to human fociety. By wifdom, by art, by the united strength of civil community, men have been enabled to fubdue the whole race of lions, bears, and ferpents, and what is more, to bind in laws. and wholesome regulations the ferocious violence and dangerous treachery of the human difpofition. Had lions been deftroyed only in fingle combat, men had had but a bad time of it; and what but Laws could awe the men, who killed the lions? The genuine glory, the proper distinction of the rational fpecies, arises from the perfection of the mental powers. Courage is apt to be fierce, and strength is often exerted in acts of oppreffion. But Wisdom is the affociate of Justice; it affifts her to form equal laws, to pursue right measures, to correct power, protect weakness, and to unite individuals in a common intereft and general welfare. Heroes may kill tyrants; but it is wifdom and laws that prevent tyranny and oppreffion. The operations of policy far furpass the labours of Hercules, preventing many evils which valour and might might cannot even redrefs. You Heroesconfider nothing but glory, and hardly regard whether the conquefts, which raise your fame, are really beneficial to your country. Unhappy are the people who are governed by valour not directed by prudence, and not mitigated by the gentle arts! HERCULES. I do not expect to find an admirer of my ftrenuous life in the man, who taught his countrymen to fit ftill and read, and to lose the hours of youth and action in idle speculation and the sport of words. CADMUS. An ambition to have a place in the regifters of fame is the Euryftheus, which imposes heroic labours on mankind. The Mufes incite to action, as well as entertain the hours of repose; and I think you fhould honour them for presenting to Heroes such a noble recreation, as may prevent their taking up the Distaff, when they lay down the Club. HERCULES. Wits, as well as Heroes, can take up the Distaff. T Diftaff. What think you of their thin-spun fyftems of philofophy, or lascivious poems, or Milesian fables? Nay, what is still worse, are there not panegyrics on tyrants, and books that blafpheme the Gods, and perplex the natural sense of right and wrong? 1 be-` lieve if Euryftheus was to fet me to work again, he would find me a worse task than any he imposed; he would make me read through a great library; and I would ferve it as I did the Hydra: I would burn as I went on, that one Chimera might not rife from another, to plague mankind. I fhould have valued myself more on clearing the library, than on cleanfing the Augean ftables. CADMUS. It is in those libraries only that the memory of your Labours exifts. The Heroes of Marathon, the patriots of Thermopyla owe their immortality to me. All the wife institutions of lawgivers, and all the doctrines of fages, had perished in the ear, like a dream related, if letters had not preferved them: Oh Hercules! it is not for the man who preferred virtue to pleasure to be an enemy enemy to the Muses. Let Sardanapalus and the filken fons of Luxury, who have wasted life in inglorious ease, despise the records of action, which bear no honourable testimony to their lives. But true merit, heroic virtue, each genuine offspring of immortal Jove, fhould honour the facred fource of lasting fame. HERCULES. Indeed, if writers employed themselves only in recording the acts of great men, much might be said in their favour. But why do they trouble people with their meditations? Can it fignify to the world what an idle man has been thinking? CADMUS. Yes it may. The most important and extensive advantages mankind enjoy, are greatly owing to men who have never quitted their closets. To them mankind is obliged for the facility and security of navigation. The invention of the compass has opened to them new worlds. The knowledge of the mechanical powers has enabled them to conftruct fuch wonderful machines, as perform T 2 form what the united labour of millions, by the fevereft drudgery, could not accomplish. Agriculture too, the most useful of arts, has received its fhare of improvement from the fame fource. Poetry likewife is of excellent ufe, to enable the memory, to retain with more eafe, and to imprint with more energy upon the heart, precepts of virtue and virtuous actions. Since we left the world, from the little root of a few letters, Science has fpread its branches over all nature, and raised its head to the heavens. Some philofophers have entered fo far into the counfels of Divine Wisdom, as to explain to us many of its moft ftupendous operations. The dimenfions, distances, and causes of the revolutions of the planets, the path of comets, and the ebbing and flowing of tides, are understood and laid open. Can any thing raise the glory of the human fpecies more, than to fee a little creature, inhabiting a small spot, amidst innumerable worlds, taking a furvey of the universe, comprehending its arrangement, and entering into the scheme of that wonderful connexion and correfpondence of things fo re mote, |