of the flutes and hautboys had claimed greater attention and deference from the audience, than the elevation of the host, and high mass: the effential duty of a catholic was poftponed to the pleasure and powers of mufic, which ought to be its diverfion; in truth that the zeal for hearing the inftruments of these masters, had diffi

pated that for prayer and proftration before the deity.

THIS, tho' an Englishman who gave me the account feem'd to think extremely ridiculous, I cannot avoid approving, as whatever feduces men from their religious duty, is an object of a fovereign's care. When the concerto was finish'd, it seems, the greatest number of the audience left their devotion and the church, without attend ing the most effential part of their duty.

AN. indulgence of this kind converts a temple dedicated to heaven, into a theatre, and changes religion to amusement, till the mind becomes pleased with nothing but the mufic, and the duty of offering up our prayers to heaven is evaporated in the joy of hearing an inchanting

VOL. II.

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piece

piece of harmony breathed from the lips of a fkilful musician: this is preferring decoration to ufe.

SOMETHING like this has been the confequence of preaching twice every Sunday in the churches of England; the audience are become critics in fermons, and nine in ten frequent churches for no other reason, than that of deciding whether the preacher be a good orator or not, it is no longer duty but diverfion; prayer is contemned and neglected, and the oration the only thing worth their attention, without which the churches are empty.

Ar the reformation, when the peoples minds were to be converted from popery to protestantism, it was thought requifite that fermons fhould be deliver'd twice a day, to change the fentiments of thofe who were bred catholics; and perhaps at that time fuch ha rangues from the pulpit were abfolutely neceffary to gain on the hearers, and bring them over to that change of worship.

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BUT it happen'd in that refpect as it has fince, at the révolution; the very things which were then useful, have been fince render'd detrimental by their continuation, and the proceeding in the fame way produced a continual fcene of changing, till the effects of these causes want as much to be oppofed, both in the church and state, as thofe of popery and arbitrary power did at the time of the reformation and revolution.

PREACHING against the catholic religion, has at last preached all religion out of the kingdom; and acting on prefbyterian and Whig principles, all government.

THE first has created a contempt for doing the duty of a chriftian, in making fermons the chief object of the peoples attention in religious acts; and the latter a flight for the idea of kings, in making the minifter the ruling power, in contradiction to the fovereign's rights, and peoples liberties.

THIS nation feems at prefent in that dead calm, which is obferved to precede a storm; M 2

and

and heaven only knows what the workings of this ocean of people may throw up after the tempeft which muft agitate it, is fubfided.

Is it perfifts long in this way, it will exhibit a new phænomenon in political nature, that a nation can hold together without the uniting principles of religion and government (for I cannot call the names of things their realities); moft certain it is, that the active powers of these two parts are almoft totally annihilated.

THINGS appear in this light but to few, I own, and the foreboder of evil is the derifion of moft; yet furely the hour will come, when this divination will be accomplished, and the liberties of England be overwhelm'd and buried by fome irruption, not lefs fatal than those terrible eruptions of Vefuvius, which have buried men, herds, and cities, in one common grave; alien as I am, I cannot avoid weeping over this fickening ftate, and with that a new land of liberty may rife, Phoenix like, from the ashes of the old. I am,

Your most obedient fervant,
LET

LETTER XLVI.

To the Reverend Father DOMINICO

MANZONI, at Rome.

Dear Sir,

A

FTER having long lived in this island,

and as I imagine, having made myself fomething acquainted with the manners and capacity of the natives, I fee no reason to repent being born an Italian, and tho' not replete with all the glory of an old, yet not displeased with the lot of being a modern, Roman.

METHINKS, if the producing great men in all kinds of human excellency, be an honor to a country, Italy bids the fairest in the world for that reputation..

THO it must be allow'd, that this ifle has produced men of genius in all kinds of literature, and fome equal to what any nation has ever bred, yet there are

other parts of genius, in which

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