do not difcover any decay in his parts, but think it deferves a place among the fineft of thofe works with which he obliged the world in his more early years. I am led into this fubject by a vilit which I lately received from my good old friend and contemporary. As we both flourished together in King Charles the Second's reign, we diverted ourselves with the remembrance of feveral parti. culars that paffed in the world before the greatest part of my readers were born, and could not but fimile to think how infenfibly we were grown into a couple of venerable old gentlemen. Tom obferved to me, that, after having written more odes than Horace, and about four times as many comedies as Terence, he was reduced to great difficulties by the importunities of a fet of men, who, of late years, had furnished him with the accommodations of life, and would not, as we fay, be paid with a fong. In order to extricate my old friend, I immediately fent for the three directors of the play-house and defired them that they would in their turn do a good office for a man who, in Shakespeare's phrafe, had often filled their mouths, I mean with pleafantry and popular conceits. They very generously liftened to my propofal, and agreed to act the Plotting Sitters, (a very taking play of my old friend's compofing) on the 15th of the next month, for the benefit of the author.

My kindness to the agreeable Mr. D'Urfey will be imperfect, if, after having engaged the players in his favour, I do not get the town to come into it. I muft therefore heartily recommend to all the young ladies, my difciples, the cafe of my old friend, who has often made their grandmothers merry, and whofe fonnets have perhaps lulled afleep many a prefent toast, when the lay in her cradle.

I have already prevailed on my Lady Lizard to be at the house in one of the front boxes; and defign, if I am in town, to lead her in myself at the head of her daughters. The gentleman I am speaking of has laid obligations on fo many of his countrymen, that I hope they will think this but a juft return to the good fervice of a veteran poet.

I myself remember King Charles the Second leaning on Tom D'Urfey's fhoulder more than once, and humming over

a fong with him. It is certain that monarch was not a little fupported by 'Joy to great Cæfar,' which gave the Whigs fuch a blow as they were not able to recover that whole reign. My friend afterwards attacked Popery with the fame fuccefs, having expofed Bellarmine and Porto-Carero more than once in fhort fatirical compofitions, which have been in every body's mouth. He has made ufe of Italian tunes and fonatas for promoting the Proteftant intereft, and turned a confiderable part of the pope's mufic against himself. In fhort, he has obliged the court with political fonnets, the country with dialogues and paftorals, the city with defcriptions of a lordmayor's feaft, not to mention his little. ode upon Stool-Ball, with many other of the like nature.

Should the very individuals he has celebrated make their appearance toge ther, they would be fufficient to fill the playhoufe. Pretty Peg of Windfor, Gillian of Croydon, with Dolly and Molly, and Tommy and Johny, with many others to be met with in the mufical mifcellanies, entitled, Pills to purge Melancholy,' would make a good benefit night.

As my friend, after the manner of the old lyrics, accompanies his works with his own voice, he has been the delight of the moft polite companies and converfations from the beginning of King Charles the Second's reign to our prefent times. Many an honeft gentleman has got a reputation in his country by pretending to have been in company with Tom D'Urfey.

I might here mention feveral other merits in my friend; as his enriching our language with a multitude of rhimes, and bringing words together, that, without his good offices, would never have been acquainted with one another, fo long as it had been a tongue. But I must not omit that my old friend angles for a trout the best of any man in England. May-flies come in late this feafon, or I myself fhould, before now, have had a trout of his hooking.

After what I have faid, and much more that I might fay, on this fubject, I question not but the world will think that my old friend ought not to pass the remainder of his life in a cage like a finging-bird, but enjoy all that Pindaric liberty which is fuitable to a man of his T

genius.

I

Had this morning a very valuable and kind prefent fent me, of a tranflated work of a moft excellent foreign writer, who makes a very confiderable figure in the learned and Chriftian world. It is entitled, A Demonftration of the • Existence, Wifdom, and Omnipotence ⚫ of God,' drawn from the knowledge of nature, particularly of man, and fitted to the meancit capacity, by the Archbishop of Cambray, author of Telemachus, and tranflated from the French by the fame hand that Englished that excellent piece. This great author, in the writings which he has before produced, has manifefted an heart full of virtuous fentiments, great benevolence to mankind, as well as a fincere and fervent piety towards his Creator. His talents and parts are a very great good to the world, and is is a pleafing thing to behold the polite arts fubfervient to religion, and recommending it from it's natural beauty. Looking over the letters of my correfpondents, I find one which celebrates this treatife, and recommends it to my readers.

SIR,

TO THE GUARDIAN.

