unquenchable fire.' How were we struck! Yet soon after still more. With what a face of despair he cry'd out, 'My principles have poison'd my Friend: my extravagance has beggar'd my Boy ; my unkindness has murdered my wife! And is there another Hell! Oh! thou blasphemed, yet most Indulgent, Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hides from thy Frown!' Soon after his understanding fail'd. His terrified Imagination utter'd horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgot. And ere the sun arose, the gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched 'Altamont' had passed away.

The Centaur not Fabulous, in Six Letters on the Life in Vogue, p. 161.
Lond. 1758.

Pleasure and Infidelity generate each other. Eve doubted and then ate; most of Eve's daughters first taste and then disbelieve. Ib., p. 2.

You may as well attempt to silence an Echo by strength of voice as a Wit by the force of reason.

He that will not fear shall feel the wrath of Heaven.

Ib., p. 4.

Ib., p. 119.

Ib., p. 329.

No man ever thought too highly of his Nature or too meanly of himself. A man is often proud of his reason, which reason notwithstanding has evidently lost its authority with himself.

Ib., p. 318.

To be wise too late-is the exactest definition of a Fool.

Ib., p. 269.

150. George Berkeley, 1684-1753. (Handbook, pars. 442, 462.) The Obscurities of Scripture.

EUPHRANOR. You seem Alciphron to think Obscurity a defect; but if it shou'd prove to be no defect, there wou'd be no force in this Objection. ALC. I grant there wou'd not. EUPH. Pray tell me, are not Speech and Style instrumental to convey Thoughts and Notions, to beget Knowledge, Opinions and Assent? ALC. This is true. EUPH. And is not the perfection of an instrument to be measured by the use to which it is subservient? ALC. It is. EUPH. What therefore is a defect in one instrument, may be none in another. ALC. I acknowledge this to be true. EUPII. And may we not say in general that every instrument is perfect

which answers the purpose or intention of him that useth it? ALC. We may. EUPH. Hence it seems to follow that no Man's Speech is defective in point of Clearness, though it should not be Intelligible to all Men, if it be sufficiently so to those who he intended shou'd understand it; or though it shou'd not make parts be equally clear, or convey a perfect knowledge, where he intended only an imperfect hint. ALC. It seems so. EUPH. Ought we not therefore to know the intention of the Speaker, to be able to know whether his style be obscure through defect or design? ALC. We ought. EUPH. But is it possible for Man to know all the ends and purposes of God's Revelations? ALC. It is not. EUPH. How then can you tell, but the obscurity of some parts of Scripture may well consist with the purpose which you know not, and consequently be no argument against its coming from God?... Is it at all absurd or unsuitable to the notion we have of God or Man, to suppose that God may reveal, and yet reveal with a reserve, upon certain remote and sublime subjects, content to give us hints and glimpses rather than views? May we not also suppose from the reason of things and the analogy of Nature that some points, which might otherwise have been more clearly explained, were left obscure meerly to encourage diligence and modesty; two virtues which if it might not seem disrespectful to such great Men, I wou'd recommend to the Minute Philosophers?

Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher; in seven Dialogues
Dial. vi. sec. 8.

Search for Truth.

The eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern; and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly where it is the chief passion, it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views; nor is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life, active perhaps to pursue but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make a real progress in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as his youth, the later growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of truth.

Any one may err; only a fool will persist in error.

Siris on the Virtues of Tar Water and other Subjects, par. 368.

151. William Law, 1686-1761. (Handbook, par. 477.)

Christianity requires a change of Nature-a New Life. That Christianity requires a New Life perfectly devoted to God is plain from the Spirit and Tenour of the Gospel.

The Saviour of the World saith, that except a Man be born again, of Water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. We are told that to as many as received him, to them he gave Power to become the Sons of God, which were born not of Blood, nor of the Will of the Flesh, nor of the Will of Man, but of God.

These Words plainly teach us that Christianity implies some great Change of Nature, that as our Birth was to us a Beginning of a new Life and brought us into a Society of earthly Enjoyments, so Christianity is another Birth, that brings us into a condition altogether as new, as when we first saw the Light.

