'Twas an unclouded sky: The day-star sat
On highest noon: No breezes fann'd the grove,
Nor the musicians of the air pursu'd

Their artless warblings; while the sultry day
Lay all diffus'd and slumbering on the bosom
Of the white lily, the perfum'd jonquil,
And lovely blushing rose. Then first my harp,
Labouring with childish innocence and joy,
Brake silence, and awoke the smiling hour
With infant notes, saluting the fair skies,
(Heaven's highest work) the fair enamell'd meads,
And tall green shades along the winding banks
Of Avon gently flowing. Thence my days
Commenc'd harmonious; there began my skill
To vanquish care care by the sweet-sounding string
Hail happy hour, O blest remembrance hail!
And banish woes for ever. Harps were made
For heaven's beatitudes: There Jesse's son
Tunes his bold lyre with majesty of sound,
To the creating and all-ruling power
Not unattentive: While ten thousand tongues
Of hymning seraphs and disbodied saints,
Echo the joys and graces round the hills
Of paradise, and spread Messiah's name.

Transporting bliss! Make haste, ye rolling spheres,
Ye circling suns, ye winged minutes haste.

Fulfil my destin'd period here, and raise

The meanest son of harmony to join

In that celestial concert.

IV.-The Hebrew Poet.

This Ode represents the Difficulty of a just Translation of the Psalms of David, in all their Hebrew Glory; with an Apology for the Imitation of them in Christian Language. (The first Hint borrowed from Casimire, Jessaa quisquis, &c. Ode 7.)

Book IV.

Sir John Denham, who gained great reputation by his poem called Cooper'sHill, failed in his translation of the Psalms of David.

V.-The thankful Philosopher.

AMONG all the useful and entertaining studies of philosophy, there is none so worthy of man as the science of human nature. There is none that furnishes us with more wonders of divine wisdom, or gives higher occasion to adore divine goodness. Charistus, a gentleman of great piety and worth, has spent many an hour upon this delightful theme. In the midst of his meditations one day, he was debating thus with himself, and enquiring what sort of being he was :

Now I stand, said he, now I lie down; I rise again and walk, I eat, drink and sleep; my pulse beats, and I draw the breath of life: Surely I have the parts and powers of an animal; I am a living body of flesh and blood, a wonderful engine, with many varieties of motion. But let me consider also what other actions I perform.

I think, I meditate and contrive, I compare things and judge of them; now I doubt, and then I believe; I will what I act, and sometimes wish what I cannot act: I desire and hope for what I have not, as well as am conscious of what I have, and rejoice in it: I look backward, and survey ages past, and I look forward into what is to come: Surely 1 must be a spirit, a thinking power, a soul, something very distinct from this machine of matter with all its shapes and

motions.

Mere matter put into all possible motion, can never think, reason, and contrive, can never hope and wish, as I do, and survey distant times, the past and future: Yet it is as impossible also that a mind, a soul, should walk or lie down, should eat or drink; but I feel, I know, I am assured I do all these. I perform some actions that cannot belong to a spirit, and some that flesh and blood can never pretend to.

What am I then? What strange kind of being is this, which is conscious of all these different agencies, both of matter and spirit? What sort of thing can I be, who seem to think and reason in my head, who feel and am conscious of pain or ease, not at my heart only, but at my toes and fingers too? I conclude then, I can be nothing else but a compound creature, made up of these two distinct beings, spirit and matter; or, as we usually express it, soul and body.

It is very plain also to me, upon a small enquiry, that this body and this soul did not make themselves, nor one another.But did not I myself join these two different natures together when they were made? Did not my soul take this body into union with itself? By no means; for the first moment that I knew any thing of myself, I found the powers of thought working in an animal nature; that is, I found myself such a com

pounded being as I now am; I had no more hand in the union of these two principles, or in the composition of myself, than I bad in the making of those two distinct beings of which I am compounded: It was God only, that great God who created both parts of me, the animal and the mind, who also joined them together in so strange an union; and if I were to enter into the mysteries of this union, it would open a wide and various scene of amazement at his unsearchable wisdom.

