ligion, the ordaining that the life of some should be supported always by the death of others, I should believe it right, though unintelligible; for what goodness hath evidently appointed is good; and I would have reprimanded the reluctance of my heart for disliking what the Author of nature, the Father of mercies hath chosen. But I think I see clearly the wisdom and benevolence of this scheme of things; my reason is convinced, but my aversion to misery is so indiscreetly strong, that it overpowers my judgment, and I am downright vicious, out of an excess of goodness. This prevents my joining in the amusements of the place, this and my laziness together; and though I am in a crowd of company, I spend my day in solitude. I am, &c.

BODY

INSTID

LETTER X.

DR. THOMAS RUNDLE TO MRS. SANDYS.

MADAM,

NY

July, 16, 1730. I HAVE presumed to send you a present of Mr. Thomson's Seasons; a volume, on which reason bestows as many beauties as imagination. It is a subject, that our first parents would have sung in Paradise, had they never been seduced, by the serene flattery of false knowledge, to forsake humility and innocence. But they would scarcely have excited, by what they sung, a purer praise of virtue or higher raptures of adoration, than will warm your heart, when you read the descrip

tion of these rural scenes of the graces and benevolence of nature. Such writings give dignity to leisure, and exalt entertainment and amusements into devotion. If I praise the performance more than it deserves, consider it as. an honest art of giving value to my present: for I would not willingly offer any thing to you, of which I had not a high esteem. But I confess, I am so fond of poetry, that every attempt to unite and marry it to virtue, is extremely agreeable to me and I can, on such occasions, scarcely forbear composing their epithalamium. Hail sacred verse, thou eldest offspring of human ingenuity! before letters were invented, numbers and the music of regularly unequal syllables retained those histories in the memory of mankind, which then there was no outward learning to preserve. By thee those sons of reason, arts, philosophy, and laws, were nourished and educated; men were civilized, and society made delightful. The chronicles of the Bards and the instruction of the Druids on every duty and ornament of life were adorned by harnony, and by pleasing imagination were remem. bered with ease.

How much better known is the hunting on Chiviot, than the glorious deeds of our ancestors at Cressy and Agincourt? In verse oracles were delivered to mankind. The sublimity, and beauty, and difficulty of that measured language were thought a proof that it came from more than mortal beings. Men have not been unwilling to acknowledge every astonishing accomplishment to be owing to the assistance of some divinity; that whilst they praised those noble abilities they might comfort

their own vanity, and not think any of their brethren naturally so very much their superiors: for an oak was still an oak, though Jove returned his answers from it.

In verse, men offered up their gratitude in temples, though sanctity of manners and an barmony of life were a more acceptable sacrifice than the most exalted hymn; yet he who hath poured beauty, and order, and regularity over all his works, reason cries aloud, surely delights in beauty. What he delights in is amiable, and it is our honour and privilege to delight in it also: to admonish and assist us in doing this, they argued, "let us consecrate every thing truly great, proportioned, and graceful, in human arts and inventions to his service."

Poetry and music were thus introduced into public worship. The care of a decency in ranging and giving harmony to the order of their words taught an higher care of the infinitely more sublime, more pleasing decency of a right conduct in life; and a right harmony amidst the affections of the heart. Devotion was thus deemed slovenly and careless and uninstructive, when separated from verse: like coming into the presence of a king undressed, it was a negligence which was interpreted disrespect. The desire of communicating knowledge to each other, and expressing the gratitude and thankfulness with which they glowed towards Heaven, gave birth to the sweet art of adding music to words. They joined uniformity and variety (in which every sort of beauty consists) to the measures with which their sentences moved from the tongue. But a love of

money and trade at last invented letters, embodied thought, and made sounds become visible and immortal.

There was then no longer a necessity to embalm stories in verse, to induce men to remember them; because they could now be engraved on marble, or, what is more durable, on paper, and last to future ages in spite of the carelessness of the present. Men having now their hearts turned to the adoration of the new goddess, daughter of trade, unnecessary riches, neglected the pomp and dignity of that worship, which was their joy, whilst innocence and contentment with nature's bounty governed them. Verse, therefore, and the laboured simplicity of its charms, were no longer cultivated for the temple, but the tawdry beauties which trade invented, banished her thence to seat themselves in her place. Gold and embroidery, sculpture and painting, wantoned with mimic finery, to captivate the heart, and recommended and pleaded for the service of that idol Superstition, because she in return pleaded for their high use and religious value.

When poetry was degraded from being the priestess of nature, she soon was seduced to lend her office to meaner purposes, and became the servant of every passion in the temper; and vanity and love chiefly retained her in their service, and flattery and lasciviousness were soon made too agreeable by her assistance. How worthy therefore is the design of chiding her meanness, to recal her to her first high office of adorning piety, and raising an ambition after virtue! This is the intention of Mr Thomson's work, which I send you.

I am willing to be blind to every imperfection, where so worthy a wish guided the pen. But what are the imperfections! a rough or hard word, now and then indulged to lift his numbers above prose, and make the paltry jingle of rhyme unnecessary; the repetition of the same phrase, every where highly proper perhaps; but the warmth of writing concealed from him the remembrance, that the reader is, though the writer is not, cool enough to demand variety; a hint not worked up to the height, to which our unexperienced imagination thinks it might be carried; but if we had tried ourselves, we should wonder at the dignity to which words have raised it. These and such mighty imperfections offend those who are untouched enough to be so minutely judicious. But the sentiments of liberty, of virtue, of generous manly piety, hurry away my approbation, and I have not leisure enough to be sagacious.

The most amusing paintings of poetry, that swiftly transport me from scene to scene of nature, ever charming, ever wonderful, so fill my heart with rapture, that I forget the poet and myself, and am only attentive on him and his works, whose goodness ordained the present only useful proportion of these changes, which are in all their majesty of wisdom placed before my reason to demand its gratitude. Out of the abundance of the heart the pen as well as the tongue speaketh, and my love of poetry hath made me forget, to what > an indecent length of praise I have suffered it to ramble, and take up that paper, which should be allotted to more epistolary subjects.

I yesterday was at Asted; my lord is better,