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some issue, where the wood might open into the plain. He prostrated himself upon the ground, and commended his life to the Lord of nature. He rose with confidence and tranquillity, and pressed on with his sabre in his hand; for the beasts of the desert were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled howls of rage and fear, and ravage and expiration; all the horrors of darkness and solitude surrounded him;-the winds roared in the woods, and the torrents tumbled from the hills.

Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild, without knowing whither he was going, or whether hẹ was every moment drawing nearer to safety or to destruction. At length, not fear but labour began to overcome him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, and he was on the point of lying down in resignation to his fate; when he beheld, through the brambles, the glimmer of a taper. He advanced towards the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with eagerness and gratitude.

When the repast was over, "Tell me, said the hermit, by what chance thou hast been brought hither; I'have been now twenty years an inhabitant of this wilderness, in which 'I never saw a man before." Obidah then related the occurrences of his journey, without any concealment or palliation.

"Son, said the hermit, let the errors and follies, the dangers and escapes, of this day, sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour, and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gaiety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our fervour, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vigilance subsides, we are then willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them,

but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road of virtue, which we for a while keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from thy example, not to despair, but shall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return, after all his errors; and that he who implores strength and courage from above, shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son, to thy repose, commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence; and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life."

SECTION IV.

I-Description of the Amphitheatre of Titus.

POSTERITY admires, and will long admire, the awful remains of the amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserves the epithet of Colossal. It was a building of an eliptic figure, five hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and sixty-seven in breath: founded on fourscore arches; and rising with four successive orders of architecture, to the height of one hundred and forty feet. The outside of the edifice was encrusted with marble, and decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave, which formed the inside, were filled, and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble, covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease, above fourscore thousand spectators. Sixty-four vomitories (for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth the

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immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and staircases, were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the plebeian order, arrived at his destined place, without trouble or confusion.

Nothing was omitted which, in any respect, could be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators. They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy, occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continually refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment, it seemed to rise out of the earth, like the garden of the Hesperides ; at another, it exhibited the rugged rocks and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain, might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep.

In the decorations of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their wealth and liberality; and we read, that, on various occasions, the whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber. The poet who describes the games of Carinus, in the character of a shepherd, attracted to the capitol by the fame of their magnificence, affirms, that the nets designed as a defence against the wild beasts, were of gold wire; that the porticos were gilded; and that the belt or circle, which divided the several ranks of spectators from each other, was studded with a precious mosaic of beautiful stones.

II.-Reflections on Westminster Abbey.

WHEN I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church; amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions, which I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing

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else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day and died upon another; two circumstances that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon those registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons, who had left no other memorial of themselves, than that they were born, and that they died.

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw, in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that, some time or other, had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this I began to consider with myself, what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together, under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled among one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished, in the same promiscuous heap of matter.

After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were, in the lump, I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments, which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them are covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praise which his friends have bestowed upon him. There

are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and, by that means, are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed, indeed, that the present war had filled the church with many of those uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons, whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and which, therefore, do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As à foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or po

liteness of a nation, from the turn of their public monuments, and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius, before they are put into execution. Sir Cloudsly Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence. Instead of the brave rough English admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented, on his tomb, by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and. reposing himself upon velvet cushions, under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for, instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour.-The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste in their buildings and works of this nature, than we meet with in those of our own country, The mon uments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves, and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of seaweed, shells, and coral.

I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations; but, for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can, therefore, take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means, I can improve myself with objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, 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 tombstone, 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 severai 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 cotemporaries, and make our appearance together.

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