to its interment, a structure (such as you now behold) was raised, in order to perpetuate the memory of her conjugal affection. Aep. And should not our hearts be a monument of gratitude to the blessed Jesus, who drew the deadly. venom, not from our veins, but from the immortal part of our nature; and not at the hazard, but at the loss, the certain and unavoidable loss of his precious life! He opened his breast, opened his very soul to the keenest arrows of vindictive justice; that, transfixing him, they might drop short of us. The poison whereof drank up his spirits,' that the balm of peace might refresh ours. O my Theron! let our memories be the tablet to record this unexampled instance of compassion and goodness. Let our affections dwell upon the tragical, the delightful history, till they melt into contrition, and are inflamed with love. If we want an inscription, let us make use of those noble lines, which in the finest climax imaginable, describe the magnificence and grace of this astonishing transaction: Survey the wondrous cure, And at each step let higher wonder rise. A pardon bought with blood!-With blood divine!- My species up in arms!-not one exempt! One of these structures stands on the high road near Northampton. It is surrounded with a large flight of steps at the bottom, and ornamented towards the top with four female statues in full proportion. A Latin inscription informs the traveller concerning its occasion and design: In perpetuam Reginæ Eleanora + Job vi. 4. 1 Night Thoughts, N. iv. DIALOGUE V. Elegant Arbour in the Flower Garden-Imputation of Christ's Righteousness-Objections from Reason canvassed. ASPASIO having some letters of importance to answer, as soon as the cloth was taken away, retired from table. His epistolary engagements being dispatched, he inquired for Theron. The servants informed him, that their master walked into the garden. A very little search found him seated on an airy mount, and sheltered by an elegant arbour. Strong and substantial plants of liburnum formed the shell; while the slender and flexile shoots of syringa filled up the interstices. Was it to compliment, as well as to accommodate their worthy guests, that they interwove the luxuriant foliage? Was it to represent those tender but close attachments, which had united their affections, and blended their interests? I will not too positively ascribe such a design to the disposition of the branches. They composed, however, by their twining embraces, no inexpressive emblem of the endearments and the advantages of friendship. They composed a canopy, of the freshest verdure, and of the thickest texture; so thick, that it entirely excluded the sultry ray, and shed both a cool refreshment and an amusive gloom; while every unsheltered tract glared with light or fainted with heat. You enter by an easy ascent of steps, lined with turf, and fenced with a balustrade of sloping bay-trees; the roof was a fine concave, peculiarly elevated and stately. Not embossed with sculpture, not mantled over with fret-work, not incrusted with splendid fresco, but far more delicately adorned with the syringa's silver tufts and the liburnum's flowering gold: whose large and lovely clusters gracefully pended from the leafy dome, disclosing their sweets to the delighted bee, and gently waving to the balmy breath of spring, gave the utmost enrichment to the charming bower. Facing the entrance lay a spacious grassy walk, terminated by an octangular bason, with a curious jet d'eau playing in the centre. The waters, spinning from the lower orifices, were attenuated into innumerable little threads, which dispersed themselves in an horizontal direction, and returned to the reservoir in a drizzling shower. Those which issued from the higher tubes and larger apertures, either sprung perpendicularly or spouted obliquely, and formed, as they fell, several lofty arches of liquid crystal; all glittering on the eye and cooling to the air. Parallel to the walk ran a parterre, planted with an assemblage of flowers, which advanced, one above another, in regular gradations of height, of dignity, and of beauty. First, a row of daisies, gay as the smile of youth, and fair as the virgin snows: next a range of crocuses, like a long stripe of yellow satin, quilted with threads or diversified with sprigs of green. A superior order of ranunculuses, each resembling the cap of an earl's coronet, replenished the third story with full-blown tufts of glossy scarlet. Beyond this, a more elevated line of tulips raised their flourished Here is, it must be confessed, some little deviation from the general laws of the season; some anachronism in the annals of the parterre. The flowers united in this representation, do not, according to the usual process of nature, make their appearancé together. However, as by the economy of a skilful gardener, they may be thus associated, I hope the possibility of the thing will screen my flowery productions from the blasts of censure! Or may I not shelter my blooming assembly under the remark of a masterly critic? which is as pertinent to the case as if it had been written on purpose for our vindication; and in all respects so elegant, that it must adorn every work which quotes it, and charm every person who reads it. A painter of nature is not obliged to attend her in her slow advances which she makes from one season to another, or to observe her conduct in the successive production of plants and flowers. He may draw into his description all the beauties of the