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"If I had twenty children of my own, I would inoculate them ev'ry one.-"

“Ay, but should any of them die! what moan Would then be made, for vent'ring thereupon?"

"No; I should think that I had done the best; And be resign'd, whatever should befall.—" "But could you really be so, quite at rest?" "I could"-" Then why inoculate at all?

"Since to resign a child to God, who gave, Is full as easy, and as just a part,

When sick, and led by Nature to the grave, As when in health, and driv'n to it by Art."

AN ANSWER TO SOME INQUIRIES, CONCERNING THE AUTHOR'S OPINION OF A SERMON PREACHED AT UPON THE OPERATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

SAY to the sermon?-Why, you all were by,
And heard its whole contents, as well as I-
Without discussing what the preacher said,
I'll tell you, sirs, what came into my head.
While he went on, and learnedly perplext
The genuine meaning of his chosen text,
I cast my eyes above him, and explor'd
The dove-like form upon the sounding board.
That bird, thought I, was put there as a sign
What kind of spirit guides a good divine:
Such as, at first, taught preachers to impart
The pure and simple gospel to the heart:

A perfect, plain, intelligible rule,
Without the dark distinctions of the school;
That, with a nice, sophistical disguise,
Hide the clear precepts from the people's eyes.
Whatever doctrine in one age was true,
Must needs be so in all succeeding too;
Tho' circumstance may change-its inward aim,
Thro' ev'ry outward state, is still the same.

No thinking Christian can be pleas'd to hear
Men, who pretend to make the Scripture clear,
With low remarks, upon the letter play,
And take the spirit of it quite away.

Be time, or place, or person, or what will,
Urg'd in support of such a wretched skill,
It all amounts but to a vain pretence,
That robs the Gospel of its real sense.
Taught by the Saviour, and by holy men,
'Tis now the very same that it was then;
Not to be alter'd by unhallow'd pains;
The world may vary, but the truth remains.

Its consecrated phrases, one would think,
That priests and pulpits were not made to ink;
Prophaner wits can do it that disgrace-
What need of holy orders in the case?

The modish critical haranguer, heard,
May be admir'd; may be perhaps preferr'd;
Who sinks the dictates of the sacred page
Down to the maxims of the present age

But o'er his sounding canopy, why bring
The harmless dove to spread its hov'ring wing?
How in the church by such a shape exprest
Fulness of brain, and emptiness of breast?

Of heads so fatten'd, and of hearts so starv'd,
A different emblem should, methinks, be carv'd;
The owl of Atheus, and not Sion's dove,
The bird of learning-not the bird of love.

REMARKS ON DR. BROWN'S ESTIMATE,

WRITTEN IN THE CHARACTER OF A LADY.

THE book appears to my perusing sight,
So rambling, scambling, florid, and polite,
That tho' a manly skill may trace the clue,
A simple female knows not what to do;
Where to begin remark, or where to close,
Lost in a thousand-beauties, I suppose.

One seeming proof of such a coalition
Of num'rous beauties is a fifth edition;
As, reading authors, I have just now found
In the Whitehall-price three and sixpence bound:
Many a good book, but less of print concise,
Less clean of margin, sells for half the price.

So that the nation grows in books, 'tis plain,
"Luxurious, effeminate and vain':"
That is the purchasers—or, if I durst,

I would have said the writers of 'em first;
And the luxuriant framer of this plan,
First of the first, should be the leading man

Somewhere before the middle of the book,
It seems the author, whom I really took
But for a politician, was in fine,
To my surprise, a protestant divine:
A protestant divine! in whose high flight
The question capital is-who shall fight?

Not who shall pay—as some divines have plann'd,
One has heard tell, the capital demand:
Both needless questions when divines arose
Who neither su'd their friends nor fought their
Now what more vain, effeminate, luxurious, [foes.
Than parson's talk, so capitally furious?

Truly the works of distaff and of needle Are worth whole volumes of courageous Tweedle; With the sum total-" Britons! all be free; Take the brown musket up, and follow me: Let us be strong, be hardy, sturdy, rough; Till we are all beatifi'd in buff.”

