Oh! let my Love with powerful Odours Stay
My fainting lovefick Soul, that dies away;
One Hand beneath me let him place,
With t'other press me in a chaffe Embrace.

I charge you, Nymphs of Sion, as you go
Arm'd with the founding Quiver and the Bow,
Whilft thro' the lonefome Woods you roue,
You ne'er difturb my fleeping Love.
Be only gentle Zephyrs there,
With doway Wings to fan the Air:
Let facred Silence dwell around,
To keep off each intruding Sound:
And when the balmy Slumber leaves his Eyes,
May he to Foys, unknown 'till then, arife.

VI.

But fee! he comes! with what majestick Gate He onward bears his lovely State!

Now thro' the Lattice he appears,
With fofteft Words difpels my Fears
Arife, my Fair-One, and receive
All the Pleasures Love can give.
For now the fullen Winter's past,
No more we fear the Northern Blaft:
No Storms nor threatning Clouds appear,
No falling Rain deforms the Year.

My Love admits of no delay,

Arife, my Fair, and come away.

VII.

Already, fee! the teeming Earth

Brings forth the Flow'rs, her beauteous Birth.
The Dews, and foft-defcending Show'rs,
Nurfe the new-born tender Flow'rs.
Hark! the Birds melodious fing.
And fweetly usher in the Spring.
Clofe by his Fellow fits the Doue,"
And billing whispers her bis Love.
The Spreading Vines with Bloffoms fweke;
Diffusing round a grateful Small,

As to its Mate the conftant Dove
Flies thro' the Covert of the spicy Grove,
So let us haften to fome lonesome Shade,
There let me fafe in thy lov'd arms be laid,
Where no intruding hateful Noife

Shall damp the Sound of thy melodious Voice; Where I may gaze, and mark each beauteous Grace; For Sweet thy Voice, and lovely is thy Face.

IX.

As all of me, my Love, is thine,
Let all of thee be ever mine.
Among the Lillies we will play,
Fairer, my Love, thou art than they;
Till the purple Morn arife,

And balmy Sleep forfake thine Eyes;
Till the gladfome Beams of Day
Remove the Shades of Night away;
Then when foft Sleep shall from thy Eyes depart;
Rife like the bounding Roe, or lufty Heart,
Glad to behold the Light again

From Bether's Mountains darting o'er the Plain.

T

N® 389.

N

Tuesday, May 27.

Meliora pii docuere parentes.

Hor.

TOTHING bas more furprized the Learned in England, than the Price which a fmall Book, entitled Spaccio della Beftia triomfante, bore in a late Auction. The Book was fold for thirty Pound. As it was writsen by one Jordanus Brunus, a profeffed, Atheist, with a de

figu

fign to depreciate Religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant Price it bore, that there must be fomething in it very formidable.

I must confefs, that happening to get a fight of one of them my felf, I could not forbear perufing it with this Apprehenfion; but found there was fo very little Danger in it, that I fhall venture to give my Readers a fair Account of the whole Plan upon which this wonderful Treatife is built.

THE Author pretends that Jupiter once upon a Time refolved on a Reformation of the Conftellations: for which purpose having fummoned the Stars together, he complains to them of the great Decay of the Worship of the Gods, which he thought fo much the harder, having called several of those Celestial Bodies by the Names of the Heathen Deities, and by that means made the Heavens as it were a Book of the Pagan Theology. Momus tells him, that this is not to be wondered at, fince there were fo many fcandalous Stories of the Deities; upon which the Author takes occafion to caft Reflections upon all other Religions, concluding, that Jupiter, after a full Hearing, difcarded the Deities out of Heaven, and called the Stars by the Names of the Moral Virtues.

THIS fhort Fable, which has no Pretence in it to Reafon or Argument, and but a very fmall Share of Wit, has however recommended it felf wholly by its Impiety to those weak Men, who would diftinguish themselves by the Singularity of their Opinions.

