affections and opinion of mankind.-And the man in diftrefs will be very happy, if he meets with no mortifications from those to whom fortune has been more favourable. Shakespeare has a paffage very applicable to the point in hand.

This world is not for aye, and 'tis not strange,

That ev'n our loves fhou'd with our fortunes change.

For 'tis a queftion left us yet to prove,

Whether love fortune lead, or fortune love.

The great man down, you mark his fav'rite flies;

The poor, advanc'd, makes friends of enemies:

And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;

For who not needs, fhall never lack a friend ;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly feasons him his enemy.

CHA P. XVIII.

HERE BILDAD RESUMES THE DEBATE, AND ONCE MORE REPREHENDS JOB FOR HIS PRESUMPTION; AND ENDEAVOURS, AS ELIPHAZ HAD DONE BEFORE HIM, TO DEMONSTRATE, THAT GOD, ACCORDING TO THE STATED LAW OF HIS OVER-RULING PROVIDENCE, DID CONSTANTLY SEND DOWN HIS SEVEREST JUDGMENTS ON THE WICKED AND THEIR PROGENY, NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THE AID AND ASSISTANCE THAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY PROCURE FROM THEIR FRIENDS AND ALLIES FOR THEIR SAFETY AND PROTECTION.

HEN BILDAD the Shuhite, perceiving Job thus warm in

TH
The indication of his

the vindication of his first, and, as he imagined, false position, rofe up, and faid, When wilt thou make an end of this prolix difcourfe, which, though plaufible, indeed, and founding enough, has no folid foundation? Do but lend an attentive ear to the arguments we have to produce, and then raise what further objections you think fit. To what purpose is it for us to ente into debate with one, who tells us, with fo much arrogance, that we have no wisdom or understanding; and looks upon us as no ways fuperior, in point of reafon, to the brutal part of the creation? What felf-fufficient fulness, Job, does thus lift thee up? What new

lights,

lights, have you, by your profound enquiries, found out, that we fhould be fuch ftupid animals, and not worthy of your regard? You are too impatient, and too much blinded by your unruly paffion. Your wild difcourfes are the refult of a diftracted brain, and rather fhew the marks of rebellion, than thofe of repentance. Shall the Almighty invent new modes of government, only to gratify your capricious humour? Shall the divine Providence. purfue new courses, and nature forfake her old ones for your fake? Shall the Almighty have no regard for truth and juftice? Shall he reward the wicked and neglect the righteous? Shall he, in a word, fubvert all order, with no other view but to prevent your vain, and noify clamours? You may argue, Job, as long as you please, but in fpite of all your objections, this is an eternal truth, a never-failing rule, that God will always make a proper diftinction between the upright and the vicious man, and that he will fpare the one, and make the other feel the weight of his divine displeasure; that the splendor of the latter shall foon decay, and his brightest beams expire in as fhort a time as a fingle flash of lightning the grandeur of his children fhall be converted into contempt; and all their enjoyments fhall terminate in forrow. He shall be fettered unawares in his wifeft fteps; and his beft concerted schemes for the prefervation of his wealth and honour shall prove his ruin and deftruction. He fhall undermine his own peace and safety by his artful projections; he shall run into the net which he himself has fpread, and by his own treachery be undone his feet shall be entangled therein, and the hunters fhall feize him as their prey. He fhall not foresee the danger to which he is exposed, but shall be caught as a bird in a fnare. When he thinks himself moft fecure, then shall he be furrounded with enemies, and which way foever he fhall fly for fafety, he shall perish in the retreat his joints fhall grow feeble, his very bones fhall be confumed, he shall languish, till he has no ftrength remaining,

and

and defolation fhall be his doom. In whom foever or whatsoever he puts his truft and confidence for the future fupport of his family, they shall all of them not only fail him, but contribute to his more speedy fall, and fink him into his very grave. Whoever shall be fo unwary as to fettle in his habitation, after his decease, will never enjoy it long: for it will foon be demolished by thunder and lightning: and when once it is thrown down, it shall never be rebuilt; nor fhall his family be ever restored to their original grandeur. Like a tree, that is grown dry and fapless, it shall never shoot forth again any tender branches. The very remembrance of him shall be forgot, and his name fhall never more be mentioned in after-times, unless it be introduced with infamy and reproach the Almighty fhall remove him from off the earth, as a thing not fit to be seen, and notwithstanding all his former grandeur he shall lie forever buried in oblivion. He fhall have no defcendants or furvivors; not a diftant relation to preferve his name. Ages to come shall relate the ftory of his downfal with horror and amazement; as that in which he lived was surprised to fee so strange a turn of fortune, fuch an unexpected scene of woe and mifery. This is doubtless an impartial description of the deplorable state and condition of the ungodly man, whose short-lived glory terminates in defolation.

