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unknown to ours, that they frequently objects which please us most. But shaembroiled their country in maintaining dy vallies, paths winding about through the forefts, flowers fcarcely half-opened, and timid fhepherdeffes, excite in us the fweeteft and the most lafting emotions. The loveliness and the refpectability of objects are increased by their

the interests of a particular house, and
fometimes in afferting the honour of pre-
cedency, or of fitting on a joint ftool;
there is a marvellous in the religion of
the ancients, which confoles and ele-
vates human nature; whereas that of mysterioufnefs.
the Gauls terrifies and debafes it. The
gods of the Greeks and the Romans
were patriots, like their great men. Mi-
nerva had given them the olive; Nep-
tune the horse. These gods protected
the cities and the people: But those of
the ancient Gauls were tyrants, like
their barons; they afforded protection
only to the Druids: They must be glut-
ted with human facrifices. In a word,
this religion was fo inhuman, that two
fucceffive Roman emperors, according
to the teftimony of Suetonius and Pliny,
commanded it to be abolished. I fay
nothing of the modern interests of our
history; but fure I am, that the rela-
tions of our politics will never replace
in it, to the heart of man, thofe of the
divinity.

I must observe that, as admiration is an involuntary movement of the foul toward Deity, and is, of confequence, fublime, feveral modern authors have strained to multiply this kind of beauty in their productions, by an accumulation of furprising incidents; but nature employs them fparingly in hers, because man is incapable of frequently undergoing concuffions fo violent. She difclofes to us, by little and little, the light of the fun, the expansion of flowers, the formation of fruits. She gradually introduces our enjoyments by a long feries of harmonies; fhe treats us as human beings; that is, as machines feeble and easily deranged; the veils Deity from our view, that we may be able to fupport his approach.

The Pleafure of Myftery. This is the reafon that mystery poffeffes fo many charms. Pictures placed in the full glare of light, avenues in ftraight lines, rofes fully blown, women in gaudy apparel, are far from being the

Sometimes it is that

of antiquity, which renders fo many monuments venerable in our eyes; fometimes it is that of diftance, which dif fufes fo many charms over the objects in the horizon; fometimes it is that of names. Hence the fciences which retain the Greek names, though they frequently denote only the most ordinary things, have a more impofing air of refpect than those which have only modern names, though these may, in many cafes, be more ingenious and more ufeful. Hence, for example, the conftruction of fhips, and the art of navigation, are more highly prized by our modern literati, than feveral other phyfical fciences of the most frivolous nature, but which are dignified by Greek names. Admiration, accordingly, is not a relation of the understanding, or a perception of our reafon, but a fentiment of the foul, which arifes in us, from a certain undefcribable instinct of Deity, at fight of extraordinary objects, and from the very myfterioufnefs in which they are involved. This is fo indubitably certain, that admiration is deftroyed by. the fcience which enlightens us. If I exhibit to a favage an eolipile, darting out a stream of inflamed fpirit of wine, I throw him into an extafy of admiration; he feels himself difpofed to fall down and worship the machine; he venerates me as the god of Fire, as long as he comprehends it not: but no fooner do I explain to him the nature of the procefs, than his admiration ceafes, and he looks upon me as a cheat *.

*For this reafon it is that we admire on-
Were there to

ly that which is uncommon.
appear, over the horizon of Paris, one of
thofe parhelia which are so common at Spitz-
bergen, the whole inhabitants of the city
would be in the streets to gaze at it and won-
der. It is nothing more, however, than a re-
Dd 2

Aection

The Pleafures of Ignorance. From an effect of those ineffable fentiments, and of those universal instincts of deity, it is, that ignorance is become the inexhaustible fource of delight to man. We must take care not to confound, as all our moralifts do, ignorance and error. Ignorance is the work of nature, and, in many cafes, a bleffing to man; whereas error is frequently the fruit of our pretended human fciences, and is always an evil. Let our political writers fay what they will, while they boast of our wonderful progrefs in knowledge, and oppofe to it the barbarism of past ages, it was not ignorance which then fet all Europe on fire, and inundated it with blood, in fettling religious difputations. A race of ignorants would have kept themselves quiet. The mischief was done by perfons who were under the power of error, who, at that time, vaunted as much, perhaps, of their fuperior illumination, as we now-a-days do of ours, and into each of whom the European fpirit of education had inftilled this error of early infancy, "Be the firft."

