Thefe flowers, whofe varied and fhining beauty we fo much admire, are the tears of Aurora. It is the breath of Zephyrus which gently agitates the leaves. The foft murmurs of the waters are the fighs of the Naïades.

A god impels the wind; a god pours out the rivers; grapes are the gift of Bacchus; Ceres prefides over the harveft; orchards are the care of Pomona. Does a fhepherd found his reed on the fummit of a mountain? It is Pan who, with his pastoral pipe, returns the pleasing lay. When the sportsman's horn roufes the attentive ear, it is Diana, armed with her bow and quiver, and more nimble than the flag that the purfues, who takes the diversion of the chace. The fun is a god, who, riding on a car of fire, diffufes his light through the world. The ftars are fo many divinities, who measure with their golden beams the regular progrefs of fire. The moon prefides over the filence of the night, and confoles the world for the absence of her brother. Neptune reigns in the fea, furrounded by the Nereides, who dance to the joyous fhells of the Tritons.

t

In the highest heaven is feated Jupiter, the master and father of men and gods. Under his feet roll the thunders, forged by the Cyclops in the caverns of Etna. His fmile rejoices nature, and his nod shakes

the

the foundation of Olympus. Surrounding the throne of their sovereign, the other deities quaff nectar from a cup presented to them by the young and beautiful Hebe. In the middle of the great circle fhines, with diftinguished luftre, the goddefs of beauty, adorned with a fplendid girdle, in which the graces appear elegant and chearful; and in her hand is a fmiling boy, the picture of health and content

ment.

Sweet illufions of the fancy! Pleasing errors of the mind! What objects of pity are those cold and infenfible hearts, who have never felt your charms! And how deftitute of tafte muft thofe perfons be, who would destroy a world that has fo long been the treasury of the arts; a world imaginary indeed, but delightful, and whose ideal pleasures are fo well fitted to compenfate for the real troubles and miseries of the world in which we live.

CHRO

CHAP. LI.

OF CHRONOLOGY.

HRONOLOGY is a fcience which treats of time, and fhews the different measures or computations of it, that have obtained in different

nations,

nations. It enables us truly to date the beginning and end of the reigns of princes, the births and deaths of eminent perfons, the revolutions of empires and kingdoms, battles, fieges, or any other remarkable events. Without chronology, that is, without distinguishing the times of events as clearly as the nature of the cafe will well admit, all history would be little better than a heap of confufion, deftitute of light, order, or beauty.

In the study of history, an exact chronology is like Ariadne's clue, which guides us through the different windings of the labyrinth; and the mind being thus conducted, the ideas we obtain from reading are more diftinct, and more eafily fixed in the memory.

In the chronology of ancient kingdoms, it must be confeffed there is the utmost uncertainty, 'arifing chiefly from the vanity of each in claiming the greatest antiquity. Thus the priests of Egypt, as Herodotus informs us, reckon from the reign of Menes to that of Sethon 341 generations, three of which they fuppofed equal to a hundred years; fo that, according to this computation, the whole time, from one reign to the other, was 11,340 years. The Chaldeans piqued themselves on their antiquity, pretending to have obferved the stars 473 thousand years. Other eaftern nations made the

the

like extravagant pretenfions; all which were favoured by their having no exact accounts of time.

The chronology of the ancient Greeks is equally uncertain. Their writings are full of fables, being all in verse, from which fiction is infeparable, till the conqueft of Afia by Cyrus the Perfian. They did not begin to fet down the generations, reigns and fucceffions, in numbers of years, till fome time after the death of Alexander the Great. This makes their chronology very uncertain; and indeed fuch it was reputed by the Greeks themfelves, as appears from several paffages in Plutarch.

In the chronology of the Latins we find still greater uncertainty. In a word, not one of the European nations had any chronology at all, till the time of the Perfian empire, which began 536 years before the birth of Chrift; and whatever chronology they now have of more ancient times, has been framed fince by reasoning and conjecture. Therefore, on a strict and impartial examination, the Jewish records, exclufive of their divine authority, will appear to be the most certain and authentic, and confequently the fureft foundation of chronology.

CHAP.

CHAP. LII.

OF TIME AND ITS PARTS,

IME is diftinguished into abfolute and rela

TIM

tive. Abfolute time is confidered as in itself, and without any relation to bodies or their motions. This flows equally, never proceeding either faster or flower. Relative time is that which is measured or estimated by certain motions, as thofe of the fun, moon, clocks and watches. This is otherwife called apparent or vulgar time.

The ufual divifions of time are years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and feconds; befides periods, centuries, and cycles.

CHAP. LIII.

OF YEARS.

THE completeft period of time is a year, in

which all the feafons return in fucceffion, and begin anew. It is that space of time wherein the fun finishes his course through the ecliptic, returning to the fame point of it, from which he had

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departed.