There is to me fomething inexpreffibly fine in the following lines of MILTON, where the gales are transformed into living creatures : Now gentle gales Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense § 6. Examples of the Profopopeia in its various kinds, may be furnished in a rich variety from the facred Writings. I fhall make a choice from among them, after I have acknowledged that for the illuftrations and remarks upon fome of the inftances cited from the Old Teftament, I am indebted to the learned and ingenious Dr LoWTH †. We meet with a Profopopeia of the divine attributes in Pfalm lxxxv. 10. "5 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace " have kiffed each other." This passage is juft, elegant, and beautiful, if we take it in what may be its proper and more obvious meaning, that of the return of the Jews from their captivity at Babylon; but if we consider it in a more divine Exit ad cœlum ramos felicibus arbos Paradife Loft, book iv. line 156. Geargic, ii. ver. 80. + Vide de Sacra Poeji Hebræorum ejus Prælectiones Academicas Oxoniæ habitas, p. 114, &c. divine fenfe, that of the method of redemption by the facrifice and mediation of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, in which there were fuch an illustrious display and harmony of the perfections of Deity, it is beyond measure elevated, and enriched with facred mystery and grandeur. What can be more apt and graceful, more noble and sublime, than the perfon of Wisdom, which is so often introduced in the Proverbs of Solomon? Not only is the guide of life, the parent of arts, honours, and riches, and the fource of true felicity, but the eternal daughter of the omnipotent Creator and Father of all, and the participant of the divine counfels. Prov, viii. 22---31. "The LORD possessed me in "the beginning of his ways, before his works ss of old. I was fet up from everlafting, from "the beginning, or ever the earth was. When "there were no depths, I was brought forth; s when there were no fountains abounding with Before the mountains were fettled, be $5 water. fore the hills was I brought forth while ast yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, "nor the highest part of the dust of the world. "When he prepared the heavens, I was there: $5 when he fet a compafs upon the face of the depth; when he established the clouds above; Ss when he ftrengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the fea his decree, that the waters fhould not pafs his commandment; ss when he appointed the foundations of the B b $5 earth: "earth: then was I by him, as one brought up s with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights " were with the fons of men." There are many images in the Scriptures, which are exquisitely formed, and that derive an amazing energy from the boldness of the Profopopeia. In Habakkuk iii. 5. the Prophet, speaking of the Almighty, fays, " Before him went the peftilence, and burning coals went forth sat his feet: or, " before him fhall go the pef"tilence, and the flaming bolt from his feet.” The peftilence, that disease which spreads fuch .wide and rapid havock among the human race, is represented as a person, and she goes before JEHOVAH in his march against his enemies; but fwift and vaft as her ravages are, and dreaded as she is by mankind, as one of the foreft judgments that can befal them, yet she is but the harbinger and pioneer, if I may fo express myself, of the Almighty, and may be considered as only a kind of earneft or specimen of the abfolute and inftantaneous ruin which fhall overwhelm his adverfaries, when he appears armed with the thunder of his own power, and darting the flames of his indignation all around him, "when the flaming bolt fhall go forth. from his feet." Every step He, whose name is a confuming fire *" takes in his progress * Heb. xii. 29. of : of vengeance, fhall scatter deftruction upon his adversaries; and they fhall be exterminated by the flaming bolts that iffue from his feet and if flaming bolts are hurled from only the feet of the omnipotent and incenfed LORD of heaven and earth, who then can behold his face in the full terrors of his wrath? or who can stand before the strength of his irresistible arm, when he rifes up to destroy them that hate him, and opprefs his people? In Job xxviii. 22. deftruction and death are perfonified, and are introduced as faying concerning Wifdom, that they have only heard the fame. "thereof with their ears." In Ifaiah v. 14. hell, or the grave, is transformed into a perfon, "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and open"ed her mouth without measure; and their glory, " and their multitude, and their pomp, and he "that rejoices fhall descend into it." In like manner, Hofea xiii. 14. "I will ranfom them (fays GoD) from the power of the grave; I " will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy de"struction: repentance shall be hid from mine "eyes." Correfpondent to which passage the Apoftle PAUL fays, 1 Cor. xv. 54. Death is "fwallowed up in victory. O death, where is "thy fting? O grave, where is thy victory?" What a lively and bold Profopopeia is that in Job xviii. 13. The firft-born of death shall de "your his strength." BILDAD, fpeaking of the calamities that should come upon a wicked man, fays, "His ftrength fhall be hunger-bitten;" that is, it fhall be corroded, and confumed away by famine: " Destruction shall be ready at his fide;" it shall stand by him, be his companion, be ready to feize and crush him. "It fhall de "vour the ftrength," or the branches of his fkin; his veins, arteries, nerves, all the ramifications of the human fyftem, fhall wither and perish." Even the firft-born of death fhall de vour his ftrength." View Death as a father, and diseases and calamities as his children; the most fierce and malignant among them is his firft-born. He is full-grown, has an authority. almost as great as that of his parent; he has his very power in him. You fee all his deadly image upon him, fuch as war, famine, or pestilence, the laft of which may perhaps be intended, when it is threatened that " the firft-born of death "fhall devour his ftrength." This expreffion, the first-born of death," may not be improper to introduce a passage from Dr LowTH, in which he fays, that "there is a fpecies of the Profopopeia of a very elegant nature, and which also the well-known idiom " of the Hebrew language recommends, and, as "it were, familiarifes to us. It is that perfoni"fication by which the fubject, adjunct, accident, effect, or what in fome way or another belongs to a thing or place, is ftiled its fon, or "child. Hence nations, countries, and people, "are so often introduced in the form of women. "Ifa. xlvii. 1, 5. Come down, and fit in the dust, "O virgin |