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How many evils does ignorance conceal from us, which we are doomed one day to encounter, in the courfe of human life, beyond the poffibility of efcaping the inconftancy of friends, the revolutions of fortune, calumnies, and the hour of death itself, fo tremendous to most men. The knowledge of ills like thefe would marr all the comfort of living. How many bleffings does ignorance render fublime! the illufions of friendship, and thofe of love, the perfpectives of hope, and the very treasures which fcience unfolds. The fciences infpire delight only when we enter upon the study of them, at the period when the mind, in a state of ignorance, plunges into the great career. It is the point of contact between light and darkness, which presents to the eye

flection of the fun's difk in the clouds; and no one ftands ftill to contemplate the fun himself, because the fun is an object too well

known to be admired.

the most favourable state of vision: this is the harmonic point, which excites our admiration, when we are beginning to fee clearly; but it lafts only a fingle instant. It vanifhes together with ignorance. The elements of geometry may have impaffioned young minds, but never the aged, unless in the cafe of certain illuftrious mathematicians, who were proceeding from difcovery to difcovery. Thofe fciences only, and those paffions, which are fubjected to doubt and chance, form enthufiafts at every age of life, fuch as chymiftry, avarice, play, and love."

For one pleasure which fcience beflows, and caufes to perish in the beftowing, ignorance prefents us with a thoufand, which flatter us infinitely more. You demonftrate to me that the fun is a fixed globe, the attraction of which gives to the planets one half of their movements. Had they, who believed it to be conducted round the world by Apollo, an idea lefs fublime ? They imagined, at least, that the attention of a god pervaded the earth, together with the rays of the orb of day. It is fcience which has dragged down the chaste Diana from her nocturnal car: fhe has banifhed the Hamadryads from the antique forefts, and the gentle Naiads from the fountains. Ignorance had invited the Gods to partake of its joys and its woes; to man's wedding, and to his grave: fcience difcerns nothing in either, except the elements merely.

She has abandoned man to his fellow, and thrown him upon the earth as into a defert. Ah! whatever may be the names which fhe gives to the different kingdoms of nature, celestial fpirits, undoubtedly, regulate their combinations fo ingenious, fo varied, and fo uniform; and man, who could bestow nothing upon himself, is not the only being in the universe who partakes of intelligence.

It is not to the illumination of science

that the Deity communicates the most profound fentiment of his attributes, but to our ignorance. Night conveys to

the

the mind a much grander idea of infinity information refpecting the name and than all the glare of day. In the day- quality of the perfon who owns the time, I fee but one fun; during the caftle which I perceive at a distance. night I discern. thoufands. Are thofe The hiftory of the mafter frequently disfivery stars, so variously coloured, really gures that of the landscape. It is not funs? Are thofe planets, which revolve fo with the History of Nature; the more around ours, actually inhabited, as ours her works are ftudied, the more is our There is one cafe is? From whence came the planet Cy- admiration excited. bele*, discovered but yesterday, by a only in which the knowledge of the German of the name of Herschel? It works of men is agreeable to us: it is has been running its race from the be- when the monument which we contemginning of the creation, and was, till plate has been the abode of goodness. of late, unknown to us. Whither What little spire is that which I perceive go thofe uncertainly revolving comets, tra- at Montmorency? It is that of Saint verfing the regions of unbounded space? Gratian, where Catinat lived the life Of what confifts that milky way which of a fage, and under which his afhes divides the firmament of heaven? What are laid to reft. My foul, circumfcribare those two dark clouds, placed to- ed within the precincts of a small vilwards the antarctic pole, near the crofs lage, takes its flight, and ranges over of the south? Can there be stars which the capacious fphere of the age of Louis diffufe darknefs, conformably to the be- XIV, and haftens thence to expatiate lief of the ancients? Are there places through a sphere more fublime than that in the firmament which the light never of the world, the fphere of virtue. reaches? The fun discovers to me only When I am incapable of procuring for a terrestrial infinity, and the night dif- myfelf fuch perfpectives as thefe, ignoclofes an infinity altogether celeftial. rance of places anfwers my purpofe O! mysterious ignorance, draw thy much better than the knowledge of I have no occafion to hallowed curtains over thofe enchanting them could do. fpectacles! Permit not human fcience be informed, that fuch a forest belongs to apply to them its cheerless compaffes. to an abbey or to a dutchy, in order Its ancient Let not virtue be reduced, henceforth, to feel how majeftic it is. to look for her reward from the juftice trees, its profound glades, its folemn, and the fenfibility of a globe! Permit filent folitudes, are fufficient for me. her to think that there are in the uni- The moment I ceafe to behold man verfe, deftinies far different from those which fill up the measure of woe upon this earth.

