ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS; SELECTED TO ENFORCE THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE. AND With a view to comprise in one Volume the BEAUTIES O F ENGLISH POETRY. BY THOMAS TOMKINS. The pleasing Art of Poetry's defign'd And warm the bofom with feraphic fire; LONDON: Printed for the Editor, and J. WALLIS, AT YORICK'S HEAD, LUDGATE STREET. M,DCC, LXXX, /073300-300 TO THE I C. PUBLIC. POETRY may be faid to claim our first attention, as it was originally intended to exprefs our gratitude to the Deity, and teach mankind the most important precepts of religion and virtue; by which the human foul is not only exalted and refined, but the heart is fortified against all the various affaults of human calamities, and by which we are taught to confider happiness as entirely depending on the reflections of our own minds. We fhall be fufficiently convinced of these truths, if we only confider the particular end and defign of the several species of poetry. The EPIC POEM was intended to convey inftructions disguised under the allegory of an |