Proudly he boasts them to the heav'nly ray,
Gives all his colours, and adorns the day.
Was it thy pencil, Job, divinely bold,
Dreft his rich form in azure, green, and gold;
Thine hand his head with starry radiance crown’d,
And spread his sweepy train ? His train disdains the

ground,
And kindles living lamps thro' all the spacious round.
Mark with what confcious state the bird displays
His native gems, and ʼmidst the waving blaze
On the flow step of majefty he moves,
Afferts his honours, and demands his loves *.

The next instance of the Hypotyposis, with which I shall present my Reader, is that of Dr THOMAS Burnet, in his Theory of the Earth upon the final conflagration. 56 When this ad* mirable Author,” says the Spe&tator t, “ has re“ viewed all that has past, or is to come, which “ relates to the habitable world, and rụn through “ the whole fate of it, how could a guardian “ angel, that had attended it through all its “ courses or changes, speak more emphatically " at the end of his charge, than does our Auuthor, when he makes as it were a funeral ora6. tion over this globe, looking to the place 66 where it once stood.”

“ Let us only, if you please, to take leave

of this subject, reflect upon this occasion on “the vanity and transient glory of this habita

s ble world : how by the force of one element

breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties “ of nature, all the works of art, all the laļ bours of men, are reduced to nothing. All " that we admired and adored before as great “ and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; « and another form and face of things, plain,

simple, and every where the same, over, “ spreads the whole earth. Where are now the

great empires of the world, and their great

imperial 'cities? their pillars, trophies, and « monuments of glory? Shew me where they

ftood, read the inscription, tell me the vica " tor's name.

What reinains, what impres« sions, what difference or distinction, do you és fee in this mass of fire ? Rome itself, eter"nal Rome, the great city, the empress of the us world, whose domination or superstition, an, « cient and modern, make a great part of the

history of this earth, what is become of her & now? She laid her foundations deep, and her

palaces were strong and sumptuouş. Şbe glo“ rified herself as a queen, and said in her beart, I “ fit a queen, and fall see no forrow; but her “ hour is come, she is wiped away from the “ face of the earth, and buried in everlasting “ oblivion. But they are not cities only, and “ works of mens hands, but the everlasting “ hills, the mountains and rocks of the carth, “ are melted as wax before the sun, and their “ place is no where found. Here stood the “ Alps, the load of the earth, that covered

many

“ many countries, and reached their arms from " the Ocean to the Black-sea ; this huge mass « of stone is foftened and dissolved as a ten« der cloud into rain. Here stood the African « mountains, and Atlas with his top above the « clouds; there was frozen Caucasus, and Tauu rus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia; « and yonder, towards the north, ftood the Ri“ pbean hills, clothed in ice and snow: all these u are vanished, 'dropt away as the snow upon u their heads. Great and marvellous are thy a works; just and true are thy ways, thou King of faints! Hallelujah."

1

§ 3. Might I be permitted, without being thought too copious in the examples of the Hypolyposis, I would add the descriptions of a country Life, from those two excellent lyric Poets, Horace and CASIMIRE ; the first of whom defcribes the life of a country farmer; the other, that of a man of piety and leisure. I apprehend both the odes to be

very

beautiful in their kind; and with them I shall conclude the instances of the Hypotyposis, except what I may think proper to select from the sacred Writings.

« Happy the man who, freed from care, “ Such as our good forefathers were, « And from the curs'd anxiety 66 That haunts a life of usury, " With his own oxen shares the toil " In plowing his paternal foil :

" He