But let me examine a little : Was there no ancient and early kindred between this particular spirit and this flesh of mine, this mind and this animal? Is there no original relation, no essential harmony and special congruity between my body and my soul, that should make their union necessary? None at all that I can find, either by my sense or reflection, my reason or experience. These two beings have dwelt above thirty years together, strangely united into one, and yet I have never been able to trace any one instance of previous kindred between them. This mind might have been paired with any other human body; or this body with any other mind. I can find nothing but the sovereign will of God that joined this mind and this animal body together, and made the wondrous compound : It was he ordained ine to be what I am, in all the circumstances of my pativity."

Seest thou, O my soul, that unhappy cripple lying at thy neighbour's door, that poor mis-shapen piece of human nature? Mark how useless are his limbs! he can neither support nor feed himself. Look over against him, there sits one that was blind from his birth, and begs his bread, if thou hadst been originally united to either of these pieces of flesh and blood, then hadst thou been that poor cripple, or that very blind beggar.

Yonder lies a piteous spectacle, a poor infant that came into the world but three months ago, its flesh covered with ulcers, and its bones putrifying with its father's 'sins: I hear its whining cries, and long piteous wailings; its bitter groans touch my heart, and awaken all my tenderness: Let me stand and reflect a little. Surely I had been that wretched thing, that little, pining, perishing infant, and all those pains and agonies had been mine, if God had reserved my soul in his secret counsels till a few months ago, and then confined it to that unhappy mansion of diseased and dying flesh.

Once more let my eyes affect my heart. What a strange aukward creature do I see there! The form of it is as the form of a man, but its motions seem to be more irregular, and the animal more senseless than a very beast: Yet they tell me, it is almost forty years old. It might have been by this time a statesman, a philosopher, general of an army, or a learned divine; but reason could never act nor shew itself in that disor

dered engine. The tender brain was ruffled perhaps, and the parts of it disturbed in the very embryo, or perhaps it was shaken with convulsions when it first saw the light, but the place of its birth was the same with mine, and the neighbours say, it was born the next door to me. How miserable had I been, if, when the body was prepared, my soul had received order to go but one door farther, to fix its mortal dwelling there, and to manage that poor disabled machine! And if the spirit also that resides there had been united to my flesh, it had been a sad exchange for me: That idiot had been all that I was by nature, and I had been that idiot.

My meditations may rove farther abroad, may survey past ages and distant nations, and by the powers of fancy, I may set myself in the midst of them.

Had this spirit of mine been joined to a body formed in Lapland or Malabar, I had worshipped the images of Thor or Bramma; and perhaps I had been a Lapland wizard with a conjuring drum, or a Malabarian priest, to wear out my life in ridiculous eastern ceremonies.

Had my soul been formed and united to a British body fifteen hundred years ago, I had been a painted Briton, a rude idolater, as well as my fathers; a superstitious druid had been my highest character, and I should have paid my absurd devotions to some fancied deity in a huge hollow oak, and lived and died in utter ignorance of the true God, and of Jesus my Saviour. Or had my spirit been sent to Turkey, Mahomet had been my prophet, and the ridiculous stories of the Alcoran had been all my hope of eternal life.

If Gnatho the flatterer stood by, I know what he would Bay, for he has told me already, that as my stature is tall and manly, so my genius is too sublime and bright to be buried under those clouds of darkness. Last week he practised upon my vanity, so far as to say, "Charistus has a soul and reason which would have led him to the knowledge of the true God, if he had been born in the wilds of America, and had for his father a savage Iroquois, or his ancestors had been all Naraganset Indians.” But I gave him a just and sharp reproof for his want of sense, as well as for his flattery.

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Fond foolish man, to imagine there are no geniuses which outshine me in the wild and barbarous world, no bright and sublime intellects but those which are appointed to act their part in the nations of Europe! Good sense and natural smartness are scattered among most of the nations of mankind. There are ingenious Africans, American wits, philosophers and poets in Malabar; there are both the sprightly and the stupid, the foolish and the wise, on this and on the other side of the great Atlantic ocean: But the brighter powers of nature cannot exert them