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YOUNG.

The vast unseen! the future fathomless!
When the great soul buoys up to this high point,
Leaving gross Nature's sediments below,
Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits
The sage and hero of the fields and woods,
Asserts his rank, and rises into man.
This is ambition: this is human fire.

Can parts or place (two bold pretenders!) make
Lorenzo great, and pluck him from the throng?
Genius and art, ambition's boasted wings,
A feeble aid!
Our boast but ill deserve.
Dedalian enginery! If these alone
Assist our flight, fame's flight is glory's fall.
Heart-merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high,
Our height is but the gibbet of our name.
A celebrated wretch, when I behold;
When I behold a genius bright, and base,
Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims;
Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere,
The glorious fragments of a soul immortal,
With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust.
Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight,
At once compassion soft, and envy, rise
But wherefore envy? Talents, angel-bright,
If wanting worth, are shining instruments
In false ambition's hand, to finish faults
Illustrious, and give infamy renown.

Great ill is an achievement of great powers.
Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray.
Reason the means, affections choose our end;
Means have no merit, if our end amiss.
If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain;
What is a Pelham's head, to Pelham's heart?
Hearts are proprietors of all applause.
Right ends, and means, make wisdom: worldly-wise
Is but half-witted, at its highest praise.

Let genius then despair to make thee great;
Nor flatter station What is station high?
'T is a proud mendicant; it boasts, and begs;
It begs an alms of homage from the throng,
And oft the throng denies its charity.
Monarchs and ministers are aweful names!
Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir.
Religion, public order, both exact
External homage, and a supple knee,
To beings pompously set up, to serve
The meanest slave; all more is merit s due,
Her sacred and inviolable right,
Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man.
Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth;
Nor ever fail of their allegiance there.
Fools, indeed, drop the man in their account,
And vote the mantle into majesty.
Let the small savage boast his silver fur;
His royal robe unborrow'd, and unbought,
His own, descending fairly from his sires.
Shall man be proud to wear his livery,
And souls in ermin scorn a soul without?
Can place or lessen us, or aggrandize?

Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride?
That treacherous pride betrays the dignity;
That pride defames humanity, and calls
The being mean, which staffs or strings can raise.
That pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars,
From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.
'T is born of ignorance, which knows not man;
An angel's second; nor his second, long.
A Nero quitting his imperial throne,
And courting glory from the tinkling string,
But faintly shadows an immortal soul,
With empire's self, to pride, or rapture, fir'd
If nobler motives minister no cure,
E'en vanity forbids thee to be vain.

High worth is elevated place: 't is more;
It makes the post stand candidate for thee;
Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest mai,
Though no exchequer it commands, 't is wealth;
And though it wears no ribband, 't is renown;
Renown, that would not quit thee, though disgrac
Nor leave thee pendant on a master's smile.
Other ambition Nature interdicts;
Nature proclaims it most absurd in man,
By pointing at his origin, and end;
Milk, and a swathe, at first, his whole demand;
His whole domain, at last, a turf, or stone;
To whom, between, a world may seem too small,
Souls truly great dart forward on the wing
Of just ambition, to the grand result:
The curtains fall: there, see the buskin'd chief
Unshod behind this momentary scene;
Reduc'd to his own stature, low or high,
As vice or virtue, sinks him, or sublimes;
And laugh at this fantastic mummery,
This antic prelude of grotesque events,
Where dwarfs are often stilted, and betray
A littleness of soul by worlds o'er-run,
Dread sacrifice
And nations laid in blood.
To Christian pride! which had with horrour shock
The darkest Pagans offer'd to their gods.

O thou most Christian enemy to peace;
Again in arms? Again provoking fate?
That prince, and that alone, is truly great,
Who draws the sword reluctant, gladly sheathes;
On empire builds what empire far outweighs
And makes his throne a scaffold to the skies.

Why this so rare? Because forgot of all
The day of death; that venerable day,
pronounce
Which sits as judge; that day, which shall
On all our days, absolve them, or condemn.
Lorenzo, never shut thy thought against it ;
Be levees ne'er so full, afford it room,
And give it audience in the cabinet.
That friend consulted, flatteries apart,
Will tell thee fair, if thou art great, or mean.

To dote on aught may leave us, or be left,
Is that ambition? Then let flames descend,
Point to the centre their inverted spires,
And learn humiliation from a soul,

Pygmies are pygmies still, though perch'd on alps; Which boasts her lineage from celestial fire.

