given was once highly popular, and led the way to Derham's "Physico-Theology," and Paley's "Natural Theology." It is entitled the "Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation. ']

Methinks by all the provision which he has made for the use and service of man, the Almighty interpretatively speaks to him in this manner. I have now placed thee in a spacious and well-furnished world, I have endued thee with an ability of understanding what is beautiful and proportionable, and have made that which is so agreeable and delightful to thee; I have provided thee with materials whereon to exercise and employ thy heart and strength; I have given thee an excellent instrument, the hand, accommodated to make use of them all; I have distinguished the earth into hills and valleys, and plains, and meadows, and woods; all these parts capable of culture and improvement by thy industry: I have committed to thee for thy assistance in the labors of ploughing and carrying, and drawing, and travel, the laborious ox, the patient ass, and the strong and serviceable horse; I have created a multitude of seeds for thee to make choice out of them of what is most pleasant to thy taste, and of most wholesome and plentiful nourishment; I have also made great variety of trees, bearing fruit both for food and physic, those, too, capable of being meliorated and improved by transportation, stercoration, incision, pruning, watering, and other arts and devices. Till and manure thy fields, sow them with thy seeds, extirpate noxious and unprofitable herbs, guard them from the invasions and spoils of beasts, clear and fence in thy meadows and pastures; dress and prune thy vines, and so rank and dispose them as is most suitable to the climate; plant thee orchards, with all sorts of fruit-trees, in such order as may be most beautiful to the eye, and most comprehensive of plants; gardens for culinary herbs, and all kinds of salading; for delectable flowers, to gratify the eye with their agreeable colors and figures, and thy scent with their fragrant odors; for odoriferous and evergreen shrubs and suffrutices; for exotic and medicinal plants of all sorts, and dispose them in their comely order, as may be both pleasant to behold, and commodious for I have furnished thee with all materials for building, as stone, and timber, and slate, and lime, and clay, and earth, whereof

access.

to make bricks and tiles. Deck and bespangle the country with houses and villages convenient for thy habitation, provided with outhouses and stables for the harboring and shelter of thy cattle, with barns and granaries for the reception and custody, and storing up thy corn and fruits. I have made thee a sociable creature, Zoov пolinyov, for the improvement of thy understanding by conference, and communication of observations and experiments; for mutual help, and assistance, and defence; build thee large towns and cities, with straight and well-paved streets, and elegant rows of houses, adorned with magnificent temples for thy honor and worship, with beautiful palaces for thy princes and grandees, with stately halls for public meetings of the citizens and their several companies, and the sessions of the courts of judicature, "besides public porticoes and aqueducts. I have implanted in thy nature a desire of seeing strange and foreign, and finding out unknown countries, for the improvement and advance of thy knowledge in geography, by observing the bays, and creeks, and havens, and promontories, the outlets of rivers, the situation of the maritime towns and cities, the longitude and latitude, &c., of those places: in politics, by noting their government, their manners, laws, and customs, their diet and medicine, their trade and manufactures, their houses and buildings, their exercises and sports, &c. In physiology, or natural history, by searching out their natural rarities, the productions both of land and water, what species of animals, plants, and minerals, of fruits and drugs are to be found there, what commodities for bartering and permutation, whereby thou mayest be enabled to make large additions to natural history, to advance those other sciences, and to benefit and enrich thy country by increase of its trade and merchandise. I have given thee timber and iron to build the hulls of ships; tall trees for masts, flax and hemp for sails, cables and cordage for rigging. I have armed thee with courage and hardiness to attempt the seas, and traverse the spacious plains of that liquid element; I have assisted thee with a compass to direct thy course when thou shalt be out of all view of land, and have nothing in view but sky and water. Go thither for the purposes forementioned, and bring home what may be useful and beneficial to thy country in general, or thyself in particular.

I persuade myself that the bountiful and gracious Author of

man's being and faculties, and all things else, delights in the beauty of his creation, and is well pleased with the industry of man in adorning the earth with beautiful cities and castles, with pleasant villages and country-houses; with regular gardens and orchards, and plantations of all sorts of shrubs and herbs, and fruits for meat, medicine, or moderate delight; with shady woods and groves, and walks set with rows of elegant trees; with pastures clothed with flocks, and valleys covered over with corn, and meadows burdened with grass, and whatever else differenceth a civil and well-cultivated region from a barren and desolate wilderness.

