Abr. Well Sarah, you are to return him to him, the Almighty has demanded him. Sarah. Demanded him Abr. He has. Ifaac is the facrifice I am to offer. Thus faid the angel-the order was abfolute. Sarah. What is't you tell me, I know not where I am. The Almighty demand him, what him, his own gift, him whom he delighted in, who was to be the father of a mighty people, Demanded him, how? when? why? for what purpose ? Abr. His purposes he has not deigned to reveal, and when an order comes from him, my Sarah, our business is to obey, and not to difpute.-Sarab. Ifaac then foonAbr. Must be laid upon the altar.--Sarah. And Abraham-Abr. Abraham muft offer him up. Oh, Sarah, if you are ambitious of the reward, let your will at least acquiefce in the deed. Not that I expect the presence of a tender mother. Farewell. Conceal the fecret from Ifaac; it is fitting that he fhould learn it from me-But you weep, a fudden flood of tears. No, most belov'd of women, no, you must not thus fuffer your feelings to get the better of your refolutions. I know that your heart is right, that it does not difpute the commands of your Maker: but this is not enough, my Sarah. It is not enough for true obedience to be ready and humble, it must also be refolute and bold. Exert yourself; and he who fees the struggle will affift it, and impute to you the merit of the victory. Ah, berhink thee that he knows best what's really hurtful or really good; bethink thee that riches, honours, life, children, all are the gifts of his hands; from him they came, and when it is to him we return them, there cannot be a lofs. A I R. He who can thy peace restore, Calm thy heart, prepare thy breast, LITERARY CURIOSITIES. A WARBURTONIAN A. Friend, who was pleafed with my laft Extracts from the correfpondence between Bishop Warburton and Dr. Birch, having been kind enough to communicate to me fome more manufcript letters of the Bishop's with a defire that I fhould ufe them at my difcretion, I have great pleasure in conveying thefe to the publick, as I am convinced they will do honour to that great man, whofe philanthropy, greatnefs of mind, and true fpirit of Chriftian toleration, never will appear in a more striking light than they do in these private memorials, which, I am perfuaded, could he look down from thofe regions where His tears, his little triumphs o'er, His human paffions move no more, Save charity that glows beyond the grave, he would not be offended at the publication of them. When I fay this, I do not mean to flatter him, or any of his furviving friends, for fome of whom I profefs great refpect. He certainly had his faults, but, befides that none of them appear in my publication (except his openness of fpeech, and his manly pleafantry about fools, for which I reverence him, may be deemed fuch), they are fuch as all the world has long been acquainted with. They are, indeed, fo notorious, that if it had been my intention to depreciate his character in an ana, I fhould not have had recourfe to private letters, but have compiled it out of his works, or the 500 ftories of him about town. As to the boldness of his judgements about literary characters, and particularly his faying that Sir Ifaac Newton did not understand Egyptian antiquities, that Clarke wanted fagacity, and that Markland and Taylor were no great critics; what are they more than Voltaire's not liking Shakefpear, Scaliger's preferring the Eneid to the Iliad, and my (who am nei ther ther a Scaliger, nor a Warburton, nor yet, thank God, a Voltaire) falling asleep over Don Quixote, which I publish now to the world that I often do, that it may not be a novelty in my manufcripts! Valeant omnia hæc quantum valere poffunt; for what I know, the Bishop may be perfectly in the right in all thofe affertions, or, as the French fay, there may be from more to less in it; or if we may not fay either of these without rifking the reputation of our own critical acumen, it is only faying with Markland (who feems to have been a very amiable man, whatever kind of critic he was) in a letter before me about Reifke's atrocious falfe quantities, We differ from him in innumerable things as every man does from every man. For instance, as in duty bound, I differ with the Bishop about the first Ana of this day.. "The discourse on the Somnium Scipionis is, by your account, a master-piece in its way. I fhall feek after it, but would fooner go to a house of office after it, than to a magazine, though I do not doubt but it equally be comes both places. How can you talk of looking into a magazine. Well may thofe immortal treasures continue the