bacy is popery and hell in perfection. It is the doctrine of devils, and a war with the Almighty. It is against the inftitutions of nature and Providence; and therefore, for ever execrable be the memory of the masspriests, who dare to call it perfection.

My dear Reader, if you are unmarried, and healthy, get a wife as foon as poffible, fome charming girl, or pretty widow, adorned with modefty, robed with meekness, and who has the grace to attract the foul, and heighten every joy continually;-take her to thy breast, and bravely, in holy wedlock, propagate. Defpife and hifs the masspriests, and every vifionary, who preaches the contrary doctrine. They are foes to heaven and mankind, and ought to be drummed out of fociety.

SECTION XI.

Quid quæri, Labiene, jubes ?

An noceat vis ulla bono? Summaque perdat
Oppofita virtute minas? Laudandaque velle
Sit fatis, et nunquam fucceffu crefcat honeftum?
Scimus, et hoc nobis non altius inferet Ammon.
Cato's anfier to Labienus, when he requested him
to confult the oracle of JupiterAinmon.Lucan, B.9.

Where would thy fond, thy vain enquiry go? What myftic fate, what fecret would't thou

know?

If this faid world, with all its forces join'd,
The univerfal malice of mankind,

je }

Can fhake or hurt the brave and honeft mind?

If ftable virtue can her ground maintain,

While fortune feebly threats and frowns in vain ?
If truth and juftice with unrightnefs dwell,
And honefty confift in meaning well;

If right be independent of fuccefs,

And conqueft cannot make it more nor less?
Are thefe, my friend, the fecrets thou would't
know,

Those doubts for which to oracles we go?
'Tis known, 'tis plain, 'tis all already told,
And horned Ammon can no more unfold.

Rowe.

Or thus,

Or thus.

What fhould I ASK, my friend,---if best it be
To live enflav'd, or thus in arms die free!
If it our real happiness import,

Whether life's foolish scene be long or short?
If
any force true honor can abate,

Or fortune's threats make virtue bow to fate?
If when at noble ends we justly aim,
The bare attempt entitles us to fame?
If a bad cause, that juftice would opprefs,
Can ever grow more honeft by fuccefs?
All this we know, wove in our minds it sticks,
Which Ammon nor his priests can deeper fix.
They need not teach with venal cant and pains,
That God's inevitable will holds our's in chains,
Who act but only what he pre-ordains.
He needs no voice to thunder out his law,
Or keep his creatures wild defires in awe :
Both what we ought to do, or what forbear,
He once for all did at our births declare :
What for our knowledge needful was or fit,
With lafting characters in human foul he writ.
But never did he seek out defert lands
To fkulk, or bury truth in defert sands,
Or to a corner of the world withdrew,
Head of a fect, and partial to a few.
Nature's vaft fabrick he controuls alone;
This globe's his footstool, high heaven his throne.
Eftque Dei fedes, ubi terra, et pontus, et aer,
Etcælum, et virtus. Superos quid quærimus ultra?,
In earth, fea, air, and what e'er else excels,
In knowing heads, and honeft hearts he dwells.
Why vainly feek we then in barren fands,
In narrow fhrines, and temples built with hands,
HIM,

G 5

HIM, whofe dread prefence does all places fill,
Or look, but in our reafon for his will!
Whate'er we see is God, in all we find
Apparent prints of his eternal mind.
Sortileges egeant dubii femperque, futuris
Cafibus Ancipetes: me non oracula certum,
Sed mors certa facit: pavido fortique cadendum eft,
Hoc fatis eft dixiffe jovem. Sic illa profatur.
Let floating fools their courfe by prophets fteer,
And live of future chances ftill in fear;
No oracle or dream the crowd is told,

Shall make me more or less refolv'd and bold;
Death is my fure retreat, which muft on all,
As well on cowards, as on the gallant fall.
This faid he turn'd him with difdain about,
And left fcorn'd Ammon to amuse the rout. (15)
Non exploratum populis Ammona relinquens.

The unfortunate death of Mifs Turner, the author's fifth wife.

S. I. OR fix weeks af

"F

ter our marriage, we refided at the inn, on ac

count of the charms of the ground, and feemed to be in poffeffion of a lafting happiness it is impoffible for words to defcribe. Every - thing

(15) The temple of Jupiter Ammon was fituated on the fouth part of the defarts of Lybia, about 200 miles from the borders of Egypt. These defarts confifting of fluctuating fands are of a vaft unknown extent, and by the rifing of the wind, roll like waves of the fea, fall like fnow, and have buried whole armies :

But

thing was fo smooth and fo round, that we thought profperity must be our own for many years to come, and were quite fecure from the flames of destruction; but calamity laid hold of us, when we had not the leaft reafon to expect it, and from a fulness of peace and felicity, we funk at once into an abyfs of afflictions. Inftead

of

But the spot in the middle of which the temple ftood, is fine fixed land, feven miles in circumference, richly planted and watered with fountains and ftreams; a delightful and healthful place, though the vast defarts all round are fcorching fands, without fo much as one well or rivulet to be seen any where. Alexander the Great was there in the year 332 or 1 before Christ. And Cato in the year before Chrift 46. Lucan gives a fine description of this march of Cato in his IXth book. And of the spot where Ammon reigned, fays

Here, and here only, through wide Lybia's space,
Tall trees, the land, and verdant herbage grace.
Here the loofe fands by plenteous fprings are bound,
Knit to a mafs, and moulded into ground:
Here fmiling nature wears a fertile drefs,
And all things here the present God confefs.

The Latin is vaftly fine.

Effe locis fuperos teftatur fylva per omnem Sola virens Libyen, nam quicquid pulvere ficco Separat ardentem tepida berenicida lepti, Ignorat frondes. Solus nemus abftulit Ammon. Sylvarum fons caufa loco, qui putria terræ Alligat, et domitas unda connectit arenas.