"fair as the first beams of the fun. His

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long hair waves on his back: his dark "brow is half hid beneath his helmet: the "fword hangs loofe on the hero's fide: and "his fpear glitters as he moves: I fled from "his terrible eye." This is interefting, warm, and warlike; but I again refer every reader of tafte to the text. The facred penmen furpass all writers, generally speaking, in point of figure, fentiment, allufion, narration, and every other property of perfect compofition. Diftributed up and down the Old and New Teftament, there a thousand paffages more than I have now leisure to contemplate, which utterly annihilate any thing that can be brought from the stores of ancient or modern learning.I conclude thefe little sketches, which are only intended as an introduction to more, with the selection of a few paffages from different parts of thofe moft admirable volumes.

"O Lord my God thou art very great, "thou art cloathed with honour and ma"jefty: who coverest thyself with light as

"with a garment: who ftretcheft out the "Heavens like a curtain: who layeth the "beams of his chambers in the waters: "who maketh the clouds his chariot : "who walketh upon the wings of the wind. "Thou coveredft it with the deep as with 6.6 a garment the waters ftood above the "mountains-at thy rebuke they fled; at "the voice of thy thunder they hafted

away. "What inexpreffible fublimity in every one of these thoughts, and with how much accuracy the diction is adapted to difplay them! What ideas can exceed those of the Deity's covering himself in a mantle of light, mounting his cloudy chariot, and walking on the wings of the wind ?

The afcending feries, is in this paffage, very judiciously preferved; the whole fentiment is a glorious gradation from great, to greater, and from that to the laft pofitive degree of the climax. I beg the reader to mark the rife of the expreffions as he repeats them. There is alfo a particular beauty here, in the fudden tranfition

from

from one perfon to another-" Who walketh

upon the wings of the wind;" and then inftantly altering the addrefs to-" I bou coveredft it with a deep as with a gar "ment."

But a fecond example courts our admiration, and that of fo high and exalted a nature, that a reader of true tafte, and a real fenfe of religion, will hardly bear to engage his time in looking at minor or modern authors; while fome, probably, who have been prejudiced against the Bible, will be furprized to find fuch admirable, and unequalled writing in a book, which they have been taught to confider as a dull, uninterefting code of maxims, proverbs, and ordinary fentiments.

"Whither shall I go from thy fpirit? "Or whither fhall I flee from thy prefence? "If I afcend up into into Heaven, thou art "there: If I make my bed in Hell, be"hold, thou art there. If I take the wings "of the morning, and dwell in the utter

"most

"moft parts of the fea: even there fhall

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thy hand lead me, and thy right hand "fhall hold me. If I fay, furely the dark. "nefs fhall cover me, even the night shall ❝ be light about me. Yea, the darkness "hideth not from thee; but the night "fhineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." In fhort,

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this, and various other portions of the facred books, as infinitely exceed Homer, as Homer furpaffes Blackmore. There is a verfe or two ufed in the burial of the dead (than which there never was a fublimer, more ferious, or more fuitable ceremony). Offian hath alfo touched the same subject, but the facred writer hath ten times the fimplicity, and is abundantly more correct in the metaphors; befides that, the allufions are truer to nature and familiar life,

"A thousand years in thy fight, O Lord, "are but as yesterday: seeing that is palt "as a watch in the night. As foon as "thou scatterest them, they are even as a “sleep, and fade away fuddenly, like the

"grass.

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grafs. In the morning it is green and "groweth up; but in the evening it is

cut down, dried up, and withered."

Were we to run the parallel between this paffage and that quoted from Offian, the inferiority of the latter would, perhaps, not be very agreeable to the admirers of that picturesque bard. To fpeak impartially, it is fcarcely giving any prophane writers, however popular, fair play, in comparing them with thofe Sublime, Beautiful, and Pathetic compofitions, which are the objects of the prefent volume: on the other hand, thofe compofitions themfelves, have fo feldom fair play fhewn to them, while many flimfy, frivolous, or bombaflic performances, run away with the huzza of the multitude, and having had the lash of justice in hand, it was but right to use it a little; especially as it formed an important part of my fubject, to vindicate the Scriptures from negligence, and to hold them up as the patterns of purity, perfpicuity, and all the fources of the true Sublime.

Thefe