ing, that the general state of religion and manners may be judged of by the ftyle and taste adopted in the ornamental arts. There might be a faulty fuperftition, with a mixture of fimplicity bordering upon ignorance, in the works of former ages; but the ftyle of them fhewed that Chriftianity was the religion of the country, and that the feveral particulars of the facred history were then held in honour, as the fubjects most worthy to be offered for admiration, and recommended by all the efforts of human ingenuity.

This was certainly the perfuafion of those times: but in the prefent age the public tafte can feldom find any thing but Heathen matter to work upon: from which it is natural to infer, that Heathenifin is in better repute than formerly; and thence it will follow, that the public regard to Christianity, and all that relates to it, is proportionably declined.

Polydore Virgil, in his work De rerum inventoribus, tells us how in the middle ages of the church, they chriftened the cere monies of the Pagan fuperftition, and adapted their fables to the myfteries of the Chriftian worship: which obfervation will undoubtedly account for much of the pomp that appears in the ceIebrities of the modern church of Rome. There might poffibly be a very good intention in thus attempting to reclaim what had been mifapplied, in order to make an impreffion upon vulgar minds in their own way; but there was often great weakness and want of judgment in the manner, which should never be proposed for imitation. Thus much of their humour ought to be retained, that the true religion fhould, in all places, and on all occafions, be feen to preferve its fuperiority over the false; not merely because one is better than the other, but because the one is worthy of God, and will raise honourable sentiments in men, while the other was never intended for any thing but an engine of the devil, to infuse sentiments of impurity, obfcenity, pride, and vanity, dif honourable to God, and deftructive to man. Yet the tafte for Heathen learning, which began to prevail about the times of the Reformation, hath been productive of an evil, which hath been. growing upon us for two hundred years paft, and hath at length given to Heathenifm the upper hand in almost every subject. The fabulous objects of the Grecian mythology have even got poffeffion of our churches; in one of which I have feen a monument,

*

* At the village of Wharton, near Kettering, in Northamptonshir

with elegant figures as large as the life, of the three Fates, Clotho, Lachefis, and Atropos, fpinning and clipping, the thread of a great man's life: by which fpecies of memorial, he is taken as it were out of the hands of the true God, whom we Chriftians worship in our churches, and turned over to the miferable blindnefs of Heathen deftiny: not to mention the infult and profanation with which Heathen idols are brought into a Chriftian temple. In the fame church, the baptiftery or font is removed almost out of fight; and when found, has a very mean and unworthy appearance, as if it were intended for fome other ufe: fo natural is it for those improvements which exalt Heathenism to debase Chriftianity. How confpicuous are all the temples of the Heathen. idols in the famous gardens of Stowe in Buckinghamshire; while the parish church, which happens to stand within the precincts, is induftriously throuded behind ever-greens and other trees, as an object impertinent, or at least of no importance to a spectator of modern taste. In our rural ornaments we have temples to all the Pagan divinities; and in the city a Pantheon, wherein there is a general affembly 'of the fons and daughters of pleasure, under the aufpices of Heathen dæmons *.

This tafte is not only profane and corrupting whenever it takes place, but the productions of it are fometimes monftrously abfurd and incongruous: it begets a certain inattention to propriety, which admits of false and shocking affociations, consistent neither with goodness of taste, nor correctness of judgment. When I fee the figure of a cock upon the top of a fteeple, I am reminded of that facred bird who was a monitor to St. Peter, and through his example is now giving a daily leffon to all believers. When I fee the globe and crofs on the top of St. Paul's, I rejoice in the i exaltation of him who was humbled for our fakes, but is now the head of all principality and power to the church and to the world; and I feel a fecret fatisfaction in reflecting, that a cross so exalted · has no reproach in it, as if the offence of it were ceafed. But when I fee the dragon upon Bow-steeple, I can only wonder how an emblem fo expreffive of the devil, and frequently introduced as fuch into the temples of idolaters, found its way to the fummit of a Christian edifice. I am fo jealous in thefe matters, that I muft confefs myself to have been much hurt by a like impropriety in a well-known mufic-room, where there is an organ confecrated,

*The author of thefe Reflexions hath lived to fee it deftroyed by fire.

by a fuperfcription to Apollo, although the praises of Jehovah are generally celebrated by it once every month in the choral performances and it feems rather hard that Jehovah fhould condefcend to be a borrower, while Apollo is the proprietor. ✔

In all the sciences the tokens of this Pagan infection are very obfervable. In politics we hear of nothing but Brutus, and are ftunned with the heroifm of rebels, and the virtue of regicides. In morality, how venerable are the characters of Socrates, and Cato the fuicide: while the Spartan virtue is become the grand object of patriotic emulation; though I am fure it would make a shocking figure if the moral character of that commonwealth were impartially represented on the authority of Plutarch. Botany, which in ancient times was full of the bleffed Virgin Mary, and had many religious memorials affixed to it, is now as full of the Heathen Venus, the Mary of our modern virtuofi. Amongst the ancient names of plants, we find the Calceolus Mariæ, Carduus Mariæ, Carduus benedictus, our Lady's Slipper, our Lady's Thiftle, our Lady's Mantle, the Alchymilla, &c. but modern improvements have introduced the Speculum Veneris, Labrum Veneris, Venus's Looking-glafs, Venus's Bafin (the Dipfacus), Venus's Navel-wort, Venus's Fly-trap, and fuch-like and whereas the ancient botahifts took a pleasure in honouring the memory of the Chriftian faints with their St. John's wort, St. Peter's wort, herb Gerard, herb Chriftopher, and many others; the modern ones, more affected to their own honour, have dedicated feveral newly-difcovered genera of plants to one another; of which the Hottonia, the Sibthorpia, are inftances, with others fo numerous and familiar to men of science, that they need not be fpecified.