And pyramids are pyramids in vales.

Each man makes his own stature, builds himself:
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids :
Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall.
Of these sure truths dost thou demand the cause?
The cause is lodg'd in immortality.

Hear, and assent. Thy bosom burns for power;
What station charms thee? I'll instal thee there;
'Tis thine. And art thou greater than before?
Then thou before wast something less than man.

Yet these are they the world pronounces wise;
The world which cancels Nature's right and wrong
And casts new wisdom: e'en the grave man lends

His solemn face, to countenance the coin.
Wisdom for parts is madness for the whole.
This stamps the paradox, and gives us leave
To call the wisest weak, the richest poor,
The most ambitious, unambitious, mean;
In triumph, mean; and abject on a throne.
Nothing can make it less than mad in man,

L

To put forth all his ardour, all his art,
And give his soul her full unbounded flight,
But reaching him, who gave her wings to fly.
When blind ambition quite mistakes her road,
And downward pores, for that which shines above,
Substantial happiness, and true renown;
Then, like an idiot gazing on the brook,
We leap at stars, and fasten in the mud;
At glory grasp, and sink in infamy.

Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!
Thy strength in man, like length of wing in birds,
When disengag'd from Earth, with greater ease,
And swifter flight, transports us to the skies;
By toys entangled, or in gilt bemir'd,

It turns a curse; it is our chain, and scourge,
In this dark dungeon, where confin'd we lie,
Close grated by the sordid bars of sense;
All prospect of eternity shut out;
And, but for execution, ne'er set free.

With errour in ambition justly charged,
Find we Lorenzo wiser in his wealth?
What if thy rental I reform? and draw
An inventory new to set thee right?

Where thy true treasure? Gold says, "Not in me:" And, "Not in me," the diamond. Gold is poor; India's insolvent; seek it in thyself,

eek in thy naked self, and find it there; n being so descended, form'd, endow'd; ky-born, sky-guided, sky-returning race! Crect, immortal, rational, divine!

n senses which inherit Earth, and Heavens; Enjoy the various riches Nature yields; ar nobler! give the riches they enjoy ; Five taste to fruits; and harmony to groves; heir radiant beams to gold, and gold's bright fire; Cake in, at once, the landscape of the world, it a small inlet, which a grain might close, And half-create the wondrous world they see. Our senses, as our reason, are divine. But for the magic organ's powerful charm, Earth were a rude, uncolour'd chaos, still. Objects are but th' occasion; ours th' exploit ; Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint, Which Nature's admirable picture draws; And beautifies creation's ample dome. Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake, Man makes the matchless image, man admires. lay, then, shall man, his thoughts all sent abroad, Superior wonders in himself forgot,

His admiration waste on objects round,

When Heaven makes him the soul of all he sees?
Absurd! not rare! so great, so mean, is man.
What wealth in senses such as these! What wealth
In fancy, fir'd to form a fairer scene

Than sense surveys! In memory's firm record,
Which, should it perish, could this world recall
From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years!
In colours fresh, originally bright,
Preserve its portrait, and report its fate!

What wealth in intellect, that sovereign power,
Which sense and fancy summons to the bar;
Interrogates, approves, or reprehends;
And from the mass those underlings import,
From their materials sifted, and refin'd,
And in truth's balance accurately weigh'd,
Forms art, and science, government, and law ;
The solid basis, and the beauteous frame,
The vitals, and the grace of civil life!
And manners (sad exception!) set aside,
Strikes out, with master hand, a copy fair

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Disdaining limit, or from place, or time;
And hear at once, in thought extensive, hear
Th' Almighty fiat, and the trumpet's sound!
Bold, on creation's outside walk, and view
What was, and is, and more than e'er shall be;
Commanding, with omnipotence of thought,
Creations new in fancy's field to rise!

Souls, that can grasp whate'er th' Almighty made,
And wander wild through things impossible!
What wealth, in faculties of endless growth,
In quenchless passions violent to crave,
In liberty to choose, in power to reach,
And in duration (how thy riches rise!)
Duration to perpetuate-boundless bliss!

Ask you, what power resides in feeble man
That bliss to gain? Is virtue's, then, unknown?
Virtue, our present peace, our future prize.
Man's unprecarious, natural estate,
Improveable at will, in virtue lies;
Its tenure sure; its income is divine.

