employment, and may therefore be inculcated by moral motives; particularly from the love which we ought to have for our country, and the regard which we ought to bear to our pofterity. As for the first, I need only mention what is frequently obferved by others, that the increase of foreft trees does by no means bear a proportion to the deftruction of them, infomuch that in a few ages the nation may be at a lofs to fupply itfelf with timber fufficient for the fleets of England. I know when a man talks of pofterity in matters of this,, nature, he is looked upon with an eye, of ridicule by the cunting and felfth part of mankind. Moft people are of the humour of an old fellow of a colJege, who when he was preffed by the fociety to come into fomething that might redound to, the good of their fucceffors, grew very peevish; We are always doing, fays he, fomething for pofterity, but I would fain fee pofterity do fomething for us,'

But I think men are inexcurable, who fail in a duty of this nature, fince it is fo easily discharged. When a man confiders that the putting a few twigs into the ground is doing good to one who will make his appearance in the world about fifty years hence, or that he is perhaps making one of his own defcendants eafy or rich, by fo inconfiderable an expence; if he finds himlelf averfe to it, he must conclude that he has a poor and base heart, void of all generous principles and love to mankind.

There is one confideration, which may very much enforce what I have here faid. Many honelt minds, that are naturally difpoted to do good in, the world, and become beneficial to mankind, complain within themselves, that they have not talents for it. This therefore is a good office, which is fuited to the meanelt capacities, and which may be performed by multitudes, who have not abilities fufficient to deferve well of their country, and to recommend themselves to their pofterity, by any other method. It is the phrate of a

friend of mine, when any useful country neighbour dies, that you may trace him; which I look upon as a good funeral oration at the death of an honeft hufbandman, who hath left the impreffions of his industry behind him in the place where he has lived.

Upon the foregoing confiderations, I can icarce forbear reprefent ng the fubject of this paper as a kind of moral virtues which, as I have already fhewn, recommends itfelf likewife by the pleafure that attends it. It must be con feffed, that this is none of thofe turbu lent pleafures which is apt to gratify a man in the heats of youth; but if it be. not fo tumultuous, it is more lafting. Nothing can be more delightful than to entertain ourselves with profpects of our own making, and to walk under thofe fhades which our own induffry, has raifed. Amufements of this nature compofe the mind, and lay at ret all thole paffions which are unenly to the foul of man; befies that they na-. turally engender good thoughts, and. difpofe us to laudable contemplations. Many of the old philofophers palled away the greatest part of their lives among their gardens. Epicurus himfelf could not think fenfual pleasure attain. able in any other scene. Every reader who is acquainted with Homer, Virgil, and Horace, the greatest geniufes of all antiquity, knows very well with how much rapture they have spoken on this, fu ject; and that Virgil in particular has written a whole book on the art f planting.

This art feems to have been more especially a lapted to the nature of man. in his primeval ftate, when he had life enough to fee his productions flourish in their utmost beauty, and gradually decay with him. One who lived before the flood might have feen a wood of the talleft oaks in the acorn. But I only mention this particular, in order to introduce, in my next paper, a history which I have found among the accounts of China, and which may be looked upon as an antediluvian novel..

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N

TILPA was one of the hundred

HH

and fifty daughters of Zilpah, of the race of Cohu, by whom fome of the learned think is meant Cain. She was exceedingly beautiful, and when she was but a girl of threefcore and ten years of age, received the addreffes of feveral who made love to her. Among these were two brothers, Harpath and ShaJum. Harpath being the firft-born, was mafter of that fruitful region which lies at the foot of Mount Tirzah, in the fouthern parts of China. Shalum (which is to fay the planter in the Chinefe language) poffeffed all the neighbouring hills, and that great range of mountains which goes under the name of Tirzah. Harpath was of a haughty contemptuous fpirit; Shalum was of a gentle difpofition, beloved both by God and man.

It is faid that among the antediluvian women, the daughters of Cohu had their minds wholly fet upon riches; for which reafon the beautiful Hilpa preferred Harpath to Shalum, because of his numerous flocks and herds, that covered all the low country which runs along the foot of Mount Tirzah, and is watered by feveral fountains and ftreams breaking out of the fides of that mountain.

Harpath made so quick a dispatch of his courtship, that he married Hilpa in the hundredth year of her age, and being of an infolent temper, laughed to fcorn his brother Shalum for having pretended to the beautiful Hilpa, when he was mafter of nothing but a long chain of rocks and mountains. This fo much provoked Shalum, that he is faid to have curied his brother in the bitterness of his heart, and to have prayed that one of his mountains might fall upon his head if ever he came within the fhadow of it.

