quities, and the earth rises up against them. They are speechless with guilt, and stigmatized with infamy before all the armies of the sky, and all the nations of the redeemed. What a favour would they esteem it, to hide their ashamed heads in the bottom of the ocean, or even to be buried beneath the ruins of the tottering world!

If the contempt poured upon them be thus insupportable, how will their hearts endure when the sword of infinite indignation is unsheathed, and fiercely waved about their defenceless heads, or pointed directly at their naked breasts? How must the wretches scream' with wild amazement, and rend the very heavens with their cries, when the right-aiming thunderbolts go abroad!-go abroad with a dreadful commission to drive them from the kingdoms of glory, and plunge them, not into the sorrows of a moment, or the tortures of an hour, but into all the restless agonies of unquenchable fire and everlasting despair.

Misery of miseries! too shocking for reflection to dwell upon. But if so dismal to foresee, and that at a distance, together with some comfortable expectation of escaping it, O! how bitter, how inconceivably bitter, to bear without any intermission, through hopeless and eternal ages.

Who has any bowels of pity? Who has any sentiments of compassion? Who has any tender concern for his fellow creatures? Who?then let him shew it, by warning every man, and beseeching every man, to seek the Lord while he may be found, to throw down the arms of rebellion before the act of indemnity expires,

submissively to adore the Lamb, while he holds out the golden sceptre. Here, let us act the friendly part to mankind; here, let the whole force of our benevolence exert itself, in exhorting relations, acquaintance, neighbours, whomsoever we may probably influence, to take the wings of faith unfeigned, of repentance undelayed, and flee away from this wrath to come. HERVEY.

MATTHEW VI. v. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
PARAPHRASED.

"Think not, when all your scanty stores afford,
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,

And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs 1 again.

Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?

Behold! and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air;
To them, nor stores, nor granaries belong;
Nought but the woodland, and the pleasing
song;

Yet your kind heav'nly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
To him they sing when spring renews the plain;)
To him they cry, in winters' pinching reign;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain:
He hears the gay, and the distressful call;
And with unsparing bounty fills them all."
"Observe the rising lily's snowy grace;
Observe the various vegetable race:

They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow; Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow;

What regal vestments can with them compare!
What king so shining! or what queen so fair!
"If, ceaseless, thus, the fowls of heav'n he feeds:
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads:
Will he not care for you, ye faithless say?
Is he unwise? or, are ye less than they?

THOMPSON.

Explain the Figures contained in the following Extracts; and in what manner they are to be Read.

What nervous arms he boasts! how firm his tread,

His limbs how turn'd! how broad his shoulders spread!

By age unbroke!-but all-consuming care Destroys, perhaps, the strength that time would

spare;

Dire is the ocean, dread in all its forms!

Man must decay, when man contends with storms!

Thus toil'd the chiefs, in different parts engaged, In every quarter fierce Tydides raged,

Amid the Greek, amid the Trojan train,

Rapt through the ranks he thunders o'er the plain;

Now here, now there, he darts from place to

place,

Pours on the rear, or lightens in their face.

Thus from high hills the torrents swift and strong

Deluge whole fields, and sweep the trees along, Through ruin'd moles the rushing wave resounds, O'erwhelms the bridge, and bursts the lofty bound.

The yellow harvests of the ripen'd year,

And flatted vineyards, one sad waste appear!

Cursed is the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule, or private care;

That wretch, that monster, who delights in war:
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country, and his kind destroy!

There various news I heard of love and strife, Of peace and war, health, sickness, death and life,

Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,
Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,
Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,

Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,
The falls of favourites, projects of the great,
Of old mismanagements, taxations new,
All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.

Spacious indeed are these heavens! where do they begin? where do they end? what is their extent? can angels answer my question? have angels travelled the vast circuit? can angels measure the bounds of space? no; 'tis boundless, 'tis unknown, 'tis amazing to all.

O grant a poet leave ro recommend
(A poet fond of nature, and your friend)
Her slighted works to your admiring view;
Her works must needs excel, who fashion'd you.

CICERO AGAINST VERRES.

The time is come, Fathers, when that which has long been wished for, towards allaying the envy your order has been subject to, and removing the imputations against trials, is effectually put in your power. An opinion has long pervaded, not only here at home, but likewise in foreign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious to the state,-that, in prosecutions, men of wealth are always safe, however clearly convicted. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confusion, I hope, of the propagators of this slanderous imputation, one whose life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial persons; but who, according to his own reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I demand justice of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treasury, the oppressor of Asia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge and curse of Sicily. If that sentence is passed upon him which his crimes deserve, your authority, Fathers, will be venerable and sacred in the eyes of the public; but if his great riches should bias you in his favour, I shall still gain one point, to make it apparent to all the world, that what was wanting in this case, was not a criminal nor a prosecutor, but justice and adequate punishment.