1 "We may with truth and candour conclude that the ruling character of the present times is that of a vain, luxurious, and selfish effeminacy." Brown's Estimate. Sect. 6.

2 "It hath been urged indeed as a proof that the natural spirit of defence is not yet extinguished, that we raised such large sums during the Rebellion, and still continue such plentiful supplies for the support of our fleets and armies. This is weak reasoning: for will not cowardice, at least as soon as courage, part with a shilling or a pound to avoid danger?-The capital question therefore still remains-Not who shall pay, but who shall fight?" Sect. 6.

1

WITH manners just the same, as we are told,
Men are effeminate, and women bold 3:
If aught like satire or like ridicule

Should seem to rise, we must apply this rule
To solve the case-and so I think we may-
"It comes from folly's natural display4,"

Person and dress is left us to apply,
And little else, to know the sexes by:
Characteristics formerly made out,
Are now confounded by a present rout:
All would be lost if, as the cassoc warm,
With rage as just, the petticoat should arm.

But while men fight, both clergyfi'd and lay,
Who left but women to cry-Let us pray!
While men are marshalling in prose Pindaric
Religion, Virtue, Warburton, and Garrick,
Women must pray, that Heav'n would yet annex
Some little grace to the talk-valiant sex.

Love of our country is the manly sound
That clads in armour all the Virtues round:
Where is this lovely country to be sought?
Why 'tis Great Britain, in their little thought:
And the two states which these divines advance,
The Heav'n of England, and the Heli of France.

Women must pray—and, if divines can reach
No higher a theology-must preach.
This world-this sea bound spot of it-may seem
The central Paradise in men's esteem,
Who have great souls; but women who have none,
Have other realms to fix their hearts upon.

If such there be-the only certain scheme
To guard against each possible extreme,
Is to put on, amidst the world's alarms,
With a good heart, our real country's arms;
Faith, hope, and patience, from the tow'rs`above,
All-bearing meekness, and all conqu'ring love.

REMARKS

ON A PAMPHLet, entitled, EPISTLES TO THE
GREAT, FROM ARISTIPPUS IN RETIREMENT.—
IN A LETTER TO DR. S.――

DOCTOR, this new poetic species
Semel may do; but never decies:

"The sexes have now little other apparent distinction beyond that of person and dress: their peculiar and characteristic manners are confounded and lost: the one sex having advanced into boldness, as the other have sunk into effeminacy," Sect. 5.

4" Thus we have attempted a simple delineation of the ruling manners of the times: if any thing like ridicule appears to mix itself with this review, it ariseth not from the aggravation, but the natural display of folly." Sect. 5.

These Epistles were published in the year 1757." The species of poetry," says the editor," in which they are written has been used with great success among the French, by Chapelle, Chaulieu, La Farre, Gresset, madame Deshoulieres, and others."-To quote from them all the

For a Chapelle, or a Chaulieu,
The new devis'd conceit may do;
In rambling rhymes, La Farre, and Gresset,
And easy diction may express it;
Or madam's muse, Deshoulieres,
Improve it farther still than theirs:
But in the name of all the Nine,
Will an epistolary line,

In English verse and English sense,
Admit to give them both offence,
The Gaulbred insipiditee