From this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the vallies,

DRYDEN.

but came to an untimely end in the twe hundred and fiftieth year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to cross it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perished in it, the river Harpath; and, what is very remarkable, iffues out of one of those mountains which Shalum wilhed might fall upon his brother, when he cuffed him in the bitterness of his heart.

Hilpa was in the hundred and fixtieth year of her age at the death of her hufband, having brought him but fifty children before he was fnatched away, as has been already related. Many of the antediluvians made love to the young widow, though no one was thought fo likely to fucceed in her affections as her firft lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in those days that a widow should be seen by a man within ten years after the decease of her husband,

Shalum falling into a deep melancholy, and refolving to take away that" objection which had been raifed against him when he made his first addreffes to Hilpa, began, immediately after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the divifion of this country. He knew how to adapt every plant to it's proper foil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional fecrets of that art from the firft man. This employment turned at length to his profit as well as to his amufement; his mountains were in a few years shaded with young trees, that gradually shot up into groves, woods, and forelts, intermixed with walks, and lawns, and gardens; infomuch that the whole region, from a naked and defolate profpect, began now to look like a fecond paradife. The pleasantness of the place, and the agreeable difpofition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildest and wifeft

of

of all who lived before the flood, drew into it multitudes of people, who were perpetually employed in the finking of wells, the digging of trenches, and the hollowing of trees, for the better diftribution of water through every part of this fpacious plantation.

The habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the fpace of feventy autumns, was wonderfully pleased with the diftant profpect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with innumerable tufts of trees, and gloomy fcenes that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the fineft landfkips the eye of man could behold.

The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is faid to have written to Hilpa, in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I shall here tranflate it without departing from that noble simplicity of fentiments and plainnefs of manners which appear in the original.

Shalum was at this time one hundred and eighty years old, and Hilpa one hundred and seventy.

my rival? I grew weary of the light of the fun, and have fince ever been covering myself with woods and fo retts. Thefe threefcore and ten years have I bewailed the lofs of thee on the top of Mount Tirzah, and foothed my melancholy among a thousand gloomy fhades of my own railing. My dwellings are at prefent as the garden of God; every part of them is filled with fruits and flowers, and fountains. The whole mountain is perfumed for thy reception. Come up into it, O my beloved, and let us people this fpot of the new world with a beautiful race of mortals; let us multiply exceedingly among thefe delightful fhades, and fill every quarter of them with fons and daughters. Remember, O thou daughter of Zilpah, that the age of man is but a thousand years; that beauty is the admiration but of a few centuries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as 'a' cedar on the top of Tirzah, which in three or four hundred years will fade away, and never be thought of by pofte rity, unless a young wood fprings from it's roots. Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains.

VIRG. ECL. Y. YER. 63.

THE SEQUEL OF THE STORY OF

SHALUM AND HILPA.

HE in my laft

W

DRYDEN.

IN THE 789th YEAR OF THÊ

CREATION.

THAT have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Hilpa's

fo

fhe answered it in lefs than twelve months, after the following manner:

HILPA, MISTRESS OF THE VALLIES, TO SHALUM, MASTER OF MOUNT TIRZAH.

moured with the verdure of her meadows? Art thou not more affected with the profpect of her green vallies, than' thou wouldeft be with the fight of her perfon? The lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my flocks, make a plea

fant

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fant echo in thy mountains, and found fwertly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forests, and thofe breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah: are thefe like the riches of the valley?

I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more wife and happy than any of the tons of men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars; thou fearchett out the diver dity of foils, thou understandeft the influences of the ftars, and market the change of featons. Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of fuch a one? Dilquet me not, O Shalum; let me alone, that I may enjoy those goodly poffeflions which are fallen to my lot. Win me not by thy enticing words. May thy trees increafe and multiply; mayeft thou add wood to wood, and thade to fhade; but tempt not Hilpa to destroy thy folitude, and make thy retirement populous.

The Chinefe fay, that a little time afterwards the accepted of a treat in one of the neighbouring hills to which Shalum had invited her. This treat lafted for two years, and is faid to have colt Shalum five hundred antelopes, two thousand oftriches, and a thoufand tuns of milk; but what most of all recommended it, was that variety of delicious fruits and pot-herbs, in which no perfon then living could any way equal

Shalum.

He treated her in the bower which he had planted amidit the wood of nightingales. This wood was made up of fuch fruit-trees and plants as are molt agreeable to the feveral kinds of fingingbirds; fo that it had drawn into it all the music of the country, and was filled from one end of the year to the other with the most agreeable confort in feafon.

He fhewed her every day fome beautiful and surprising scene in this new region of woo lands; and as by this means he had all the opportunities he could with for of opening his mind to her, he fucceeded fo well, that upon her de parture the made him a kind of promife, and gave him her word to return him a pofitive anfwer in lefs than fifty years.