High-built abundance, heap on heap! for what? To breed new wants, and beggar us the more; Then make a richer scramble for the throng? Soon as this feeble pulse, which leaps so long Almost by miracle, is tir'd with play, Like rubbish from disploding engines thrown, Our magazines of hoarded trifles fly; Fly diverse; fly to foreigners, to foes; New masters court, and call the former fool (How justly!) for dependence on their stay. Wide scatter, first, our playthings; then, our dust.

Dost court abundance for the sake of peace? Learn, and lament thy self-defeated scheme : Riches enable to be richer still;

And, richer still, what mortal can resist?
Thus wealth (a cruel task-master!) enjoins
New toils, succeeding toils, an endless train!
And murders peace, which taught it first to shine.
The poor are half as wretched as the rich;
Whose proud and painful privilege it is,
At once, to bear a double load of woe;
To feel the stings of envy, and of want,
Outrageous want! both Indies cannot cure.

A competence is vital to content.
Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease;
Sick, or encumber'd, is our happiness.
A competence is all we can enjoy.

O be content, where Heaven can give no more!
More, like a flash of water from a lock,
Quickens our spirits' movement for an hour;
But soon its force is spent, nor rise our joys
Above our native temper's common stream.
Hence disappointment lurks in every prize,
As bees in flowers; and stings us with success.
The rich man, who denies it, proudly feigns;
Nor knows the wise are privy to the lie.
Much learning shows how little mortals know;
Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy ;
At best, it babies us with endless toys,
And keeps us children till we drop to dust.
As monkeys at a mirror stand amaz'd,
They fail to find what they so plainly see;
Thus men, in shining riches, see the face
Of happiness, nor know it is a shade;
But gaze, and touch, and peep, and peep again,
And wish, and wonder it is absent still.

How few can rescue opulence from want!
Who lives to nature, rarely can be poor;
Who lives to fancy, never can be rich.
Poor is the man in debt; the man of gold,
In debt to fortune, trembles at her power.
The man of reason smiles at her, and death.
O what a patrimony this! A being
Of such inherent strength and majesty,
Not worlds possest can raise it; worlds destroy'd
Can't injure; which holds on its glorious course,
When thine, O Nature! ends; too blest to mourn
Creation's obsequies. What treasure, this!
The monarch is a beggar to the man.

Immortal! Ages past, yet nothing gone!
Morn without eve! a race without a goal!
Unshorten'd by progression infinite!
Futurity for ever future! Life
Beginning still where computation ends!
"T is the description of a Deity!
'Tis the description of the meanest slave:
The meanest slave dares then Lorenzo scorn?
The meanest slave thy sovereign glory shares.
Proud youth! fastidious of the lower world!
Man's lawful pride includes humility:
Stoops to the lowest; is too great to find
Inferiors; all immortal! brothers all!
Proprietors eternal of thy love.

Immortal! What can strike the sense so strong,
As this the soul? It thunders to the thought;
Reason amazes; gratitude o'erwhelms ;
No more ve slumber on the brink of fate;
Rous'd at the sound, th' exulting soul ascends,
And breathes her native air; an air that feeds
Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires;
Quick kindles all that is divine within us;
Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars.
Has not Lorenzo's bosom caught the flame?
Immortal! Were but one immortal, how
Would others envy! How would thrones adore!
Because 't is common, is the blessing lost?
How this ties up the bounteous hand of Heaven!
O vain, vain, vain, all else! Eternity!
A glorious, and a needful refuge, that,
From vile imprisonment, in abject views.
'Tis immortality, 't is that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasement, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.
That only, and that amply, this performs;
Lifts us above life's pains, her joys above;
Their terrour those, and these their lustre lose;
Eternity depending covers all;
Eternity depending all achieves ;

Sets Earth at distance; casts her into shades;
Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powers;
The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe,
Fortune's dread frowns, and fascinating smiles,
Make one promiscuous and neglected heap,
The man beneath; if I may call him man,
Whom immortality's full force inspires.
Nothing terrestrial touches his high thought;
Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard,
By minds quite conscious of their high descent,
Their present province, and their future prize;
Divinely darting upward every wish,
Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost!