spring and autumn, and make the whole year contribute something to render it more agreeable. His rose-trees, woodbines, and jassamines may flourish together; and his beds be covered at the same time with lilies, violets, and amaranthuses. His soil is not restrained to any particular set of plants, but is proper either for oaks or myrtles, and adapts itself to the product of every climate. Oranges may grow wild in it, myrrh may be met with in every hedge, and if he thinks it proper to have a grove of spices, he can quickly command sun enough to raise it. His concerts of birds may be as full and harmonious, and his woods as thick and gloomy as he pleases. He is at no more expense in a long vista than a short one, and can as easily throw his cascades from a precipice of half a mile high as from one of twenty yards. He has his choice of the winds, and can turn the course of his rivers in all the variety of meanders, that are most delightful to the reader's imagination; in a word, he has the heads, and opened their enamelled cups; not bedecked with a single tint only, but glowing with an intermingled variety of almost every radiant hue, Above all arose, that noble ornament of a royal escutcheon, the flower-de-luce, bright with etherial blue, and grand with imperial purple: which formed, by its graceful projections, a cornish or a capital of more than Corinthian richness; and imparted the most consummate beauty to the blooming colonade. The whole, viewed from the arbour, looked like a rainbow, painted upon the ground; and wanted nothing to rival that resplendent arch, only the bold. ness of its sweep, and the advantage of its ornamental curve. To this agreeable recess Theron had withdrawn himself. Here he sat musing and thoughtful, with his eye fixed upon a picture representing some magnificent ruins. Wholly intent upon his speculation, he never perceived the approach of Aspasio, till he had reached the summit of the mount, and was ready to take a seat by his side. Asp. Lost, Theron! quite lost in thought! and unaffected with all these amiable objects; insensible amidst this profusion of beauties; which, from every quarter, make their court to your senses!-Methinks, the snarling cynic in his tub, could hardly put on a greater severity of aspect, than my polite philosopher in his blooming Eden. Ther. Ah! my dear friend, these flowery toys which embellish the garden, are familiar to my eye, and therefore cheap in my esteem. I behold them frequently; and, for that reason, feel but little of the pleasing surprise, which they may possibly awaken in a stranger. Something like this we all experience, with regard to events infinitely more worthy our admiring notice. Else, why are we not struck with a mixture of amazement, veneration, and delight, at the grand machinery and magnificent productions of nature. modelling of nature in his own hands, and may give her what charms he pleases, provided he does not reform her too much, and run into absurdities by endeavouring to excel.' Spect, Vol. vi. No. 418. That the hand of the Almighty should wheel round the vast terrestrial globe, with such prodigious rapidity, and exact punctuality; on purpose to produce the regular vicissitudes of day and night; on purpose to bring on the orderly succession of seed-time and harvest! We wonder, when we read of the Israelites sojourning forty years in the desert, marching backward and forward over its burning sands; and find neither their clothes waxing old by so long a use, 'nor their feet swelling'+ with such painful journies. Yet we are neither impressed with wonder, nor affected with gratitude, when we enjoy the benefits of the air, which clothes the earth as it were with a garment: which has neither contracted any noxious taint, through the extensive revolution of almost six thousand years; nor suffered any diminution of its natural force, though exercised in a series of unremitted activity, ever since the elementary operations began. This draught in my hand, shews us the instability of the grandest, most laboured monuments of human art. They are soon swept away, among the other feeble attempts of mortality or remain only as you see here, in shattered ruins; memorials of the vain and powerless ambition of the builders. How strange then, that a structure, incomparably more tender and delicate, should be preserved to old age, and hoary hairs! That the bodily machine, which is so exquisite in its frame, so complicated in its parts, and performs so many thousands of motions every moment, should continue. unimpaired, yet act without intermission, so many days, and weeks, and months, and years. How strange + Neh. ix. 21. Deut. viii. 4. Thousands-not to mention the spontaneous, if we consider only the mechanical motions which are continually performed in the animal system-the digestive action of the stomach-the vermicular agitation of the bowels-the progress of the chyle through the lacteal vessels-the many, many operations of the secreting glands-the compression of the lungs, and all their little cellular lodgments, by every act of respiration-above all, that grand impetus, the systole of the heart; which, by every constriction, darts the crimson current through an innumerable multitude of arteries, and drives, at the same instant of time, the refluent blood through an innumerable multitude of corresponding veins. Such a view will oblige us to acknowledge, that Theron's account is far from being extravagant, that it rather diminishes than exaggerates the real fact. |