but that he must have foreseen, not only the poffibility, but the high probability, of its taking place in the world; and yet he fuffered it to do fo: yea, fo far was he from preventing it, that it feems as though fome of the most important measures of his conduct were formed, upon the fuppofition of its actual being in e univerfe.

This is the objection urged at large, and, I think, in its full force, against the creation and government of an infinitely holy and benevolent Being.'

After having encountered this objection with confiderable addrefs, he recapitulates as follows:

The fum of the whole argument is this, that the connection of unhappiness with moral irregularity is a means wifely adapted to operate powerfully upon rational moral agents, to reduce them to a right conduct, if they have been faulty, and to preferve them inviolable in their attachment to virtue, if they have been innocent: infomuch, that it may be owing to this connection, there is fo much order and happiness in the intelligent creation; of both which, had not this connection been conftituted, there would undoubtedly have been much less than there now is, and has all along been. The confequence wherefrom is, that this provifion, fitted for the production of fo much good, is fo far from being inconfiftent with benevolence, that it is a strong indication of it. And whereas the fufferings of the virtuous, by the wickedness of the vicious, are great and trying; thefe alfo, upon fuppofition of another state (which cannot be proved to be an unreafonable, much less an impoffible one) may be, in the end, for their advantage; as they are capable of being improved fo as that the fruit, upon the whole, fhall be more happiness than if these sufferings had not been endured and if they may poffibly be a means to produce greater good, they cannot prove a deficiency in the benevolence of the Deity, but are rather an argument in proof that he is endowed with this attribute.

:

I have now offered what I had to fay in illuftration of the confiftency between infinite benevolence, and moral irregularity, together with all its confequent unhappiness. And I fee not, upon the review, but the reafoning employed to this purpose is ftrictly conclufive. God having created free agents, it appears, from what has been difcourfed, that they are the proper and fole caufes of all the moral diforder that is complained of, and not the Deity who has done every thing that he could, in confiftency with reafon and wifdom, not only to prevent their abufe of their faculties, but to promote their improvement of them fo as to attain to the higheft perfection and happiness and further, that the very evils he has conrected with their voluntary misconduct, are kindly intended, and wifely adapted, to bring about their best good, and will cer tainly do it, if it is not their own fault. So that, upon the

whole,

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whole, it cannot be conceived, what the Deity could have done more, in a wife and rational method of operation, to have made intelligent moral beings, in all their various orders, as happy as their original capacities would allow of: which is as much as can be expected, even from benevolence that is infinite.'

The author concludes his work with the statement of the objection of natural evil.

It now remains, fays he, to confider the third and laft objection to the infinite benevolence of the Deity. And this is taken from the natural evils, common to all perceiving beings, in this world of our's, in all their claffes, from the highest to the loweft; fuch as pains, diseases, and difafters, in various kinds and degrees; and, at daft, death, mostly accompanied with diftrefs, and fometimes with aggravated circumstances of mifery and torment. And the complaint upon this head is, that thefe evils are not only permitted by the Deity, but were, in a fenfe, appointed; as being the effect of that conftitution of things, which he contrived, and established, and has all along upheld: nay, it is urged, with refpect to fome of thefe evils, as to their kind, if not degree, that the Deity intended they fhould take place, and originally endowed the creatures with fuch natures, as that a liableness to them was abfolutely neceffary. And would an infinitely benevolent Being, fay the movers of this objection, have brought creatures into existence under fuch circumstances, fubjected, by the very laws of their nature, to pain and mifery? Does this look like the doing of fupremely perfect goodness? Can it be fuppofed that fuch a ftate of things could have been, if originally planned, and all along conducted by a Being effentially, and infinitely kind and good?'.

Our readers must have recourfe to the work for the full anfwer to the preceding quotation; but the following paffage from the recapitulation may ferve to convey its outline.