Doubt you this truth? Why labours your belief?
If Earth's whole orb by some due distanc'd eye
Were seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,
And levell'd Atlas leave an even sphere.
Thus Earth, and all that earthly minds admire,

Is swallow'd in Eternity's vast round.
To that stupendous view when souls awake,
So large of late, so mountainous to man,
Time's toys subside; and equal all below.
Enthusiastic, this? Then all are weak,
But rank enthusiasts. To this godlike height
Some souls have soar'd; or martyrs ne'er had bled.
And all may do, what has by man been done.
Who, beaten by these sublunary storms,
Boundless, interminable joys can weigh,
Unraptur'd, unexalted, uninflam'd?
What slave unblest, who from to-morrow's dawn
Expects an empire? He forgets his chain,
And, thron'd in thought, his absent sceptre wares

And what a sceptre waits us! what a throne!
Her own immense appointments to compute,
Or comprehend her high prerogatives,
In this her dark minority, how toils,
How vainly pants, the human soul divine!
Too great the bounty seems for earthly joy;
What heart but trembles at so strange a bliss?

In spite of all the truths the Muse has sung, Ne'er to be priz'd enough! enough revolv'd! Are there who wrap the world so close about them, They see no further than the clouds; and dance On heedless Vanity's fantastic toe,

Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career, [song?
Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and
Are there, Lorenzo? Is it possible?

Are there on Earth (let me not call them men)
Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts;
Unconscious as the mountain of its ore;
Or rock, of its inestimable gem?
When rocks shall melt, and mountains vanish, the
Shall know their treasure; treasure, then, no matt

Are there (still more amazing!) who resist
The rising thought? who smother, in its birth,
The glorious truth? who struggle to be brutes?
Who through this bosom-barrier burst their way,
And, with revers'd ambition, strive to sink?
Who labour downwards through th' opposing power
Of instinct, reason, and the world against them,
To dismal hopes, and shelter in the shock
Of endless night; night darker than the grave's?
Who fight the proofs of immortality?
With horrid zeal, and execrable arts,
Work all their engines, level their black fires,
To blot from man this attribute divine,
(Than vital blood far dearer to the wise,)
Blasphemers, and rank atheists to themselves?

To contradict them, see all Nature rise! What object, what event, the Moon beneath, But argues, or endears, an after-scene? To reason proves, or weds it to desire? All things proclaim it needful; some advance One precious step beyond, and prove it sure. A thousand arguments swarm round my pen. From Heaven, and Earth, and man. Indulge a few By Nature, as her common habit, worn; So pressing Providence a truth to teach, Which truth untaught, all other truths were vain.

Thou! whose all-providential eye surveys, Whose hand directs, whose spirit fills and warms Creation, and holds empire far beyond! Eternity's inhabitant august! Of two eternities amazing Lord! One past, ere man's or angel's had begun; Aid! while I rescue from the foe's assault Thy glorious immortality in man: A theme for ever, and for all, of weight,

of moment infinite! but relish'd most
By those who love thee most, who most adore.
Nature, thy daughter, ever-changing birth
of thee the great Immutable, to man
peaks wisdom: is his oracle supreme;
nd he who most consults her, is most wise.
orenzo, to this heavenly Delphos haste;
nd come back all-immortal; all-divine :
ook Nature through, 't is revolution all; [night
Il change; no death. Day follows night, and
The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise;
Karth takes th' example. See, the Summer gay,
With her green chaplet, and ambrosial flowers,
roops into pallid Autumn: Winter gray,
Corrid with frost, and turbulent with storm,
lows Autumn, and his golden fruits, away:
hen melts into the Spring: soft Spring, with breath
avonian, from warm chambers of the south,
ecalls the first. All, to re-flourish, fades;
́s in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend:
mblems of man, who passes, not expires.
With this minute distinction, emblems just,
ature revolves, but man advances; both
ternal, that a circle, this a line.
hat gravitates, this soars. Th' aspiring soul,
rdent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends,
cal and humility her wings, to Heaven.
he world of matter, with its various forms,
ll dies into new life. Life born from death
olls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll.
o single atom, once in being, lost,
With change of counsel charges the Most High.
What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be?
fatter immortal? And shall spirit die?
bove the nobler, shall less noble rise?
all man alone, for whom all else revives,
o resurrection know? Shall man alone,
nperial man! be sown in barren ground,
ess privileg'd than grain, on which he feeds?
man, in whom alone is power to prize
he bliss of being, or with previous pain
eplore its period, by the spleen of fate
everely doom'd death's single unredeem'd?
Nature's revolution speaks aloud,

