been propagated in the most wonderful manner? Which hath surmounted the greatest difficulties, or shewed the most disinterested zeal and sincerity in its professors? He will inquire, which best accords with nature and history? He will consider, what favors of the world, and what looks like wisdom from above? He will be careful to separate human alloy from that which is divine; and upon the whole, form his judgment like a reasonable freethinker. But instead of taking such a rational course, one of those hasty sceptics shall conclude without demurring, that there is no wisdom in politics, no honesty in dealings, no knowledge in philosophy, no truth in religion and all by one and the same sort of inference, from the numerous examples of folly, knavery, ignorance and error, which are to be met with in the world. But, as those, who are unknowing in every thing else, imagine themselves sharp-sighted in religion, this learned sophism is oftenest levelled against christianity. *

*

Thinking is the great desideratum of the present age and the real cause of whatever is amiss, may justly be reckoned the general neglect of education, in those who need it most, the people of fashion. What can be expected when those, who have the most influence, have the least sense, and those who

are sure to be followed, set the worst examples? When youth so uneducated, are yet so forward? When modesty is esteemed pusillanimity, and a deference to years, knowledge, religion, laws, want of sense and spirit? Such untimely growth of genius would not have been valued, or encouraged by the wise men of antiquity; whose sentiments on this point are so ill suited to the genius of our times, that it is to be feared, modern ears could not bear them. But, however ridiculous such maxims might seem to our British youth, who are so capable and so forward to try experiments, and mend the constitution of their country; I believe it will be admitted. by men of sense, that if the governing part of mankind, would in these days, for experiment's sake, consider themselves in that old Homerical light as pastors of the people, whose duty it was to improve their flock, they would soon find, that this is to be done by an education, very different from the modern, and other maxims, than those of the Minute Philosophy. If our youth were really inured to thought and reflexion, and an acquaintance with the excellent writers of antiquity, we should see that licentious humour, vulgarly called free-thinking, banished from the presence of gentlemen, together with ignorance and ill taste; which, as they are in

separable from vice, so men follow vice for the sake of pleasure, and fly from virtue, through an abhorrence of pain. Their minds, therefore, betimes should be formed and accustomed to receive pleasure and pain from proper objects, or, which is the same thing, to have their inclinations and aversions rightly placed. This, according to Plato and Aristotle, was the right education. And those, who, in their own minds, their health, or their fortunes, feel the cursed effects of a wrong one, would do well to consider, they cannot better make amends for what was amiss in themselves, than by preventing the same in posterity.

ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA.

Written by Bishop Berkeley during his residence in Newport.

THE muse, disgusted at an age and clime,

Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame :

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth fresh scenes ensue,

The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true :

In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,

The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate the clay,
By future ages shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

1730.

THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.

BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.

THERE's a flower that grows by the greenwood tree,

In its desolate beauty more dear to me,

Than all that bask in the noontide beam

Through the long, bright summer by fount and stream.
Like a pure hope nursed beneath sorrow's wing

Its timid buds from the cold moss spring,
Their delicate hues like the pink sea-shell,

Or the shaded blush of the hyacinth's bell,
Their breath more sweet than the faint perfume
That breathes from the bridal orange-bloom.

It is not found by the garden wall,

It wreaths no brow in the festive hall,
But dwells in the depths of the shadowy wood,
And shines like a star in the solitude.
Never did numbers its name prolong,
Ne'er hath it floated on wings of song,
Bard and minstrel have passed it by
And left it in silence and shade to die.
But with joy to its cradle the wild.bees come

And praise its beauty with drony hum,

And children love in the season of spring

To watch for its early blossoming.