounties which proceed more immediately from his hand, but even thofe benefits which are conveyed to us by others. Every bleffing we enjoy, by what means foever it be derived upmay on us, is the gift of him who is the great author of good, and father of mercies.

If gratitude, when exerted towards one another, naturally produces a very pleafing fenfation in the mind of a grateful man; it exalts the foul into rapture, when it is employed on this great object of gratitude; on this beneficent being who has given us every thing we already poffefs, and from whom we expect every thing we yet hope for.

Most of the works of the pagan poets were either direct hymns to their deities, or tended indirectly to the celebration of their refpective attributes and perfections. Those who are acquainted with the works of the Greek and Latin poets which are ftill extant, will upon reflexion find this obfervation fo true, that I fhall

not

not enlarge upon it. One would wonder that more of our chriftian poets have not turned their thoughts this way, especially if we confider, that our idea of the Supreme Being is not only infinitely more great and noble than what cou'd poffibly enter into the heart of an heathen, but filled with every thing that can raise the imagination, and give an opportunity for the fublimest thoughts and conceptions.

Plutarch tells us of a heathen who was finging an hymn to Diana, in which he celebrated her for her delight in human facrifices, and other inftances of cruelty and revenge; upon which a poet who was prefent at this piece of devotion, and seems to have had a truer idea of the divine nature, told the votary by way of reproof, that in recompence for his hymn, he heartily wifhed he might have a daughter of the fame temper with the goddess he celebrated. It was indeed impoffible to write the praifes of one of thofe falfe deities, according to the pagan creed, without a mixture of impertinence and abfurdity.

The Jews, who before the time of Christianity were the only people who had the knowledge of the true God, who fet the chriftian world an example how they ought to employ this divine talent of which I am speaking. As that nation produced men of great genius, without confidering them as inspired writers, they have tranfmitted to us many hymns and divine odes, which excel those that are delivered down to us by the antient Greeks and Romans, in the poetry, as much as in the subject to which it was confecrated. This I think might eafily be fhewn, if there were occafion for it.

I have already communicated to the public fome pieces of divine poetry, and as they have met with a very favourable reception, I fhall from time to time publish any work of the fame nature which has not yet appeared in print, and may be acceptable to my readers.

I.

HEN all thy mercies, O my God,

WHE My rifing foul furveys;

Transported with the view, I'm loft
In wonder, love, and praife:

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II.

O bow fhall words with equal warmth
The gratitude declare,

That glows within my ravish'd heart?
But thou canst read it there.

V.

Unnumber'd comforts to my foul
Thy tender care beftow'd,
Before my infant heart conceiv'd
From whom thofe comforts flow'd.
VI.

When in the flipp'ry paths of youth
With beedlefs feps I ran,
Thine arm unfeen convey'd me fafe
And led me up to man.
VII.

Through bidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently clear'd my way,

And through the pleafing Snares of vice,
Mere to be fear'd than they.

VIII.

When worn with fickness, oft haft thou
With health renew'd my face,

And when in fins and farrows funk,
Reviv'd my foul with

IX.

grace.

Thy bounteous hand with wordly bfs

Has made my cup run o'er, And in a kind and faithful friend Has doubled all my store.

X.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ,

Nor

Sine me, Vacivom tempus ne quod dem miki
Laboris.

Ter. Heaut. A&t. 1. Sc. 1. Give me leave to allow myself no respite from labour.

T is an unexpreffible pleasure to know a little of the world, and be of no character or fignificancy in it. To be ever. unconcerned, and ever looking on new objects with an endless curiofity, is a delight known only to thofe who are turned for fpeculation: Nay they who enjoy it molt, value things only as they are the objects of fpeculation, without drawing any wordly advantage to themselves from them, but just as they are what contribute to their amufement, or the improve ment of the mind. I lay one night last week at Richmond; and being reftlefs, not out of diffatisfaction, but a certain bufy inclination one fometimes has, I rose at four in the morning, and took boat for London, with a refolution to rove by boat and coach for the next four

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and

and twenty hours, till the many different objects I must needs meet with fhould tire my imagination, and give me an inclination to a repofe more profound than I was at that time capable of. I beg people's pardon for an odd humour I am guilty of, and was often that day, which is faluting any perfon whom I like, whether I know him or not. This is a particularity would be tolerated in me, if they confider'd that the greatest pleasure I know I receive at my eyes, and that I am obliged to an agreeable perion for coming abroad into my view, as another is for a vifit of conversation at their own houses.

The hours of the day and night are taken up in the cities of London and Westminster, by people as different from each other as those who are born in different centuries. Men of fix o'clock give way to thofe of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve, and they of twelve difappear, and make room for the fashionable world, who have made two o'clock the noon of the day.

When we first put off from fhore, we foon fell in with a fleet of gardeners bound for the feveral marketports of London; and it was the most pleafing fcene imaginable to fee the chearfulness with which thofe indutrious people ply'd their way to a certain fale of their goods. The banks on each fide are as well peopled, and beautified with as agreeable plantations as any fpot on the earth; but the Thames itself, loaded with the product of each shore, added very much to the landskip. It was very easy to obferve by their failing, and the countenances of the ruddy virgins, who were fupercargoes, the part of the town to which they were bound. There was an air in the purveyors for Covent-Garden, who frequently converfe with morning rakes, very unlike the feeming fobriety of those bound for StocksMarket.

Nothing remarkable happened in our voyage; but I landed with ten fail of apricock boats at StrandBridge, after having put in at Nine-Elms, and taken in melons, configned by Mr. Cuffe of that place, to Sarah Sewell and company, at their ftall in Covent Garden. We arrived at Strand Bridge at fix of the clock, and were unloading; when the hackney-coachmen of the forego