1 her gradation, hear her louder still.
ook Nature through, 't is neat gradation all.
y what minute degrees her scale ascends!
ach middle nature join'd at each extreme,
'o that above it join'd, to that beneath.
'arts, into parts reciprocally shot,

bhor divorce: what love of union reigns!
Iere, dormant matter waits a call to life; [sense;
Half-life, half-death, join'd there; here life and
here, sense from reason steals a glimmering ray;
teason shines out in man. But how preserv'd
The chain unbroken upward, to the realms
If incorporeal life? those realms of bliss
Where death hath no dominion? Grant a make
Half-mortal, half-immortal; earthy, part,
And part ethereal; grant the soul of man
Eternal; or in man the series ends.
Wide yawns the gap; connection is no more;
Check'd reason halts; her next step wants support;
Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme;
A scheme, analogy pronounc'd so true;
Analogy, man's surest guide below.

Thus far, all Nature calls on thy belief. And will Lorenzo, careless of the call, alse attestation on all Nature charge, Rather than violate his league with death?

Renounce his reason, rather than renounce
The dust belov'd, and run the risk of Heaven?
O what indignity to deathless souls!

What treason to the majesty of man!

Of man immortal! Hear the lofty style:
"If so decreed, th' Almighty Will be done.
Let Earth dissolve, yon ponderous orbs descend,
And grind us into dust. The soul is safe;
The man emerges; mounts above the wreck,
As towering flame from Nature's funeral pyre;
O'er devastation, as a gainer, smiles;
His charter, his inviolable rights,

Well pleas'd to learn from thunder's impotence,
Death's pointless darts, and Hell's defeated storms."
But these chimeras touch not thee, Lorenzo !
The glories of the world thy sevenfold shield.
| Other ambition than of crowns in air,
And superlunary felicities,

Thy bosom warm. I'll cool it, if I can;
And turn those glories that enchant, against thee.
What ties thee to this life, proclaims the next.
If wise, the cause that wounds thee is thy cure.
Come, my ambitious! let us mount together
(To mount, Lorenzo never can refuse);
And from the clouds, where pride delights to dwell,
Look down on Earth. What see'st thou? Won-
drous things!

Terrestrial wonders, that eclipse the skies.

What lengths of labour'd lands! what loaded seas!
Loaded by man for pleasure, wealth, or war!
Seas, winds, and planets, into service brought,
His art acknowledge, and promote his ends.
Nor can th' eternal rocks his will withstand:
What level'd mountains! and what lifted vales!
O'er vales and mountains sumptuous cities swell,
And gild our landscape with their glittering spires.
Some mid the wondering waves majestic rise;
And Neptune holds a mirror to their charms.
Far greater still! (what cannot mortal might?)
See, wide dominions ravish'd from the deep!
The narrow'd deep with indignation foams.
Or southward turn; to delicate and grand,
The finer arts there ripen in the sun.
How the tall temples, as to meet their gods,
Ascend the skies! the proud triumphal arch
Shows us half Heaven beneath its ample bend.
High through mid-air, here, streams are taught to
flow;

Whole rivers, there, laid by in basons, sleep.
Here, plains turn oceans; there, vast occans join
Through kingdoms channell'd deep from shore to
shore!

And chang'd creation takes its face from man.
Beats thy brave breast for formidable scenes,
Where fame and empire wait upon the sword?
See fields in blood; hear naval thunders rise;
Britannia's voice! that awes the world to peace.
How yon enormous mole, projecting, breaks
The mid-sea, furious waves! Their roar amidst,
Out-speaks the Deity, and says, "O main!
Thus far, nor farther; new restraints obey."
Earth's disembowell'd! measur'd are the skies!
Stars are detected in their deep recess !
Creation widens! vanquish'd Nature yields!
Her secrets are extorted! art prevails!
What monument of genius, spirit, power!

And now, Lorenzo! raptur'd at this scene, Whose glories render Heaven superfluous! say, Whose footsteps these?-Immortals have been here. Could less than souls immortal this have done?

Earth's cover'd o'er with proofs of souls immortal; And proofs of immortality forgot.

