low-creatures who have not enjoyed the advantages of education. In the performance of the godlike office of a true parish priest, there is a necessity of setting an example, and of preserving decorum of character; a necessity which conduces much to the security of innocence. It is often a great happiness to be placed in a rank, where, to the restraints of conscience and morality, are added the fear of peculiar shame, loss, and disgrace, necessarily consequent on ill behaviour. Human nature wants every support to keep it from lapsing into depravity. Even interest and a solicitude for reputation, when, in some thoughtless interval, the pillars of virtue begin to totter, may stop the fall. The possession of a valuable character which may be lost, and of a dignity, which must be supported, are often very useful auxiliaries in defending the citadel against the temporary assaults of passion and temptation.

Since, then, the pursuit of letters is attended with many circumstances peculiarly favourable to innocence, and consequently to enjoyment of the pureşt and most permanent species, they who have been fixed in so desirable a life as a life of learning, ought to be grateful to Providence for their fortunate lot, and endeavour to make the best return in their power, by devoting their leisure, their abilities, and their acquirements, to performing the will of God, and promoting the benefit of mankind.

NO. CLIV.

ON THE ADVANTAGE WHICH MAY BE DERIVED TO THE TENDER AND PATHETIC STYLE, FROM USING THE WORDS AND PHRASES OF SCRIPTURE.

IT is observable that an audience often laughs er yawns in the most interesting scenes of a modern tragedy; a lamentable proof of the poet's imbecility. The poet! he may, indeed, be a versifier and a declaimer, but he is no poet, who tells a tragic tale without eliciting a tear. Let us not profane the sacred name of poet by bestowing it on the feeble poetaster.

It is not enough that the language of a tragedy is flowery, the similies and metaphors brilliant, the verse melodious; there must be a charm added by the creative power of almighty genius, which no didactic rules can teach, which cannot be adequately described, but which is powerfully felt by the vibrations of the heart-strings, and which causes an irresistible overflowing of the Axxguar anyar, the sacri fontes lachrymarum *.

Florid diction and pompous declamation are, indeed, found to be the least adapted of all modes of address to affect the finer sensibilities of nature. Plain words, without epithets, without metaphors, without similies, have oftener excited emotions of the tenderest sympathy, than the most laboured composition of Corneille. Ye who would learn to touch the heart, go not to the schools of France, but become the disciples of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Sterne, and Chatterton. Thou captivating simplicity! 'tis thine at once to effect what all the artifices of rhe

*The sacred source of tears.

toric, with all its tropes and figures, tediously and vainly labour to accomplish. 'Tis thine to dissolve the hardest heart, and to force even the stubborn nerves to tremble. A few words of simple pathos will penetrate the soul to the quick, when a hundred lines of declamation shall assail it as feebly and ineffectually, as a gentle gale the mountain of Plinlimmon.

A writer of taste and genius may avail himself greatly in pathetic compositions, by adopting the many words and phrases, remarkable for their beautiful simplicity, which are interspersed in that pleasing, as well as venerable book, the holy bible. I cannot, indeed, entirely agree with those zealous critics who pretend to discover in the scriptures all the graces ́of all the best classics. To please the ear and imagi nation, were very inferior objects in the benevolent mind of Him who caused all holy scripture to be written for our use. But, at the same time, it is certain, they abound in such beauties as never fail to please the most cultivated taste. Besides their astonishing sublimity, they have many a passage- exquisitely tender and pathetic. Our admirable translation has preserved them in all their beauty, and an English writer may select from it a diction better suited to raise the sympathy of grief, than from the most celebrated models of human composition.

Sterne, who, though he is justly condemned for his libertinism, possessed an uncommon talent for the pathetic, has availed himself greatly of the scriptural language. In all his most affecting passages, he has imitated the turn, style, manner, and simplicity, of the sacred writers, and in many of them has transcribed whole sentences. He found

no language of his own could equal the finely expressive diction of our common translation. There are a thousand instances of his imitating scripture interspersed in all the better parts of his works, and no reader of common observation can pass by them unnoticed. I will quote only one or two instances taken from the most admired pieces in the tender style.- "Maria, though not "tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine "forms. Affliction had touched her looks with "something that was scarce earthly, and so much "was there about her of all that the heart wishes,

or the eye e looks for in woman, that could the "traces be ever worn out of her brain, or those of. "Eliza out of mine, she should not only eat of my "bread, and drink of my cup, but Maria should lie "in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

"Adieu, poor luckless maiden! imbibe the oil and "wine which the compassion of a stranger, as he sojourneth on his way, now pours into thy wounds. "The Being who has twice bruised thee can only "bind them up for ever." Again, in his description of a captive. "As I darkened the little light he "had, he lifted up a hopeless eye toward the door, "then cast it down, shook his head, and went on "with his work of affliction. I heard his chains "upon his legs, as he turned his. body to lay his "little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep "sigh. I saw the iron enter into his soul." It is easy, but it is not necessary, to adduce many more instances in which a writer, who eminently excelled in the power of moving the affections, felt himself unequal to the task of advancing the style of pathos

to its highest perfection, and sought assistance of the bible.

I is easy to see that the writer of so many tender and simple passages had imitated the delightful book of Ruth. With what pleasure did a man of his feeling, read, " Intreat me not to leave thee, or to "return from following after thee; for whither thou "goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will

lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy "God my God; where thou diest will I die, and

there will I be buried." Sterne stole the very spirit of this passage, and indeed of all the fine strokes of tenderness, and many an one there is, in a book which is often laid aside by polite scholars as absurd and obsolete. The choice which Sterne has made of texts and of citations from the scriptures in his sermons, are proofs that he (who was one of the best judges of the pathetic) was particularly struck with the affecting tenderness and lovely simplicity of scriptural language.

The poet, therefore, who means to produce a tragedy, which shall be able to stand its ground even after the first nine nights, without the aid of puffing, and without filling the pit and boxes with orders, should sometimes go to the same fountain, and drink the waters of poetical inspiration of which Sterne drank so copiously. He will improve greatly by studying the language and histories of Joseph,. Saul, and Jonathan, of Ruth, of Job, of the Psalms,. of Isaiah, of Jeremiah, of many single passages every where interspersed, and of the parables in the. New Testament. Judgment 'and taste are certainly necessary to select; but he may depend upon it, that