The aspiring Emperor of France. Question Europe itself, from the frozen extremities of Siberia, to the Bosphorus on one side, and Pillars of Hercules on the other; who would have swallowed up all opponents one by one, by force or fraud, had not Britain shown that it was possible to resist his arms as well as his arts? Napoleon the Great, as his flatterers, and our Republicans styled him; Napoleon the Little, as his own imprudence, in aid of our endeavours, has made him.

Every man of the smallest sagacity could foresee, that the time of national distress, whether occasioned by war, by the failure of crops, or by any other event, would be the time for all the owls and bats of Democracy to crawl forth from their hidingplaces, and hoot and scream their notes of evil-omen, on the sufferings of the people: attributing them, by the stalest of logical sophisms, to that which is no cause, as the cause *; and promising a remedy, from that which has no power of giving the smallest relief. Reform of Parliament, say the most moderate,-universal suffrage, say the violent and desperate, is the nostrum which is to cure all evils, and to prevent their recurrence in future. These State quacks have but one prescription for all maladies; and the tendency of that is not to cure the patient, but enrich themselves. If Parliament, reformed by any rule or contrivance whatsoever, could consist of more responsible, or more enlightened men than do at present compose it, something might be hoped from its exertions. But, if it is to be only more under the controul of the mob; instead of being reformed, it will only

no less able, on the removal of a single valve, to blow the whole to atoms, and destroy the very work which it should assist.

But we are distressed. It is true, we are. By exertions in which we ought to glory. But will confusion help us, more than care and patience? Will the tumultuous meetings of mobs do more than the deliberations of Parliament? Our distresses, we know, are in their nature temporary; but what would have been the dis tress, had Republican counsels given us up as slaves to Continental tyranny, whether Republican or Imperial! Universal, complete, incurable. Not a word is mentioned of our triumphs, in all these meetings of the agitators and agitated. The glory of Waterloo field is forgotten, in the baseness of Spa-fields: and we are told to be mad, because we are poor; forgetting that we are only poor becanse we have been noble.

Shall we then sink really into a mere Shop-keeping nation, capable of no feelings but what refer to our poc kets, and attached no longer to that Constitution which has made us the first people in the world, because it has been expensive? I will not yet believe it. I will hope and trust that the spirit which has so long sustained, and the Providence which has so long protected us, will yet preserve us from those enemies, who cry Reform, but mean Destruction; will shield us, not only from the violence of the waves, but from the niadness of the people. AGRIPPA.

mena of the Heavenly bodies, and the immense variety of objects, from the grandest to the most minute, which this sublunary world displays, with all the past events recorded of it and its inhabitants, from its foundation to the present day, and also those which are predicted to the end of its duration, this almost unbounded capacity of the human mind affords many astonishing proofs of the extensive powers of Reason, the peculiar faculty of Man, which yet in several instances have been unhappily perverted to conclusions directly opposite to what they naturally and forcibly lead in every enlightened and uncorrupted mind, enlightened by those Holy Scriptures which God him self hath caused to be written for our instruction, and uncorrupted by those impious arguments which have been feigned to controvert them, even to the denial of a Supreme Being possessing theattributeswhich we ascribe to Deity, existing before the Celestial Orbs were formed, or the foundations of the Earth were laid. By the perverted imagination of sceptical philosophers (I will not say of inodern times, for every age has produced them) has the account of the Creation, by the Sacred Historian of the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning, been profanely attempted to be refuted, although he was appointed to that office by the Creator himself, and from Him immediately received the communication of the important events he has recorded. The Chronology, the Astronomy, and the Geography of Moses, and the authenticity of his History, are confidently pronounced erroneous by those who presume, or rather affect, to know so much better than their Maker when the existence of this Globe and the formation of the Heavenly Bodies commenced, and what was the interior description of the Earth, and the arrangement and distribution of its surface, in the first age, and likewise the disposition and conduct, the laws and transactions of its earliest inhabitants. Of all these things the above-mentioned Historian has given a very plain and comprehensive account. But we are told that we are not to credit the authority upon which he relates the facts be introduces, nor take them in their obvious and literal meaning, as historical events connected with prophetic

and figurative allusions, nor the Statutes and Ordinances, the Judgements and Commands, which he declares, as the acts and precepts of a Divine Lawgiver, the Creator and Ruler of the World, delivered in person to this his chosen servant, to be by him promulgated, administered, and enforced.