Science is continually fhewing us the boundary of our reafon, and ignorance is for ever removing it. I take care, in my folitary rambles, not to afk

The English, in compliment to their fovereign, George III. give it the name of Georgium Sidus; by which name, however, this planet is not likely to be univerfally or permanently known; for all the aftronomers on the continent, in compliment to the merits of the scientific discoverer, perfift in calling it by his name, "The Herfchel."

there, that moment I feel a prefent dei-
ty. Let me give ever fo little scope to
my fentiment, there is no landscape but
what I am able to ennoble. These vast
meadows are metamorphofed into oceans;
thefe miil-clad hills are islands emerg-
ing above the horizon; that city below
is a city of Greece, dignified by the
refidence of Socrates and of Xenophon.
Thanks to my ignorance, I can give
foul.
the reins to the inftinct of my
plunge into infinity. I prolong the dif-
tance of places by that of ages; and,
to complete the illufion, I make that en-
chanted spot the habitation of virtue.

ON DIDACTIC POETRY.

I

DIDACTIC OF PRECEPTIVE Poetry feems to include a folecifm, for the end

of

of poetry is to pleafe, and of didactic precept the object is inftruction. It is however a fpecies of poetry which has been cultivated from the earliest stages of fociety; at first, probably, for the fimple purpose of retaining, by means of the regularity of meafure, and the charms of harmony, the precepts of agricultural wifdom, and the aphorifms of economical experience. When poetry came to be cultivated for its own fake, it was natural to eftecm the didactic, as in that view it certainly is, as a fpecies of inferior merit, compared with those which are more peculiarly the work of imagination; and accordingly in the more fplended era of our poetry it has been much lefs cultivated, than many others. Afterwards, when poetry was become an art, and the more obvious fources of defcription and adventure were in fome measure exhausted, the, didactic was reforted to, affording that novelty and variety which began to be the great defideratum in works of fancy.

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converfant with are fitted to infpire. In that beautiful poem, the Effay on Man, the fyftem of the author, if in reality he had any fyftem, is little attended to; but thofe paffages which breathe the love of virtue, are read with delight, and fix themselves on the memory. Where the reader has this previous knowledge of the fubject, which we have mentioned as neceffary, the art of the poet becomes itself a fource of pleafure; and fometimes, in proportion to the remoteness of the fubject from the more obvious province of poetry, we are delighted to find with how much dexterity the artift of verfe can avoid a technical term, how neatly he can turn an uncouth word, and with how much grace embellifh a fcientific idea. Who does not admire the infinite art with which Dr Darwin has described the machine of Sir Richard Arkwright? His verfe is a piece of mechanifm, as complete in its kind as that which he defcribes. Allured, perhaps, too much This fpecies of writing is likewife by this artificial fpecies of excellence, favoured by the diffufion of knowledge, and by the hopes of novelty, hardly any by which many fubjects become proper branch of knowledge has been fo abfor general reading which, in a lefs ftrufe, or fo barren of delight, as not to informed flate of fociety would have have afforded a subject to the didactic favoured of pedantry and abftrufe poet. Even the loathfomeness of dif fpeculation for poetry cannot defcend ease, and the dry maxims of medical to teach the elements of any art or knowledge, have been decorated with science, or confine itself to that regular the charms of poetry. Many of these arrangement and clear brevity which pieces, however, owe all their enterfuit the communication of unknown truths. In fact, the mufe would make a very indifferent school-miftrefs.

