perhaps, a wild attempt. Yet the moft confiderable of thofe, which enter into works of poetry (befides fuch as refult from fixed characters or predominant passions) may be included in the divifion of, 1. Religious, 2. Moral, and 3. Oeconomical fentiments; understanding by this laft (for I know of no fitter term to express my meaning) all thofe reafonings, which take their rife from particular conjunctures of ordinary life, and are any way relative to our conduct in it.

1. The apprehenfion of fome invifible. power, as fuperintending the universe, though not connate with the mind, yet, from the experience of all ages, is found infeparable from the first and rudeft exertions of its powers. And the feveral reflexions, which religion derives from this idea, are altogether as neceffary. It is eafy to conceive, how unavoidably, almoft, the mind awakened by certain conjunctures of distress, and working on the ground of this original impreffion, turns itself to awful views of deity, and feeks relief in those foothing contemplations of providence, which we find fo frequent in the epic and tragic poets. And

whoever

whoever fhall give himself the trouble of examining those noble hymns, which the lyric mufe, in her graveft humours, chaunted to the popular gods of paganism, will hardly find a fingle trace of a devotional fentiment, which hath not been common, at all times, to all religionists. Their power, and fovereign difpofal of all events; their care of the good, and averfion to the wicked; the bleffings, they derive on their worshippers; and the terrors, they infix in the breasts of the profane; they are the usual topics of their meditations; the folemn fentiments, that confecrate these addreffes to their local, gentilitial deities. In listening to thefe divine ftrains, every one feels, from his own conscioufnefs, how neceffary fuch reflexions are to human nature; more particularly, when to the fimple apprehenfion of deity, a warm fancy and ftrong affections join their combined powers, to push the mind forward into enthufiaftic raptures. All the faculties of the foul being then upon the stretch, natural ability holds the place, and, in fome fort, doth the office, of divine fuggeftion. And, bating the impure mixture. of their fond and fenfeless tradi

tions,

tions, one is not furprized to find a strong refemblance, oftentimes, in point of fentiment, betwixt thefe pagan odes, and the genuine infpirations of heaven. Let not the reader be fcandalized at this bold comparison. It affirms no more, than what the graveft authors have frequently fhewn, a manifeft analogy between the facred and prophane poets; and which supposes only, that heaven, when it infufes its own light into the breasts of men, doth not extinguish that, which nature and reafon had before kindled up in them. It follows, that either Succeeding poets are not neceffarily to be accused of stealing their religious fentiments from their elder brethren, or that ORPHEUS, HOMER, and CALLIMACHUS, may be as reasonably charged with plundering the facred treafures of DAVID, and the other Hebrew prophets.

It is much the fame with the illufions of corrupt religion. The fawns and nymphs of the ancients, holding their refidence in fhadowy groves or caverns, and the frightful spectres of their Larvae: to which we may oppose the modern vifions of fairies; and of ghosts, gliding through church-yards,

and

it

and haunting fepulchres; together with the vaft train of gloomy reflexions, which fo naturally wait upon them, are, as well as the jufter notions of divinity, the genuine offspring of the fame common apprehenfions. Reason, when misled by superstition, takes a certain route, and keeps as fteadily in it, as when conducted by a found and fober piety. There needs only a previous conception of unfeen intelligence for the groundwork; and the timidity of human nature, amidst the nameless terrors, which are every where presenting themselves to the fufpicious eye of ignorance, eafily builds upon the entire fabrick of fuperftitious thinking. With the poets all this goes under the common name of RELIGION. For they are concerned only to represent the opinions and conclufions, to which the idea of divinity leads. And these, we now fee, they derive from their own experience, or the received theology of the times, of which they write. Religious fentiments being, then, univerfally, either the obvious deductions of human reason, in the eafieft exercise of its powers, or the plain matter of fimple obfervation, regarding what paffes before

VOL. III.

D

US

us in real life, how can they but be the fame different writers, though perfectly original, and holding no correspondence with each other?

2. And the fame is true of our moral, as religious fentiments. Whole volumes, indeed, have been written to fhew, that all our commoneft notices of right and wrong have been traduced from antient tradition, founded on exprefs fupernatural communication. With writers of this turn the gnomae of paganism, even the flightest moral fentiments of the moft original antients, fpring from this fource. If any exception were allowed, one fhould fuppofe it would be in favour of the father of poetry, whose writings all have agreed to fet up as the very prodigy of human invention. And yet a very learned profeffor [1] (to pass over many flighter Effays) hath compiled a large work of Homer's moral parallelifms; that is, ethic fentences, confronted with fimilar ones out of facred writ. The correfpondency, it seems, appeared fo ftriking to this learned perfon, that he was in doubt, if

·

[1] Dr. Duport.

this