To flatter thy grand foible, I confess, These are ambition's works: and these are great: But this, the least immortal souls can do; Transcend them all.-But what can these transcend? Dost ask me what?- One sigh for the distrest. What then for infidels? A deeper sigh. 'Tis moral grandeur makes the mighty man: How little they, who think aught great below! All our ambitions Death defeats, but one; And that it crowns. Here cease we: but, ere long, More powerful proof shall take the field against thee, Stronger than death, and smiling at the tomb.

NIGHT THE Seventh.

THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

PART II.

Containing the Nature, Proof, and Importance, of Immortality.

PREFACE.

And

As we are at war with the power, it were well if we were at war with the manners, of France. A land of levity is a land of guilt. A serious mind is the native soil of every virtue; and the single character that does true honour to mankind. The soul's immortality has been the favourite theme with the serious of all ages. Nor is it strange; it is a subject by far the most interesting, and important, that can enter the mind of man. Of highest moment this subject always was and always will be. Yet this its highest moment seems to admit of increase, at this day; a sort of occasional importance is superadded to the natural weight of it; if that opinion which is advanced in the preface to the preceding Night, be just. It is there supposed, that all our infidels, whatever scheme, for argument's sake, and to keep themselves in countenance, they patronize, are betrayed into their deplorable errour, by some doubts of their immortality, at the bottom. the more I consider this point, the more I am persuaded of the truth of that opinion. Though the distrust of a futurity is a strange errour; yet it is an errour into which bad men may naturally be distressed. For it is impossible to bid defiance to final ruin, without some refuge in imagination, some presumption of escape. And what presumption is there? There are but two in nature; but two, within the compass of human thought. And these are That either God will not, or can not punish. Considering the divine attributes, the first is too gross to be digested by our strongest wishes. And since omnipotence is as much a divine attribute as holiness, that God cannot punish, is as absurd a supposition as the former. God certainly can punish as long as wicked men exist. In non-existence, therefore, is their only refuge; and, consequently, nonexistence is their strongest wish. And strong wishes have a strange influence on our opinions; they bias the judgment in a manner, almost incredible. And since on this member of their alternative, there are some very small appearances

in their favour, and none at all on the r they catch at this reed, they lay hold on t chimera, to save themselves from the shock a horrour of an immediate and absolute despair. On reviewing my subject, by the light which argument, and others of like tendency, the upon it, I was more inclined than ever to purse! it, as it appeared to me to strike directly at main root of all our infidelity. In the follow pages it is, accordingly, pursued at large; m some arguments for immortality, new at least u me, are ventured on in them. There also t writer has made an attempt to set the gross surdities and horrours of annihilation in a ful and more affecting view, than is (I think) to b met with elsewhere.

The gentlemen, for whose sake this attempt w chiefly made, profess great admiration for t wisdom of heathen antiquity: what pity it is the are not sincere! If they were sincere, how would it mortify them to consider, with wh contempt and abhorrence their notions woul have been received by those whom they so mud admire! What degree of contempt and abberrence would fall to their share, may be conjec tured by the following matter of fact (in my opinion) extremely memorable. Of all their heathen worthies, Socrates (it is well known) we the most guarded, dispassionate, and composed yet this great master of temper was angry; angry at his last hour; and angry with his friend; and angry for what deserved acknowledgment: angry for a right and tender instance of tra friendship towards him. Is not this surprising" What could be the cause? The cause was his honour; it was a truly noble, though, perhaps a too punctilious regard for immortality: for, is friend asking him, with such an affectionate cocern as became a friend," Where he shoul deposit his remains?" it was resented by Socrates as implying a dishonourable supposition, that be could be so mean, as to have a regard for any thing, even in himself, that was not immortal. This fact, well considered, would make our infidels withdraw their admiration from Socrates; make them endeavour, by their imitation of this illustrious example, to share his glory: and c sequently, it would incline them to peruse following pages with candour and impartiality which is all I desire; and that, for their sakes for I am persuaded, that an unprejudiced infe must, necessarily, receive some advantageous in pressions from them. July 7. 1744.

the

Contents of the Seventh Night. In the Sixth Night, arguments were drawn from Nature, in proof of immortality: here, others are drawn from man: from his discontent; from his passions and powers; from the gradual growth of reason; from his fear of death; from the nature of hope, and of virtue; from knowledge and l as being the most essential properties of the sou from the order of creation; from the nature ambition; avarice; pleasure. A digression on the grandeur of the passions. Immortality alone re ders our present state intelligible. An objection from the Stoic's disbelief of immortality answered Endless questions unresolvable, but on suppo

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