THE SECOND CHAPTER OF SOLOMON'S SONG. I. As when in Sharon's field the blushing rose The fragrant odours through the air ; Does o'er each flower with beauteous pride prevail, And whitest lilies to my beauties yield. Then fairest flowers with studious art combine, The roses with the lilies join, And their united charms are 1 less than mine. II. As much as fairest lilies can surpass A thorn in beauty, or in height the grass, So does my love the virgin's eye invite : III. Beneath his pleasing shade My wearied limbs at ease I laid, And on his fragrant boughs reclined my head. I pulled the golden fruit with eager haste, And o'er my head he hung the banners of his love. IV. I faint! I die! my labouring breast V. Oh! let my love with powerful odours stay Be only gentle zephyrs there, And when the balmy slumber leaves his eyes, VI. But, see! he comes! with what majestic gait Now through the lattice he appears, For now the sullen winter's past, My love admits of no delay, VII. Already, see! the teeming earth Brings forth the flowers, her beauteous birth, VIII. As to its mate the constant dove grace, IX. As all of me, my love, is thine, And balmy sleep forsake thine eyes; Till the gladsome beams of day Remove the shades of night away: Then, when soft sleep shall from thy eyes depart, Glad to behold the light again From Bether's mountains darting o'er the plain. No. 389. N° Tuesday, May 27, 1712 T. [BUDGELL. -Meliora pii docuere parentes.-Hor. TOTHING has more surprised the learned in England than the price which a small book entitled Spaccio della Bestia Triumfante bore in a late auction. This book was sold for thirty pounds. As it was written by one Jordanus Brunus, a professed atheist, with a design to depreciate religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant price it bore, that there must be something in it very formidable. I must confess, that happening to get a sight of one of them myself, I could not forbear perusing it with this apprehension; but found there was so very little danger in it that I shall venture to give my readers a fair account of the whole plan upon which this wonderful treatise is built. The author pretends that Jupiter once upon a time resolved on a reformation of the constellations; for which purpose having summoned the stars to 1 The book was bought in 1711 for £28 by Mr. Walter Clavel at the sale of the library of Mr. Charles Barnard. It had been bought in 1706 at the sale of Mr. Bigot's library with five others for two shillings and a penny. Although Giordano Bruno was burnt as a heretic, he was a noble thinker, no professed atheist, but a man of the reformed faith, who was in advance of Calvin, and a friend of Sir Philip Sidney (Morley). 2. Fifty' (folio). gether, he complains to them of the great decay of the worship of the gods, which he thought so much the harder, having called several of those celestial bodies by the names of the heathen deities, and by that means made the heavens, as it were, a book of the Pagan theology. Momus tells him that this is not to be wondered at, since there were so many scandalous stories of the deities, upon which the author takes occasion to cast reflections upon all other religions, concluding that Jupiter, after a full hearing, discarded the deities out of heaven, and called the stars by the names of the moral virtues. This short fable, which has no pretence in it to reason or argument, and but a very small share of wit, has however recommended itself wholly by its impiety to those weak men who would distinguish themselves by the singularity of their opinions. There are two considerations which have been often urged against atheists, and which they never yet could get over. The first is, that the greatest and most eminent persons of all ages have been against them, and always complied with the public forms of worship established in their respective countries, when there was nothing in them either derogatory to the honour of the Supreme Being, or prejudicial to the good of mankind. The Platos and Ciceros among the ancients, the Bacons, the Boyles, and the Lockes among our own countrymen, are all instances of what I have been saying, not to mention any of the divines however celebrated, since our adversaries challenge all those as men who have too much interest in this case to be impartial evidences. But what has been often urged as a consideration of much more weight, is not only the opinion of the |