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⚫ what the most rigid justice could not have interpreted as a crime.

The king was fo afflicted with her death, that ⚫ he left his kingdom to one of his nearest relations, and paffed the reft of his days in folitude ⚫ and retirement.'

No 579. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11.

Odora canum vis.

Sagacious hounds.

VIRG. En. iv. ver. 132.

IN the reign of King Charles I. the company of ftationers, into whofe hands the printing of the Bible is committed by patent, made a very remarkable Erratum, or blunder in one of their editions: For inftead of Thou shall not commit adultery, they printed off feveral thoufands of copies with Thou fbalt commit adultery. Archbishop Laud, to punish this their negligence, laid a confiderable fine upon the company in the Star-Chamber.

By the practice of the world, which prevails in this degenerate age, I am afraid that very many young profligates, of both fexes, are poffeffed of this fpurious edition of the Bible, and obferve the commandment according to that faulty. reading.

Adulterers, in the first ages of the church, were excommunicated for ever, and unqualified all their lives from bearing a part in chriftian affemblies, notwithstanding they might feek it with tears, and all the appearances of the moft unfeigned repen

tance.

I might here mention fome ancient laws among the heathens which punished this crime with death,

and

and others of the fame kind, which are now in force among feveral governments that have embraced the reformed religion. But because a subject of this nature may be too ferious for ordinary readers, who are very apt to throw by my papers, when they are not enlivened with fomething that is diverting or uncommon; I fhall here publish the contents of a little manufcript lately fallen into my hands, and which pretends to great antiquity, though, by reafon of fome modern phrafes and other particulars in it, I can by no means allow it to bé genuine, but rather the production of a modern fophift.

It is well known by the learned, that there was a temple upon mount Etna dedicated to Vulcan, which was guarded by dogs of fo exquifite a fmell (fay the hiftorians) that they could difcern whether the perfons who came thither were chafte or otherwife. They ufed to meet and fawn upon fuch as were chafte, careffing them as the friends of their mafter Vulcan; but flew at those who were polluted, and never ceafed barking at them until they had driven them from the temple.

My manufcript gives the following account of thefe dogs, and was probably defigned as a comment upon this story.

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Thefe dogs were given to Vulcan by his fifter Diana, the goddefs of hunting and of chastity, having bred them out of fome of her hounds, in which he had obferved this natural inftinct and ⚫ fagacity. It is thought she did it in fpite to Venus, who, upon her return home, always found her hufband in a good or bad humour, according to the reception which fhe met with from his dogs. They lived in the temple feveral years, but were fuch fnappifh curs that they frighted away moft ⚫ of the votaries. The women of Sicily made a ⚫ folemn deputation to the prieft, by which they 'acquainted him, that they would not come up to the

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the temple with their annual offerings unless he 'muzzled his maftiffs, and at laft compromised the ⚫ matter with him, that the offering fhould always ⚫ be brought by a chorus of young girls, who were none of them above feven years old. It was wonderful, fays the author) to fee how different the treatment was which the dogs gave to these, little miffes, from that which they had fhewn to. their mothers. It is faid that the Prince of Syracufe, having married a young Lady, and being, naturally of a jealous temper, made fuch an intereft with the priests of this temple, that he procured a whelp from them of this famous breed. The young puppy was very troublesome to the 'fair Lady at first, infomuch that the folicited her hufband to fend him away; but the good man, cut her short with the old Sicilian proverb, Love, me, Love my dog. From which time the lived very peaceably with both of them. The Ladies of Syracufe were very much annoyed with him, and 'feveral of very good reputation refufed to come. to court until he was difcarded. There were indeed fome of them that defied his fagacity: But it was obferved, though he did not actually bite. them, he would growl at them most confoundedly. To return to the dogs of the temple: Af *ter they had lived here in great repute for feveral years, it fo happened, that as one of the priests, who had been making a charitable visit to a widow who lived on the promontory of Lilybæum,returned home pretty late in the evening, the dogs flew at him with fo much fury, that they would have worried him if his brethren had not come in to his affiftance: Upon which, fays my author, the dogs were all of them hanged, as 6 having loft their original inftinct.'

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I cannot conclude this paper without wifhing, that we had fome of this breed of dogs in Great Britain, which would certainly do justice, I should

fay

Tay honour, to the Ladies of our country, and fhew the world the deference between pagan women and those who are inftructed in founder principles of virtue and religion.

*********************** FRIDAY, AUGUST 13.

No 580.

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Si verbo audacia detur,

Non metuam magni dixiffe palatia Gœli.

Ovin. Met. 1. i. ver. 175.

This place, the brightest manfion of the sky,
I'll call the Palace of the Deity.

" SIR,

I

DRYDEN,

CONSIDERED in my two laft letters that awful and tremendous fubject, the ubiquity or omnipresence of the Divine Being. I have fhewn that he is equally prefent in all places throughout the whole extent of infinite space. This doctrine is fo agreeable to reason, that we meet with it in the writings of the enlightened heathens, as I might fhew at large, were it not already done by other hands. But though the Deity be thus effentially prefent through all the immenfity of fpace, there is one part of it in which he difcovers himself in a moft tranfcendent and visible glory. This is that place which is marked out in fcripture under the different appellations of ParaC dife, the third Heaven, the throne of God, and the • habitation of his glory. It is here where the glo, *rified body of our Saviour refides, and where all the celeftial hierarchies, and the innumerable hoft of angels, are reprefented as perpetually furrounding the feat of God with Hallelujahs and hymns of praife. This is that prefence of God which fome of the divines call his Glorious, and

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others

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others his Majeftatic Prefence. He is indeed as effentially prefent in all other places as in this; but it is here where he refides in a fenfi ble magnificence, and in the midst of all those fplendors which can affect the imagination of cré⚫ated Beings.

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It is very remarkable that this opinion of God Almighty's prefence in heaven, whether difco. vered by the light of nature, or by a general tradition from our firft parents, prevails among all the nations the world, whatsoever different notions they entertain of the Godhead. If you look into Homer, that is, the most ancient of the • Greek writers, you see the fupreme power feated in the heavens, and encompaffed with inferior deities, among whom the mufes are reprefented as finging inceffantly about his throne. Who • does not here see the main strokes and outlines · of this great truth we are speaking of? The fame doctrine is fhadowed out in many other heathen authors, though at the fame time, like feveral o. ⚫ther revealed truths, dashed and adulterated with a mixture of fables and human inventions. But

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to pass over the notions of the Greeks and Romans, thofe more enlightned parts of the pagan world, we find there is fcarce a people among the late • difcovered nations who are not trained up in an opinion, that heaven is the habitation of the divinity whom they worship.

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As in Solomon's temple there was the Sanctum Sanctorum, in which a vifible glory appeared among the figures of the cherubims, and into which none but the high priest himself was permitted to enter, after having made an atonement for the fins of the people; fo, if we confider the whole creation as one great temple, there is in it this Holy of Holies, into which the high-priest ⚫ of our falvation entered, and took his place among

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