We begin again to be, we enter upon fresh Terms of Life, have new Relations, new Hopes and Fears, and an entire change of every thing that can be called good and evil. He that is in Christ is a New Creature.

It is not therefore any Number of moral Virtues, no partial Obedience, no Modes of Worship, no external Acts of Adoration, no Articles of Faith, but a new Principle of Life, an entire Change of Temper that makes us true Christians. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God.

A Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection, chap. ii.

152. Thomas Tickell, 1686-1740. (Handbook, par. 183.)

Addison.

If dumb too long the drooping Muse hath stay'd,
And left her debt to Addison unpaid,

Blame not her silence, Warwick! but bemoan,
And judge, oh, judge, my bosom by your own!
What mourner ever felt poetic fires?
Slow comes the verse that real woe inspires;
Grief unaffected suits but ill with art,

Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart. . . .

Oh, gone for ever! take this last adieu,
And sleep in peace next thy lov'd Montague.

...

Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest,
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss convey'd
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

...

He taught us how to live, and (oh! too high
The price of knowledge) taught us how to die.

Epistle to the Earl of Warwick on the death of Addison.

Three times all in the dead of
night

A bell was heard to ring,
And shrieking at her window thrice,
The raven flapp'd his wing. . .

'I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.'

She spoke, she died. Her corse was borne

The bridegroom blithe to meet,
He in his wedding-trim so gay,
She in her winding sheet.

Then to his Lucy's new made grave
Conveyed by trembling swains,
One mound with her, beneath one sod
For ever he remains.

Colin and Lucy, a Ballad. Out of eighteen stanzas.

153. Thomas Warton, 1687-1745. (Handbook, pars. 213, 402.) Sonnet written on a Blank Leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon.

Deem not devoid of elegance the sage,
By fancy's genuine feelings unbeguil'd,
Of painful pedantry the poring child;

Who turns, of these proud domes, the historic page,
Now sunk by time and Henry's fiercer rage.
Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smil'd
On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage
His thoughts, on themes unclassic falsely styl'd
Intent. While cloister'd Piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores
New manners, and the pomp of elder days,
Whence calls the pensive bard his pictur'd stores.
Nor rough, nor barren, are the winding ways
Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers.

The Age of Elizabeth.

The age of Queen Elizabeth is commonly called the golden age of English poetry. It certainly may not improperly be styled the most poetical age of these annals.

Among the great features which strike us in the poetry of this period are the predominancy of fable, of fiction, and fancy, and a predilection for interesting adventures and pathetic events. I will endeavour to assign and explain the cause of this characteristic distinction, which may chiefly be referred to the following principles, sometimes blended, and sometimes operating singly; the revival and vernacular versions of the classics, the importation and translation of Italian novels, the visionary reveries or refinements of false philosophy, a degree of superstition sufficient for the purposes of poetry, the adoption of the machineries of romance, and the frequency and the improvements of allegoric exhibition in the popular spectacles. . . .

...

All or most of these circumstances contributed to give a descriptive, a picturesque, and a figurative cast to the poetical language. This effect appears even in the prose compositions of the reign of Elizabeth. In the subsequent age prose became the language of poetry.

In the mean time general knowledge was increasing with a wide diffusion and a hasty rapidity. Books began to be multiplied, and a variety of the most useful and rational topics had been discussed in our own language. But science had not made too great advances. On the whole, we were now arrived at that period propitious to the operations of original and true poetry, when the coyness of fancy was not always proof against the approaches of reason; when genius was rather directed than governed by judgment; and when taste and learning had so far only disciplined imagination as to suffer its excesses to pass without censure or control for the sake of the beauties to which they were allied. History of English Poetry, vol. iii., sec. 61.

154. John Gay, 1688-1732. (Handbook, par. 185.) Best known by his Fables, and his Beggar's Opera.

The Court of Death.

Death on a solemn night of state,

In all his pomp of terror sat;