Upon the whole that has been faid, in relation to natural evil, it appears, either that it could not have been prevented in fuch a world as our's; or, that it is mifcalled evil, being rather the contrivance of wifdom in order to the production of more good than there otherwife would have been. It is conceded a better world than this, more perfect, and more powerfully adapted to make happy, might be created by the Deity; but then it ought to be remembered, fuch a better world may be already one of the links in the diverfified chain of existence. The only proper question, therefore, is, whether the making fuch a world as this, is not a proof of more benevolence, than a chafm would be in that part of the creation, which it now occupies if fo, imperfect as it is, comparatively speaking, it is better it should be, than not be. And, for fuch an imperfect world as this ought to be, in an indefinitely variegated crea

ation, in order to its being a proper part in the chain of exiftence, no alteration, it may be, notwithstanding all the com plaints that have been made of deficiencies, redundances, deformities, and evils, could be made without damage to the fyfIf in fome things, abfolutely viewed, an alteration for the better might be fuppofed, yet this very alteration, confidered, as it ought to be, in relation to other parts, which, as truly as thefe, go to the conflitution of the whole, it might turn out greatly to its difadvantage.'

Though we cannot difmifs this article without acknowledging the ability with which Dr. Chauncy has treated his fubject, we think his fuccefs might have been more complete had he, in endeavouring to account for the origin of evil, taken into confideration all the divine attributes; as perhaps they are always too closely connected in the adminiftration of the univerfe to be, on any occafion, juftly confidered apart.

The ftyle of this treatife is, in general, clear and unaffected, though not elegant. We meet with fome uncouth words; fuch as befiorment, exertment, lengthy, enlargedness, preparedness; which we cannot account for on any other fuppofition than that of their being current in America. There are also a few exceptionable phrafes and conftructions; for instance, happify life in his creatures; a general touch upon a topic; fuitable for any thing, inftead of to it; an incapable fubject of happiness, for a fubjec incapable of happiness; and a few more.-Thefe trifling blemithes may be easily removed in a future edition.

FOREIGN ARTICLES.

I''Ami de l'Adolefcence. Par M. Berquin. 3 Tomes. Pour les Mois de Septembre, Octobre, & Novembre. Paris.

T

HOUGH thefe three volumes are the only one which we have yet received, yet we think it neceffary to mention them, as we may contribute to render them more generally known. Mont Berquin has already published L'Ami des Enfans' of which this is a continuation, adapted to more ma ture years. The former work is now fo well known in England that, furrounded as we are by eager claimants for our notice, it may with propriety be omitted. It was concluded about the middle of last year, and now confifts of twenty-four volumes, which are advertised in Paris at twenty-fix livres eight fous (little more than a guinea.) The volumes before us confiit each of two numbers, published on the first and fifteenth of the month; they are more generally interefting than the Infants Manual, and may be read with pleafure by perfons of every age,

The

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my

The author, in the preface, promifes a volume each months of which the one part is to cont in tales, dialogues, and plays; the other, fome instruction, in an agreeable form, fuited to the intermediate state betyeen infancy and manhood. But, in fact, the alternate volumes re on different fubjects, and the two parts of each are of a fimilar kind. All that I afk, in return for trouble and anxiéey, lays our benevolent author, and what I think friendship gives me fome right to demand, is, that my readers will fometimes excufe a litle delay, which may occafionally happen, in fpite of my hopes and withes to ferve them with regularity. I beg them to confider, that I have indifferent health, which, together with my pleafures, I might be contented to facrifice; but I cannot foreafily ficrifice to a trifling-impatience, the ambition I feel, to prefent my work in the molt agreeable form, and to adapt it to the views of their parents.' The most eager impetuofity muft rerrain her willes, after an apology fo candid and interefting. We fell felect, as a fhort fpecimen of the work, part of the firft tale, entitled The Thconftant.

ZEPHIRIN DE ST.LEGER Ws born with a ready memory, an active penetrating genius, and a lively fruitful imagination. Fortune feemed willing to crown thefe pleafing promifes, by giving him parents, whofe most eager with was to cultivate the happy difpofition bestowed by nature. An extreme quickness in catching the first elements of knowlege, had advanced him in his early age; and he already joined agreeable talents to his inftruction.

