to himself, and that he was determined to fee her no more.

and in about half an hour, after many efforts and many intervals, wrote a short billet; which was fealed and put into the hands of Fulvius.

Fulvius immediately inclofed and difpatched it by the poft, refolving that, in a question fo doubtful and of fuch importance, he would no farther inter pole. Mercator, who the moment he caft his eye upon the letter knew both the hand and seal, after pausing a few moments in fufpence, at length tore it open, and read these words:

After Mercator had been abfent about ten days, his uncle, having perfuaded him to accompany fome friends to a country-feat at the distance of near fixty miles, went to his lodgings in order to difcharge the rent, and try what terms he could make with Flavilla, whom he hoped to intimidate with threats of a profecution and dive ce; but when he came, he found that Flavilla was finking very faft under her difeafe, and that the child was dead already. The woman of the houfe, into whofe hands fhe had just put her repeating-watch and fome other ornaments as a fecurity for her rent, was fo touched with her diftrefs, and fo firmly perfuaded of her innocence by the manner in which he had addreffed her, and the calm folemnity with which the abfolved thofe by whom he had been traduced, that as foon as he had difcovered Fulvius's bufinefs, fhe threw herself on her knces, and intreated, that if he knew where Mercator was to be found, he would urge him to return, that if poffible the life of Flavilla might be preferved, and the happinets of both be reftored by her juftification. Fulvius, who fill fufpected appearances, or at leaft was in doubt of the caufe that had produced them, would not discover his nephew; but after much intreaty and expoftulation at laft engaged upon his honour for the conveyance of a letter. The woman, as foon as fhe had obtained this promife, ran up and communicated it to Flavilla; who, when she had recovered from the furprize and tumult which it occafioned, was fupported in her bed,

Such has been my folly, that, per

guilt in any circumftances, but those in which I write. I do not, therefore, but for your fake, wifh them other than they are. The dear infant, whofe birth has undone me, now lies dead at my fide, a victim to my indifcretion and your refentment. I am scarce able to guide my pen. But I molt earneftly intreat to fee you, that you

may at least have the fatisfaction to hear me atteft my innocence with the laft figh, and feal our reconciliation on my lips while they are yet sensible of the impreffion.'

Mercator, whom an earthquake would lefs have affected than this letter, felt all his tenderness revive in a moment, and reflected with unutterable anguish upon the rafhness of his refentment. At the thought of his distance from London, he ftarted as if he had felt a dagger in his heart: he lifted up his eyes to Heaven, with a look that expreffed at once an accufation of himfelf, and a petition for her; and then rushing out of the house, without taking leave of any, or ordering a fervant to attend him, he took poft horfes at a neighbouring inn, and in lefs than fix hours was in Leicester Fields. But notwithstanding his speed, he arriv ed too late; Flavilla had fuffered the laft agony, and her eyes could behold him no more. Grief and disappointment, remorfe and defpair, now totally fubverted his reafon. It became neceffary to remove him by force from the body; and after a confinement of two years in a mad-house, he died.

May every lady on whofe memory compaffion hall record thefe events, tremble to allume the levity of Flavil la; for, perhaps, it is in the power of no man in Mercator's circumstances, to be lefs jealous than Mercator.

Τ

"Lat notwithfanding we fail

⚫ for at prefent of the ancients in poesy, painting, oreory, Litory, ar• chehere, and all the noble arts and • Scences which depend more upon ge⚫ius than experience; we exceed them

as muca in doggerel, humour, bur⚫lique, and all the trivial arts of ndi• cuke. Avin's fine obfervation ftands at prefent only in the form of a general affertion, it deferves, I think, to be examined by a deduction of particulars, and confirmed by an allegation of exampes, which may furnish an agreeable entertainment to those who have ability and inclination to remark the revolutions of human wit.

That Tallo, Ariofto, and Camoens, the three molt crated of modern Epic Poets, are infinitely exc bed in par priety of defign, of fentiment and tyk, by Horace and Virgil, it would be ferious trifling to attempt to prove: but Milton, perhaps, will not fo eafily refign his claim to equality, if not to fuperiority. Let it, however, be remembered, that it Milton be enabled to difpute the prize with the great champions of antiquity, it is entirely owing to the fublime conceptions he has copied from the Book of GOD. Thefe, therefore, muft be taken away, before we begin to make a juft eftimate of his genius; and from what remains, it cannot, I prefume, be faid, with candour and impartiality, that he has excelled Homer, in the fublimity and variety of his thoughts, or the ftrength and majesty of his diction.