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS on CHAP. XVIII.

VERSE XI.

TERRORS SHALL MAKE HIM AFRAID ON EVERY SIDE, AND SHALL DRIVE HIM TO HIS FEET.

THE fenfe of which text we conceive to be this. The ftings of confcience fo terrify and distract the mind of a wicked man, both fleeping and waking, that, like Cain, after he had flain his brother Abel, he wanders about to find fome fhelter, fome place of rest and repofe, but all to no manner of purpose. His fecret thoughts are a torment to him not to be expreft; for confcious guilt, as Mrs. Rowe very happily

expreffes

-

expreffes it, is the very emphafis of hell. And he that hides a dark foul, and foul thoughts, fays Milton, benighted walks under the mid-day fun: himself is his own dungeon. When the brain is hurt, fays Mr. Addison, by any accident, or the mind difordered by dreams or ficknefs, and confequently much more by confcious guilt, the fancy is over-run with wild, difinal ideas, and terrified with a thoufand hideous monsters of its own framing.

Eumenidum veluti demens videt agmina Pentheus,
Et folem geminum, & duplices fe oftendere Thebas.
Aut agamemnonius scenis agitatus Orestes,
Armatam facibus matrem & ferpentibus atris
Cum fugit, ultricefque fedent in limine Diræ.

VIRG. Æneid, IV. v. 469.

Like Pentheus, when diftracted with his fear,
He faw two funs, and double Thebes appear.
Or mad Oreftes, when his mother's ghoft
Full in his face infernal torches tofs'd,

And shook ner fnaky locks: he fhuns the fight,

Flies o'er the stage, surpris'd with mortal fright;

The furies guard the door, and intercept his flight.

DRYDEN.

There is not, as Mr. Addifon farther obferves, a fight in nature fo mortifying as that of a distracted perfon, when his imagination is troubled, and his whole foul difordered and confufed: Babylon in ruins is not fo melancholy a spectacle.

The distraction of Oreftes, after the murder of his mother, is a fine reprefentation in Euripides; because it is natural. The confcioufnefs of what he has done is uppermoft in his thoughts, diforders his fancy, and confounds his reafon. He is ftrongly apprehenfive of divine vengeance, and the violence of his fears places the avenging furies before his eyes. Whenever the mind is harraffed by the ftings of confcience, or the horrors of guilt, the fenfes are liable to infinite delufions, and ftartle at hideous, imaginary monsters. The poet, who can touch fuch incidents with happy dexterity, and paint fuch images of confternation, will infallibly work upon the minds of others. This is what Longinus commends in Euripides and here it must be added, that no poet in this branch of writing can enter into a parallel with Shakespeare.

When Macbeth is preparing for the murder of Duncan, his imagination is big with the attempt, and is quite upon the rack. Within, his foul is difmayed with the horror of fo black an enterprize, and every thing without looks difmal and affrighting. His eyes rebel against his reafon, and make him ftart at images that have no reality.

Is

Is this a dagger which I fee before me,

The handle tow'rd my hand?-Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I fee thee ftill.

Art thou not, fatal vifion, fenfible

To feeling, as to fight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a falfe creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppreffed brain ?

He then endeavours to fummon his reafon to his aid, and convince himfelf that it is mere chimera; but in vain: the terror ftampt on his imagination will not be shook off.

I fee thee yet, in form as palpable

As his which now I draw.

Here he makes a new attempt to reafon himself out of the delufion, but it is quite too ftrong.

I fee thee ftill,

And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,

Which was not fo before.-There's no fuch thing.

It is the bloody bufinefs which informs

This to my eyes.

MACBETH, A& II, Scene 2.

The delufion is described in fo fkilful a manner, that the audience cannot but share the confternation, and ftart at the vifionary dagger.

The genius of the poet will appear more furprizing, if we confider how terror is continually worked up by the method in which the perpetration of the murder is represented. The contrast between Macbeth and his wife is juftly characterized by the hard-hearted villany of the one, and the horrible remorfe of the other. The leaft noife, the very found of their own voices is fhocking and frightful to both:

LADY

Hark! peace!

It was the owl that fhriek'd, the fatal bell-man,

Which gives the ftern'ft good-night.-He is about it.→→

And again immediately after fhe goes on,

Alack I am afraid they have awak'd,

And 'tis not done; th' attempt, and not the deed,

Confounds us !-Hark !-I laid their daggers ready,

He could not mifs 'em.

A& II. Scene 3.

The best way to commend it, as it deferves, would be to quote the whole fcene. The fact is reprefented in the fame affecting horror, as would rife in the mind at fight of the actual conmiffion. Every fingle image feems reality, and alarms the VOL. III. foul.

Tt