delight of the parfons, when they hear the author admits them into his ftudy. In short, you deferve, as Shakespeare fays, to have your eyes pricked out with a ballad-maker's pen." of "Would you believe it, there is not in all this neighbourhood the Greek Ecclefiaftical Hiftorians. The Divines here are further gone in tradition than the Papifts themselves." "You tell me you have had reasons to decline a City living, I can conceive no good one but that you are going to Court. If you be, I will give you the fame farewell that Bucholeer, an honeft dull German, gave to one of his friends who was making that journey, Fidem Diabolorum tibi commendo, &c. &c." "Bleterie's "Bleterie's Life is indeed a very elegant one, and writ with much candor and impartiality. He is no deep man in the learning of thofe times, but his good sense generally enables him to feize the right. It is no wonder he fhould be impofed on by- when the grofs body of our parfons are his dupes. But as Trincalo, who wants to carry Caliban into England, obferves that any thing there makes a man, fo any thing makes a Divine amongst our Parfons. Our real fcholars and divines the Magnanimi heroes, nati melioribus annis, have made our learning venerated abroad. Our traders in letters have taken advantage of that prejudice, and puff off all their miferable trash as mafterpieces even to that infamous rhapfody called the Univerfal Hiftory. And the deceit was eafy. It was impoffible for foreigners to fufpect that our body of readers are Tinkers, Coblers, and Carmen. So that when they faw the impatience of this learned public fo great that they would not ftay for a whole book, but devour it fheet by fheet from the prefs, they conceived fomething very exquifite in what was fo impatiently fnatched at. For we are under the unavoidable neceffity, in our general judgement of things, to estimate of foreign ware according to the fale and demand of it. And if our worst books (as they do) fell best at home, they will be thofe which will be known and read abroad. I believe I could give you a long lift of capital English books that were never heard of on the Continent further that their titles to be found in fome brave dull German catalogue." "I had no fooner got hither, but my houfemaid wrote me a very difagreeable piece of news. Some rogues have ftripped the lead off my ftables and coach-houfe in Bedford-Row. This is a confiderable damage, for I never expect the lead will come to light. Pray refolve me in this cafe of Confcience; may I with critical justice charge the theft upon my mortal enemies, thofe great dealers in lead, the Gentlemen of the Dunciad? If they have done me this injury, it is the greateft they ever did, or ever can do me." "I hope your apprehenfions of the earthquake abate. Folks feem to regard the third ftroke of an earthquake to be as certain and as fatal as the third ftroke of an apoplexy. But dean Clarke, who is now at Bath, and whom lord Fitzwalter calls the greatest philofopher in the world, ftill affirms it to be an air-quake; in confirmation of which, he has a hundred circumstances to produce. For he is not like your vulgar philofophers who only invent Hypothefes, and fit the Phænomena to them as well as they can, which fometimes is lamely enough he can invent the Phænomena too, and fo faves a world of labour, which, by the common rule of false, serves him as Algebra does the Geometer." "This morning I had a letter from Cambridge acquainting me with Dr. Middleton's death. They fuppofe his builder has killed him, or at least haftened his death. He declared (fays my letter) a few days ago, that he fhould die with that composure of mind which he thought must be the enjoyment of every man who had been a fincere fearcher after truth; expreffed fome concern that he felt his ftrength and fpirits decline fo faft that he could not compleat fome defigns he had then in hand and that he imagined he had given the miracles of the early ages fuch a blow as they would not eafily recover.' "I do not fee how the mere difcovery of truth affords fuch pleasure. If this truth be that the providence of God governs the moral as well as natural world; and that, in compaffion to human diftreffes, he has revealed his will to mankind, by which we are enabled to get the better of them, by a reftoration to his favour, I can eafily conceive the pleasure that, at any period of life, muft accompany fuch a difcovery. But if the truth difcovered be that we have no further fhare in God than as we partake of his natural government of the univerfe; or that all there is in his moral government is only |