mini datis," was both daring, and novel; fo the experiment, and its Confequence, afford a noble field for the flights of poetry. The Ode, I now offer, is the production of a gentleman well known in the Literary World; by whofe indulgence I am permitted to make it public.-The whole piece poffeffes no common merit : yet, as far as I am competent to decide, the firft and third ftanzas are the most perfect parts of it.Thefe ftanzas contain a richnefs, and delicacy of fentiment; cloathed in an elegance of expreffion, rarely furpaffed in fuch performances.-I may alfo add, with great truth, that the numbers are fmooth, and the allufions natural.-Of the other ftanzas it will, perhaps, be obferved, by fagacious critics, that "the rhyme is not always accurate," But I anfwer,-that, if. this in accuracy be, in the prefent inftance, an imperfection, it is an imperfection of inferior confideration -The first thing in all poetical compofition is, undoubtedly, the grandeur and implicity of the thought: the rhyme obtains but a fubordinate gradation in the fcale of merit.-The Ode, from its nature, and the variety of objects about which it is employed, is a variable, and often arbitrary fpecies of verfification.-To chaunt the praifes of gods, or heroes worthily; -to record their dangers, or their atchievements;-is an undertaking that occupies the whole mind.—Ă greater latitude of compofition in this cafe is, of courfe, allowed; because the bard, filled with the dignity of his fubject*, or towering into the regions of imagination, may be prefumed to be fometimes borne a way beyond the nicer rules of art. Dryden's Ode for St. Cecilia's Day ftands confeffedly at the head of modern Lyric compofitions :yet Johnfon obferves of it, "that fome of the lines are deftitute of "Sublimi feriam fidera vertice." Has. correfpondent rhymes."-Horace makes himself a new fpecies of ver fification in his eighth Ode,-"Lydia, dic, per omnes," &c.-Aid Virgil, the most perfect of Epic poets, has his hemifticks, and his breaks. I mean not, Mr. Urban, from thefe obfervations, to infer, that, by fuch examples, occafional aro malies are to be recommended; bat that by fuch authorities they are to be defended.-In any kind of literary compofition, a departure from rules, which criticifm and tafte have eftablished,—is admi tea, rather than juflified.-And, it is only when we gain in the fentiment more than we lofe in the mecha nifm, that we are fatisfied with the alteration. WENMAN LANGTON, "SONS of Genius, droop, and languish, Heave the figh, and hang the head; Robb'd her of her firm ally: Threw her fav'rite from the sky. Sailing with fupreme dominion Through the azure deep of air! And to wreak their vengeful ire, He fell,-he perish'd on the ftrand; "The TRINITARIAN ANALOGY; or, a Short Way to the Chriftian Doctrine of a Trinity in Unity. 1. Man confifts of a foul and a body; and as his foul is fupported by the power of God, fo is his body fupported by the powers of Nature. “II. God having always taught man invifible things, the objects of faith, by fome reference to things vifible, the objects of fense, he has given us an understanding of his own divine nature, by fhewing us how to take our ideas of it from thofe agents or powers which govern the visible world. "III. But the powers of Nature, by which all natural life and motion are preferved, are three, namely, air, and fire, and light. Experience fhews this to all the world. The most ignorant are fenfible of it; and the most learned cannot contradict it. Thefe powers are all prefent when ever a candle is lighted: without air it cannot fubfift; it burns as fire; and it illuminates as light. "IV. These three powers, thus fubfift. ing together in unity, are applied in the Holy Scripture to the three perfons of the Divine Nature. We are expreffly taught that God is a confuming fire; that Jefus Chrift is the ligbs of the world, and the fun of righteoufnefs; and the Holy Ghoft is called, the spirit, after the name of the air or wind; for that is the meaning of the word Spirit. "Therefore, God is fire, God is light, and God is fpirit. "V. The manifeftations of God to man (which it is wonderful to confider) have always been under one or other of thefe figns. On Mount Sinai he appeared as a confuming fire. To the difciples at his transfiguration, and to Paul at his converfion, Jefus Chrift appeared in a light which exceeded the brightness of the fun. In the Old Testament he is to be underftood by the glory of the Lord; and in the New he is the brightness of bis glory, and the exprefs image of bis perfon, as light is the glory of fire, and conveys the image of it; that is, as the image of the fun is imprinted upon all nature by its own light. The manifeftation of the Holy Ghoft on the day of Pentecoft was under the form of a rufbing mighty wind coming down from heaven; and, when our Lord communi cated the Holy Ghoft to his difciples, he did it under the outward fign of breathing upon them; to fignify, that the Holy Ghoft is the breath of the Divine Life; and that, as we speak by our own spirit or breath, fo, if we fpeak by infpiration from God, the spirit of God gives us utterance. The word infpiration always implied this. Nature and the perfons of the Godhead, fo plain in the Scripture, will give a new profpect of the Chriftian doctrine; and will fhew, at the fame time, that the boafted Unitarian opinion, of a fingle perfon in the Godhead, has nothing in nature to fupport it; and, heing unnatural, is, according to a rule of the Socinians, increible. For they have objected, that