ABELARD.

THE bad tendency of Mr. Pope's Eloisa to Abelard is remarked by Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music, vol. ii. page 23, as depreciating matrimony, and justifying concubinage. This is founded on a false fact; Abelard was married. The original letters are finer than even Pope's: they were published A. D. 1718, by Rawlinson, from a MS. in the Bodleian library. Sir John Hawkins, speaking of Abelard's skill in scholastical theology, and profligacy of manners, makes the following sensible observation: "To say the truth, "the theology of the schools, as taught in Abelard's « time, was merely scientific, and had as little tendency to regulate the manners of those who "studied it, as geometry, or any other of the ma"thematical sciences."--The observation may be extended to other modes of studying divinity,

ADVERSITY.

THE fiery trials of adversity have the same kindly effect on a Christian mind, which Virgil ascribes to burning land. They purge away the bad proper

ties, and remove obstructions to the operations of heaven.

.......Sive illis omne per ignem

Excoquitur vitium, atque exsudat inutilis humor,
Seu plures calor ille vias et cæca relaxat
Spiramenta, novas veniat qua succus in herbas.

GEORG. i. 87.

Or when the latent vice is cur'd by fire,
Redundant humours through the pores expire;
Or that the warmth distends the chinks, and makes
New breathings, whence new nourishment she takes ;
Or that the heat the gaping ground constrains,
New knits the surface, and new strings the veins

DRYDEN, 128

ALCORAN.

EXTRAVAGANT praises are bestowed by Sale and his disciples on the Koran, which equal the enthusiasm of Mahomet and his followers; going every length but that of saying, it was dictated by the Spirit of God.-Wonderful and horrible! This not much noticed; not mentioned, I think, in White's lectures, as it should have been, and exposed. [But if any reader wants satisfaction on the subject of Mahometism, he will find it in Dr. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet.]

AMBITION.

THE ambitious man employs his time, his pains, and his abilities, to climb to a summit, on which, at last, he stands with anxiety and fear, and from which if he fall, it must be with infamy and ruin. A man of like turn in the time of Charles II. had, by like unwearied application, attained a like situation, on the top of Salisbury spire. Every sober thinking man will say in one case what the merry monarch said in the other: "Make the fellow out a patent, that no one may stand there but him. self."

ANGELS.

MAN, a minister of Christ in particular, should resemble them in reconciling duty with devotion. They minister to the heirs of salvation; yet always behold the face of their Father in heaven.

AFRICAN ANTS.

THESE insects sometimes set forward in such multitudes, that the whole earth seems to be in motion. A corps of them attacked and covered

an elephant quietly feeding in a pasture. In eight hours, nothing was to be seen on the spot, but the skeleton of that enormous animal, neatly and completely picked. The business was done, and the enemy marched on after fresh prey.Such power have the smallest creatures acting in concert.

APOPHTHEGMS.

Ir is said, I think, of Bishop Sanderson, that, by frequently conversing with his son, and scattering short apophthegms, with little pleasant stories, and making useful applications of them, the youth was, in his infancy, taught to abhor vanity and vice as

monsters.

ASSES.

THERE are wild asses in South America. They have three properties which bear a moral application. 1. Though exceedingly swift, fierce and untractable, after carrying the first load, their celerity leaves them, their dangerous ferocity is lost, and they soon contract the stupid look and dulness of the asinine species: one of them becomes like ano

ther ass. 2. If that more noble animal a horse happens to stray into the places where they feed, they all fall upon him; and, without giving him the liberty of flying from them, they bite and kick him till they leave him dead upon the spot. 3. They are very troublesome neighbours, making a most horrid noise; for, whenever one or two of them begin to bray, they are answered in the same vociferous manner by all within reach of the sound, which is greatly increased and prolonged by the repercussions of the valleys and breaches of the mountains. Ulloa, i. 248. [An English gentleman, resident in the East, kept one of the asses of the country for his use, who was so troublesome with his noise, that he ordered a slave to strike him on the nose with a cane when he began to vociferate; in consequence of which, the creature in a few days fell from his appetite, and would actually have pined away and died, for want of the liberty of making his own frightful noise.]

ATHANASIAN CREED.

THE doctrines in the public service (as a noble, author has supposed) are not the true cause why people of rank, &c. absent themselves; but down