Of this new fangl'd melodee?
Indeed it won't-if Gallic phrase
Can bear with such enervate lays,
Nor pleasure nor pain-pinion'd hours
Can ever suffer them in ours;
Or ity'crown'd, endure a theme
Silver'd with moonshine's maiden gleam:
Not tho' so garlanded and flow'ry,
So soft, so sweet, so myrtle-bow'ry;
So balmy, palmy-and so on-
As is the theme here writ upon:
Writ in a species that, if taking,
Portends sad future verse unmaking:
Brown's Estimate of times and manners,
That paints effeminacy's banuers,
Has not a proof in its detail
More plain than this, if this prevail;
Forbid it sense, forbid it rhyme,
Whether familiar or sublime;
Whether ye guide the poet's hand
To casy diction or to grand;
Forbid the Gallic namby pamby
Here to repeat its crazy crambe:
One instance of such special stuff,
To see the way on't is enough;
Excus'd for once; if Aristippus
Has any more within his cippus,
Let him suppress;—or sing 'em he
With gentle Muse, sweet Euterpee;
Free to salute her, while they chirp,
For easier rhyming-sweet Euterp:
It is allow'd that verse to please
Should move along with perfect ease;
But this coxcombically mingling
Of rhymes, unrhyming, interjingling,
For numbers genuinely British
Is quite too finical and skittish;
But for the masculiner belles,
And the polite he ma'moiselles;

Whom Dryads, Naiads, Nymphs, and Fauns,
Meads, woods, and groves, and lakes, and lawns,
And loves, and doves-and fifty more
Such jaded terms, besprinkl'd o'er
With compound epithets uncouth,
Prompt to pronounce 'em verse, forsooth!
Verse let 'em be; tho' I suppose
Some verse as well might have been prose,
That England's common courtesy
Politely calls good poetry:
For if the poetry be good,
Accent at least is understood;
Numb of syllables alone,
Without the proper stress of tone,

expressions alluded to in the following verses, would but swell out the notes to an unnecessary length. It is thought sufficient therefore to distinguish such allusions by Italic characters.

Will make our metre flat and bare
As Hebrew verse of bishop Hare:
Add, that regard to rhyme is gone,
And verse and prose will be all one;
Or, what is worse, create a pother
By species neither one nor t'other:
A case, which there is room to fear
From dupes of Aristippus here-
The fancied sage, in feign'd retreat,
Laughs at the follies of the great
With wit, invention, fancy, humour,
Enough to gain the thing a rumour;
But if he writes resolv'd to shine
In unconfin'd and motley line,
Let him Pindaric it away,
And quit the lazy labour'd lay;
Leave to La Farre and to La France,
The warbling, soothing nonchalance.-
When will our bards unlearn at last
The puny style, and the bombast?
Nor let the pitiful extremes
Disgrace the verse of English themes;
Matter, no more, in manner paint
Foppish, affected, queer, and quaint;
Nor bounce above Parnassian ground,
To drop the sense, and catch the sound:
Except-in writing for the stage,
Where sound is best for buskin'd rage;
Except-in operas, where sense
Is but superfluous expense:
Be then the bards of sounding pitch
Consign'd to Garrick and to Rich;
To Tweedledums and Tweedledees,
The singy songing Euterpees.

EPILOGUE

TO HURLOTHRUMBO, OR THE SUPERNATURAL'.

Enter Hurlothrumbo.

LADIES and gentlemen, my lord of Flame
Has sent me here to thank you in his name;
Proud of your smiles, he's mounted many a story
Above the tip-top pinnacle of glory:

Thence he defies the sons of clay, the critics;
"Fellows," says he, "that are mere paralytics,
With judgments lame, and intellects that halt,
Because a man outruns them-they find fault."
He is indeed, to speak my poor opinion,
Out of the reach of critical dominion.

Enter Critic.

Adso! here's one of 'em.

Cr. A strange odd play, sir; Enter Author, pushes Hurlothrumbo aside. Au. Let me come to him.-Pray, what's that you say, sir?

Cr. I say, sir, rules are not observ'd here.

'This play was written by Mr. Samuel Johnson, a dancing master, of Cheshire, and performed in the year 1722, at the Little Theatre, in the Haymarket, where it had a run of above thirty nights. We must refer the reader to the piece itself, to give him a just idea of the humour and propriety of the following epilogue; which was written by our author, with a friendly intention to point out to Mr. Johnson the extravagance and absurdity of his play. Mr. Johnson, however, so far from perceiving the ridicule, received it as a compliment, and had it both spoken and printed.