Shak cipeare, Corneille, and Racine, are the only modern writers of Tragedy,

Hos Sophates. frit at aus

CI, SI W iamnA

and character, te Greeks in al me

con tute the exe be as vai

derns, the mot m and eat Kanne, but TE

to acknowledge, on 2

ties were borrowed Euripides; white, be the obfervation of

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attention his Frein atace The pompons and tray Rama ments of Curve le are úž from Lucan and Tetas; the of whom, by a range pervenice tate, he is known to have underred Varga. His difion is a mellifluous, his characters net le var vak and juft, nor his plots is reg, to is tereiting and fimpie, as the of 25 po. thetic rival. It is by this implcity of fable alone, when every inge at, and fcene, and fpeech, and sentiment and word, concur to accelerate the intended event, that the Greek tragedies kept the attention of the audience immoreably fixed upon one principal obye which must be neceffarily leffened, and the ends of the drama defeated, by the mazes and intricacies of modern plots.

The affertion of Addison with respect to the first particular, regarding the higher kinds of poetry, will remain un questionably true, till nature in one diftant age, for in the prefeat enervated with luxury fhe feems incapable of fuch

n effort, fhall produce fome tranfcendat genius, of power to eclipse the Iliad nd the Edipus.

The fuperiority of the ancient artists" Painting, is not perhaps fo clearly anifeft. They were ignorant, it will e faid, of light, of fhade, and pereive; and they had not the ufe of 1 colours, which are happily calculated blend and unite without harfhnefs nd difcordance, to give a boldness and -lief to the figures, and to form thofe addle Teints which render every wellTought piece a clofer refemblance of ature. Judges of the trueft tafte do, wwever, place the merit of colouring ir below that of juftness of defign, and ce of expreffion. In thefe two higheft and most important excellencies the anient painters were eminently skilled, if rearuft the teftimonies of Pliny, Quinilan, and Lucian; and to credit them se are obliged, if we would form to warfelves any idea of these artists at all; for there is not one Grecian picture remaining: and the Romans, fome few of whole works have defcended to this age, could never boaft of a Parrhafius er Apelies, a Zeuxis, Timanthes, or Protogenes, of whofe performances the two accomplished critics above-mentianed fpeak in terms of rapture and admiration. The ftatues that have escaped the ravages of time, as the Hercules and Laccoon for inftance, are still a ftronger demonftration of the power of the GreCan artifts in expreffing the paffions; for what was executed in marble, we have prefumptive evidence to think, might alfo have been executed in colours. Carlo Marat, the laft valuable painter of Italy, after copying the head of the Venus in the Medicean collection three hundred fines, generously confeffed, that he could not arrive at half the grace and perfection of his model. But to speak my opinion freely on a very difputable point, I must own, that if the moderns approach the ancients in any of the arts tere in queftion, they approach them reareft in the Art of Painting. The human mind can with difficulty conceive any thing more exalted, than the Laft Judgment of Michael Angelo, and the Transfiguration of Raphael. What can be more animated than Raphael's Paul preaching at Athens? What more tender and delicate than Mary holding the child Jefus, in his famous Holy Family? What more graceful than

the Aurora of Guido? What more deeply moving than the Maffacre of the Innocents, by Le Brun?

But no modern Orator can dare to enter the lifts with Demofthenes and Tully. We have difcourfes, indeed, that may be admired for their perfpicuity, purity, and elegance; but can produce none that abound in a fublime which whirls away the auditor like a mighty torrent, and pierces the inmoft recefles of his heart like a flash of lightning; which irrefiftibly and instantaneously convinces, without leaving him leifure to weigh the motives of conviction. The fermons of Bourdaloüe, the funeral orations of Boffuet, particularly that on the death of Henrietta, and the pleadings of Peliffon for his difgraced patron Fouquet, are the only pieces of eloquence I can recollect, that bear any refemblance to the Greek or Roman orator; for in England we have been particularly unfortunate in our attempts to be eloquent, whether in parliament, in the pulpit, or at the bar. If it be urged, that the nature of modern politics and laws excludes the pathetic and the fublime, and confines the fpeaker to a cold argumenta tive method, and a dull detail of proof and dry matters of fact; yet, furely, the religion of the moderns abounds in topics fo incomparably noble and exalted, as might kindle the flames of genuine oratory in the moft frigid and barren genius: much more might this fuccefs be reasonably expected from such geniuses as Britain can enumerate; yet no piece of this fort, worthy applaufe or notice, has ever yet appeared.

The few, even among profeffed fcholars, that are able to read the ancient Hiftorians in their inimitable originals, are startled at the paradox of Bolingbroke, who boldly prefers Guicciardini to Thucydides ; that is, the most verbose and tedious to the most comprehenfive and concife of writers, and a collector of facts to one who was himself an eye-witness and a principal actor in the important ftory he relates. And, indeed, it may well be prefumed, that the ancient hiftories exceed the modern from this fingle confideration, that the latter are commonly compiled by reclufe scholars, unpractifed in bufinefs, war, and poli tics; whilft the former are many of them written by minifters, commanders, and princes themfelves. We have, indeed, a few flimfy memoirs, particularly