that fublime beauty which refults from a knowledge of Nature, to be ready to indulge himfelf a little too freely in refearches which coincide fo well with the natural bias of the mind!—Let him who has not erred in this way, criticife with afperity the failings of his brethren: It does

7

not belong to me. For, when at

ot ~ > ~ — — a>) pad) eal oD a O OD CI — ~

tempted, by fome concurring facts, to think that[had got A glimpfe of a fundamental law,. the knowledge of which brought order from confufion;—when the ima~ gination has been fired, and I have been ready to enter, an unbidden gueft, into the facred temple of{cience;— when I was ready, in my own imagination, to withdraw the myfterious veil that covers Nature’s works;~-when I ftretched forth my hand, methought[ heard a voice, which, with awful folemnity, faid, MorTaL, KNow THYSELF,—BE HUMBLE.—Cenfounded at the juft reproof, I ftarted from my dream, and, with an humble mind, refolved difcreetly to purfue the inferior path that

Nature had affiened me.

Purity of language will not be looked for in a treatife ef this nature. A man educated in a remote province, at a diftance from men of letters, in a great meafure

b 3 deprived