The splendid train of the last Comet, which attracted so much attention and so many ingenious remarks, was unquestionably a very beautiful and admirable object, and at the same time, in some respects, an awful one, as indeed must be every unusual and even common appearance in the firmament; for, whatever may have been philosophically discovered or conjectured about them, they are all of a stupendous nature. I have always considered Astronomy to be a most sublime Science, and the discoveries that have been made in it, amongst the most striking indications of Nature that the intellectual part of man was assuredly made in the image or similitude of God; and that the soul or mind does essentially partake of the divine attributes of Immortality expressly confirmed by Revelation.

Whether the remarkable Spots or apparent cavities in the Sun at this time observed can or cannot be accounted for, it is not my purpose to inquire, nor to enter into any scientific remarks upon the Solar System. It is common with the philosophers before mentioned to speak of tempests, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and all the alarming commotions of the elements, with reference only to their second causes and physical effects, and with an impious doubt, or utter disregard of the first great cause of all created beings; and in that profane or indiffereut way to mention the Heavenly Bodies." I conceive it is not only the province of the Clergy, but the indispensable duty of every considerate individual, to oppose and counteract, as far as possible, the pernicious principles and practice of such philosophers, and give a superior direction to those subjects; for most assuredly they may be considered to great advantage in exhortations from the Pulpit, and in all religious and moral essays. The great doctrines and duties of Christianity we must admit of the first importance to be repeatedly explained and enforced; and if the subjects proposed, which

so manifestly tend to impress the mind of man with the glory of God, can be deemed of a minor class, they certainly should not, nor can be, with out a very censurable neglect, omitted: yet how seldom do we hear them discussed; their very novelty would engage particular attention. The Holy Scriptures abound in passages of the most sublime and impressive import, precisely appropriate to the subjects I allude to. With regard to the before-mentioned phænomena in the Sun, no man living can presume to say that they are not the signs predicted by Our Saviour of the dissolution of the world; and therefore, without any imputation of superstitious credulity, may and ought to be adduced to influence the mind to a serious and devout contemplation of that great event, of which no human being knoweth the day or the hour, nor can venture to assert that it will

not be the next.

The inhabitants of this country are seldom visited with Earthquakes, though we have sometimes experienced for a few seconds the terrors arising from very slight, and also, sometimes, severe shocks; nor are we subject to volcanic eruptions, or exposed to destructive hurricanes, whirlwinds, and other commotions of the elements in this temperate climate, comparatively with those of the Torrid or Frigid Zones. Surely this happy exemption ought to be thankfully noticed, and frequently acknowledged. We have, however, in the course of the year very alarming and even fatal storms at sea and land. "They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters, those men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." Their distressful situation in a tempest is described by the Royal Psalmist in terms unequalled by any other Writer, sacred or profane; it cannot, I think, be heard or perused by any who are exposed to these perils without the full effect it is in tended to have upon the mind, and is therefore a very proper subject for religious exhortation amongst seafaring people. In the 29th Psalm of the same Inspired Writer there is an admirable passage to a similar purpose: "It is the glorious God who maketh the thunder," and still more sublimely expressed in the Bible trans

lation: "The God of glory thundereth," which might be obviously and advantageously selected by a judicious preacher for a discourse upon the subject, and if delivered during a thunder-storm would unquestionably make a very forcible impression on the audience. Here I shall be charged, perhaps, with an intention of giving a stage effect to the delivery of our sermons, by calling-in the aid of occasional scenery. When that scenery is drawn by the hand of so great a Master, I would certainly do it; but I am utterly averse to all studied action, however well conceived and supported, as beneath the sacred part of a Christian Preacher. When the Lord descended on Mount Sinai, was not his fearful presence evinced by thunders and lightnings, and by a thick cloud to veil, in some degree, that ineffable Glory which no mortal eye could otherwise approach. Aud if such a scene in the Grand Theatre of Nature, accompanied by the sound of a Celestial Trumpet, was thought fit by its great and glorious Author to make a suitable impression on the minds of the people, when in person he delivered to them his awful and absolute commands; are not those who are appointed to perpetuate and enforce their obligation strictly warranted in availing themselves of every just and seasonable allusion to the same terrific objects in the Heavens, at which the people of Israel trembled when they beheld their God? I will give another instance, in which I am persuaded a subject of this nature might be peculiarly impressed by an immediate occurrence. I remember, when a boy, there was a total Eclipse of the Sun, I believe in the month of April 1763 (but in the date I may not be perfectly correct), and that it happened on a Sunday. To those who are unacquainted with this branch of learning, it must be quite inconceiv able how such an appearance in the Heavens can be predicted to a moment. Notice was given in one of my father's churches *, that the Morning Service would begin an hour before the usual time; and I am told he delivered a very instructive sermon from the 13th chapter of St. Mark's Gospel, part of the 24th verse, in which, with a voice and manner pe culiarly adapted to the solemnity of

*St. Peter's, Sandwich.

the