the food and fupport of others, whose fouls may be neceffary to prepare and preferve their bodies for that purpose, and may at the fame time be happy in a consciousness of their own existence. 'Tis probable they are intended to promote each others good reciprocally: Nay, man himfelf contributes to the happiness *, and betters the condition of the brutes in feveral respects, by cultivating and improving the ground, by watching the feafons, by protecting and providing for them, when they are unable to protect and provide for themselves." Thefe are the words of Dr. Law, in his learned Commentary on King's Origin of Evil, first published in Latin, 1701, a work of penetration and close reasoning; which, it is remarkable, Bayle had never read, but only fome extracts from it, when he firft wrote his famous article of the Paulicians, in his * That very life his learned hunger craves, Dictionary, where he has artfully employed all that force and acuteness of argument, which he certainly poffeffed, in promoting the gloomy and uncomfortable scheme of Scepticism or Manicheism. 36. And reafon raife o'er instinct as you can, In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man *. THERE is a fine obfervation of Montefquieu, concerning the condition of brutes. They are deprived of the high advantages we enjoy; but they have fome which we want. They have not our hopes, but then they are without our fears; they are fubject like us to death, but it is without knowing it; most of them are even * Ep. iii. 97. + We ought not to be blind to the faults of this fine writer, whatever applause he deferves in general. But it must be confeffed, that his ftyle is too fhort, abrupt, and epigrammatic; he tells us himself, he was fond of Lucius Florus; and he believed too credulously, and laid too great a stress upon, the relations of voyage-writers and travellers; as indeed did Locke, for which he is ridiculed by Shaftesbury, vol. i. p. 344, of the Characteristics. If Shaftesbury, faid the great Bishop Butler, had lived to fee the candor and moderation of the present times, in difcuffing religious fubjects, he would have been a good chriftian.. more more attentive than we are to felf-prefervation; and they do not make so bad a use of their paffions. B. i. c. I. 37. Who taught the nations of the field and wood To fhun their poifon, and to chufe their food? Prefcient, the tides or tempefts to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand * ? THIS paffage is highly finished; fuch objects are more fuited to the nature of poetry than abstract ideas. Every verb and epithet has here a defcriptive force. We find more imagery from these lines to the end of the epistle, than in any other parts of this Effay. The origin of the connexions in focial life, the account of the state of nature, the rise and effects of superftition and tyranny, and the restoration of true religion and just government, all these ought to be mentioned as paffages that deserve high applause, nay as fome of the moft exalted pieces of English poetry. 38. Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade +. † Ver. 152. *Ver. 99. H 3 LUCRE LUCRETIUS, agreeably to his uncomfortable system, has prefented us with a different, and more horrid picture of this state of nature. The calamitous condition of man is exhibited by images of much energy, and wildness of fancy. Sæcla ferarum Infeftam miferis faciebant fæpe quietem : He reprefents afterwards fome of these wretched mortals mangled by wild beasts, and running diftracted with pain through. the woods, with their wounds undreffed and putrifying: At quos effugium fervârat, corpore adeso, Expertes opis, ignaros quid volnera vellent *. Pain is forcibly expreffed by the action defcribed in the fecond line, and by the epithet tremulas. 39. The shrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undrest, Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless prieft *. THE effect of alliteration is here felt by the reader. But at what period of time could this be justly faid, if we confider the very early institution of facrifice, according to the fcripture-account of this venerable rite? 40. Ah! how unlike the man of times to come! OVID, on the fame topic, has nothing fo manly and emphatical. "Hears the general groan," is nobly expreffed, and the circumftance of betraying his own fpecies, is an unexpected and ftriking addition to the foregoing fentiment. Thomson has enlarged on this doctrine, with that tenderness and humanity for which he was fo justly beloved, in his Spring, at verse three hundred and thirty. Our poet afcribes the violence of the paffions to the use of animal food. * Ep. iii. 156. † Ep. iii. 161. H 4 But |