CONTENTS. Page 1 69 The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain : In Two Parts The Two Shoemakers: In Six Parts The History of Tom White the Postboy: In The History of Hester Wilmot: In Two Parts; - - - The Servant Man turned Soldier: An Allegory 350 The History of Betty Brown the St. Giles's THE SHEPHERD OF SALISBURY PLAIN. MR. JOHNSON, a very worthy charitable gentleman, was travelling some time ago across one of those vast plains which are well known in Wiltshire. It was a fine summer's evening, and he rode slowly that he might have leisure to admire God in the works of his creation. For this gentleman was of opinion, that a walk or a ride was as proper a time as any to think about good things; for which reason, on such occasions, he seldom thought so much about his money, or his trade, or public news, as at other times, that he might with more ease and satisfaction enjoy the pious thoughts which the wonderful works of the great Maker of heaven and earth are intended to raise in the mind. As this serene contemplation of the visible heavens insensibly lifted up his mind from the works of God in nature, to the same God as he is seen in revelation; it occurred to him that this very connection was clearly intimated by the Royal Prophet in the nineteenth psalm. That most beautiful description of the greatness and power of God exhibited in the former part, plainly seeming intended to introduce, illustrate, and unfold the operations of the word and Spirit of God on the heart in the latter. And he began to run a parallel in his own mind between the effects of that highly poetical and glowing picture of the material sun in searching and warming the earth, in the first six verses, and the spiritual operation attributed to the "law of God," which fills up the remaining part of the psalm. And he persuaded himself that the divine Spirit which dictated this fine hymn, had left it as a kind of general intimation to what use we were to convert our admi, |