Κ' ην ποτ' ίδης κλαίοντα, φυλάσσει μη σε πλανήσῃ.

Mofc. Idyll. 1. V. 25.

Am afraid my readers (if indeed I have any) will hardly perceive, without this information, that I propofe treading in the fteps of the immortal ADDISON; and tho' I had not the vanity to call my papers by the names of SPECTATORS, yet the fame fhall be the end, and the fubjects varied like his, as matter fhall offer, or inclination prompt.

I am prepar'd for the witlings, who fhall tell me that I ought to have been well awake e'er I had thought of this; and that it was very unlike ADDISON to begin with talking in my fleep.

If I can but follow him, tho' with unequal steps; if, like his, my papers may tend to promote the causes of religion, innocence and virtue; if I can blend (as he has beautifully done) the ufeful and agreeable together, I fhall attain the end I aim at.

Tho' I am an enemy to egotism, thus much I thought necessary to say of myself and my design; but I shall now, without any more of this preface, which, like BAYS's prologue, might have ferv'd for any other as well as this, fall into my fubject at once, and direct my difcourfe to the ladies, whom I have very much at heart, and whom I fhall frequently make my care; for (to use the words of that villain LOVELACE, in the worthiest sense) most dearly do I love the sweet

creatures.

Tears, fays a certain author, whom I have forgot, are the blood of a love-wounded foul, the fea in which love fwims pleafantly, and the food by which it is wonderfully nourish'd.

Now, as odd and ftrange as thefe expreffions are, I would advife the ladies, as a friend, to confider the weight of them. A lover, who, by all the rhetoric of flames, darts, let-me-die's, has not been able to make the leaft impreffion on his mistress's heart, fhall fwim you in a flood of his tears into her good graces with the greatest ease imaginable. Our youth know this to be an unfailing method; they think it therefore needlefs to fay a word of fincerity, but call up their tears, and their work is done.- -One wou'd think they were in poffeffion of COWLEY's receipt to make tears that freak.

If I were difpos'd to fhew my reading, I cou'd fortify myfelf with quotations on all fides; OVID wou'd furnish me with fcraps without number from his epistles and art of love, But all our young ladies, we've reafon to hope, Have read them tranflated by DRYDEN or POPE,

fo that I leave it to them to apply.

I doubt not but many a fair one's experience can witness the prevailing efficacy of tears; and as for the men, I am.”

credibly

credibly inform'd, there are a fet of young fellows that have met with fuch fuccefs by this means, that they call themfelves the conquerors.

It is a difficult matter to find what to attribute the good fortune of this weeping tribe to; whether it be that the tender-hearted creatures are overcome by a secret sympathy, at fight of a fimilar foftness in the nature of man, which is fo eminent in their own, or whether the view of the terrible effects their beauty has over the wretched lover,

Who begs relief

With tears, the dumb petitioners of grief,

may not excite their compaffion, I will not take upon me to determine; but I think a man muft make a despicable figure in the eyes of a woman of fenfe, who takes this ridiculous method of perfuafion.

It is not however to be imagin'd what fuccefs in general thefe waterings have had in raising, instead of quenching a flame.

Sometimes, 'tis true, there may be fincerity in tears, doubtlefs there is; but it is fo feldom, that I think every lady shou'd keep a little thumb phial, that she might put all that came from her lover's heart into it, and lay it up as a reservoir for the inspection of the curious; but I must confefs I think if she did not marry him till she had it full, fhe must live to an antediluvian age, or else run a great hazard of dying an old maid.——————And who among you, ladies, would take fo defperate a chance?

If ever, therefore, when RANGER begins to weep, mifs MOLLY stays in the room, I immediately give her up for loft. Since, take my word for it in Latin, (for I would not be understood when I speak of a lady's weakness)

Tutatur favor Euryalum, lacrymæque decoræ,

On the REALITY of RELIGION.

B

LETTER III.

Y worship is generally understood a visible profeffion of men's belief of a firft caufe, the author of their Beings, and the difpenfer of those gifts and bleffings by which they and all other creatures are supported in their existence; requesting of him, with a becoming ardour and importunity, but in the most dutiful and fubmiffive manner, whatever good things they are in want of, as alfo with joy and gladness of heart acknowledging the receipt of those which he has so liberally and feasonably dealt out to them, infinitely above their deferts, and far exceeding their largest wifhes. In a word, their making him fuch tenders of fervice and obedience, of praise and thanksgiving, as reafon or revelation or both declare him to be moft delighted with, and which proclaim and fet forth his infinite wifdom and philanthropy, in the fulleft, the ftrongeft, and most expreffive terms.

Some have founded the Creator's right of worfhip on his unlimited power and fovereignty. But, not to infist on arguments, which, ftri&ly fpeaking, can be no proper foundation of a reasonable fervice, we shall deduce the neceffity, and from thence the reality, of worship from these two particulars, 1ft, because the fenfe of an omnipotent governour cannot be continued in full vigour and activity without it; and, 2dly, from the interefting confequences it is naturally teeming with, and immediately productive of, On both which accounts it neceffarily becomes a duty. Firft, worship is neceffary to keep up in mens minds affecting practical fentiments of their origination from a first great principle, and of the immenfe obligations they have to him thro' every period of their lives. One reason why men forget any particular thing is the not adverting seriously to it; bringing the fame frequently into their minds, and

taking

taking there a full view of it, and all its concomitant circumstances, as likewise of the good or ill it is likely to entail on them in a long train of confequences. Hence whatever creates attention, or encreases it, to any suppos'd object or event, causes the idea thereof to operate proportionally upon the will, the faculty which first chooses and then determines to action. But cuftom has furprizing effects in the molding and fashioning of us. By repetition a particular character is formed, or the whole conftitution of mens minds feems in a manner to arife out of it. And the perceptions ever grow more and more languid in proportion to their frequency (as reiterated impreffions ever abate of their original force and vividnefs, the final cause of which I can plainly fee, notwithstanding it may be difficult to affign the efficient one) yet what they lose in one refpect they gain in another, or, the active habits founded on them keep continually rifing and advancing in ftrength as the other decrease, i. e. are lefs and less fenfibly felt. And in nothing does this hold more univerfally true, or appear fo eminently, as in the cafe of religious worship: for unless, every now and then, we retire from the busy cares and folicitudes of life, and openly own our belief of God's prefentiality both as to noticing and distinguishing our acts, and very intentions, by fuitable marks of complacency or dislike, the defire of applying to him for what we have need of, as well as the fenfe of benefits already receiv'd, would be imperceptibly declining, and in time lofe all its power over us. And men ever become more remifs and non-obfervant of social duties, in the degree that they fail in the practice of religious ones. Nothing more certain than this,

On the other hand, examples have not been wanting of perfons, who, by constantly attending upon God in those places, which are more immediately appropriated to his honour and fervice, have come to settle in their minds fuch notions of the abfolute neceffity of a holy life, as to be uniformly determin'd by them, even in inftances where inclination

and