tainment to frequent digreffions. Where these arife naturally out of the fubject, as the defcription of a fheep-fhearing Whofoever, therefore, reads a di- feaft in Dyer, or the praises of Italy in dactic poem ought to come to it with a the Georgics, they are not only allow previous knowledge of his fubject; and able but graceful; but if forced, as is whoever writes one, ought to fuppofe the ftory of Orpheus and Euridice in fuch a knowledge in his readers. If the fame poem, they can be confidered he is obliged to explain technical terms, in no other light than that of beautiful to refer continually to critical notes, and monfters, and injure the piece they are to follow a fystem step by step, with meant to adorn. The subject of a dithe patient exactnefs of a teacher, his dactic poem, therefore, ought to be fuch poem, however laboured, will be a bad as is in itself attractive to the man of poem. His office is rather to throw tafte, for otherwife all attempts to make a luftre on fuch prominent parts of his it fo by adventitious ornaments, will fyltem as are moft fufceptible of poetical be but like loading with jewels and draornament, and to kindle the enthufiafm pery, a figure originally defective and of thofe feelings which the truths he is ill-made.

Mrs Barbauld.

A NEW DESCRIPTION OF ST PETERSBURG, THE
METROPOLIS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.

FROM LETTERS FROM SCANDINAVIA, JUST PUBLISHED.

St Petersburg, Od. 1789. ifland, bearing its name, now ftretches PETERSBURG, with all its ftate- over feveral leffer ones. It is very irlv palaces and gilded domes, is fituate regularly built, and confifts chiefly of in the midst of a wood, as wild and wooden houfes: here, however, are the barren as any in the north. It prefents first objects that draw the first attention a wonderful picture of what power and the citadel, in which is the cathegenius can accomplish. Independently dral, a fine building, with its gilded of art, the Neva is its only ornament: fpire and turrets; whofe fparkling grana dead, fandy, flat country, covered deur ftrikes the eye at a great diftance, with brufh-wood, furrounds it upon and marks the facred fpot where lie inevery fide; a few miferable huts, fcat- terred the remains of Peter I, and his red about, complete the fcene. The Emprefs, the Livonian villager, Cagreat Peter did not look to the moft tharine 1. This is the Ruffian Mecca, beautiful, but to the most useful spot, and none but infidels will neglect to for the fcite of his capital: his object make a pilgrimage to it. Mahomet's was commerce folely. Petersburg is the fplendid impofture collects together a emporium for naval, Mofcow for rural crowd of vagrant Turks and Arabs; affairs. The Ruffian empire, extend- but the mausoleum of Peter attracts the ing over a confiderable part of Europe philofopher as well as the warrior, from and Afia, must have a capital city to every corner of enlightened Europe: every kingdom of which it confifts. the first adcaires the legiflator; the Toboliky is the chief city of the affecond comes to touch the bones of fian dominions under the pole, and bor- Scanderbeg! dering upon China; Petro Paulousky,' of the eastern countries adjoining to America and Japan; Orenburg, of the provinces bordering upon Tartary and India; Cafan and Aftrakan, of kingdoms of the fame name, near the frontiers of Perfia; Cherfon, of the Crimea and provinces adjoining: and Kioff and Mohilow, of the Ukraine, and Little and White Ruffia, bordering upon Turkey and Poland.

The city of Peterburg is not hudled together, it fpreads out like the wings of the imperial eagle. The principal quarter stands upon the continent, and upon the fouth banks of the river Neva; the second divifion is what is called Old Petersburg, and is fituated upon feveral islands toward the north banks; the third quarter upon Williams ifland, in the middle channel of the Neva, between the other two. This noble river, after embracing the whole in its courfe, empties itfelf in the guiph of Finland, immediately below the city. The old city, originally built upon one

The boat which gave Peter the idea of building a navy, is carefully preferved in a small houfe near the fepulchre : it is emphatically called the Grand Sire. Before this relic was depofited here, a naval review took place at Cronfladt : the Grand Sire had the honour of carrying the admiral's flag, and received a general falute from the Ruffian fleet.

Some will fay, that the Ruffian nation is not yet civilized; and that Peter only began the work of civilization

of arts and fciences. What a narrow thought! When the work is finifhed it is his. Will fucceeding monarch's think themselves difgraced, in being named the difciples of this immortal prince? He gave the plan of the building-he laid the foundations, and reared a part of the walls! Succeeding monarchs are his work men, his bricklayers, flaters, carpenters, painters, and upholsterers.

Catherine II. is the most diftinguifhed of Peter's work people, and has

made

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