and the full measure of all things: but when the proof of the immateriality of the foul, from the qualities of MATTER and SPIRIT, is to be obftinately oppofed, the fcene is shifted, and we are prefented with a new face of things: then Reason becomes weak, ftaggering, and impotent: then we know not but one quality may be another quality; one mode, another mode; Motion may be confcioufnefs; and Matter fentient .

PRESS.

you

Thefe, Gentlemen, are the feveral ways in which have abused the LIBERTY OF THE One might defy you, with all your good will or invention, to contrive a new one, or to go further in the old: You have done your worst. It is time to think of growing better. This is the only inference I would draw from your bad conduct. For I am not one of those who fay you should be disfranchised of the Rights you have fo wantonly and wickedly abused. Natural rights were lefs precariously bestowed the Civil, indeed, are frequently given on the condition of the Receiver's good behaviour. And this difference, in the fecurity of the poffeffion, is founded in the plaineft reafon. Natural rights are so neceffary to our Being, that, without them, Life becomes miserable; but the Civil only contributing to our

• See his Answers to Dr. Clarke.

eafier accommodation, in fome circumstances of it, may be forfeited without injury to our common Nature.

In a word then, all that we defire is your amendment; without any finifter aim of calling upon the Magiftrate to quicken your pace. So I leave you, as I dare fay will He, to yourfelves. Nor let any good man be above meafure fcandalized at your faults; or more impatient for your reformation, than mere charity demands. I do not know what panic the prefent growth of Infidelity may have thrown fome of us into: I, for my part, confide so much in the goodness of our Caufe, that I too could be tempted to laugh in my turn, while I think of an old story told us by Herodotus, of of your vourite EGYPTIANS; of whom you are like

fa

Lib. ii. c. 14. vid. Plutarch. Symp. 1. iv. Prob. 5. The learned Gale cannot be reconciled to this kind of huf bandry. He is therefore for having the word Ts, ufed by Herodotus, not to fignify fivine, but cows or heifers. His authority for this use of the word is Hefychius. But Plutarch is a much better for the other fignification, who in his Symp. quoted above, fpeaking to the queftion Πότερον οι Ιουδαῖοι σεβόμενοι τὴν ὖν, etc. mentions this very circumftance of tillage from Herodotus, and understands by us fwine. The truth of the matter feems to be this, Hefychius found that is, in some obscure province or other, meant a Heifer, as xáTę amongst the Tyrrhenians, we are told, meant a goat, and fo put it down to inrich his dictionary with an unusual fignification.

to

to hear a great deal in the following work. With this tale I shall beg leave to conclude my long address unto you.

He tells us then, that at what time their Deity, the NILE, returns into his ancient channel; and the husbandman hath committed the good feed to the opening glebe, it was their cuf tom to turn in whole droves of SWINE; to range, to trample, root up, and destroy at pleasure. And now nothing appeared but defolation, while the ravages of the obfcene herd had killed every chearful hope of future plenty. When on the iffue, it was feen, that all their perverfity and dirty tafte had effected, was only this; that the SEED took better root, incorporated more kindly with the foil, and at length shot up in a more luxuriant and abundant harveft.

POST SCRIP T.

A

POET and a Critic*, of equal eminence, have concurred, tho' they did not start together, to cenfure what was occasionally said in this Dedication (as if it had been addressed to them) of the use and abuse of Ridicule. The Poet was a follower of Lord Shaftsbury's fancies; the Critic a follower of his own. Both Men of TASTE, and equally anxious for the well doing of RIDICULE. I have given fome account of the latter in a note of the Dedication. The other was too full of the fubject and of himself to be dispatched with fo little Cere-. mony: He must therefore undergo an examina tion apart.

Since it is (fays he) beyond all contradiction evident, that we have a natural sense or feeling of the ridiculous, and fince fo good a Reafon may be affigned to juftify the fupreme Being for beftowing it; ONE CANNOT WITHOUT ASTONISHMENT reflect on the conduct of thofe Men who imagine it for the fervice of true Religion to vilify and blacken it WITHOUT DISTINCTION, and endeavour to perfuade us that it

*See Pleafures of Imag. and Elements of Criticism.

is never applied but in a bad caufe The Reafon here given, to fhew, that Ridicule and Buffooneri may be properly employed on ferious and event facred fubjects, is admirable: it is because we have L a natural fenfe or feeling of the ridiculous, and beecr caule no fenfation was given us in vain, which T would ferve just as well to excufe Adultery or In? reft. For have we not as natural a fenfe or feeling of the voluptuous? Yes, he will fay, but this fenfe has its proper object, virtuous love, not adulterous or incestuous: And does he think, I will not fay the fame of his fenfe of the ridiculous? Its proper objects are, not weighty and Sacred matterss but the civil cuftoms and common occurrences of life. For he stretched a point when he told the Reader, I vilified and blacken'd it without dif tinction. The thing there oppos'd, was the abufive way of art and raillery on religious Subjects. With as little regard to Truth did he say, that I endeavoured to perfuade the Public that it is never applied but in a bad Caufe For, in that very place, I apologized for an eminent Writer who had applied it in a good one.

A

Ridicule (fays he) is not (i, e, ought not to "be] conterned with mere fpeculative Truth and Falood. Certainly. And, for that very reafon I would exclude it from thofe Subjects.

Pleas, of Imag. p. 405-6.

What