And startles thousands with a signal fall.

As when some stately growth of oak, or pine,
Which nods aloft and proudly spreads her shade, 1015
The Sun's defiance, and the flock's defence,

By the strong strokes of labouring hinds subdued

Loud groans her last; and rushing from her height, In cumbrous ruin thunders to the ground;

The conscious forest trembles at the shock,

1020

And hill, and stream, and distant dale resound.
These high-aim'd darts of Death, and these alone,
Should I collect, my quiver would be full;
A quiver which, suspended in mid air,

Or near heaven's archer, in the zodiac, hung

1025

(So could it be,) should draw the public eye,
The gaze and contemplation of mankind!
A constellation awful, yet benign,

1030

To guide the gay through Life's tempestuous wave,
Nor suffer them to strike the common rock;
'From greater danger to grow more secure,
And, wrapp'd in happiness, forget their fate.'
Lysander, happy past the common lot,
Was warn'd of danger, but too gay to fear
He woo'd the fair Aspasia; she was kind.

All who knew envied; yet in envy loved :
Can Fancy form more finish'd happiness?

1035

In youth, form, fortune, fame, they both were bless'd

Fix'd was the nuptial hour. Her stately dome

Rose on the sounding beach. The glittering spires

Float in the wave, and break against the shore; 104]
So break those glittering shadows, human joys.
The faithless morning smiled: he takes his leave
To reembrace, in ecstasies, at eve:

The rising storm forbids: the news arrives;

Untold she saw it in her servant's eye.

She felt it seen (her heart was apt to feel,)

And drown'd, without the furious ocean's aid,
In suffocating sorrows shares his tomb.
Now round the sumptuous bridal monument

1045

1050

The guilty billows innocently roar,
And the rough sailor, passing, drops a tear.
A tear?-can tears suffice-but not for me
How vain our efforts! and our arts how vain.
The distant train of thought I took, to shun,
Has thrown me on my fate.-These died together;
Happy in ruin! undivorced by death!

Or ne'er to meet, or ne'er to part, is peace.

Narcissa! Pity bleeds at thought of thee;
Yet thou wast only near me, not myself.
Survive myself?-that cures all other woe.
Narcissa lives; Philander is forgot.

O the soft commerce!-O the tender ties,
Close twisted with the fibres of the heart!

1050

1060

Which broken, break them, and drain off the soul 1065 Of human joy, and make it pain to live.—

And is it then to live? When such friends part, 'Tis the survivor dies.-My heart! no more.

NIGHT VI.

THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

IN TWO PARTS.

CONTAINING THE

NATURE, PROOF, AND IMPORTANCE OF IMMORTALITY

PART I.

WHERE, AMONG OTHER THINGS,

GLORY AND RICHES ARE PARTICULALY CONSIDERED

PREFACE.

FEW ages have been deeper in dispute about religion than this. The dispute about religion, and the practice of it, seldom go together. The shorter, therefore, the dispute, the better. I think it may be reduced to this single question, 'Is man immortal, or is he not ?' If he is not, all our disputes are mere amusements, or trials of skill. In this case, truth, reason, religion, which give our discour es such poinp and solem nity, are (as will be shown) mere en.pty sounds, without any meaning in them: but if man is immortal, it will behove him to be very serious about eternal consequences; or, in cther words, to be truly religious. And this great fundamental truth, unestablished, or unawakened in the minds of men, is, I conceive, the real source and support of all our infidelity, how remote soever the particular objections advanced may seem to be from it.

Sensible appearances affect most men much more than abstract reasonings; and we daily see bodies drop around us, but the soul is invisible. The power which inclination has over the judgment is greater than can be well conceived by

those that have not had an experience of it; and of what nunbers is it the sad interest that souls should not survive? The heathen world confessed that they rather hoped, than firmly believed, immortality! and how many heathens have we still amongst us! The Sacred Page assures us, that 'life and immortality is brought to light by the Gospel;' but by how many is the Gospel rejected or overlooked? From these considerations, and from my being, accidentally privy to the sentiments of some particular persons, I have been long persuaded that most, if not all our infidels (whatever name they take, and whatever scheme for argument's sake, and to keep themselves in countenance, they patronize) are supported in their deplorable error by some doubt of their immortality, at the bottom: and I am satisfied, that men once thoroughly convinced of their immortality, are not far from being Christians: for it is hard to conceive that a man, fully conscious eternal pain or happiness will certainly be his lot, should not earnestly and impartially inquire after the surest means of escaping one, and securing the other: and of such an earnest and impartial inquiry I well know the consequence.

Here, therefore, in proof of this most fundamental truth, some plain arguments are offered; arguments derived from principles which infidels admit in common with believers; arguments which appear to me altogether irresistible; and such as, I am satisfied, will have great weight with all who give themselves the small trouble of looking seriously into their own bosoms, and of observing with any tolerable degree of attention, what daily passes round about them in the world. If some arguments shall here occur which others have declined, they are submitted, with all deference, to better judgments, in this, of all points, the most important! for as to the being of a God, that is no longer disputed; but it is undisputed for this reason only, viz. because where the least pretence to reason is ad mitted, it must for ever be indisputable: and, of consequence, no man can be betrayed into a dispute of that nature by vanity, which has a principal share in animating our modern comhatants against other articles of our belief.

THE INFIDEL RECLAIMED.

PART THE FIRST.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY PELHAM,

FIRST LORD COMMISSIONER OF THE TREASURY, AND
CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.

SHE* (for I know not yet her name in Heaven)
Not early, like Narcissa, left the scene,
Nor sudden, like Philander. What avail?
This seeming mitigation but inflames;
This fancied medicine heightens the disease.
The longer known, the closer still she grew,
And gradual parting is a gradual death.
'Tis the grim tyrant's engine which extorts,
By tardy pressure's still increasing weight,
From hardest hearts confession of distress.

10

O the long dark approach, through years of pain, Death's gallery! (might I dare to call it so) With dismal doubt and sable terror hung,

Sick Hope's pale lamp its only glimmering ray:

There Fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,
Forbid self-love itself to flatter there.
How oft I gazed, prophetically sad!

15

How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles!
In smiles she sunk her grief to lessen mine:
She spoke me comfort, and increased my pain.
Like powerful armies trenching at a town,
By slow and silent, but resistless sap,
In his pale progress gently gaining ground,
*Referring to Night the Fifth.

20