the belief of the Trinity is abfurd, because it is a doctrine of which we have no ideasy and confequently can have no understanding. "Now, although it is certainly falfe to fay, that, if we had no ideas of a Trinity, we are therfore not to receive it on the teflimony of Ged; for that would fuppofe our understanding to be the measure of all truth, which no man will be fo bold as to affert: yet, if it were to be allowed that we cannot believe without ideas; here they are, felected and applied by the Word of God from the creation of God and, if due juftice were done to their teftimony, the whole world would be Trinetarran, and join with Chriftians upon eth, as Chriftians fhall join with angels in heaven, giving Glory to the Father and the Son, and to the Holy Ghoft, Three Puffons and One God.' The Trinitarian analogy is no new difcovery. The wife and learned have long been in poffeffion of it. It only wanted to be brought out to view, and properly infifted upon; and this is the proper time, when Infidelity infults us for believing without ideas. "Abbé Le Pluche observed, many years fince, there are but three known fluids in nature, which, by their continual activity, are the principles of all motion; and thele are light, fire, and air. The application of thefe to the Divine Trinity was known to the primitive Chriftian Church. Are not these three perfons (fays Epiphanius) properly understood by every one as light, fire, and fpirit, reveal them to us?' « Ουκ εν τρια ταυλα αλλα-εκας» αξίως να surva, nabw; caula amonahumley Qus, II Пnua. Edit. Colon. vol. I. p. 891." Mr. URBAN, You N. S. Mar. 12. O. S. Feb. 29. OUR prefent correspondent is one of a number the ranks of which every day is vifibly reducing. He well remembers the effect which the alteration of the ftyle' produced on the public mind in the year 1752, and the confequences which enfued, ferious in fome inftances, in others rather of a ludicrous nature. May he be permit "This rel-tion between the powers of * I thall never forget an itinerant orator of that his day, who was mounted on a joint. flool near the Royal Exchange, and whom, as I paffed by, I heard declaiming in an empaffioned style, and with the true oratorical flourish, against the measures of Admi niftration. ted to add, that he cannot quite diveft himself, to the prefent hour, of all his antient prejudices? And that, though his reafon and his arithmetic are bowed down by the weight of Gregorian argument, his fancy and attachments, from early habit, and familiarity with the old arrangement of time, cannot entirely diveft themselves of a tendency to Julianifin? To the writer of this letter, the feafons ftill feem to preferve their antique fyftem, and to refufe allegiance to modern chronologers. But this is matter of opinion, perchance of whim: I wifh to call your attention, and that of your readers, to a matter of fact; obvious enough, but which I do not happen to have feen infiftedon. On fome occafions, particularly on that biennial vifit which the favourites of Fortune pay to the Bank of England, regard is ftill had to the old computation of time. The Midfummer and Chriftinas dividends are stated to become due on the 5th of July and January, as reprefenting the obfolete 24th of June and 25th of December. But, Sir, from this day forward, it will not be the 5th, but the 6th, of July and January which can with propriety be confidered as old Midfummer-day and old Christmas-day. The act of 26 Geo. II. which en be a difference of thirteen days between the two computations of time. It is a notorious fact that. till Feb. 29. 1700, O S. there was only a difference of ten days between the old and new ftyles. I know not whether the gentle men of the Bank will make any use of this fact. It must strike every one at once as incontrovertible. Perhaps it is of little confequence at the prefent day, except with fuch of your correfpondents and readers, who have 'connections friendly or commercial with Ruffia, where the old ftyle is ftill obferved, and with refpect to which country fome errors will perhaps take place if this neceflary alteration of the refpective fyftems be not attended to. You have very properly configned to their fate the learned arguments of thofe fapient gentlemen, whofe algebra fays 99=100, and who contend that the 18th century has actually expired. But this letter on a lefs irrelevant fubje&t, I hope, will be honoured with a place. SEPTUAGENARIUS. P. S. There will be no increased difference in the centurial year 2000, that being a leap-year under both chronological arrangements. Mr. URBAN, Mach 3 F"An Academic," vol. LXIX. " 66 firft word which he quotes, aver- joins the obfervation of the Grego-1045 bad attended to the gorian Calendar, provides for the omiflion, or rather extinction, of the 29th day of Feb. which fhould have otherwife been added to this centurial year. The Julian, or old tyle, fill preferves that day; fo that this 12th of March, new ftyle, does not reprefent the 1ft of March, as it has done in all other years fince 1752, but the Julian 29th of February-to-morrow, March 13, will be the old first of March; and the difference in computation will be increased for the next century one whole day. A fimilar circumftance will again take place in Feb.Mar. 1900, after which there will nitration. "They rob us of our money," fad the tallow, "an 5 v rob us of our time too. What d'ye think they did with the eleven days they took from us in paft ver tember? Why, they fent them to Hanover: d-e, they fent 'em all, every one of then, to Hanover !!!” Mr. |