The above account will not, I hope, be wholly uninterefting to thofe of your readers, who, like myself, admire the genius, and revere the piety of SKElton.

I am, Mr. Editor,

very much yours, &c. SAMUEL CLAPHAM.

Extracts.

The dying Speech of an Ephemeron on the banks of the river Hypanis.

[By the late Bishop PEARCE, and inferted in the 3rd vol. of the FREE THINKER, a paper published by AMBROSE PHILIPS, and other writers.]

NICERO, in the first book of his Tufculan Queftions, finely expofes the vain judgment we are apt to form of the duration of human life, compared to eternity. In illuftrating this argument, he quotes a paffage of natural history from Ariftotle, concerning a fpecies of infects on the banks of the river Hypanis, that never outlive the day, wherein they are born.

To purfue the thought of this elegant writer; let us fuppofe one of the most robuft of thefe Hypanians (fo famed in hiftory) was in a manner coeval with time itfelf; that he began to exift at the break of day; and that from the uncommon strength of his conftitution, he has been able to fhew himself active in life through the numberless Minutes of ten or twelve Hours. Through fo long a series of Seconds, he must have acquired vast wisdom in his way, from obfervation and experience. He looks upon his fellow-creatures, who died about noon, to be happily delivered from the many inconveniencies of old age; and can perhaps recount to his great grandfon a furprising tradition of actions, before, any records of their nation were extant. The young fwarm, who may be advanced one hour in life, approach his person with respect,

and

and liften to his improving difcourfe. Every thing he fays will feem wonderful to this fhort lived generation. The compass of a day will be efteemed the whole duration of time; and the first dawn of light will in their chronology, be ftyled the great Æra of their creation.

"Let us now fuppofe this venerable infect, this Neftor of Hypanis, fhould, a little before his death, and about funfet, fend for all his defcendants, his friends and his acquaintance, out of the defire he may have to impart his last thoughts to them, and to admonish them with his departing breath. They meet, perhaps, under the fpacious fhelter of a mufhroom; and the dying fage addreffes himself to them, after the following manner.

"Friends and fellow citizens; I perceive the longest life must have an end: the period of mine is now at hand : neither do I repine at my fate; fince my great age is become a burden; and there is nothing new to me, under the fun. The calamities and revolutions I have seen in my country; the mani. fold private misfortunes to which we are all liable; and the fatal difeafes incident to our race, have abundantly taught me this leffon: that no happiness can be fecure nor lafting, which is placed in things that are out of our power. Great is the uncertainty of life! A whole brood of infants has perished in a moment by a keen blaft: fhoals of our ftraggling youth have been fwept into the waves, by an unexpected breeze: what wafteful deluges have we fuffered from a fudden fhower? Our ftrongeft holds are not proof against a storm. of hail: and even a dark cloud makes the ftouteft hearts to quake.

"I have lived in the first ages, and converfed with infects of a larger size and ftronger make, and (I must add) of greater virtue, than any can boast of, in the present generation. I muft conjure you to give yet farther credit to my latest words, when I affure you, that yonder fun, which now appears Weftward beyond the water, and feems not to be far diftant from the earth, in my remembrance ftood in the middle of the fky; and fhot his beams directly down upon us. The world was much more enlightened in thofe ages; and the air much warmer. Think it not dotage in me, if I affirm, that glorious being moves. I faw his first fetting out, in the East; and I began my race of life near the time when he began his immenfe career. He has for feveral ages advanced along the fky with vaft heat, and unparallel'd brightness; but now, by his declenfion, and a fenfible decay

(more

(more efpecially of late) in his vigour, I foresee that all na ture must fail in a little time; and that the creation will lie buried in darkness, in lefs than a century of minutes.

"Alas, my friends! How did I once flatter myself with the hopes of abiding here for ever! How magnificent are the cells, which I hollowed out for myfelf! What confidence did I repose in the firmness and fpring of my joints, and in the strength of my pinions! But, I have lived enough to nature; and even to glory: neither will any of you, whom I leave behind, have equal fatisfaction in life in the dark, declining age, which I fee is already begun."

Thus far, (fays the Writer of the Freethinker,) my unknown correfpondent purfues his fiction upon the thought of Cicero: neither will it feem extravagant to thofe, who are acquainted with the manner of instruction practifed by the early teachers of mankind. Solomon fends the Sluggard to the Ant; and, after his example, we may fend the ambitious or the covetous man, who seems to overlook the shortness and uncertainty of life, to the little animals upon the banks of the Hypanis; let him confider their tranfitory flate, and be wife. We, like the Ephemeri, have but a day to live the morning, the noon, and the evening of life, is the whole portion of our time: many perith in the very dawn'; and the man (out of a million) who lingers on to the evening twilight, is not accounted happy.