Au. Rules, Like clocks and watches, were all made for fools. Rules make a play? that is

Cr. What, Mr. Singer? Au. As if a knife and fork should make a finger. Cr. Pray, sir, which is the hero of your play? Au. Hero? why they're all heroes in their way. Cr. But here's no plot! or none that's understood.

Au. There's a rebellion tho'; and that's as good. Cr. No spirit nor genius in't.

Au. Why didn't here

A spirit and a genius both appear?
Cr. Poh, 'tis all stuff and nonsense.→→

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Hurlo. Troth! he says true enough
The stage has given rise to wretched stuff:
Critic or player; a Dennis or a Cibber,
Vie only which shall make it go down glibber;
A thousand murd'rous ways they cast about
To stifle it--but murder like-'twill out.
Our author fairly, without so much fuss,
Shows it-in puris naturalibus;
Pursues the point beyond its highest height,
Then bids his men of fire, and ladies bright,
Mark how it looks! when it is out of sight.
So true a stage, so fair a play for laughter,
ever will come
There never was before, nor
after:

Never, no never; not while vital breath
Defends ye from that long-liv'd mortal, Death.
-something hangs on my prophetic
Death!-

tongue,

I'll give it utterance-be it right or wrong:
Handel himself shall yield to Hurlothrumbo,
And Bononcini too shall cry-" Succumbo."
That's if the ladies condescend to smile;
Their looks make sense or nonsense in our isle,

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« We have also a more sure word of prophecy;
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto
a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day
dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts."
THIS passage, sir, which has engag'd of late
So many writers in such high debate
About the nature of prophetic light
Has not, I think, been understood aright:
Nor does the critic Middleton's new tract
Relate the meaning fairly, or the fact,

But let this suit the priesthood, if you will,
Pray what foundation for his critic skill?
For Peter's doubting what he saw and heard➡
For scruples-first imagin'd, then infer'd?

The reason here assign'd is "Fear and dread,
So great that Peter knew not what he said; 50
Fell on their faces at its awful view;
He, and his partners in the vision too,
Came to, and rais'd them, when 't was overpast."
Nor durst look up, till Jesus, at the last,

O vain suggestion? could they see and hear
Without an adoration? without fear?

60

[prise.

If they were struck with more than mortal awe,
Their very fear was proof of what they saw;
For strength to see, and weakness to sustain,
Made, both alike, the heavenly vision plain:
Nor has he once attempted to devise
What else should strike them with so great sur-
If, overcome with reverential dread,
Th' amaz'd apostle wist not what he said,
10 Unbias'd reason would itself confess
A greater light diminishing its less.
Thus in the sacred books, if we recall
The first recorded presence since the fall,
Themselves from God when our first parents hid,
It might be said, they wist not what they did: 70
Yet were they taught their comfortable creed,
The promise of the woman's conq'ring seed;
As here, th' apostles were empower'd to see
That Jesus, God's beloved Son, was he.

Peter, you know, sir, by his own account,
Was with our Saviour in the holy Mount;
Where he, and two apostles more, beheld
The shechinah, or glory that excell'd;
Saw that divine appearance of our lord,
Which three of the evangelists record;
His face a sun, and light his whole array,
Prophetic glimpse of that eternal day,
Wherein, the glance of Sun and Moon supprest,
God shall himself enlighten all the blest;
Shall from his temple, from the sacred shrine,
Shine forth of human majesty divine.
To this grand vision, which the chosen three
Were call'd before they tasted death to see,
Was added proof to the astonish'd ear,
That made presential Deity appear;
And by a voice from God the Father's throne,
His well beloved Son was then made known.

Now search of mysteries the whole abyss,
What more entire conviction, sir, than this?
Of human reason search the wide pretence,
What more miraculous, and plain to sense?
But reason oft interprets past event
Just as the human heart, and will is bent:
The doctor, whom his own productions call
No hearty friend to miracles at all,
Disguises this to bring his point about,
As if both sight and hearing left a doubt;
Left some perplexity on Peter's mind,
Quite against all that he himself defin'd.
"This wond'rous apparition, sir, might leave
Something too hard precisely to conceive;
And circumstances raise within his soul
Suspense about the nature of the whole."

