EULOGY ON LAUGHING.

By J. M. Sewall,

Delivered at an exbibition, by a young lady.

LIKE merry Momus, while the Gods were quaff ing,

I come to give an eulogy on laughing!
True, courtly Chefterfield, with critick zeal,
Afferts that laughing's vastly ungenteel!
The boiit'rous thake, he fays, diftorts fine faces,
And robs each pretty feature of the graces !
But yet this paragon of perfect tafte,
On other topicks was not over-chaste;
He like the Pharifees in this appears,
They ruin'd widows, but they made long pray'rs.
Tithe, anife, mint, they zealously affected,
But the law's weightier matters lay neglected;
And while an infect trains their fqueamish caul,
Down goes a monitrous camel-bunch and all.

Yet others, quite as fage, with warmth difpute
Man's rifibles diftinguith him from brute;
While instinct, reafon, both in common own,
To laugh is man's prerogative alone!

Hail, rofy laughter! thou deferv'ft the bays ! Come, with thy dimples, animate these lays, Whilft univerfal peals atteft thy praife. Daughter of Joy! thro' thee we health attain, When Efculapian recipes are vain.

Let fentimentalifts ring in our ears
The tender joy of grief-the luxury of tears-
Heraclitus may whine, and oh and ah !-
I like an honest, hearty, ha, hah, kah !
It makes the wheels of nature gliblier play;
Dull care fuppreffes; fmooths life's thorny way;
Propels the dancing current thro' each vein;
Braces the nerves; corroborates the brain;
Shakes ev'ry mufcle, and throws off the spleen.
Old Homer makes yon tenants of the kies,
His Gods, love laughing as they did their eyes!
It kept them in good humour, hufh'd their fquab.
bles,

As froward children are appeas'd by baubles;
Ev'n Jove, the thund'rer, dearly lov'd a laugh,
When, of fine nectar, he had taken a quaff
It helps digestion when the teaft runs high,
And diffipates the fumes of potent Burgundy.
But, in the main, tho' laughing I approve,
It is not ev'ry kind of laugh I love;
For many laughs e'en candour mult condemn !
Some are too full of acid, fome of phlegm;
The loud horfe-laugh (improperly fo ftil'd.)
The ideot fimper, like the lumb'ring child,
Th' affected laugh, to thew a dimpled chin,
The fneer contemptuous, and broad vacant grin,
Are defpicable all, as Strephon's fmile,
To thew his ivory legions, rank and file.

The honeft laugh, unftudied, unacquir'd, By nature prompted, and true wit infpir'd, Such as Quin felt, and Falstaff knew before, When humour fet the table on a roar ; Alone deferves th' applauding mufe's grace ! The reft-is all contortion and grimace. But you exclaim, "Your Eulogy's too dry; "Leave differtation and exemplify! "Prove, by experiment, your maxims true; "And, what you praife fo highly, make us do."

In troth hop'd this was already done, And Mirth and Momus had the laurel won! Like honeft Hodge, unhappy fhould I fail, Who to a crowded audience told his tale, And laugh'd and fnigger'd all the while himself To grace the ftory, as he thought, poor elf! But not a fingle foul his fuffrage gaveWhile each long phiz was ferious as the grave! Laugh laugh! cries Hodge, laugh loud! (no halfing) ing!

I thought you all, ere this, would die with laugh.

INTERR'D beneath this marble ftone
Lie fauntering Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threefcore years and one
Did round this globe their courfes run;
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rofe or fell,
The morning paft, the evening came,
And found this couple Hill the fame.

SENEC.

They walk'd, and eat, goods folks: what then?
Why then they walk'd and eat again :
They foundly flept the night away;
They did juit nothing all the day:
And, having bury'd children four,
Would not take pains to try for more.
Nor fitter either had nor brother;
They feem'd just tally d for each other.
Their moral and economy
Moft perfectly they made agree:
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor trefpafs'd on the other's ground.
Nor fame nor cenfure they regarded;
They neither punith'd nor rewarded.
He car'd not what the footman did;
Her maids the neither prais'd nor chid;
So every fervant took his course;
And, bad at firft, they all grew worse.
Slothful diforder fill'd his table,
And fluttish plenty deck'd her table.
Their beer was itrong; their wine was port
Their meal was large; their grace was thort.
They gave the poor the remnant meat,
Juft when it grew not fit to eat.