THERE are two Confiderations which have been often urged against Atheists, and which they never yet could get over. The firft is, that the greatest and most eminent Perfons of all Ages have been against them, and always complied with the publick Forms of Worfhip established in their respective Countries, when there was nothing in them either derogatory to the Honour of the fupreme Being, or prejudicial to the Good of Mankind.

THE Plato's and Cicero's among the Ancients; the Basons, the Boyles, and the Lockes, among our own Countrymen; are all Inftances of what I have been saying; not to mention any of the Divines, however celebrated, fince

our

our Adverfaries challenge all thofe, as Men who have too much latereft in this Cafe to be impartial Evidences.

BUT what has been often urged as a Consideration of much more Weight, is, not only the Opinion of the Better Sort, but the general Confent of Mankind to this great Truth; which I think could not poffibly have come to pafs, but from one of the three following Reasons ; either that the Idea of a God is innate and co-exiftent with the Mind it felf; or that this Truth is so very obvious, that it is discover'd by the firft Exertion of Reafon in Perfons of the moft ordinary Capacities; or, laftly, that it has been delivered down to us thro' all Ages by a Tradition from the first Man.

THE Atheists are equally confounded, to which ever of 'thefe three Caufes we affign it; they have been fo preffed by this laft Argument from the general Confent of Mankind, that after great fearch and pains they pretend to have found out a Nation of Atheists, I mean that polite People the Hottentots.

I dare not fhock my Readers with Defcription of the Cuftoms and Manner of thefe Barbarians, who are in every respect fcarce one degree above Brutes, having no Language among them but a confufed Gabble, which is neither well understood by themselves or others.

IT is not however to be imagin'd how much the Atheists have gloried in these their good Friends and Allies.

IF we boaft of a Socrates, or a Seneca, they may now confront them with these great Philofophers the Hotten

tots.

THO' even this Point has, not without Reason, been feveral times controverted, I fee no manner of harm it could do Religion, if we fhould entirely give them up this elegant Part of Mankind.

METHINKS nothing more fhews the Weakness of their Caufe, than that no Divifion of their Fellow-Creatures join with them, but thofe among whom they themfelves own Reason is almost defaced, and who have little elfe but their Shape, which can entitle them to any Place in the Species.

BE

BESIDES thefe poor Creatures, there have now and then been Inftances of a few crazed People in feveral Nations, who have denied the Existence of a Deity.

THE Catalogue of thefe is however very thort; even Vanini, the most celebrated Champion for the Caufe, profeffed before his Judges that he believed the Exiftence of a God, and taking up a Straw which lay before him on the Ground, affured them, that alone was sufficient to convince him of it; alledging feveral Arguments to prove that 'twas impoffible Nature alone could create any thing.

I was the other day reading an Account of Cafimir Lifzynski, a Gentleman of Poland, who was convicted and executed for this Crime. The manner of his Punithment was very particular. As foon as his Body was burnt, his Athes were put into a Cannon, and fhot into the Air towards Tartary.

I am apt to believe, that if fomething like this Method of Punishment fhould prevail in England, fuch is the natural good Senfe of the British Nation, that whether we rammed an Atheist whole into a great Gun, or pulverized our Infidels, as they do in Poland, we fhould not have many Charges.

I fhould, however, propofe, while our Ammunition lafted, that instead of Tartary, we should always keep two or three Cannons ready pointed towards the Cape of Good-Hope, in order to fhoot, our Unbelievers into the Country of the Hottentots.

IN my Opinion, a folemn judicial Dearh is too great an Honour for an Atheist, tho' I must allow the Method of exploding him, as it is practifed in this ludicrous kind of Martyrdom, has fomething in it proper enough to the Nature of his Offence.

THERE is indeed a great Objection againft this mannor of treating them. Zeal for Religion is of fo affective a Nature, that it feldom knows where to rest; for which reafon I am afraid, after having difcharged our Atheifts, we might poffibly think of fhooting off our Sectaries; and, as one does not foresee the Viciffitude of human Affairs, it might one time or other come to a Man's own turn to fly out of the Mouth of a Demi-culverin.