If a country thus planted and adorned, thus polished and civilized, thus improved to the height by all manner of culture for the support and sustenance and convenient entertainment of innumerable multitudes of people, be not to be preferred before a barbarous and inhospitable Scythia, without houses, without plantations, without corn-fields or vineyards, where the roving hordes of the savage and truculent inhabitants transfer themselves from place to place in wagons, as they can find pasture and forage for their cattle, and live upon milk, and flesh roasted in the sun at the pommels of their saddles; or a rude and unpolished America, peopled with slothful and naked Indians, instead of well-built houses living in pitiful huts and cabins, made of poles set endwise; then surely the brute beasts' condition and manner of living, to which what we have mentioned doth nearly approach, is to be esteemed better than man's, and wit and reason was in vain be. stowed on him.

117.-EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.

S. ROGERS.

[IN 1786 was published, "An Ode to Superstition, with other Poems." This was the first work of Samuel Rogers, one of our living authors. Mr. Rogers, himself a banker of the city of London, was the son of a city banker. He received a liberal education; his taste was assiduously cultivated. At a time which preceded the early days of Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Southey, and Campbell Mr. Rogers produced "The Pleasures of Memory," which

appeared in 1792. His other most considerable poem, " Italy," did not appear till 1830. There are few such examples of the imagination and the taste remaining unchanged for half a century. The "Epistle to a Friend,” which we give below, was printed in the same beautiful illustrated volume with the "Pleasures of Memory," in 1834, but was originally published in 1798. In his preface to this charming poem Mr. Rogers says, It is the design of this epistle to illustrate the virtue of True Taste; and to show how little she requires to secure, not only the comforts, but even the elegancies of life. True Taste is an excellent economist. She confines her choice to few objects, and delights in producing great effects by small means; while False Taste is forever sighing after the new and the rare; and reminds us, in her works, of the scholar of Apelles, who, not being able to paint his Helen beautiful, determined to make her fine."]

When, with a Reaumer's skill, thy curious mind
Has classed the insect tribes of human-kind,
Each with its busy hum, or gilded wing,

Its subtle web-work, or its venomed sting;

Let me, to claim a few unvalued hours,

Point out the green lane rough with fern and flowers;
The sheltered gate that opens to my field,

And the white front thro' mingling elms revealed.
In vain, alas! a village-friend invites
To simple comforts, and domestic rites,
When the gay months of carnival resume
Their annual round of glitter and perfume;
When London hails thee to its splendid mart,
Its hives of sweets and cabinets of art;
And, lo! majestic as thy manly song,
Flows the full tide of human life along.

Still must my partial pencil love to dwell
On the home prospects of my hermit-cell;
The mossy pales that skirt the orchard green,
Here hid by shrub-wood, there by glimpses seen.'
And the brown pathway, that, with careless flow,
Sinks, and is lost among the trees below.
Still must it trace (the flattering tints forgive)
Each fleeting charm that bids the landscape live.
Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance, pass,
Browsing the hedge by fits, the pannier'd ass;

The idling shepherd boy, with rude delight,
Whistling his dog to mark the pebbles' flight;
And in her kerchief blue the cottage maid,
With brimming pitcher from the shadowy glade.
Far to the south a mountain-vale retires,

Rich in its groves, and glens, and village spires;
Its upland lawns, and cliffs with foliage hung,
Its wizard stream, nor nameless, nor unsung;
And through the various years, the various day,
What scenes of glory burst, and melt away!

When April verdure springs in Grosvenor Square,
And the furred beauty comes to winter there,
She bids old Nature mar the plan no more;
Yet still the seasons circle as before.
Ah! still as soon the young Aurora plays,

Tho' moons and flambeaux trail their broadest blaze:
As soon the skylark pours
his matin song,
Tho' evening lingers at the mask so long.
There let her strike with momentary ray,
As tapers shine their little lives away;
There let her practise from herself to steal,
And look the happiness she does not feel;
The ready smile and bidden blush employ
At Faro-routs, that dazzle to destroy;
Fan with affected ease the essenced air,
And lisp of fashions with unmeaning stare.
Be thine to meditate an humbler flight,
When morning fills the fields with rosy light;
Be thine to blend, nor thine a vulgar aim,
Repose with dignity, with Quiet fame.

Here no state chambers in long line unfold,

Bright with broad mirrors, rough with fretted gold Yet modest ornament, with use combined,

Attracts the eye to exercise the mind.

Small change of scene, small space his home requires, Who leads a life of satisfied desires.

What tho' no marble breathes, no canvas glows, From every point a ray of genius flows!