They paid the church and parish rate,
And took, but read not, the receipt;
For which they claim their Sunday's due,
Of lumbering in an upper pew.

No man's defects fought they to know;
So never made themfelves a foc.
No man's good deeds did they commend;
So never rais'd them felves a friend.
Nor cherish'd they relations poor,
That might decrease their prefent ftore:
Nor barn nor houfe did they repair;
That might oblige their future heir.

They neither added nor confounded;
They neither wanted nor abounded:
Each Chriftmas they accompts did clear,
And wound their bottom round the year:
Nor tear nor fimile did they employ
At news of publick grief or joy :
When bells were rung, and bonfires made,
If aik d, they ne'er deny'd their aid:
Their jug was to the ringers carried,
Whoever either died or married.
Their billet at the fire was found,
Whoever was depos'd or crown'd.

Nor good, nor had, nor fosis, nor wife;
They would not learn, nor could dife;
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear,
They led-a kind of as it were:

Nor with d, nor car'd, nor laugh'd, nor cried
And fo they liv'd, and fo they died.

tion of Ministers in the county of Windham; and they proceeded to expel me, on this account, not only from their body, as a voluntary Affociation, but from all " miniflerial_connexion.”

It was my intention to have published a general statement of the manner in which this affair was brought to its crifis. But for certain reasons which I did not fufficiently confider, it is at present withheld. I would only observe, that, by the decree of the Affociation, or any decrees which, as a body of mere Ecclefiafticks, without appointment from the churches, without their sanction, and without pursuing the regular difcipline pointed out by our Lord, they may affume the authority to make,I confider my good chriftian and minifterial standing not in the leaft degree impaired. Were they an ecclefiaftical court, known in the fcriptures; had they charged me with crime, with a breach of the divine law to man

kind; and were there any other kind of iniquity found cleaving to my garment, than that I cannot fee with their eyes, and perceive with their understandings; I might confider myfelf as affected by their decifion. But, as the matter now stands, I feel the authority of the Lord Jesus still refting upon me, and shall not defert my minifterial office. They, and others who shall subscribe to their doings, may treat me according to their pleasure: There is One that judgeth between us. HIM fhall the appeal be made.

Το

The work is divided into two parts. In the first the author endeavours to shew that the passages and considerations alleged in favour of the supreme and independent deity of Christ do not establish such doctrine concerning him."

In the first section, those passages are examined, which represent Christ as the creator of all worlds. These are John i. 1-14. Col. i. 16, 17. Heb. i. The proem to John's gospel has long been the crux antitrinitarianorum. They have agreed in nothing but to wrest it from the hands of the orthodox,but have never been able to convert it into an auxiliary. Though some of the early Polish Socinians thought they could apply all its

high and obscure expressions to the entrance of Christ on his publick ministry, L. Crellius wasted an immensity of learning to make it probable that we should read instead of in the first verse ; Clarke and the Arians are contented with affixing to teos without the article a subordinate sense; the more modern Unitarians suppose that the word xoys does not here signify a person, but only an attribute of Deity, and that there is no unequivocal intimation of Christ till the 8th verse; and last of all, a critick, whose familiarity with scriptural phrases and terms is not inferiour to the knowledge of any of his predecessors, Newcome Cappe, has ventured to restore and vindicate the original interpretation of Socinus. Mr. S. adopts the most common explanation of the Unitarians, that by yo is intended the reason, or wisdom of God, which the evangelist eloquently personifies. We find some remarks on the use of the προς

prepositions, and the word κήνωσεν, which are not unimportant, and then are called to the famous passage in Col. i. 16, 17.

The difficulties, which attend the explanation of these verses,as referring to the new moral creation, or rather organization under the gospel,are not a few; and Mr. S. has in some degree injured the plausibility and compactness of his own interpretation by not sufficiently attending to the propriety of clearly referring all the clauses without exception either to one creation or the other. Hence we think he should have admitted no other interpretation of #pororonas s xr than this, "first-born or most eminent of the whole creation;" in the same sense in which Christ is elsewhere styled "first born among many brethren," Rom. viii.