Though firm the chequer'd pavement seems to be, .. Twill surely open and give way for thee!

While crowding lords address their duties near,
Th' anointing prelate, and the kneeling peer,
While with obsequious diligence they bow,
And spread the careful honours o'er thy brow;
While the high-raised spectators shout around,
And the long ailes and vaulted roofs resound;
Then snatch a sudden thought, and turn thy head
From the loud living to the silent dead,

With conscious eye the neighb'ring tombs survey;
These will instruct thee better far than they :
What now thou art, in yon gay homage see;
But these best shew what thou art sure to be!

I am ignorant what reception this excellent performance met with in the world; but, I hope, for the honour of my country, that it was not a bad one. The whole poem is full of beauties; but if it had no other merit than appears in what I have copied from it, every candid judge of poetry must allow it to have deserved the highest applause and admiration.

PLAIN-DEALER, No. 42, Aug. 14, 1724.

Though this paper has no small share of merit, and seems principally to have been written with a view of recommending the verses introduced; yet must it be considered as a daring attempt, when we recollect the twenty-sixth number of the Spectator, by Addison, to which not only this, but probably every other essay on the subject, will be deemed inferior. The paragraph commencing with "Let him walk

with me in this instructive circle,” is a copy of the admirable close of Addison's reflections, which never can be too often reprinted: "When I look upon the tombs of the great (says this exquisite writer), every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them; when I consider rival wits placed side by side; or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes; I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together."

Of the import of both these passages the Bard of Marmion has beautifully availed himself in his introduction to canto the first of that poem, when deploring the loss of the rival states. men, Pitt and Fox:

Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung:
Here, where the fretted ailes prolong
The distant notes of holy song,

As if some angel spoke agen,

"All peace on earth, good-will to men ;”

If ever from an English heart,

O here let prejudice depart.-
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombed beneath the stone,

Where-taming thought to human pride!—

The mighty chiefs sleep side by side;
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,

"Twill trickle to his rival's bier;

O'er PITT's the mournful requiem sound,

And Fox's shall the notes rebound:

The solemn echo seems to cry

"Here let their discord with them die."

I cannot here avoid remarking, that this introduction contains a very striking and poetical imitation of the pensive lines of Moschus on the death of his brother bard:

To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead nature hears,
And in her glory re-appears :
But, Oh! my country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike, and the wise;
The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel ?—
The vernal sun new life bestows

Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where Glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrowds, O PITT! thy hallow'd tomb.

No. XXIV.

Malis

Divulsus queremoniis

Suprema citius solvet amor die.

HORAT.

Unbroken by complaints or strife,
Ey'n to the latest hours of life.

FRANCIS.

THERE is no topic more common in conversation, nor any subject more frequently treated of in writing, than the happiness and the unhappiness of marriage. It is by all confessed, that nothing can equal the felicity of the married state, when two persons, mutually loving and beloved, give and receive all the engaging demonstrations of a reciprocal tenderness and goodnature; nor is it, on the contrary, by the most strenuous advocates for matrimony, denied, that a life in wedlock, where the affections of the soul are never mutual, is of all miseries the greatest. Thus marriage is generally considered in its extremes; and they who defend it, or inveigh against it, seem not to allow of any medium as for myself, though for many circumstantial reasons I continue a bachelor, I am, and have always been of opinion, that there

is no true enjoyment of life without marriage; and I think the miseries which are attributed to that state, arise chiefly from imaginary causes, or from the want of a proper regulation of the passions. It is my belief, therefore, that those persons who, by being joined to any particular man or woman, become so very miserable, would not be much more happy was that obligation dissolved, and they had their free choice to marry again. I am apprehensive that this supposition may seem somewhat absurd, yet I have not advanced it without some kind of authority; for many are the widows and widowers, who, during their first marriage, vehemently exclaimed against the miseries which attended it, yet have soon entered into a second, in which they have not been the least more sensible of felicity..

I was led into these reflections, by musing on an argument which an old bachelor urged this evening in conversation against marriage in general: "That trite observation (says he), that had one priest the power and privilege to unmarry, it would be the best benefice in the kingdom, is to me a rational proof that all marriages are more or less unhappy; nor do I believe there are any two fools in the nation, who have been coupled a week, but would with much