:

But in poetry, the servility of Christians is most notorious of all, Here they follow as implicitly as if the Heathen Mufes had deprived them of their wits. If any machinery is to be introduced, it must all be according to the Heathen model, by a law as invariable as that of the Medes and Perfians. But it fhould be confidered, that when an Heathen poet [made use of his divine machinery, he only fpoke as he believed, introducing fuch powers into his verfe as he profeffed to worship in profe. After he had been offering facrifices in the temple of Minerva, it was natural for him to bring her in to the affiftance of his hero: but when a Chriftian moralift does the fame, propofing a pattern of virtue on the Heatlea plan for the purposes of education, he

goes out of his way, to adopt what he knows to be as abfurd in itself as it is contrary to his profeffion. If there is a natural oppofition between truth and falfhood, we are now as irrational in betraying a partiality to the profane objects of Heathenism, as the Heathens themselves would have been, had they fhewn the like regard to the facred objects of the Bible; only with this difference, that they would have taken up what was better than their own, whereas we incline to that which is worse their choice would have brought them nearer to God; ours brings us nearer to the Devil. How strange would it have been, if while their temples were dedicated to Venus, Mars, and Bacchus, their gardens had been adorned with ftatutes of Mofes and Aaron, the walls of their houses painted with the deftruction of Sodom, the overthrow of Pharaoh, the delivery of the two tables on Mount Sinai, and such like subjects of facred hiftory! Who would not have inferred in such a cafe, that their temples were frequented out of form, while their inclinations were toward the law of Mofes, and the God of the Hebrews? The Heathen priests would never have been filent on fuch an occafion they would have exclaimed against this double-faced difaffection, and have given the alarm against all that were guilty of it, as perfons ready to apoftatize from the religion of their ancestors. But alas! no Heathens were ever found to be thus inconfiftent they were faithful to their profeffion, and with one mind abominated every thing that was Jewish, for the relation it bore to the Jewith worthip; always railing against that nation as low and contemptible, and their religion as foolish and fu perftitious. We alfo fhould be as fincere in our profeffion as they were in theirs, and fhould exprefs our averfion against folly and profanenefs wherever they occur, unless our intellects were vitiated with false wisdom from the common forms of education, To take little things for great, and great for little, is the worst misfortune that can befal the human understanding. The machinery of Heathenifm appears great to scholars, because it has been described by great wits of antiquity, with great words and musical verses; and being offered very early to the mind at school, there is a natural prepoffeffion in favour of it. But is there really any thing great in the character of Æolus, fhutting up the winds in a den? In Vulcan the blacksmith, hammering thunderbolts with his one-eyed journeymen? In Neptune, a man living under water like a fish, and flourishing a pitch-fork to still the raging

*

of the fea? If these things are taken literally, according to that poetical character in which the ancient writers ufed them, and in which only they are adopted by the moderns, they are so mean and ridiculous, that when the Heathens were preffed with them after the commencement of the Gofpel, they could find no way of upholding their dignity, but by refolving them into their phyfical character; that is, by accommodating them to the powers and operations of nature, to which they alluded with a fort of myftical refemblance *.

Notwithstanding all this, fuch is the attachment to the Heathen models, that Boileau lays it down as a principle in epic poetry, that no grandeur of defcription can be attained without introducing Jupiter, Juno, Pallas, Neptune, with the whole tribe of Pagan divinities: and if any Chriftian fhould be deterred by a fenfe of his profeffion from making use of these ancient ornaments, as he calls them, his fcruples can be afcribed to nothing but a vain and fuperftitious fear. And indeed our poets have generally affented to this doctrine of Boileau, without finding themselves much embarraffed by the terrors of Chriftian fuperstition; infomuch that if any stranger were to judge of our religion from the practice of our poets and tragedians, he would take Paganifm for the eftablished religion of the country. For befides hymns to Venus and Bacchus, and Wood Nymphs, and Water Nymphs †, we fee virtues and attributes impersonated and deified as they were of old: we have odes to Liberty, odes to Health, odes to Contentment; in which Health is prayed to for health, and Contentment is intreated to give contentment, that is, to be the cause of itself; with many other abfurdities, in which the licence of poetry is not very confiftent with common sense, and much less with the fenfe of religion.

What is more common with poets than to make a compliment of the creation to Jupiter? and confequently of all those fovereign attributes of power, wisdom, and goodness, which are displayed in the works of nature; especially in the formation of the human fpecies? Of this we have a specimen in the following lines by the late celebrated Dean of St. Patrick's.

*This is done at large by Phurnatus, in his book IIep Jewv puses, published in Gale's Opufcula Mythologica.

The last thing that occurred to me of this kind, was, a prayer of poor Phyllis Wheatley, the nego poetefs, to Neptune, entreating his providence to preserve her friend in a voyage.

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