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that no arguments even from Fadlallah himself could ⚫ compofe her mind. She fhortly after died with grief, begging his pardon with her latest breath for what the moft rigid juftice 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.

Virg. Æn. 4. v. 132.

Sagacious hounds.

IN

N the reign of king Charles I. the company of station-ers, into whose 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 fhalt not commit adultery, they printed off feveral thoufands of copies with Thou shalt commit adultery. Archbishop Laud, to punish this their negligence, laid a confiderable fine upon that company in the ftar-chamber.

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

ADULTERERS, in the firft 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 repentance.

I MIGHT here mention fome ancient laws among the Heathens which punished this crime with death; and others of the fame kind, which are now in force among feveral governments that have embraced the reformed religion. But because a fubject of this nature may be too ferious for my 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

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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 be genuine, but rather the production of a modern fophift.

Ir 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 used 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 till they had driven them from the temple.

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

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THESE dogs were given to Vulcan by his fifter Diana, the goddess of hunting and of chastity, having bred them out of fome of her hounds, in which she had obferved this natural inftinct and fagacity. It was thought fhe did it in fpite to Venus, who, upon her return home, always found her husband 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 most of the votaries. The women of Sicily made a folemn deputation to the priest, by which they acquainted him, that they would not come up to 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.

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wonderful,' fays the author, to fee how different the treatment was which the dogs gave to thefe little miffes, from that which they had fhewn to their mothers. It is faid that a 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 troublefome to the fair lady at firft, infomuch that the folicited her huf• band

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band to fend him away; but the good man cut her fhort 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 several of very good reputation ' refufed to come to court till he was difcarded. There

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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 moft confoundedly. To return to the dogs of the temple: after 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 vifit to a widow who lived on the promontory of Lily'baum, 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 having loft their original ' instinct.'

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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 juftice, I fhould fay honour, to the ladies of our country, and fhew the world the difference between Pagan women, and those who are inftructed in founder principles of virtue and religion.

N° 580.

Friday, August 13.

Si verbo audacia detur,

Non metuam magni dixiffe palatia cæli.

Ovid. Met. 1. 1. v. 175.

This place, the brightest mansion of the sky,
I'll call the palace of the Deity.

I

SIR,

Dryden.

CONSIDERED in my two laft letters that awful and tremendous fubject, the ubiquity or omniprefence of the divine Being. I have fhewn that he is equally prefent in all places throughout the whole extent

of

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⚫ of infinite space. This doctrine is fo agreeable to reafon, that we meet with it in the writings of the enlight'ened 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 discovers himfelf in a moft tranfcendent and visible glory. This is 'that place which is marked out in fcripture under the ⚫ different appellations of paradife, the third heaven, the throne of God, and the habitation of his glory. It is here where the glorified body of our Saviour resides, ' and where all the celeftial hierarchies, and the innumerable hosts of angels, are reprefented as perpetually 'furrounding the feat of God with hallelujahs and hymns of praise. This is that prefence of God which fome of the divines call his glorious, and others his majestatic prefence. He is indeed as essentially present in all other places as in this: but it is here where he refides in a 'fenfible magnificence, and in the midst of all thofe fplen-. 'dors which can affect the imagination of created beings. IT is very remarkable, that this opinion of God Al mighty's prefence in heaven, whether difcovered by the light of nature, or by a general tradition from our first parents, prevails among all the nations of the world, 'whatsoever different notions they entertain of the Godhead. If you look into Homer, that is, the most an'cient of the Greek writers, you fee 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 fee the main ftrokes and outlines of this great truth we are fpeaking of? The fame doctrine is fhadowed out in many other Heathen authors, though at the fame time, like feveral other revealed truths, dafhed and adultera'ted with a mixture of fables and human inventions. But ❝ to pafs over the notions of the Greeks and Romans, those more enlightened parts of the Pagan world, we find 'there is fcarce a people among the late discovered nations who are not trained up in an opinion, that heaven is the habitation of the divinity whom they worship. "As in Solomon's temple there was the Sanctum Sanctorum, in which a visible glory appeared among the fi

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gures 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 angels and archangels, after having made a propitiation for the fins of mankind,

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WITH how much skill must the throne of God be erected? With what glorious defigns is that habitation beautified, which is contrived and built by him who infpired Hiram with wifdom? How great must be the majefty of that place, where the whole art of creation has been employed, and where God has chofen to fhew himself in the most magnificent manner? What must be the architecture of infinite power under the direction ⚫ of infinite wisdom ? A fpirit cannot but be transported after an ineffable manner with the fight of those objects which were made to affect him by that Being who knows the inward frame of a foul, and how to please and ravish it in all its moft fecret powers and faculties. It is to this majestic prefence of God, we may apply ⚫ those beautiful expreffions in holy writ: Behold even to • the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the ftars are not pure • in his fight. The light of the fun, and all the glories of the world in which we live, are but as weak and fickly glimmerings, or rather darkness itfelf, in comparifon of thofe fplendors which encompafs the throne of • God.

How far appears in Though

As the glory of this place is tranfcendent beyond imagination, fo probably is the extent of it. There is light behind light, and glory within glory. that fpace may reach, in which God thus perfect majefty, we cannot poffibly conceive. it is not infinite, it may be indefinite; and though not • immeasurable in itself, it may be fo with regard to any • created eye or imagination. If he has made thefe lower ⚫ regions of matter fo inconceivably wide and magnificent for the habitation of mortal and perishable beings, how great may we fuppofe the courts of this houfe to be, where he makes his refidence in a more efpecial manner, and difplays himself in the fulnefs of his glory, among

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