On Religion. 9. Religion elevates us above terrestrial objects. What is the object of all our occupations here below? Follow men to the bar, to the council board, to the public or private assemblies, whenever they meet and hold intercourse together. Human interests, human views, projects often frivolous, always limited, always perishable; lo, these are the eternal subjects of our discussion and pursuit. Let eloquence exhaust its art, and paint these vanities in deceitful colours; let our inclinations concur with it in seducing us. Precarious, fleeting happiness! Illusion of short duration! I know not what secret languor moves along with us in this. confined sphere. A sentiment of satiety and disgust. attaches itself to the return of these vain objects. We feel that we are not made to be always busied about this world; and that the pleasures which we here taste are only introductory to others. Our thoughts require subjects more vast to occupy them, our affections demand objects more noble to fix them. It is to religion that we must look for them. It is at the foot of the altar raised in our temples to its honour, that man, throwing aside the burden of human things, and extricating himself from cold occupations, from grovelling interests, and from puerile attachments, hears a voice which exalts, elevates, and rejoices the soul.. All is magnificent in the objects of religion. All her views comport with the highest faculties of our nature. Her features awaken our most lively sensibility. Delicious sentiments mingle themselves with the grand thoughts which she inspires. She displays. her celestial origin, her celestial destination.-It is not to small portions of time, a few years, a few generations, a few ages, that our speculations are here limited; they embrace eternity. They are not finite beings like ourselves with whom we hold intercourse. It is with a Being who has, for attributes, absolute perfection; for limits, immensity itself. It is no longer the assemblage of a few objects frivolous, uncertain, and of dubious quality, that we seek. It is happiness complete, solid, perfect in its nature, and infinite in duration, like God himself. Reybaz. The Accomplished Preacher. 10. POLITIANO, in the preface to his Miscellanea, inveighing against those who affected to consider the study of polite letters as inconsistent with the performance of sacred functions, adduces Mariano as an illustrious instance of their union. "On this account," says he to Lorenzo, "I cannot sufficiently admire your highly esteemed friend Mariano; whose proficiency in theological studies, and whose eloquence and address, in his public discourses, leave him without a rival.. The lessons which he inculcates, derive additional authority from his acknowledged disinterestedness, and from the severity of his private life yet there is nothing morose in his temper; nothing unpleasingly austere; nor does he think the charms of poetry, or the amusements and pursuits of elegant literature, below his attention." "I was lately induced to attend one of his lectures; rather, to say the truth, through curiosity than with the hope of being entertained. His appearance, however, interested me in his favour. His address was striking; and his eye marked intelligence. My expectations were raised. He began ;-I was attentive: a clear voice-select expressions-elevated sentiment. He divides his subject ;-I perceive his distinctions: Nothing perplexed; nothing insipid; nothing languid. He unfolds the web of his argument;-I am enthralled. He refutes the sophism;I am freed. He introduces a pertinent narrative;I am interested. He modulates his voice;-I am eharmed. He is jocular;-I smile. He presses me with serious truths;-I yield to their force. He addresses the passions ;-the tears glide down my cheeks. He raises his voice in anger;-I tremble and wish myself away. Roscoe. 11. All superiority and pre-eminence that one man can have over another, may be reduced to the notion of quality, which, considered at large, is either that of fortune, body, or mind. The first is that which consists in birth, title, or riches; and is the most foreign to our natures, and what we can the least call our own of any of the three kinds of quality. In relation to the body, quality arises from health, strength, or beauty; which are nearer to us, and more a part of ourselves than the former. Quality, as it regards the mind, has its rise from knowledge or virtue, and is that which is more essential to us, and more intimately united with us, than either of the other two.-As virtue is the most reasonable and genuine source of honour, we generally find in titles, an intimation of some particular merit that should recommend men to the high stations which they possess. Holiness is ascribed to the Pope; majesty to kings; serenity, or mildness of temper to princes; excellence, or perfection to ambassadors; grace to archbishops; honour to peers; worship, or venerable behaviour to magistrates; and reverence, which is of the same import as the former, to the inferior clergy.-A death-bed shows the emptiness of titles in a true light. A poor dispirited sinner lies trembling under the apprehensions of the state he is entering on; and is asked by a grave attendant, how his Holiness does? Another hears himself addressed under the titles of Highness, or Excellency, wholies under such mean circumstances of mortality, as are the disgrace of human nature.-Titles, at such a time, look rather like insults and mockery than respect.— The truth of it is, honours are in this world under no regulation: true quality is neglected, virtue is ૧ oppressed, and vice triumphant. The last day will rectify this disorder, and assign to every one a station suitable to the real dignity of his character. Ranks will be then adjusted, and precedency set right. Addison. I have often been puzzled to assign a cause why women should have the talent of a ready utterance, in so much greater perfection than men. I have sometimes fancied that they have not a retentive power, or the faculty of suppressing their thoughts, as men have, but that they are necessitated to speak every thing they think; and, if so, it would, perhaps, furnish a very strong argument to the Cartesians, for the supporting of their doctrine, that the soul always thinks. But as several are of opinion that the fair sex are not altogether strangers to the art of dissembling and concealing their thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that opinion, and have, therefore, endeavoured to seek after some better reason. In order to it, a friend of mine, who is an excellent anatomist, hạs promised me, by the first opportunity, to dissect a woman's tongue, and to examine whether there may not be in it certain juices which render it so wonderfully voluble or flippant; or whether the fibres of it may not be made up of a finer or more pliant thread; or whether there are not in it some particular muscles which dart it up and down by such sudden glances and vibrations ;---whether, in the last place, there may not be certain undiscovered channels running from the head and the heart to this little instrument of loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual affluence of animal spirits. Nor must I omit the reason which Hudibras has given, why those who can talk on trifles speak with the greatest fluency, namely, that the tongue is like a race-horse, which runs the faster the less weight it carries. Which of these reasons soever may be looked upon as the most probable, I think the Irishman's opinion was very natural, who, after some hours' conversation with a female orator, told her, that he believed her tongue was very glad when she was asleep, for it had not a moment's rest all the while she was awake.—I must confess I am so wonderfully charmed with the music of this little instrument, that I would by no means discourage it. All I aim at by this dissertation, is to cure it of several disagreeable notes, and, in particular, of those little jarrings and dissonances which arise from anger, censoriousness, gossiping and coquetry. In short, I would have it always tuned by good nature, truth, discretion and sincerity. Addison. CHAP. XIII. Proper application of prosodial names of Greek and Latin feet to English words.---Mode of measuring English Verse with artificial prosody, contrasted with the mode of measuring it with Musical Cadences.---Errors of English Prosodians. ONE of the principal mistakes of prosodians in scanning English verse, with artificial rules, is making the heavy or emphatic syllable, of whatever quantity, pass for a long syllable: the following words show that this may be the case by prosodial rules, but never can happen in spoken language. It may be convenient for the English scholar to see an explanation of the names of artificial feet. The artificial English prosodians tell us, that the primary feet used by them, are the Iambus and Anapest; the |