fecerunt. Agreeably to this principle, the Roman hiftorian of the life of Alexander, describes that monarch, after having killed his friend Clitus, as confidering, in his cool moments, whether the gods had not permitted him to be guilty of that horrid act, in punishment for his irreligious neglect of their facred rites. And Juvenal And Juvenal* imputes the fource of that torrent of vice which broke in the upon age in which he wrote, to the general difbelief that prevailed of the public doctrines of their established religion. Those tenets, he tells us, that influenced the glorious conduct of the Curii, the Scipios, the Fabricii, and the Camilli, in his days, fo totally exploded, as scarce to be received even by children. It were well for fome parts of the Christian world, if the fame obfervation might not with justice be extended beyond the limits of antient Rome: and I often reflect upon the very judicious remark of a great writer of the last century, who takes notice, that "the generality of Chriftendom is now "well nigh arrived at that fatal condition, "which immediately preceded the de* Sat. II. 149. " ftruction

were,

"struction of the worship of the antient "world; when the face of religion in their

public affemblies was quite different from "that apprehenfion which men had concerning it in private."

NOTHING, moft certainly, could lefs plead the fanction of reason, than the general rites of pagan worship. Weak and abfurd, however, as they were in themselves, and indeed in the estimation too of all the wifer fort; yet the more thinking and judicious part, both of their statesmen and philofophers, unanimously concurred in fupporting them as facred and inviolable: well perfuaded, no doubt, that religion is the strongest cement in the great ftructure of moral government. I am, &c.

I

LOOK upon every day wherein I have not some communication with my Cleora, as a day loft; and I take up my pen every afternoon to write to you, as

regularly

regularly as I drink my tea, or perform any the like important article of my life.

I FREQUENTLY blefs the happy art that affords me a means of conveying myself to you at this distance, and, by an eafy kind of magic, thus tranfports me to your parlor at a time when I could not gain admittance by any other method. Of all people in the world, indeed, none are more obliged to this paper commerce, than friends and lovers. It is by this they elude, in fome degree, the malevolence of fate, and can enjoy an intercourfe with each other, tho' the Alps themselves should rise up between them. Even this imaginary participation of your fociety is far more pleafing to me, than the real enjoyment of any other converfation the whole world could fupply. The truth is, I have loft all relish for any but yours; and if I were invited to an affembly of all the wits of the Augustan age, or all the heroes that Plutarch has celebrated, I should neither have spirits nor curiosity to be of the party. Yet with all this indolence or indifference about me, I would take a voyage as far as the pole to fup with Cleora on a lettuce, or only to hold the bowl.

while she mixed the fyllabub. Such happy evenings I once knew: ah Cleora! will. they never return? Adieu.

LETTER

XLVIII.

I

To EUPHRONIUS.

HAVE read the performance you com→ municated to me with all the attention you required; and I can with strict fincerity apply to your friend's verfes, what an antient has obferved of the fame number of Spartans who defended the paffage of Thermopylæ; nunquam vidi plures trecentos! Never, indeed, was there greater energy of language and fentiment united together in the compass of lines: and it would be an injustice to the world, as well as to himself, to suppress so animated and so useful a composition.

A SATIRIST of true genius, who is warmed by a generous indignation of vice, and whofe cenfures are conducted by candor and truth, merits the applause of every friend to virtue. He may be confidered as a fort of fupplement to the legif

lative

lative authority of his country; as affisting the unavoidable defects of all legal inftitutions for regulating of manners, and striking terror even where the divine prohibitions themselves are held in contempt. The strongest defence, perhaps, against the inroads of vice, among the more cultivated part of our fpecies, is well directed ridicule: they who fear nothing elfe, dread to be marked out to the contempt and indignation of the world. There is no fucceeding in the fecret purposes of dishonesty, without preferving fome fort of credit among mankind; as there cannot exist a more impotent creature than a knave convict. To expose, therefore, the false pretenfions of counterfeit virtue, is to disarm it at once of all power of mischief, and to perform a public service of the most advantageous kind, in which any man. can imploy his time and his talents. The voice, indeed, of an honest satirist is not only beneficial to the world, as giving an alarm against the defigns of an enemy fo dangerous to all focial intercourfe; but as proving likewife the moft efficacious preventive to others, of affuming the fame character of distinguished