I Think I have fomewhere read, in the writings of one whom I take to be a friend of yours, a faying which ftruck me very much, and as I remember it was to this purpofe: The exiftence of a God is fo far from being a thing that wants to be proved, that I think it is the only thing of which we are certain.' This is a fprightly and just expreffion; however, I dare fay, you will not be difpleafed that I put you in mind of faying fomething on the Demonftration of the Bishop of Cambray. A man of his talents views all things in a light different from that in which ordinary men fee them, and the devout difpofition of his foul turns all thofe talents to the improvement of the pleasures of a good life, His ftile cloaths philofophy in a drefs almost poetic, and his readers en

LUCAN

joy in full perfection the advantage, while they are reading him, of being what he is. The pleafing reprefentation of the animal powers in the beginning of his work, and his confideration of the nature of man with the addition of reafon in the fabfequent difcourfe, impreffes upon the mind a strong fatisfaction in itself, and gratitude towards Him who bestowed that fuperiority over the brute world. Thefe thoughts had fuch an effect upon the author himself, that he has ended his difcourfe with a prayer. This adoration has a fublimity in it befitting his character, and the emotions of his heart flow from wisdom and knowledge. I thought it would be proper for Saturday's paper, and have tranflated it to make you a prefent of it. I have not, as the tranflator was obliged to do, confined myself to an exact verfion from the original, but have endeavoured to exprefs the fpirit of it, by taking the liberty to render his thoughts in fuch a way as I fhould have uttered them if they had been my own. It has been obferved, that the private letters of great men are the best pictures of their fouls; but certainly their private devotions would be still more inftru&tive, and I know not why they fhould not be as curious and entertaining.

If you infert this prayer, I know not but I may fend you, for another occafion, one ufed by a very great wit of the laft age, which has allufions to the errors of a very wild life, and I believe you will think it written with an uncommon spirit. The person whom I mean was an excellent writer, and the publication of this prayer of his may be, perhaps, fome kind of antidote against the infection in his other writings. But this fupplication of the bifhop has in it a more happy and untroubled fpirit; it is (if that is not faying fomething too fond) the worship of an angel concerned for thofe who had fallen, but himfelf still in the ftate of glory and innocence. The book ends with an act of devotion, to this effect:

. O my

O my God, if the greater number of mankind do not difcover Thee in that glorious fhow of nature which thou haft placed before our eyes, it is not because Thou art far from every one of us; Thou art prefent to us more than any object which we touch 'with our hands; but our fenfès, and the paffions which they produce in us, ⚫ turn our attention from Thee. Thy Hight fhines in the midst of darkness, but the darknefs comprehends it not. Thou, O Lord, doft every way difplay thyfelf. Thou fhineft in all thy works, but art not regarded by heed⚫ less and unthinking man. The whole ⚫ creation talks aloud of Thee, and echoes ✦ with the repetitions of thy holy name. But fuch is our infenfibility, that we are deaf to the great and univerfal ' voice of nature. Thou art every where about us, and within us; but we wan-' ⚫ der from ourselves, become ftrangers to our own fouls, and do not apprehend thy prefence. O Thou who art ⚫ the eternal fountain of light and beauty, who art the ancient of days, without beginning and without end; O Thou, who art the life of all that truly live, thofe can never fail to find Thee, who feek for Thee within themfelves. But alas, the very gifts ⚫ which Thou beftoweft upon us, do fo employ our thoughts, that they hinder us from perceiving the hand which conveys them to us. We live by Thee, and yet we live without thinking on Thee; but, O Lord, what is life in the ignorance of Thee? A dead unactive piece of matter, a flower that withers, a river that glides away, a palace that haftens to it's ruin, a picture made up of fading colours, a mafs of fhining ore, ftrike our imaginations, and make us fenfible of 'their existence. We regard them as objects capable of giving us pleasure, not confidering that thou conveyest through them all the pleafure which we imagine they give us. Such vain

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empty objects that are only the fhadows of being, are proportioned to our low and grovelling thoughts. That beauty which Thou haft poured out on thy creation, is as a veil which ⚫ hides thee from our eyes. As Thou

my

art a being too pure and exalted to 'pafs through our fenfes, Thou art not re arded by men, who have debafed their nature, and have made themfelves like the beafts that perifh. So infatuated are they, that, notw/ hftanding they know what is w om and virtue, which have neither found, nor colour, nor finell, nor tafte, nor figure, nor any other fenfible quality, they can doubt of thy existence, becaufe thou art not apprehended by the groffer organs of fenfe. Wretches that we are! we confider fhadows as realities, and truth as a phantom. That which is nothing is all to us, and that which is all appears to us nothing. What do we fee in all nature but Thee, O God! Thou, and only Thou, appeareft in every thing. When I confider Thee, O Lord, I am fwallowed · up and loft in contemplation of Thee. Every thing befides thee, even my own · existence, vanishes and difappears in the contemplation of Thee. I am loft to myself, and fall into nothing, when "I think on thee. The man who does not fee thee has beheld nothing; he 'who does not tafte Thee, has a relish of nothing; his being is vain, and his life but a dream. Set up Thyself, O Lord, fet up Thyfelf, that we may behold thec. As wax confumes be'fore the fire, and as the fmoke is driven away, fo let thine enemies vanish out of thy prefence. How unhappy is that foul who, without the fenfe of Thee, has no God, no hope, no comfort to fupport him? But how happy the man who fearches, fighs, and thirits after thee! But he only is fully happy on whom Thou lifteft up the light of thy countenance, whofe tears thou haft wiped away, and who enjoys in thy loving-kindnefs the completion of all his defires. How long, how long, O Lord, fhall I wait for that day, when I fhall poffefs, in thy prefence, fulness of joy, and pleafures for evermore? O my God, in this pleafing hope, my bones rejoice, and cry out, Who is like unto thee!" My heart melts away, and my foul faints within me, when I look up to Thee, "who art the God of my life, and my portion to all eternity!"

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N° LXX.