after the complete destruction of Pharaoh and his host by the miraculous hand of heaven. In this, as well as in his rapturous prophetic blessing on the twelve tribes, an exalted strain of religious homage was solemnly paid to the great deliverer and God of Israel. And this kind of sacred inspiration was continued through after ages among that happy people, whom God had signally chosen and appropriated to himself. "Nor were the excellent advantages of the chaste and untainted Muse, in the furtherance of religion and virtue, confined to the Jewish nation. For we have still, some lively remains of that kind, handed down from the heathen world, as old as Orpheus and Hesiod, and afterwards, in the pious fragments of Theognis, Phocylides, Pythagoras, Solon, &c. But more especially, in the fine contemplations of Boetius. Of the ancient Christians, Prudentius, Prosper, and some others, have signalized themselves in this way.Among the Christian moderns, none have succeeded more happily than the wonderful Buchanan and Casimire; men of such distinguishing abilities, as scarce any age can boast of, since Rome was in the full zenith of its glory. If we descend yet lower, even to the last and present age, almost every nation has afforded shining instances; but none, so many and bright as our own. Some indeed, among the latter Pagan Poets, and some of a much fresher date, who unworthily bear the name of Christian, have prostituted that noble ta lent to serve the basest purposes; by varnishing over the grossest of vices with a beautiful dress, softening debauchery with the dangerous charms of wit, and scattering temptations with a liberal hand, where the common propensity of corrupted nature needs the most watchful care to restrain it. Such profanation of an art, useful and commendable itself, and one of the best helps for raising the affections to an excellent pitch of true devotion and piety, has prevailed upon some weak though serious minds, to treat it with contempt and prejudice; as if they thought it had a necessary tendency to relax the principles, and corrupt the morals of mankind; or, at least, to deaden the affection towards those subjects which are most eminently sacred and awful. But the charge is altogether unjust, when applied not only to the abuse, but to the general use of it. And they who yield too far to such an unguarded censure, would do well to consider what indignity they offer to those inspired writings which they would be thought to hold in the highest esteem and veneration. Since the choicest of these divine monuments, left by the ancient Prophets, run in a poetic strain, especially such parts of them as tend most to exalt the glorious attributes of God, and to raise the soul into a frame suitable to the purest acts of adoration and praise. "It must unavoidably be acknowledged, even by such candid and impartial judges, as, through unhappy prejudice, pay no great regard to the divine authority of those most ancient and invaluable books, that the celebrated works of Homer, Pindar, or Virgil, bear no proportion to many parts of these; in respect of a true majesty of style, sublimity of thought, and the most surprising beauty, strength, and boldness of the figures, of which it would be easy to collect numberless instances. "But how low and pitiful, how ridiculous and unworthy of all human credit, are the heathen fictions of their elysian happiness; and of their snaky furies, their preying vultures, Ixion's wheel, the fruitless toil of Sisyphus, and of the Belides, &c. to punish and torment the wicked! Such wild and romantic dreams though set off with never so much air of wit, humour, or fancy, can never be of any real force to reach the secret springs of passion. And little better are any of those gay images of false lustre, bestowed upon the fictitious atchievements of Gods and heroes; which make up the main subject, and are the chief embellishment of heathen song. "The dignity of the Christian theme is infinitely more bright and dazzling; from the native charms of truth, the endearing sweetness and beneficence of its design, and the irresistible force of its divine authority: being not only fitted to raise, attract, and govern the most tender passions of love, wonder, and joy; but powerful enough to transport the soul above all the little scenes of time and chance, with very strong and anticipating views of the remotest futurity. Those representations of unchangeable blessedness or misery; that awful solemnity of the supreme tribunal; the irreversible sentence to be passed upon all mankind, at the end of a temporary probation; and the vastly different states of the two eternal worlds, authoritatively declared in the sacred canon, are every way adapted to take place in a reasonable mind; and have a natural tendency to awaken the most leading passions of hope and fear, into a watchful care and diligence to obtain the one and avoid the other. "What I would infer from the whole argument is, that the inspired writings, have abundantly afforded the best helps in the world, for an useful employment of a poetic genius; whether in the more easy and practicable way of ode, or the elaborate and more exalted strain of the epic kind. If the mean, trifling, and improbable stories which usually furnish out the tragical drama, are of so great force when set off by a brightness and majesty of expression, as to govern the rational powers, to triumph over the passions, and command alternate smiles or tears: what a powerful influence might such a happy talent have upon the moral conduct of mankind, if it were employed with an equal pleasure and application in beautifying scenes of natural and revealed religion with its proper colours; placing them in a true light, and displaying its native charms of sweetness and majesty! How easily might those ennobling christian virtues, which are by many, too often heard with a cold indifference, in the ordinary way of a set discourse, by this more alluring method, lead captive the lower faculties, with a kind of irresistible force; so as to draw insensibly the more noble and superior powers of the soul into a real love and practice of them untill it becomes happily inured to intermix with the innocent diversions of this life, a strong and predominant regard to the higher concerns of religion and eternity! "The reader will easily perceive that such is the scope of this mean essay and I need not tell him that I have made the great Milton my pattern; though I am very far from having the vanity to think myself capable of following him aquis passibus, either in respect of his incomparable sublimity of thought, or brightness of diction. Yet whilst I have endeavoured to imitate his manner and style, I have purposely avoided his uncouth and antiquated words; apprehending that an affected obscurity, or harshness of language, adds nothing to the grandeur of the subject, or to a true elevation of the mind. "If this specimen, such as it is, may but serve to excite others of great abilities, to engage farther in so good a design as restoring the Muses to their ancient dignity and usefulness, in promoting the excellent ends of Religion and Virtue; I shall think a few broken hours of amusement, in the intervals of other different studies, very happily employed." EIRENODIA: A Poem, sacred to Peace, and the promotion of Human Celestial dove! by whose enliv'ning warmth, M |