any fuch machines, as have made the ftrength and beauty of the ancient buildings.

But what if I venture to advance an invention of my own, to supply the manifest defects of our new writers ? I am fufficiently fenfible of my weakness; and it is not very probable that I should fucceed in fuch a project, whereof I have not had the least hint from any of my predeceffors, the poets, or any of their feconds, and coadjutors, the criticks. Yet we fee the art of war is improved in fieges, and new inftruments of death are invented daily fomething new in philofophy and the mechanics is difcovered almost every year: and the fcience of former ages is improved by the fucceeding. I will not detain you with a long preamble to that, which better judges will, perhaps, conclude to be little worth.

It is this, in fhort, That Chriftian poets have not hitherto been acquainted with their own ftrength. If they had searched the Old Testament as they ought, they might there have found the machines which are proper for their work; and thofe more certain in their effect, than it may be the New Teftament is, in the rules fufficient for falvation. The perufing of one chapter in the Prophecy of Daniel, and accommodating what there they find, with the principles of Platonic Philofophy, as it is now chriftianized, would have the ministry of angels as ftrong an engine, for the working up heroic poetry, in our religion, as that of the ancients has been to raise theirs by all the fables of their

gods,

gods, which were only received for truths by the most ignorant and weakest of the people.

It is a doctrine almost universally received by Chriftians, as well proteftants as catholicks, That there are guardian angels appointed by God Almighty as his vicegerents, for the protection and government of cities, provinces, kingdoms, and monarchies; and thofe as well of heathens, as of true believers. All this is fo plainly proved from thofe texts.of Daniel, that it admits of no farther controverfy. The prince of the Perfians, and that other of the Grecians, are granted to be the guardians and protecting minifters of those empires. It cannot be denied, that they were oppofite, and resisted one another. St. Michael is mentioned by his name, as the patron of the Jews, and is now taken by the Chriftians, as the protector-general of our religion. These tutelar genii, who prefided over the several people and regions committed to their charge, were watchful over them for good, as far as their commiffions could poffibly extend. The general purpose, and defign of all, was certainly the fervice of their Great Creator. But it is an undoubted truth, that, for ends best known to the Almighty Majesty of heaven, his providential defigns for the benefit of his creatures, før the debafing and punishing of fome nations, and the exaltation and temporal reward of others, were not wholly known to these his ministers; else why those factious quarrels, controverfies, and battles, amongst themselves, when they were all united in the fame defign, the fervice and honour of their common mafter?

But

But being inftructed only in the general, and zealous of the main defign; and, as finite beings, not admitted into the fecrets of government, the last resorts of Providence, or capable of difcovering the final purposes of God, who can work good out of evil, as he pleases; and irresistibly sways all manner of events on earth, directing them finally for the best, to his creation in general, and to the ultimate end of his own glory in particular: they muft of neceffity be fometimes ignorant of the means conducing to thofe ends, in which alone they can jar and oppose each other. One angel, as we may suppose the prince of Perfia, as he is called, judging that it would be more for God's honour, and the benefit of his people, that the Median and Perfian monarchy, when delivered from the Babylonish captivity, should still be uppermoft: and the patron of the Grecians, to whom the will of God might be more particularly revealed, contending on the other fide, for the rife of Alexander and his fucceffors, who were appointed to punish the backfliding Jews, and thereby to put them in mind of their offences, that they might repent, and become more virtuous, and more obfervient of the law revealed. But how far thefe controversies and appearing enmities of those glorious creatures may be carried; how thefe oppofitions may best be managed, and by what means conducted, is not my business to fhew or determine: thefe things must be left to the invention and judgment of the poet: if any of fo happy a genius be now living, or any future age can ¿produce a man, who, being converfant in the philofophy

of

of Plato, as it is now accommodated to chriftian ufer for (as Virgil gives us to understand by his example) he is the only proper perfon, of all others, for an epick poem, who, to his natural endowments, of a large invention, a ripe judgment, and a strong memory, has joined the knowledge of the liberal arts and fciences, and particularly moral philofophy, the mathe matics, geography, and hiftory, and with all these qualifications is born a poet; knows, and can practise, the variety of numbers, and is mafter of the language in which he writes; if fuch a man, I fay, be now arisen, or fhall arife, I am vain enough to think, that I have propofed a model to him, by which he may build a nobler, a more beautiful, and more perfect poem, than any yet extant, fince the ancients.

There is another part of thefe machines yet wanting; but, by what I have faid, it would have been easily supplied by a judicious writer. He could not have failed to add the oppofition of ill fpirits to the good; they have alfo their defign, ever oppofite to that of heaven; and this alone has hitherto been the practice of the moderns: but this imperfect system, if I may call it fuch, which I have given, will infinitely advance and carry farther that hypothesis of the evil fpirits contending with the good. For, being fo much weaker fince their fall than those bleffed beings, they are yet supposed to have a permitted power of God, of acting ill, as, from their own depraved nature, they have always the will of defigning it. A great testimony of which we find in holy writ, when God Almighty

mighty fuffered Satan to appear in the holy fynod of the angels (a thing not hitherto drawn into example by any of the poets), and alfo gave him power over all things belonging to his fervant Job, excepting only life.

Now what these wicked fpirits cannot compafs by the vaft difproportion of their forces to thofe of the fuperior beings, they may by their fraud and cunning carry farther, in a feeming league, confederacy, or fubferviency to the designs of fome good angel, as far as confifts with his purity, to fuffer fuch an aid, the end of which may poffibly be difguifed, and concealed from his finite knowledge. This is indeed to fuppofe a great error in fuch a being: yet since a devil can appear like an angel of light; fince craft and malice may fometimes blind for a while a more perfect understanding; and laftly, fince Milton has given us an example of the like nature, when Satan appearing like a cherub to Uriel, the intelligence of the fun, circumvented him even in his own province, and paffed only for a curious traveller through thofe new-created regions, that he might obferve therein the workmanship of God, and praise him in his works.

I know not why, upon the fame fuppofition, or fome other, a fiend may not deceive a creature of more excellency than himself, but yet a creature; at least by the connivance, or tacit permiffion, of the omnifcient Being.

Thus, my Lord, I have, as briefly as I could, given your Lordship, and by you the world, a rude draught of what I have been long labouring in my imagination,

and