Presently after the Orator obferves, “This, O ye judges, is not a written, but an innate law; "a law which we have not learned, imbibed,

read, but which we have taken, deduced, and "extracted from nature itself; a law to which "we are not tutored, but formed; and we owe "it not to education, but to ourselves, that " whenever our life is any way endangered by "the attacks of robbers or enemies, we may " employ every method for our immediate de"fence *"

The Orator then adds, in a most beautiful Profopopeia: "For the laws are silent amidst the at*tacks of ruffians; nor do they order us to wait "for their commission, because whoever in fuch "a situation should expect it, must suffer his own "blood to be unjustly fpilt, while the villain who "commits the outrage goes unpunished +." What a vigour does the Orator infufe into his discourse, by reprefenting the laws as perfons, and permitting a man, without any remonftrance against his conduct, to kill the enemy that makes A a 2

an

*Eft enim hæc, judices, non fcripta, fed nata lex; quam non dicimus, accepimus, legimus, verum ex natura ipfa arripuimus, haufimus, expreffimus; ad quam non docti, fed facti ; non instituti, fed imbuti fumus; ut fi vita nostra in aliquas infidias, fi in vim, in tela aut latronum, aut inimicorum incidiffet ; omnis honesta ratio effet expediendæ falutis. CICER. pro MIL. $10.

+ Silent enim leges inter arma, nec fe exfpe&ari jubent; cum ei, qui exspectare velit, ante injusta pœna luenda fit, quàm jufta repetenda.

an attempt upon his life? for let us but diveft the passage of the Profopopeia, and its spirit is evaporated and gone, when it is only said in plain language," that there is no law against killing "our enemy who threatens our lives."

MILTON defcribes the Son of God afcending his chariot, when he marched out against the rebel-angels, and fays,

At his right-hand Victory

Sat eagle-wing'd

The fame Poet has most beautifully reprefented Sin and Death as perfons; and perhaps there is not a passage in his immortal Work, that of Paradife Loft, in which he shines in superior glory. The description of Sin is as follows:

The one feem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a fcaly fold
Voluminous and vaft, a serpent arm'd
With mortal fting: about her middle round
A cry of hell-hounds never ceafing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
An hideous peal; yet, when they lift, would creep,
If aught difturb'd their noife, into her womb,

And kennel there, yet there ftill bark'd, and howl'd
Within unfeen

The description of Death is thus given;

The other fhape,

If fhape it might be call'd, that shape had none
Diftinguishable in member, joint or limb,

*Paradife Loft, book vi. line 762.

Or

Or fubftance might be call'd, that fhadow feem'd;
For each feem'd either: black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And fhook a dreadful dart; what feem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on *.

"I proteft," fays Bishop ATTERBURY, in a let ter to Mr POPE, "that this laft perusal of him (MILTON) has given me fuch new degrees, I "will not fay of pleasure, but of admiration and "aftonishment, that I look upon the fublimity "of HOMER, and the majesty of VIRGIL, with "fomewhat lefs reverence than I used to do. I challenge you, with all your partiality, to fhew "me in the first of these any thing equal to the allegory of Sin and Death, either as to the "greatnefs and juftness of the invention, or the height and beauty of the colouring. What I "looked upon as a rant of BARROW's, I now begin to think a ferious truth, and could al"most venture to fet my hand to it.

66

66

"Hæc quicunque leget tantùm ceciniffe putabit
"Mæonidem ranas, Virgilium culices †.”

He who peruses this unrivall'd work
Will fay, the mufe of HOMER fung of frogs,
And VIRGIL's only celebrated flies.

I shall conclude this long section of examples of the Profopopeia, in clothing with corporeal A a 3 forms,

Paradife Loft, book ii. line 650.

+ ATTERBURY's Letter to POPE. POPE'S Works, vol. viii.

p. 61. Octavo edition.

forms, or endowing with speech and action general notions and abstract ideas, with fome charming lines of Dr WATTS, which are full to our purpofe. The verses are to be found in the Doctor's Epitaph upon King WILLIAM.

Ye fifter-arts of Paint and Verfe,
Place ALBION fainting by his fide,
Her groans arifing o'er the hearfe,
And Belgia finking when he dy❜d.

High o'er the grave RELIGION fet
In folemn gold: pronounce the ground
Sacred, to bar unhallow'd feet,

And plant her guardian-VIRTUES round.

Fair LIBERTY, in fables dreft,

Write his lov'd name upon his urn: WILLIAM, the fcourge of tyrants paft, "And awe of princés yet unborn." Sweet PEACE his facred relics keep,

With olives blooming round her head, And ftretch her wings across the deep,

To bless the nations with her fhade.

Stand on the pile, immortal FAME,
Broad ftars adorn thy brightest robe :
Thy thousand voices found his name
In filver accents round the globe.

FLATT'RY fhall faint beneath the found,
While hoary TRUTH infpires the fong;
ENVY grow pale, and bite the ground,
And SLANDER gnaw her forky tongue.

NIGHT and the GRAVE remove your gloom;
Darkness becomes the vulgar dead ;

But GLORY bids the royal tomb
Dildain the horrors of a fhade.

GLORY with all her lamps fhall burn,
And watch the warrior's fleeping clay,›
Till the laft trumpet roufe his urn,
To aid the triumphs of the day *.

$4. The Profopopeia introduces perfons silent as fpeaking, and perfons deceafed as living, Some inftances of this fort from CICERO, fhall fuffice for our purpose.

CICERO thus introduces MILO as fpeaking; who, if not abfent, yet was undoubtedly reprefented as speaking, at the fame time he was filent, by his able advocate. Should MILO, holding "out his bloody fword, thus addrefs you: I

pray you, citizens, be prefent, and attend to "what I have to offer. I have killed P. CLO"DIUS; I have by this fword, and by this right "hand averted from your necks his fury, which "no laws, no courts of judicature could restrain: "to me alone it is owing that juftice, equity, "laws, liberty, modefty, decency remain in "this city. Is it to be apprehended in what "manner the city would bear this action? Who

is there that would not approve it, who that would not extol it? Who is there who would "not declare and think verily with himself, that "there

A a 4

Lyric Poems, p. 259. Octavo edition.