at you; but it is so true, that Arthur of White's told me last night, that he should put off the last ridotto, which was to be on Thursday, because he hears nobody would come to it. I have advised several who are going to keep their next earthquake in the country, to take the bark for it, as it is so periodic. Dick Leveson and Mr Rigby, who had supped and stayed late at Bedford House the other night, knocked at several doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, "Past four o'clock, and a dreadful earthquake!" But I have done with this ridiculous panic: two pages were too much to talk of it.

I had not time to finish my letter on Monday.I return to the earthquake, which I had mistaken; it is to be to-day. This frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days seven hundred and thirty coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park corner, with whole parties removing into the country. Here is a good advertisement which I cut out of the papers to-day. 10" On Monday next will be published (price 6d.) a true and exact list of all the nobility and gentry who have left, or shall leave, this place through fear of another earthquake." DiSeveral women have made earthquake gowns, that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all night. These are of the more courageous. One woman, still more heroic, is come to town on purpose: she says all her friends are in London and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Caroline Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. 4801 30, 306 gniog to Dudas atrion

I did not doubt but you would be diverted with the detail of absurdities that were committed after the earthquake. I could have filled more paper with such relations, if I had not feared tiring you. We have swarmed with sermons, essays, relations, poems, and exhortations on that subject. One Stukely, a parson, has accounted for it, and I think prettily, by electricity-but that

is the fashionable cause, and everything is resolved into electrical appearances, as formerly everything was accounted for by Descartes's vortices and Sir Isaac's gravitation; but they all take care, after accounting for the earthquake systematically, to assure you that still it was nothing less than a judgment. Dr Barton, the rector of St Andrews, was the only sensible, or at least honest, divine upon the occasion. When some women would have had him pray to them in his parish church against the intended shock, he excused himself on having a great cold. "And besides," sai he, "you may go to St James's Church; the Bishop of Oxford is to preach there all night about earthquakes." Turner, a great chinaman, at the corner of next street, had a jar cracked by the shock: he originally asked ten guineas for the pair; he now asks twenty," because it is the only jar in Europe that had been cracked by an earthquake."

Introduction to the Night Thoughts.

YOUNG.

[AT the beginning of this century the "Night Thoughts" of Edward Young were amongst the most popular of poems, and in every collection which bore the name of "English Classics." There are some things in them which ought not to be forgotten. Their general tone is gloomy; their satire is harsh; there is much of meretricious ornament in their illustrations; but they are strikingly impressive; and we have few productions more calculated to arrest the career of levity—perhaps only for a passing moment-by presenting to its view "the vast concerns of an eternal scene." Young was born in 1684, according to the most correct accounts, and died in 1765.]

Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short, (as usual,) and disturb'd repose,
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!

Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought,
From wave to wave of fancied misery,

At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain,
(A bitter change!) severer for severe.

The day too short for my distress; and night,
Even in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor nor listening ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,
An awful pause, prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfill'd:

Fate drop the curtain: I can lose no more.
Silence, and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins
From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve,
(That column of true majesty in man,)
Assist me I will thank you in the grave-

The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall
A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.

But what are ye?-Thou who didst put to flight
Primæval Silence, when the morning stars,

Exulting, shouted on the rising ball;

O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul; My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure, As misers to their gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of nature, and of soul, This double night, transmit one pitying ray,

To lighten and to cheer. Oh, lead my mind;
(A mind that fain would wander from its woe ;)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death;
And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear;
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, pour'd
On this devoted head, be pour'd in vain.
The bell strikes one.
But from its loss.

Is wise in man.

We take no note of time,
To give it then a tongue
As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood
It is the signal that demands despatch:

How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? A fathomless abyss ;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder He who made him such !
Who centred in our make such strange extremes,
From different natures marvellously mix'd!
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain !
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorb'd!
Though sullied, and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm a god!-I tremble at myself,

And in myself am lost! at home a stranger;
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels! A
Oh, what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!

What can preserve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

'Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof;
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spreads,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods; or down the craggy steepPJL
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool,
Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds,
With antique shapes, wild natives of the brain !!!
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;
Active, aërial, towering, unconfined,

Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall.
Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal:
Even silent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal, Heaven husbands all events;
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost?
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around
In infidel distress? Are angels there?
Slumbers, raked up in dust, ethereal fire?

They live! they greatly live a life on earth
Unkindled, unconceived; and from an eye
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall
On me, more justly number'd with the dead.
This is the desert, this the solitude;
How populous, how vital, is the grave!