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tionable as history in this particular. Poets can paint virtue in the moít charming colours; but, as they address themselves entirely to the paffions, they often become advocates for vice. Even philofophers are apt to bewil der themselves in the fubtilty of their fpeculations; and we have seen fome go fo far as to deny the reality of all moral diftinctions. But I think it a remark worthy the attention of the fpeculative reader, that the hiftorians have been, almoft without exception, the true friends of virtue, and have always reprefented it in its proper colours, however they may have erred in their judgments of particular perfons. Nor is this combination of hifto rians in favour of virtue at all difficult to be accounted for. When a man of business enters into life and action, he is more apt to confider the characters of men as they have relation to his intereft than as they stand in themselves, and has his judgment warped on every oc cafion by the violence of his paffion, When a philofopher contemplates characters and manners in his clofet, the general abftract view of the objects leaves the mind fo cold and unmoved, that the fentiments of nature have no room to play, and he scarce feels the difference be twixt vice and virtue. History keeps in a just medium betwixt these extremes, and places the objects in their true point of view. The writers of history, as well as the readers, are fufficiently interefted in the characters and events, to have a lively fentiment of blame or praise; and, at the fame time, have no particular intereft or concern to pervert their judgment.

XII. On the Immortality of the Soul

AMONG other excellent arguments for the immorta dity of the foul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progrefs of the foul to its perfection, without a poffibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that E do not remember to have feen opened and improved by others who have written on this fubject, though it feems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the foul which is capable of fuch immenfe perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, fhall fall away into nothing almoft as foon as it is created! Are fuch abi

lities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pafs: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the fame thing he is at prefent. Were a human foul thus at a stand in her accomplishments; were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of farther enlargements; I could imagine it might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progrefs of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having juft looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few difcoveries of His infinite goodnefs, wifdom, and power, muft perish at her first fetting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries?

Man, confidered in his prefent ftate, does not seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not furprising to confider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their bufinefs in a fhort life. The filk-worm, after having fpun her tafk, lays her eggs and dies. But in this life man can never take in his full measure of knowledge; nor has he time to fubdue his paffions, establish his foul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the ftage. Would an infinitely wife Being make fuch glorious creatures for fo mean a purpofe ! Can he delight in the production of fuch abortive intelligences, fuch fhort-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wifdom which shines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next; and believing that the feveral generations of rational creatures, which rife up and difappear in fuch quick fucceffions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be tranfplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity.

There is not, in my opinion, a more pleafing and triumphant confideration in religion than this, of the perpetual progrefs which the foul makes towards the perfection of its nature without ever arriving at a period

in it. To look upon the foul às going on from ftrength to ftrength; to confider that she is to fhine, with new acceffions of glory, to all eternity; that he will be ftill adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it fomething wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man, Nay, it must be a profpect pleafing to God himself, to fee his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater degrees of refemblance.

Methinks this fingle confideration, of the progrefs of a finite fpirit to perfection, will. be fufficient to extin guish all envy in inferiour natures, and all contempt in fuperiour. That cherubim, which now appears as a God to a human foul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human foul shall be as perfect as he himself now is; nay, when the shall look down upon that degree of perfection as much as fhe now falls fhort of it. It is true, the higher nature ftill advances, and by that means preferves his distance and fuperiority in the fcale of being; but he knows, that, how high foever the ftation is of which he stands poffe£ ed at prefent, the inferiour nature will at length mount up to it, and fine forth in the fame degree of glory.

With what aftonishment and veneration may we look into our fouls, where there are fuch hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, fuch inexhaufted fources of perfection! We know not yet what we fhall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in referve for him. The foul, confidered in relation to its Creator, is like one of thofe mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity, without a poffibility of touching it: and can there be a thought so tranfporting, as to confider ourselves in thefe perpetual approaches to Him who is not only the ftandard of perfection but of happiness?

XIII. The Combat of the Horatii and the Curiatii. THE combat of the Horatii and Curiatii is painted in

a very natural and animated manner by Livy. The caufe was this.-The inhabitants of Alba and Rome, roufed by ambition and mutual complaints, took the field, and

were

were on the eve of a bloody battle. The Alban general, to prevent the effufion of blood, proposed to Hoftilius, then king of Rome, to refer the deftiny of both nations to three combatants of each side, and that empire fhould be the prize of the conquering party. The propofal was accepted. The Albans named the Curiatii, three brothers, for their champions. The three fons of Horatius were chofen for the Romans.

The treaty being concluded, the three brothers, on each fide, arrayed themselves in armour, according to agreement. Each fide exhorts its refpective champions; representing to them, that their gods, their coun try, their parents, every individual in the city and army, now fixed their eyes on their arms and valour. The generous combatants, intrepid in themfelves, and animated by fuch exhortations, march forth, and stood between the two armies.-The armies placed themselves before their respective camps, and were lefs folicitous for any prefent danger than for the confequence of this action.-They therefore gave their whole attention to a fight, which could not but alarm them. The fignal is given. The combatants engage with hoftile weapons, and fhow themselves infpired with the intrepidity of two mighty armies. Both parties, equally infenfible of their own danger, had nothing in view but the flavery or liberty of their country, whose destiny depended upon their conduct. At the first onfet, the clafhing of their armour, and the terrific gleam of their fwords, filled the fpectators with fuch trepidation, fear, and horrour, that the faculty of fpeech and breath feemed totally fufpended, even while the hope of fuccefs inclined to neither fide. But, when it came to a clofer engagement, not only the motion of their bodies, and the furious agitation of their weapons, arrested the eyes of the fpectators, but their opening wounds, and the streaming blood. Two of the Romans fell, and expired at the feet of the Albani, who were all three wounded. Upon their fall, the Alban army fhouted for joy, while the Roman legions remained without hope, but not without concern, being eagerly anxious for the furviving Roman, then furrounded by his three adverfaries. Happily he was not wounded; but not being a match for three, though

;

though fuperiour to any of them fingly, he had recourse to a ftratagem for dividing them. He betook himfelf to flight; rightly fuppofing, that they would follow him at unequal distances, as their flrength, after fo much lofs of blood, would permit. Having fled a confiderable way from the spot where they fought, he looked back, and faw the Curiatii purfuing at a confiderable distance from one another, and one of them very near him. He turned with all his fury upon the foremost and, while the Alban army were crying out to his brothers to fuccour him, Horatius, having prefently dif patched the first enemy, rushed forward to a fecond victory. The Romans encourage their champion by fuch acclamations, as generally proceed from unexpected fuccefs. He, on the other hand, haftens to put an end to the fecond combat, and flew another, before the third, who was not far off, could come up to his assistance. There now remained only one combatant on each fide. The Roman, who bad still received no hurt, fired by gaining a double victory, advances with great confidence to his third combat. His antagonist, on the other hand, being weakened by lofs of blood, and fpent with running fo far, could fcarce drag his legs after him, and, being already difpirited by the death of his brothers, presents his breast to the victor, for it could not be called a conteft. Two, (fays the exulting Roman) two I have facrificed to the manes of my brothers; the third I will offer up to my country, that henceforth Rome may give laws to Alba.' Upon which he transfixed him with his fword, and ftripped him of his armour. The Romans received Horatius, the victor, into their camp with an exultation, great as their former fear. After this each army buried their respective dead, but with very different fentiments; the one reflecting on the fovereignty they had acquired, and the other on their fubjection to flavery, to the power of the Ro

mans.

This combat became ftill more remarkable. Horatius, returning to Rome with the arms and fpoils of his enemy, met his fifter, who was to have been married to one of the Curiatii. Seeing her brother dreffed in her

lover's

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