ing and succouring every moral disorder and physical infirmity.

Of the heathen allegory I have never seen an explication, but I shall offer one which appears simple; and I offer it with the more pleasure, because if false, it can produce no other harm than that of contempt for the poor ingenuity of the author; and if it be true, it will serve to prove the truth of the history of creation, as related in the bible, and thus add another argument to the excellence of our holy religion.

By Pandora is meant a being, possessing every gift, as the word evidently denotes. Among the Greeks, it had a female signification, upon the principle mentioned in Harris's Hermes, that every recipient being is naturally considered of the female gender. The first man, Adam, is darkly shadowed under the allegory of Pandora, the first woman. He received a command from his maker, which he was not to break ; but which, if he should transgress, the inevitable consequence was misery and death. Pandora was ordered not to open the box, which had been given her, under the penalty of spreading disease and calamity in the world; and the hope, which remained at the bottom of the box, is typical of the gracious promise of salvation, which the benevolent God made at the time of man's transgression.

These are the leading features of resemblance, which it is sufficient for me to have sketched. Future investigators, who have the piety and erudition of Maurice and Bryant, may be able to exhibit the sources of Egyptian or Indian theology, whence the Greeks borrowed their story; they may be able to point out the minute differences between the heathen fable

and the scriptural narration; they may be able to reconcile apparent contradictions; to account for strange absurdities in the history of Pandora, and to demonstrate by new arguments the sacred truth of the formation and the fall of Adam.

Little speculation and experience are necessary to convince us of the evils of life: they are frequent and distressing. They come, when we never expect them, and when they have glided away, they are quickly followed by others. Some men are overpowered by a sudden condensation of misery; while others are wearied out by continual succession of petty misfortunes. Man indeed is born to sorrow. At the moment of birth he gives signs of that pain, which generally accompanies him in the different stages of existence, only altered by irresistible circumstances, or suspended by the alleviations of science.

Under such circumstances, what would be the condition of man without hope? He would sink, loaded with sorrow, to the grave; or he would drag out a painful existence, anticipating the moment of dissolution. But this messenger of good whispers to every one soft words of peace. It cheers the sick man with the prospect of better days, when health shall invigorate his frame, and when society shall revel at his restoration to pleasure. The poor man anticipates the year, when he shall no longer be obliged to work for his daily bread; when, with a competent supply of riches, he shall be able to afford himself a decent habitation for the evening of his days. The mariner, tossed in the waves or almost overwhelmed in a storm, can discern in the horizon of hope a safe re

treat from the present vexations, and a secure accommodation a gainst the coming calamities of existence. In like manner, to all who are oppressed by physical evils, hope offers a suitable relief: she spreads her light, and all darkness vanishes; she extends her powerful hand, and the tear is wiped from the widow's eye and the countenance of the orphan glistens with cheerfulness.

The natural evils of the world are indeed great; they are sufficient to oppress a virtuous mind, and to appal the stoutest resolution; yet if we diligently survey the whole system of beings, we shall find other sources of misery, more poignant in their effect, if not more frequent in their recurrence. Physical infirmities have reference only to the body; of course they cannot endure longer than life; and though our existence be embittered by sorrow, and overwhelmed by agony, there is little consequent apprehension about future felicity or torment. But as moral agents, men are subjected to temptation; they are seduced by evil pleasures, or transported with furious passions. Hence is produced the whole catalogue of crimes. Hence originate those vices and sins, which a moral philosopher cannot contemplate without pity, and which the transgresser of human and divine laws knows to be the cause of his severe punishment and misery. These evils, which relate to our moral nature,have evidently two springs; they are produced either by our own folly and wickedness, and then we are criminal; or they are the consequence af accidents and circumstances, which are not to be resisted, and then we are unfortu

nate.

Among other evils, of the first class, is the undeserved loss of reputation. This, to an honourable man, is a deprivation greater than that of life. If a virtuous mind have been for years raising his character by regular pursuits of industry, and the punctual discharge of moral obligations; if he have attained an high rank among his fellow-men, and with conscious superiority views himself as equal to the highest in the eye of heaven, how is his heart torn, when this reputation has been sapped by the artful and the malignant, when the lowest artifices have successfully been executed to number him among the criminal and the vicious? No anguish is equal to his; no tongue can speak his sorrow; no treasures can compensate his loss. Yet to this poor being of misfortune there is hope. This will cheer him and comfort him; not merely the hope that his accusers will one day be condemned, for an honourable man will pardon even his enemies; not merely the hope that his character will be re-established in this world, for of this he may care but little, as experience has evinced the vanity of depending on the opinion of the world; but the sure and certain hope of another state, where his virtues will shine clearer than the day-star in its meridian, where his good deeds will be recompensed by full-flowing felicity, and where perhaps his heavenly father will crown him with greater glory for the loss, which he sustained below, of all. that is valuable, dear, and praiseworthy.