20

30

40

What kind of sauntering spirit could suggest Such groundless cavil to a Christian breast? What Christian priest, at least, would choose to His Saviour's glory in a light so faint? [paint

If, when God spake, each fell upon his face-
How oft in ancient times was this the case?
What prophet, sir, to whom he spake of yore,
His voice, or vision, unsupported bore?
Moses himself, when unawares he trod

91

On holy ground and heard the voice of God, 80
Tho' turn'd aside on purpose to inquire
What kept the bush unburnt amidst the fire,
Stop'd in his search by the divine rebuke,
Straight hid his face, and was afraid to look.
Abram, the covenanted sire of all,
Who, in his faith, upon the Lord should call,
When he receiv'd the seal of it, the sign
Of circumcision, from the voice divine,
Fell on his face-and must we then, conceit
His proofs, that God talk'd with him, incomplete?
Read how Isaiah thought himself undone
When he had seen God's glory in his Son;
Until the seraph, with a living coal
From off the altar, purg'd the prophet's soul.
Read how Ezekiel too, with like surprise,
When Heav'n was open'd to his wond'ring eyes,
Fell on his face, at the same glorious sight;
Till, by God's spirit, made to stand upright,
Thus Daniel prostrate, thus the great divine
Who saw the apocaliptic scenes-in fine,
Thus human strength alone could never stand,
When God appear'd, unaided by his hand.
To urge a reason then from fear, to doubt
The glorious fact, that could not be without,
Only befits a feeble, faithless mind,
To heav'nly voice and vision deaf and blind.

100

1 "This wonderful apparition and heavenly voice might be accompanied with such circumstances as would naturally leave some doubt and perplexity on the mind concerning the precise manner and nature of the whole transaction. For Peter, as we read, was in such a fright and amazement at what he saw and heard, that he The learned prelate, against whose Discourse knew not what he said: and both he and the two This gentleman has aim'd his present force, other apostles then with him, James and John, Thought it absurd in any one to make were so greatly terrified, that they fell upon their St. Peter, for his own conviction's sake, faces to the ground, and durst not so much as Say, that old prophecies should be prefer'd look up, till Jesus, when the vision was over, To God's immediate voice, which he had heard: came to raise and encourage them."-Dr. Mid-Such a comparison, he thought, became dleton's Treatise, p. 55.

No sober man-much less the saint--to frame;

110

Concluding it impossible from hence

That this could ever be St. Peter's sense.

Tho' " 'tis not only possible, it seems,

But weak, moreover," as the doctor deems,

"To doubt it-a comparison so just

And hence th' apostle (is the inf'rence drawn,
"That claims the special notice of the lawn;"
That comes to clear this famous prelate's sight)
With reason good prefer'd prophetic light.
So, introduce an Hebrew, foreign term;

And then assume that the apostle too
Just thought and argued, as these critics do;
And we may prove from Peter's own design,
That God the Father's voice was not divine.

Peter not only might have made, but must.—" 120 Take all for true that quoted lines affirm;
And then he cites rabbinical remarks,
To prove the paradox from learned clerks:
Not that he minds what any of them writes,
But most despises whom he chiefly cites.
Lightfoot's authority, to instance one,
Is first, and last, and most insisted on;

"The soundness of whose faith he interjects,
And erudition nobody suspects3:"
Or if the reader wants a full display

[way

Of these endowments,-" Lightfoot shows the
How, by assuming liberty to take
131
For granted, straight, what premises we make;
Whatever notions or opinions tend
To favour that which we would recommend,
We may demonstrate, by such arts as these,
A doctrine true, divine, or what we please."

