Whether around the lazy Globe he rolls,
Or Earth is whirl'd about him on her Poles;
God is the Mover, God the living Soul,

That made, that acts, that animates the Whole.
Hence with thy Atoms, Epicurus; hence :
Was all this wond'rous Frame the Sport of Chance!
Of Solids, they, 'tis true, the Matter make,
Can Matter from itfelf its Figure take!
Can the bright Order in the World we fee,
The blind Effect of wanton Fortune be!
Did jumbling Atoms form the various Kind
Of Beings, or did one Almighty Mind?
Guess what you will, you must at last refort
To a first Caufe, and not to Chance's Sport.
This Caufe is Go

I must not omit this Noble Thought of Milton's :

Then crown'd, again their golden Harps, they took
Harps ever tun'd, that glitt'ring by their Side
Like Quivers hung, and with Preamble fweet
Of charming Symphony, they introduce
The facred Song, and waken Raptures high:
No one exempt, no Voiee but well cou'd joyn
Melodious Part, fuch Concord is in Heav'n.

Having mention'd fo many noble Thoughts in Verfe, I fhall conclude this Article, with a very plain but very noble one in Profe, the Saying of Leonidas to Xerxes: If you had not been too powerful and too happy, you might have been an honeft Man.

Tho' it is a very hard Matter to distinguish the Grand from the Noble in the Manner of Thinking, yet we shall endeavour it by the following Examples; and fure nothing can be more Grand, than the Saying of Alexander the Great, to the Greatest of his Captains Parmenio. Darius, King of Perfia, having offer'd the Macedonian Monarch half Afia in Marriage with his Daughter Statira. As for me, fays Parmenio, if I were Alexander, I would accept of thefe Offers: And So would I, reply'd that Prince, If I were Parmenio. But why fhould we be always dealing in Heroicks, and running back into Antiquity to borrow Example from the Conquerors of the World. Why may not we propofe one in the lowest Life, which

Again,

Should the whole Frame of Nature round him break
In Ruin and Confufion hurl'd,

He unconcern'd would hear the mighty Crack,
And ftand fecure amidst a falling World.
Si fractus illabatur Orbis,
Impavidum ferient Ruina.

Is not this noble Thought the Original of that which ends the noted Siloloquy of Cato:

The Soul fecure in his Refiftance fmiles

At the drawn Dagger, and defies its Point:
The Stars fhall fade away, the Sun himself
Grow dim with Age, and Nature fink in Years?
But thou shalt flourish in immortal Youth,
Unburt amidst the War of Elements,

The Wrecks of Matter, and the Crush of Worlds.

The two Verfes quoted out of Horace :

Si fractus, &c.

are not fo well imitated by the Gentleman that turned
Caro's Siloloquy into Latin, as to defy a Comparison:
Orbefque fractis ingerentur orbibus
Illæfa tu fedebis extra fragmina

But not to be always running back to the Antients, let us have Recourfe to the Moderns, particularly Quillet, and we fhall find something in this Kind of Thinking Tonf. Callip. p. 72.

As far as thou may'ft Nature's Depths explore
Still inexhaustible, thou find'ft the Store;
Thee let the Order he obferves fuffice,

What Laws controul our Earth, and what
Mark how a thousand..

dinary Man, was in the Right when he brought in his God, faying, revoów Qãg, sì èyevélo.

Let there be Light,

And there was Light.

But leaft it may be faid, the Spectator has entered a Caveat against my ufing any Quotation, which he or any one elfe had ufed, I fhall add another Inftance of the Sublime taken out of the fame divine Book the Bible, that has not been blown upon :

He Spake,

And it was:
He commanded,
And it stood firm.

The whole Pfalm xxxiiid is full of the Sublime:
By the Word of the Lord were the Mountains made,
And all the Hoft of them by the Breath of his Mouth.

What in all profane Learning comes up to the Sublime in the xxxviiith Chapter of Job, where the Almighty is introduced fpeaking to him out of the Whirlwind:

Gird up thy Loins like a Man, for I will demand of thee. Where waft thou when I laid the Foundations of the Earth? Declare, If thou haft Understanding.

Who laid the Measures thereof?

Who hath stretched the Line upon it?

Whereupon are the Foundations thereof fastened? or,
Who laid the Corner Stone?

When the Morning Stars fang, and the Sons of God shouted
Happily imitated by Milton.

Up he rode,

[for Foy!

Follow'd with Acclamations, and the Sound
Symphonious of ten thousand Harps, that tuned
Angelick Harmonies, the Earth, the Air

Refounding. Thou remembereft; for thou heardeft
The Heavens, and all the Conftellations ring:
The Planets in their Stations listening food,
While the bright Pomp afcended jubilant.
Open ye everlasting Gates: They fung,
Open ye Heavens, your living Doors; Let in
The geat Creator from his Work returned
Magnificent, his Six Days Work, a World.

Of

Of the fublime Kind is the Ode in the Spectator, N° 465; being a Paraphrafe on that of the Pfalmift. The Heavens declare:

The Spacious Firmament on high,
With all the blue Ethereal Sky;
And Spangled Heavens, a fining Frame,
Their great Original proclaim.

Some very fcrupulous. Perfons may be apt to object against the third Line as an Anteclimax, the Spangled Heavens having much more Luftre than fhining Frame. The following Stanza is extreamly fublime:

What tho' in folemn Silence all

Move round the dark terreftrial Ball;
What tho', nor real Voice, nor Sound
Amid their radiant Orbs be found,
In Reafon's Ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious Voice;
For ever finging as they fine,
The Hand that made me is divine.

I cannot omit here fome Lines of Mr. Waller's upon the Holy Scriptures, where there is more of the Sublime than in all other Books whatsoever.

The Græcian Mufe has all their gods furviv'd,
Nor Jove at us, nor Phæbus is arriv'd;
Frail Deities, which firft the Poets made,
And then invok'd to give their Fancies Aid.
Yet, if they still divert us with their Rage,
What may be hop'd for in a better Age,
When not from Helicon's imagin'd Spring,
But facred Writ we borrow what we fing?
This with the Fabrick of the World begun
Elder than Light, and fhall out-laft the Sun.

There are not ten finer Verfes together in Mr. Waller's Poems, yet he wrote them when he was above fourscore Years old.

Are not these two Verfes of a Manufcript Poem in the fublime Kind? the young Author, a Lad at Eaton School, wrote it on the Birth of his Royal Highness the: Duke of Cumberland;