Hope is the constant attendant on him, who has laboriously endeavoured to acquire renown in the republick of letters, and who, from the negligence of mankind, or the ab

surdity of fashion,has never obtain ed the rank which was his due. No one should ever despond. Literary history will point out many names, high in literature, and often in the mouth of fame, who were once unknown, forgotten, or disregarded. In their progress through a great undertaking, hope comforted and fortified them. It exhibited in bright array the testimonials of future celebrity, and proclaimed the loud and distinct acclamations of mankind. Even if the writers were flattered and seduced by the gay rise of hope; if they did not receive tributary honours or profitable distinctions in their life-time, they looked forward with a steady eye to ages yet unborn, and in anticipation enjoyed the shouts of gratulation, and the embraces of kindred souls, who welcomed their advancement to the temple of fame.

The evils, which are produced by wickedness, are always horrible in the eyes of society and of God; those, which arise from folly, rather than from sin, are not always punished with severity by the earthly judge; and perhaps hereafter they may be considered with an eye of compassion by the supreme disposer of all things. Crimes, which are plotted in darkness and secrecy by the deliberations of infernal men, and which are perpetrated with all the cool savageness of malignancy, are punished with unrelenting justice by earthly tribunals; yet I know not if hope ever deserted the most shameless of villains. His fancy continually suggests hopes from

the effects of chance or design. The dungeon indeed contains his body, but nothing restrains the operations of mind. He may look forward to his release by the destruction of his country; to his escape by means of a thousand acci, dents; to a deliverance by civil commotions, or the conflagration of the prison, the influence of friends, or the convulsion of an earthquake.

A dungeon is the solitude of a criminal, and, I hope, sometimes the cell of a penitent. No one can limit by finite bounds the compassion of infinite benevolence. The murderer should indeed deeply feel the awful horrour of his crime; he should be torn by the remorse of his conscience, and humiliated even to dust by the solemn contemplation of his accumulated wickedness. To such a man I would not offer the smallest reason of confidence, not the most minute ground of assurance to the favour of heaven; yet if he were deeply sorrowful, if he were inwardly convinced of his wickedness, and were completely repentant, I trust that a ray of hope would gleam into his dark dungeon, and that he might sometimes think on the infinite merits of his Saviour, and the infinite power of his God. We are all the children of sin, and have all forfeited the countenance of our Maker; yet we can trust in the hope of reconciliation, not only for ourselves, but even for murderers, for we know that goodness is unlimited, and that there is mercy in heaven.

TACITUS.

THE writings of Tacitus display the weakness of a falling empire, and the morals of a degenerate age. The period in which he lived was Favourable to the exercise of writing; and under the auspices of Trajan he was not restrained from painting strongly, what he had ardently conceived. His genius was energetick and penetrating. In the horrours of the years, which preceded the reign of Vespasian, he finds an ample subject for the workings of his mind, and in his reflections on the corruption of manners, and the state of society, he discovers the most profound knowledge of our nature. Accordingly his writings by the schol*ars in Europe have been studied as a regular task. They form the subject of deep meditation for all statesmen, who wish to raise their country to glory; to continue it in power, or preserve it from ruin. Time has destroyed that part of the history which depictured the virtues of Titus, Nerva, and Trajan; but as if to show how vile our nature can be, has left almost 'untouched the lives of Tiberius and his successors, to the accession of Vespasian. The mutilations have however been almost restored through the patronage of princes, the industry and erudition of successive editors and commentators; so that the world is now presented, as by a wild Salvator

Rosa, with a faithful picture of the miseries and crimes of the Roman empire, from the death of Augustus, to the assassination of Vitellius. Perhaps this series of time was as fertile in crimes as the dark ages. Before these, mankind had become inured to misery. No one knew what was liberty, and very few had even heard of it. Of course their situation was not materially worse, during the centuries that followed. But previously to the commencement of the empire, even in the days of Marius, and Sylla, and Pompey, and Cæsar, there was some reverence for ancient laws and institutions. Freedom was not entirely forgotten, and where real felicity was wanting, there was a false, alluring, mock-sun glory, which attracted, illuminated, and deceived. The knowledge of this was in the remembrance of the slaves of Tiberius, and fathers had told it to their children, so that both realised the miseries of the times-rendered more excruciating from the recollection of the tales of the victories of Cæsar, and the splendour of Augustus. The causes, which led to the downfal of this mighty empire, are highly worthy of the consideration of every statesman and scholar; and no where can they be studied with more pleasure and profit than in the writings of Tacitus.