This, sir, is his description of sound faith.-
Let us now see what argument it hath:
This trusty evidence, amongst the rest,

Is call'd to prove a voice from Heav'n a jest; 140
The Jews bath-kol, a cunning acted part,
A fable, phantasy, or magic art;
Voice of the devil, or of devilish elves,
To cheat the people and promote themselves:

P. 47. "Let us now return to the bishop's Discourses, in which he goes on to demonstrate the inconsistency of the author's (Collins) exposition, by telling us, that it makes Peter to say, in his own person, that the dark prophecies of the Old Testament were a surer and more certain evidence to himself, than the immediate voice of God, which he had heard with his own ears. And is it possible,' adds he, that St. Peter, or any man in his wits, could make such a comparison?' To which question, so smartly and confidently put, I readily answer, that it is not only possible, that St. Peter might make such a comparison, but even weak to imagine that he could make any other."

3 P. 52. "Doctor Lightfoot also, the soundness of whose faith and erudition is allowed by all, speaks more precisely to my present purpose, and says, that If we observe two things, first, that the Jewish nation, under the second temple, was given to magical arts beyond measures; we may safely suspect that those voices, which they thought to be from Heaven, and noted with the name of bath-kol, were either formed by the devil in the air, to deceive the people; or, by magicians with devilish art, to promote their own affairs.' From which he draws this inference, which I would recommend to the special consideration of this eminent prelate: 'Hence,' adds he, the apostle Peter saith with good reason, that the word of prophecy was surer than a voice from Heaven.'"

P. 141. "Now by the same method of reasoning, and the liberty which his lordship every where assumes, of supposing whatever premises he wants, and taking every thing for granted, which tends to confirm his hypothesis, we may prove any doctrine to be true, or divine, or whatever we please to make of it. Dr. Lightfoot has shown us the way."

150

160

170

But should the prelate think it mere grimace To talk of fable in St. Peter's case, Whose words exclude it, and expressly speak Of heav'nly truth; how frivolous and weak, In his more sober and sedate esteem, Must all this patch-work erudition seem! How will a Christian bishop too conceive Of what the doctor's margins interweave, Touching that scripture, where our Saviour And Heav'n the glorifying answer made! [pray'd, While from his note, sir, nothing can be learn'd But casual thunder, or bath-kol concern'd 5. Will he not ask-Is it this author's aim, Under his bath-kol figments to disclaim All faith in voices of a heavenly kind? Is that the purpose of his doubting mind? You see th' apostle is extremely clear, That such a voice himself did really hear: He also had such wond'rous proofs beside, That voice concurrent cannot be deny'd. And, when our Lord had been baptis'd, there A voice from Heav'n, in words the very same. Here, in his answer'd prayer, tho', by mistake, Some said it thunder'd, some, an angel spake, We have his own authority divine; [mine." "This voice," said he, " came for your sakes, not Would not the bishop rightly thus oppose 181 Plain scripture facts to learning's empty shows? What signifies it then, upon the whole, How poor blind Jews have talk'd about bath-kol? What jarring critics of a later day, Or Lightfoot, here thrice ridicul'd, may say? Or Middleton himself-whose pious care For giftless churches prompts him to compare Voices from Heav'n, in his assuming page, To miracles beyond th' apostles age": Taking for granted, without more ado, His wild hypothesis about them too.

[came

Prodigious effort! see obstructed quite The Gospel promise, and the Christian right;

190

5 P. 48. "N. B. Thus when Jesus, a little before his death, was addressing himself to the Father, in the midst of his disciples and people of Jerusa lem, and saying: Father, save me from this hour; Father, glorify thy name.' There came a voice from Heaven, saying: 'I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. Upon which the people, that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered; others said, that an angel spake to him. (John xii. 28.) That is, part of the company believed it to be nothing more than an accidental clap of thunder; while others took it to be the bath-kol, or the voice of God, or of an angel, which was accompanied always with thunder."

6 P. 142, 145, 171. P. 50. "The reality of this oracular voice (bath-kol) is attested, as I have said, by all the Jewish writers, after the cessation of prophecy, in the same positive manner as the miraculous gifts of the Christian church by the primitive fathers, after the days of the apostles."

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