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First, We may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding chuse to depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shewn their judgment in this particular, and purposely receded from an established rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the gusto grande in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing.

In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius who is ignorant of the rules of art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It is of these men of genius that Terence speaks, in opposition to the little artificial cavillers of his time:

Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam

Potiùs quàm istorum obscuram diligentiam.

Whose negligence he would rather imitate, than
these men's obscure diligence.'

A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play, as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, That he was killed secundem artem. [Our inimitable Shakespear is a stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic, where there is not one of them violated Shakespear was indeed born with all the seeds of poetry, and

may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of nature, without any help from art."

No. 598. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24.

Jamne igitur laudas, quod de sapientibus alter
Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum
Protuleratque pedem; flebat contrarius alter?

Juv. Sat. x. 28.

Will ye not now the pair of sages praise,
Who the same end pursu'd by several ways?
One pity'd, one condemn'd, the woeful times;
One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes.

DRYDEN.

MANKIND may be divided into the merry and the serious, who, both of them, make a very good figure in the species, so long as they keep their respective humours from degenerating into the neighbouring extreme; there being a natural tendency in the one to a melancholy moroseness, and in the other to a fantastic levity.

The merry part of the world are very amiable, whilst they diffuse a cheerfulness through conversation at proper seasons and on proper occasions; but, on the contrary, a great grievance to society, when they infect every discourse with insipid mirth, and turn into ridicule such subjects as are not suited to it. For though laughter is looked upon by the philosophers as the property of reason, the excess of it has been always considered as the mark of folly.

This is the prettiest and justest compliment that was ever paid to our great poet. For, though all the seeds of poetry are to be found in his works, it is only for the true critic to point them out, and tell us which they are just as what we call Lusus Natura owe much of their beauty, and sometimes, in a manner, their existence, to the taste and ingenuity of

the virtuoso.-H.

On the other side, seriousness has its beauty whilst it is attended with cheerfulness and humanity, and does not come in unseasonably to pall the good humour of those with whom we

converse.

These two sets of men, notwithstanding they each of them shine in their respective characters, are apt to bear a natural aversion and antipathy to one another.

What is more usual, than to hear men of serious tempers, and austere morals, enlarging upon the vanities and follies of the young and gay part of the species; whilst they look with a kind of horror upon such pomps and diversions as are innocent in themselves, and only culpable when they draw the mind too

much?

I could not but smile upon reading a passage in the account which Mr. Baxter gives of his own life, wherein he represents it as a great blessing, that in his youth he very narrowly escaped getting a place at court.

It must, indeed, be confessed that levity of temper takes a man off his guard, and opens a pass to his soul for any temptation that assaults it. It favours all the approaches of vice, and weakens all the resistance of virtue. For which reason a renowned statesman in Queen Elizabeth's days, after having retired from court and public business, in order to give himself up to the duties of religion; when any of his old friends used to visit him, had still this word of advice in his mouth, 'Be serious.'

An eminent Italian author of this cast of mind, speaking of the great advantage of a serious and composed temper, wishes, very gravely, that for the benefit of mankind, he had Trophonius's cave in his possession; which, says he, would contribute more to the reformation of manners than all the workhouses and bridewells in Europe.

We have a very particular description of this cave in Pausa

very notion of any duration's being past, implies that it was once present; for the idea of being once present, is actually included in the idea of its being past. This, therefore, is a depth not to be sounded by human understanding. We are sure that there has been an eternity, and yet contradict ourselves when we measure this eternity by any notion which we can frame of it.

If we go to the bottom of this matter, we shall find, that the difficulties we meet with in our conceptions of eternity, proceed from this single reason, that we can have no other idea of any kind of duration, than that by which we ourselves, and all other created beings, do exist; which is a successive duration, made up of past, present, and to come. There is nothing which exists. after this manner, all the parts of whose existence were not once actually present, and consequently may be reached by a certain number of years applied to it. We may ascend as high as we please, and employ our Being to that eternity which is to come, in adding millions of years to millions of years, and we can never come up to any fountain-head of duration, to any beginning in eternity but at the same time we are sure, that whatever was once present, does lie within the reach of numbers, though perhaps we can never be able to put enough of them together for that purpose. We may as well say, that any thing may be actually present in any part of infinite space, which does not lie at a certain distance from us, as that any part of infinite duration was once actually present, and does not also lie at some determined distance from us. The distance in both cases may be immeasurable and indefinite as to our faculties, but our reason tells us that it cannot be so in itself. Here, therefore, is that difficulty which human understanding is not capable of surmouting. We are sure that something must have existed from eternity,

:

good general rule, to avoid not only real, but seeming incongruities of speech.--H.

and are at the same time unable to conceive, that any thing which exists, according to our notion of existence, can have existed from eternity.

It is hard for a reader, who has not rolled this thought in his own mind, to follow in such an abstracted speculation; but I have been the longer on it, because I think it is a demonstrative argument of the Being and Eternity of a God: and though there are many other demonstrations which lead us to this great truth, I do not think we ought to lay aside any proofs in this matter which the light of reason has suggested to us, especially when it is such a one as has been urged by men famous for their penetration and force of understanding, and which appears altogether conclusive to those who will be at the pains to examine it.

Having thus considered that eternity which is past, according to the best idea we can frame of it, I shall now draw up those several articles on this subject which are dictated to us by the light of reason, and which may be looked upon as the creed of a philosopher in this great point.

First, It is certain that no being could have made itself; for if so, it must have acted before it was, which is a contradiction.

Secondly, That, therefore, some being must have existed from all Eternity.

Thirdly, That whatever exists after the manner of created beings, or, according to any notions which we have of existence, could not have existed from Eternity.

Fourthly, That this Eternal Being must therefore be the great Author of nature, the Ancient of days,' who, being at infinite distance in his perfections from all finite and created beings, exists in a quite different manner from them, and in a manner of which they can have no idea.

I know that several of the schoolmen, who would not he

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