Let us alfo take into our account the viciffitude and variety of seasons, with the alternation of day and night;

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rifing sweet,
"With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the fun,
"When firft on this delightful land he spreads
"His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
"Glitt'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth.
"After foft fhow'rs; and fweet the coming on
"Of grateful evening mild; then filent night
With this her folemn bird, and this fair moon,
"And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train.'

Thus are defcribed the delights of Eden, by a Poet fo enamoured of the beauties of Nature, that he has certainly exerted his utmost powers to enhance her charms; and yet even Milton's imagination was not able to tranfcend the reality of thofe objects and enjoyments, which our common fields and gardens afford us every day.

This is the common life of man; this the condition of the yeoman, the husbandman, the labourer, the artist, the mechanic, the fervant-the many of mankind. And where fickness, pain, lofs of any fenfe or limb, happens to the lot of individuals, this is not according to the courfe of Nature, but rather a violence against it. And thefe accidents

afflict not the many, but the few; nor is Providence any more anfwerable for the natural, than for the moral, ills of life: one is but incidental to the general conftitution and neceffity of things, and the other to the appetites and free-will of man.

But floth, luxury, ambition, vicious paffions, envy, hatred, and malice, may render fome difeafed in body, and others difcontented in mind. This is not, however, the condition of their nature, but the corruption of it; and these are still not the many, but the few; not the body of the people, but the excrefcences which arife out of it, and must be nourished at its coft-namely, the great, the opulent, and the proud.

- The

"The happinefs of life
"Depends on our discretion-

"Look into those they call unfortunate,
"And clofer view'd, you'll find they are unwife
"Some flaw in their own conduct lies beneath;
"And 'tis the trick of fools to fave their credit,
"Which brought another language into ufe."

The REVENGE,

If what I have here faid, upon this comparative view of human nature, were not true, Providence must have shewn a manifeft partiality to the inferior creation, which is certainly placed in an happier state than man, according to fome-to many writers. But Plato fpeaks upon this fubject with a much better philosophy than any of these moral fophifters, when he fays, that "God is good, for he beftows all that "is good upon all creatures, according to their feveral

capacities. Each is as happy as it can be; or, as "its nature permits; and if any thinks the feveral "creatures could have been happier, it is because she does not understand their natures"

Who fees not Providence all good and wife,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

POPE.

It may not be improper to quote a paffage here, out of a letter from Mr. Pope to Doctor Swift, upon the fubject of his Effay on Man.

"I am juft now (fays he) writing, or rather plan"ning, a book, to bring mankind to look upon this "life with comfort and pleasure, and put morality in good bumour with itself.”

This is the true philofophy of fenfe and virtue. Gloomy minds are deficient in both,

CORIOLANUS.

Dramatis Perfonæ

ME N.

CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS.

COMINIUS.

MENENIUS AGRIPPA.

BRUTUS.

SICINIUS.

SENATORS.

CITIZENS.

WOMEN.

VOLUMNIA.

VIRGILIA.

CORIOLANUS.

ACT I. S

SCENE I.

Enter a Number of mutinous Citizens armed with various Weapons. EFORE we proceed any further, hear me

Firft Citizen.

B speak.

All. Speak, fpeak.

Firft Citizen. You are all refolved rather to die than to famith ?

All. Refolved, refolved.

First Citizen. First, you know Caius Marcius is the chief enemy to the people.

All. We know't, we know't.

Firft Citizen. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is't a verdict ?

All. No more talking on't, let it be done. Away, away.

Second Citizen. One word, good citizens.

Firft Citizen. We are accounted poor citizens, the Patricians good. What authority furfeits on, would relieve us. If they would yield us but the fuperfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear *. The leannefs that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our fufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes † ; for the gods know I fpeak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

The nature and reafoning of all mutinous caballers are fully fhewn in the above fhort fcene. The common people are apt to impute all national grievances or calamities to the fault of their rulers, tho' ever fo unavoidable from the nature of things, failure of seasons, or other incidental misfortunes whatfoever. If freedom of fpeech and the liberty of the prefs were not reftrained in Turkey, I make no

Not worth the charge of maintaining.

† This miserable clinch is not worth the trouble of correcting or explaining. doubt