One day, when he went to fee one of his companions, he found him employed in copying a Roman head, of which the great character ftruck him very forcibly: as faft as his friend formed the traits on his canvas, Zephirin felt his imagination warmed. The fight of fome pieces of the fame kind, which hung in the closet, completed an enthufiafm, as ftrong as Raphael might have felt, the first time that he touched a pencil,

He ran home, and met his father on the ftair-cafe, he fell on his neck, begging him to return, and enquire for a drawingmatter. His father, overjoyed with his ardour, yielded readily to his request, and they went together to one of the most cele brated artists. Zephirin would have been well pleased if the mafter had abandoned all his pupils to attend him only, from morning to night. Since he could not obtain this facrifice, he at least infifted on the leffon continuing two full hours each day. He could not conceive why every inftant was not employed in cultivating fo ingenious an art.

His mafter could only come the next morning. I cannot tell you how many figures he drew before the end of the evening. All his loofe papers were already covered with characteristic heads. You will affuredly pardon him for not at first bestowing that correctnefs, which arifes only from long practice. There was, for inftance, a large eye, anfwering to a fmall one. The nofe fometimes ftarted from the middle of the face, and the ear came to hearken to the mouth, or the mouth to bite the ear,

acrofs

across the fwell of the cheek; but, independent of these little faults, his outline had all the correctnefs that you could wish.

He had prepared a vast book of the largest paper which he could procure in the town. This space was foon too confined to hold the number of eyes, ears, arms, and legs, which he drew under the direction of his master. Greenwich Hofpital would have found there excellent models to fupply the deficiencies of its refpectable inhabitants. His natural impatience was a little checked by the fameness of these firft ftudies, to which he was rigorously confined, in the leffons defigned to fix his hand. But, when alone, he freed himself from the flowness of his career, by endeavouring to form in his mind great pictures. The walls of the granary had been whitewashed, he therefore thought of retracing, on them, the Roman history which he had just read. Indeed, at the end of eight days, he had drawn out with charcoal, a beautiful collection of heads of tribunes, bufts of con fuls, of dictators on foot, and emperors on horfeback; and I do not doubt but, if the names had been written under them, to complete the refemblance, fome antiquary would, from this gallery, have been able to compofe a crowd of interesting memoirs.

He purposed to draw, with the fame fpirit, the progrefs of our monarchy, when he found, one day, his work effaced by the domeftics, who pretended that these Roman heroes frightened the cats, and had no effect on the rats. This misfortune had cooled a little his ardour: the vexation to fee himself still at fuch a distance from his friend, whom he expected to have excelled on the first attempt, checked his fancy. He foon began to fear foiling his fingers with his pencil, or breaking the edge of his knife with fhaping it. His mafter, who had at first so much trouble in moderating his eagerness, had much more in encouraging it. In vain he related the marvellous effects of painting, and fome interefting anecdotes in the lives of great artists. He had brought him a pupil, juft returned from Rome, to tell him of the fuperb pictures which he had studied in Italy. In expreffing his admiration, the young stranger used Italian words, as more ready, or better fuited to exprefs his thoughts. Thefe founds, new to the ear of Zephirin, had fcarcely ftruck him, when he thought it >much more agreeable to speak a living language, than to draw heads, which, though expreffive, could never speak. He ran to communicate his reflection to his father, who faw him with concer decline an agreeable employment, which he so earnestly wifhed for; but he was not willing to oppofe his new taste, and the day after, Zephirin had an Italian mafter instead of the former.

I owe him this public juftice, that the first days his progrefs was unremitted. All the difficulties of grammar yielded to his penetration. He doated on a language fo full of foftness and harmony. He conftantly fpoke it to every one in the house, without knowing whether they understood it. The cook was called Voftra Signoria, and the porter Cor mio. The Italian tranflation of Telemachus, was become almost as familiar as the

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