She had not been long among her own people in the vallies, when the received new overtures, and at the fame time a most splendid vifit from Mithpach, who was a mighty man of old, and has built

a great city, which he called after his own name. Every houfe was made for at leaft a thousand years, nay there were fome that were leafed out for three lives; fo that the quantity of ftone and timber confumed in this building is fcarce to be imagined by thofe who live in the prefent age of the world. This great man entertained her with the voice of mufical inftruments which had been lately invented, and danced before her to the found of the timbrel. He alfo prefented her with feveral domestic utenils wrought in brafs and iron, which had been newly found out for the conveniency of life. In the mean time Shalum grew very uneafy with himself, and was forely difpleafed at Hilpa for the reception which the had given to Mishpach, infomuch that he never wrote to her or spoke of her during a whole revolution of Saturn; but finding that this intercourfe went no farther than a vilit, he again renewed his addresses to her, who during his long filence is faid very often to have caft a wishing eye upon Mount Tirzah.

Her mind continued wavering about twenty years longer between Shalum and Mifhpach; for though her inclinations favoured the former, her intereft pleaded very powerfully for the other. While her heart was in this unfettled condition, the following accident happened which determined her choice. A high tower of wood that flood in the city of Mishpach having caught fire by a flash of lightening, in a few days reduced the whole town to alhes. Mishpach refolved to rebuild the place whatever it fhould coft him; and having already destroyed all the timber of the country, he was forced to have recourfe to Shalum, whose forelts were now two hundred years old. He purchafed these woods with so many herds of cattle and flocks of theep, and with fuch a valt extent of fields and paftures, that Shalum was now grown more wealthy than Mishpach; and therefore appeared to chanting in the eyes of Zilpah's daughter, that the no longer refufed him in marriage. On the day in which he brought her up into the mountains, he raised a molt prodigious pile of cedar, and of every sweet-fmelling wood, which reached above three hundred cubits in height: he also caft into the pile bundies of myrrh and heaves of spikenard, enriching it with

every fpicy fhrub, and making it fat with the gums of his plantations. This was the burnt-offering which Shalum offered in the day of his efpoufals: the

fioke of it ascended up to heaven, and filled the whole country with incenfe and perfume. 0

IT was a good piece of advice which Pythagoras gave to his fcholars, that every night before they flept they should examine what they had been doing that day, and fo discover what actions were worthy of purfuit to-morrow, and what little vices were to be prevented from flipping unawares into a habit. If I might fecond the philofopher's advice, it thould be mine, that in a morning before my scholar rose, he should confider what he had been about that night, and with the fame ftrictnefs, as if the condition he has believed himself to be in, was real. Such a fcrutiny into the actions of his fancy must be of confiderable advantage, for this reason, because the circumstances which a man imagines himself in during fleep, are generally fuch as intirely favour his inclinations good or bad, and give him imaginary opportunities of pursuing them to the utmoft; fo that his temper will lie fairly open to his view, while he confiders how it is moved when free from those conftraints which the accidents of real life put it under. Dreams are certainly the refult of our waking thoughts, and our daily hopes and fears are what give the mind fuch nimble relifhes of pleasure, and fuch fevere touches of pain in it's midnight rambles. A man that murders his enemy, or deferts his friend in a dream, had need to guard his temper against revenge and ingratitude, and take heed that he be not tempted to do a vile thing in the purfuit of falfe, or the

I

neglect of true, honour. For my part, feldom receive a benefit, but in a night or two's time I make most noble returns for it; which though my benefactor is not a whit the better for, yet it pleases me to think that it was from a principle of gratitude in me, that my mind was fufceptible of fuch generous transport while I thought myself repaying the kindness of my friend: and I have often been ready to beg pardon, inftead of returning an injury, after confidering that when the offender was in my power I had carried my refentments much too far.

I think it has been obferved in the courfe of your papers, how much one's happinefs or mifery may depend upon the imagination: of which truth those strange workings of fancy in fleep are no inconfiderable infances; fo that not only the advantage a man has of making difcoveries of himself, but a regard to his own cafe or difquiet, may induce him to accept of my advice. Such as are willing to comply with it, I fhall put into a way of doing it with pleasure, by obferving only one maxim which I fhall give them, viz. To go to bed with a mind entirely free from paffion, and a body clear of the leaft intemperance.

They, indeed, who can fink into fleep with their thoughts lefs calm or innocent than they fhould be, do but plunge themfelves into fcenes of guilt and mifery; or they who are willing to purchafe any midnight difquietudes for the fatisfaction of a full meal, or a skin full of wine; thefe I have nothing to fay to, as not knowing how to invite them to reflections full of fhame and horror: but thofe that will obferve this rule, I promife them they fhall awake into health and chearfulness, and be capable of recounting with delight thofe glorious mo7 G

ments