over the largest and finest part of Europe, never failed to be accompanied, on their piratical expeditions, by a number of Scaldi, or poets, selected for the express purpose of recording their exploits.

The same usage prevailed in America. In Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Canada, poets have arisen to celebrate different sorts of great men. Thus, by a very natural order of things, it seems, that public interest laid the foundation of eulogies. Each nation considered that as most praise-worthy, which most administered to its wants and pleasures. Piracy was, therefore, the theme of universal applause among the Scandinavians, plunder among the Huns, fanaticism among the Arabs, the benevolent and useful virtues among civilized people, hunting and fishing among savages, and navigation among the inhabitants of islands.

Having now briefly surveyed the origin of eulogies, of almost every nation of the earth, it will not be widely deviating from the subject of this essay, to close it with paying a tribute of admiration to that practice, observed for so many centuries in Egypt, preparatory to the interment of her people and chief magistrates; and, which no nation, ancient or modern, has ever dared to imitate, although it was so pregnant with real

good and greatness. We are informed*, by that eminent Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, that a tribunal was erected among the Egyptians, where subjects, and princes themselves, were judged, and condemned or acquitted, after their deaths; where the memories of the wicked citizen and courtier, and profligate tyrant, who had escaped the punishment due to their numerous crimes, were delivered up to eternal infamy; and where the fathers of their people, and all, whose labours had tended to promote the public good, and private happiness, received those panegyrics and honours which

* Lib. i. p. 83, 84, 103. The manner of proceeding was as follows:-On the day appointed for the royal funeral, a public audience was assembled, and accusations were received against the deceased monarch. The priests then began the solemnity, with pronouncing his panegyric, and celebrating his good actions. If the monarch had really reigned well, the innumerable multitudes who attended, answered the priests with loud acclamations; but a general murmur ensued, if he had reigned ill; and some kings have been even deprived of burial by the decision of the people. Now this custom of judging their kings after death may be traced up to the earliest ages of the Egyptian monarchy. (See Diodorus Siculus, Lib. i. p. 84.) And it is worthy of remark, that it appeared to the Israelites so wise a practice, that they in part adopted it. We see in Scripture, that the kings who reigned ill were not buried in the sepulchre of their fathers. (See Chronicles, cap. xxi, v. 19, 20; cap. xxiv. v. 25; cap. xxviii. v. 27. II. Kings, c. xxi, v. 26.) Josephus also informs us, that this custom was observed in the time of the Asmonæan princes. See Antiquities, Lib. xiii. cap. xxiii.

had been withheld from them when living. What an edifying and imposing situation! How powerfully calculated to interest the best affections of the mind; and how worthy of that country, which was the cradle of arts, sciences, and mysteries+, the school of Orpheus and Homer, Pythagoras and Plato, Solon and Lycurgus. To such an institution, which so well deserves to live in the voice and memory of men, we may, with the strictest propriety, apply those emphatic words of the Roman Historian, "Præcipuum munus annalium reor, ne virtutes sileantur; utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamiâ metus sit‡."

* Although some critics refuse their assent to the general opinion of the Sixth Book of the Æneid being the most perfect of the whole, in point of sublime invention, beauty of imagery, majesty of sentiment, and harmony of versification; assuredly they will not deny, that, from the beginning to the end, we may discover the strokes of a master. Those passages, especially, interest our moral feelings, where, under the just empire of Minos, the poet displays his eloquence, in describing the punishments of wickedness, the happiness of the patriot who died for his country, and the misery of the tyrant who oppressed it,

+ "The Egyptians, (says the very learned President de Goguet, in his Origin of Laws, Arts, &c. vol. I. b. 1. art. iv.) of all nations, are most worthy of our attention. We are particularly interested in their history. From them, by an uninterrupted chain, all the most polite, and best constituted nations of Europe, have received the first principles of their laws, arts, and sciences. The Egyptians instructed and enlightened the Greeks; the Greeks performed the same beneficent office to the Romans." &c.

Tacitus, Lib. üi. cap. lxv.

ESSAY II.

ON SOME PARTICULAR INJUNCTIONS AND ACTIONS IN THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

IT is the opinion of many good Christians, that, as the clergy are allowed so short a time in every year to instruct their fellow-creatures from the pulpit, their discourses ought, therefore, to be chiefly or solely employed upon practical subjects;-in shewing what our religion prohibits, and what it enjoins us to do, in this world, in order that we may be received to a happy immortality, in that which is to come. Yet those who may entirely subscribe to this opinion, will not, however, consider it as an impertinent interference with the concerns of the clerical profession, if we devote an essay to the interpretation of some particular injunctions and actions of our Lord; which, at the first glance, have even staggered the minds of the truly pious, and have excited doubts altogether of the divine authority of the Christian dispensation, in many thousands, whom ignorance or inattention has led to obtain but a scanty and imperfect knowledge of it. Το

learned men, the passages we shall select for explanation, will, doubtless, seem to be of little difficulty, and, perhaps, of no very high importance. But as this volume will, it is to be hoped, fall into the hands of others, less intimately conversant with such studies, we may be allowed, without the imputation of vanity, to think, that it may be in our power satisfactorily to answer some objections of those, who have not been accustomed to make religion alone their rule of life.

Upon the following passages, then, we shall venture to make a few comments.

"So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go.”—Matt. viii. 31, 32.

THE enemies of the Christian faith, with a malignant and illiberal exultation, have maintained the destruction of the herd of swine to be one of those miracles wrought by our Saviour, which, so far from advancing any moral purpose, tended to produce the most evil and mischievous consequences. And, in support of this assertion, they have brought forward every specious argument, which their sophistry could supply. But those who have pursued their enquiries respecting the miracles of our blessed Lord with more candour

C