manthus, judges, who are natives of Asia; and Æacus, a native of Europe. These, after death, shall hold their court in a certain meadow, from which there are two roads, leading the one to Tartarus, the other to the Islands of the Blessed.'

From this, as from numberless other passages of his writings, may be seen Plato's opinion of a future state. A thing therefore in regard to us so comfortable, in itself so just and excellent, a thing so agreeable to the analogy of nature, and so universally credited by all orders and ranks of men, of all nations and ages, what is it that should move a few men to reject? Surely there must be something of prejudice in the case. I appeal to the secret thoughts of a free-thinker, if he does not argue within himself after this manner: The senses and faculties I enjoy at present are visibly designed to repair or preserve the body from the injuries it is liable to in its present circumstances. But in an eternal state, where no decays are to be repaired, no outward injuries to be fenced against, where there are no flesh and bones, nerves or blood-vessels, there will certainly be none of the senses : and that there should be a state of life without the senses is inconceivable.'

But as this manner of reasoning proceeds from a poverty of imagination, and narrowness of soul in those that use it, I shall endeavour to remedy those defects, and open their views, by laying before them a case which, being naturally possible, may perhaps reconcile them to the belief of what is supernaturally revealed,

Let us suppose a person blind and deaf from his birth, who, being grown to man's estate, is by the dead palsy, or some other cause, deprived of his feelings, tasting, and smelling, and at the same

time has the impediment of his hearing removed, and the film taken from his eyes. What the five senses are to us, that the touch, taste, and smell, were to him. And any other ways of perception of a more refined and extensive nature were to him as inconceivable, as to us those are which will one day be adapted to perceive those things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive,' And it would be just as reasonable in him to conclude, that the loss of those three senses could not possibly be succeeded by any new inlets of perception; as in a modern free-thinker to imagine there can be no state of life and perception without the senses he enjoys at present, Let us further suppose the same person's eyes, at their first opening, to be struck with a great variety of the most gay and pleasing objects, and his ears with a melodious concert of vocal and instrumental music. Behold him amazed, ravished, transported; and you have some distant representation, some faint and glimmering idea of the ecstatic state of the soul in that article in which she emerges from this sepulchre of flesh into life and immortality,

N. B. It has been observed by the Christians, that a certain ingenious foreigner, who has pub lished many exemplary jests for the use of persons in the article of death, was very much out of humour in a late fit of sickness, till he was in a fair way of recovery,'

*M. Deslandes, who came about this time from France with the duke D'Aumont, was a Freethinker, and had published an historical list of all who died laughing. He had the smallpox here in England, of which he recovered.

N° 28. MONDAY, APRIL 13, 1713.

THEOCRITUS, Bion and Moschus are the most famous amongst the Greek writers of pastorals. The two latter of these are judged to be far short of Theocritus, whom I shall speak of more largely, because he rivals the greatest of all poets, Virgil himself. He hath the advantage confessedly of the Latin, in coming before him, and writing in a tongue more proper for pastoral. The softness of the Doric dialect, which this poet is said to have improved beyond any who came before him, is what the ancient Roman writers owned their lan-' guage could not approach. But besides this beauty, he seems to me to have had a soul more softly and tenderly inclined to this way of writing than Virgil, whose genius led him naturally to sublimity. It is true that the great Roman, by the niceness of his judgment, and great command of himself, has acquitted himself dexterously this way. But a penetrating judge will find there the seeds of that fire which burned afterwards so bright in the Georgics, and blazed out in the Æneid. I must not, however, dissemble that these bold strokes appear chiefly in those Eclogues of Virgil, which

VOL. XVI.

ought not to be numbered amongst his pastorals, which are indeed generally thought to be all of the pastoral kind; but by the best judges are only calied his select poems, as the word Eclogue ori. ginally means.

Those who will take the pains to consult Scaliger's comparison of these two poets, will find that Theocritus hath out-done him in those very passages which the critic hath produced in honour of Virgil. There is, in short, more innocence, simplicity, and whatever else hath been laid down as the distinguishing marks of pastoral, in the Greek than the Roman: and all arguments from the exactness, propriety, conciseness and nobleness of Virgil, may very well be turned against him. There is indeed sometimes a grossness and clownishness in Theocritus, which Virgil, who borrowed his greatest beauties from him, hath avoided. I will however add, that Virgil out of the excellence of genius only, hath come short of Theocritus: and had possibly excelled him, if in greater subjects he had not been born to excel all mankind.

The Italians were the first, amongst the moderns, that fell into pastoral writing. It is observed, that the people of that nation are very profound and abstruse in their poetry as well as politics; fond of surprising conceits and far-fetched imaginations, and labour chiefly to say what was never said before, From persons of this character, how can we expect that air of simplicity and truth which hath been proved so essential to shepherds? There are two pastoral plays in this language, which they boast of as the most elegant performances in poetry that the latter ages have produced; the Aminta of Tasso, and Guarini's Pastor Fido. In these the names of the persons are indeed pastoral, and the

Sylvan Gods, the Dryads, and the Satyrs, appointed with the equipage of antiquity; but neither the language, sentiments, passions, or designs, like those of the pretty triflers in Virgil and Theocritus. I shall produce an example out of each, which are commonly taken notice of, as patterns of the Italian way of thinking in pastoral. Sylvia in Tasso's poem enters adorned with a garland of flowers, and views herself in a fountain with such self-admiration, that she breaks out into a speech to the flowers on her head, and tells them, She doth not wear them to adorn herself, but to make them ashamed.' In the Pastor Fido, a shepherdess reasons after an abstruse philosophical manner about the violence of love, and expostulates with the gods, for making laws so rigorous to restrain us, and at the same time giving us invincible desires.' Whoever can bear these, may be assured he hath no taste for pastoral.

When I am speaking of the Italians, it would be unpardonable to pass by Sannazarius. He hath changed the scene in this kind of poetry from woods and lawns, to the barren beach and boundless ocean introduces sea-calves in the room of kids and lambs, sea-mews for the lark and the linnet, and presents his mistress with oysters instead of fruits and flowers. How good soever his style and thoughts may be; yet who can pardon him for his arbitrary change of the sweet manners and pleasing .objects of the country, for what in their own nature are uncomfortable and dreadful? I think he hath few or no followers, or, if any, such as knew little of his beauties, and only copied his faults, and so are lost and forgotten.

The French are so far from thinking abstrusely, that they often seem not to think at all. It is all a