The right ufe of this reflection is, not to make men regardless of pofterity; nor to flacken their diligence in the purfuit of any kind of knowledge, which becomes a reafonable mind; nor yet, to abate their induftry, in endeavouring, by honeft means, to acquire a comfortable subsistence for themselves and their children: on the contrary, our very nature prompts us to action and contemplation; and the indolent, liftlefs perfon, who delivers himself up to idleness, and whofe whole time is a blank, grows tired of himself, and is every hour oppreffed with his own laziness. What then are we to learn from our precarious, transitory condition? The most important precept of wifdom; the great document of human prudence, which we fhould perpetually inculcate to ourfelves, from youth to age; and imprint it on our hearts, as the peculiar and lafting fignature of found fenfe: namely, that there is no confideration in life, fufficient to tempt a wife man to facrifice one truth, or one virtue, to the folly of avarice, or the madness of ambition.

This

This has been the fettled judgment of the men moft renowned for their understanding, in all ages: and, as it is finely expreffed in the Wisdom of Solomon: I cannot re commend it with greater energy and authority, than by giving it to the reader in his own words, What hath pride

profited us? Or what good have riches, with our vaunting, brought us? All those things are paffed away like a shadow, and as a poft, that hafteth by; and as a fhip, that passeth over the waves of the water, which, when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the path way of the keel in the waves: or as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found; but the light air being beaten with the ftroke of her wings, and parted with the violent noife and motion of them, is paffed through; and therein afterwards no fign, where she went, is to be found: or like as when an arrow is shot at a mark, it parteth the air, which immediately cometh together again; fo that a man cannot know where it went through: even fo we in like manner, as foon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and had no fign of virtue to fhew; but were confumed in our own wickednefs."

The Character of Lady MAROW, by BISHOP HOUGH. [From his Lordship's Sermon on her death; of which only a few copies were printed in 1715.]

B

pre

ECAUSE example operates more powerfully than cept; and people are more cafily led into a path, where they fee others have gone before them, than if it were only pointed out; I beg leave to fhew in a fhort character of the deceased, that fhe had not ftudied the text [Malachi iv. 2.], nor made it the subject of her contemplation in vain: For The truly feared God; fhe knew the weakness of human nature: that what Ifaiah fays of the Jews in the beginning of his prophecy, the might very properly apply to it in this de

generate

generate ftate: "That the whole head was fick, and the whole heart faint; that from the fole of the foot, even unto the head, there was no foundness in it: but wounds and bruifes, and putrifying fores;" that they food in the utmost need of being "clofed and bound up, and mollified with ointment:" and she had recourse to the only hand that could do it.

From her infancy fhe had a very tender and nice conftitution; which (though fupported by regularity and conftant temperance) did by frequent indifpofitions put her in mind, that fhe was not to expect much eafe from it, or imagine it made for any long duration. But fhe had a native cheerfulness, and a calm, even temper, that enabled her to make the best of it; and whatsoever fhe felt within, fhe was too well bred to let it trouble her friends. As fhe grew up, the paffed into new scenes of life, and found exercise for her virtues in every one of them.

As a wife; he made it her business to discover and comply with the inclination of her husband: To have her family, her table, the choice of her acquaintance, her conduct, and even her dress, such as the thought would be moft agreeable to him and if it fell out that in any point fhe failed of that end, it might give trouble and concern, but never provoked her to a complaint. She would try to be more fuccefsful another time, and change her method, though in contradiction to her judgment.

As a mother; fhe was tender, indulgent, and impartial to her children her cares were equally divided amongst them; and if at any time one feemed to have more than another, it was when indifpofition gave a claim to it, and they all found it in their turns. Had any of them been ftubborn, or untractable, I cannot fay how well fhe would have been qualified for the rougher part of difcipline. I am fure the herself would have been the greateft fufferer in the ufe of it, having an abhorrence in her nature to feverity; and but a very poor opinion of virtue that was forced. But bleffed be God, the had no occafion to act this part, for fhe had ingenuous minds to deal with, who learned their duty from obfervation; fhe fhewed them in herfelf what was honourable, and becoming, and they fell eafily into imitation, unconftrained.

As a mistress; he was kind and gentle to her fervants, willing to accept of their endeavours to please, and ready to overlook little mifcarriages. If they committed greater faults, her concern was more to make them fenfible, than to

reprove