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planted in man a fenfe of ambition, and a fatisfaction arifing from the contemplation of his excelling his fellows in fomething deemed valuable amongst them. It is this paffion that creates advantages we all derive in civilized life, and it is this paffion alfo, ill directed, which unfortunately hinders men from granting to Genius its due.

Oh! Genius, art thou to be envied or pitied? Doomed to form expectations the most fanguine, and to meet with disappointments the most mortifying? To indulge towards others the most generous wishes, to receive thyfelf the most illiberal treatment? To be applauded, admired, and neglected? To be a friend to all, befriended, often, by none? Oh! Thou creative, discriminating power, source of inexpreffible delights, and nurse of unknown fenfibilities, that perpetuate diftrefs. Fancy fhall embody thy form; and vifit the grave of BROWN, to drop the tear of fympathy, over that ingenious, unfriended, unfortunate physician.

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SECT. LXII.

THE DISCOVERIES OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

"If I have done the world any service, it is due to my industry and patient "thought; for, by having the subject ever in view, new light broke in

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upon me by little and little, which at length affumed a more perfect "form."

In a fecond letter to Dr. BENTLEY, this philosopher fays, “If I nad foreseen "all the weight of oppofition that has arifen against me, I would have left "to others the pursuit of an empty shadow.Nevertheless the reflec"tion of having extended the knowledge of my fellow creatures, af"fords me fome return for the inquietudes ever attendant upon literary, " eminence."

From Sir ISAAC NEWTON'S Letters to Dr. BENTLEY.

SHALL the great foul of NEWTON quit this earth,

to mingle with his flars; and every muse,
aftonish'd into filence, fhun the weight

of honours due to his illuftrious name?

But what can Man? Ev'n now the Sons of Light,

in ftrains high warbled to feraphic lyre,

hail his arrival on the coaft of bliss.

Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,

and fung to harps of angels, for with you

Ethereal Flames! ambitious, I afpire

in NATURE's general symphony to join.

Have ye not liften'd while HE bound the funs, and planets, to their spheres! th' unequal task

of

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o'er erring man the year, and oft difgrac'd

the pride of schools, before their courfe was known full in its caufes, and effects, to him

all-piercing fage! who fat not down and dream'd romantic schemes,

But, bidding his amazing mind attend,

and with HEROIC PATIENCE, YEARS, on YEARS, DEEP-SEARCHING, faw at last THE SYSTEM dawn, and fhine, of all his race, on HIM alone.

O, ineffable magnificence divine! O, wisdom truly perfect! thus to call from a few caufes such a scheme of things, effects of various, beautiful, and great,

an universe complete! And O belov'd

of heaven! whofe well-purg'd, penetrating, eye,
the mystic veil tranfpiercing, inly scann'd
the rifing, moving, wide-establish'd frame,

who, while on this dim fpot, where mortals toil
clouded in duft, from motion's fimple laws
could trace the fecret hand of PROVIDENCE
wide-working through this universal frame.

What were his raptures then! how pure! how ftrong! and what the triumphs of old GREECE and ROME

by his diminish'd, but the pride of boys

in fome small fray victorious! when instead
of fhatter'd parcels of this earth ufurp'd
by violence and blood, NATURE herself
stood, all fubdu'd by him, and open laid
her every latent glory to his view.

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HE, first of men, with awful wing purfu'd the comet through the long elliptic curve, as round innumerous worlds he wings his way; till, to the forehead of our evening-íky return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew, and o'er the trembling nations shakes dismay.

All intellectual eye, our folar round first gazing through, HE, by the blended power of GRAVITATION, and PROJECTION, faw the whole in filent harmony revoive.

From unaffifted vifion hid, the moons to cheer remoter planets numerous form'd by HIм in all their mingled tracts were seen,

Hɛ alfo fix'd our wandering queen of night, whether the wanes into a scanty orb, or, waxing broad, with her pale fhadowy light, in a foft deluge overflows the sky.

Her every motion clear-difcerning, HE adjusted to the mutual main, and taught why now the mighty mass of water swells refiftlefs, heaving on the broken rocks, and the full river turning; till again the tide revertive, unattracted, leaves a yellow waste of idle fands behind.

Then breaking hence, HE took his ardent flight Through the blue infinite; and every star which the clear concave of a winter's night

pours on the eye, or aftronomic tube,

far

far-ftretching, fnatches from the dark abyss,
or fuch as farther in fucceffive skies
to fancy fhine alone, at his approach
blazed into SUNS, the living center each
of an harmonious fyftem: all combin'd,
and rul'd unerring by that fingle power
which draws the ftone projected to the ground!

The heavens are all his own; from the wild rule of whirling vortices, and circling spheres, to their first great fimplicity restor❜d.

Th' aerial flow of found was known to him, from whence it firft in wavy circles breaks, till the touch'd organ takes the message in.

Nor could the darting beam, speed immense, efcape his swift pursuit, and measuring eye.

Even light itself, which every thing difplays,
fhone undiscover'd till his brighter mind
untwifted all the fhining robe of day;
and, from the whitening undiftinguish'd blaze,
collecting every ray into his kind,

to the charm'd eye educ'd the gorgeous train
of parent-colours. First the flaming red
fprung vivid forth; the tawny orange next;
and next delicious yellow; by whose fide
fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green,
then the pure blue, that fwells autumnal skies,
ethereal play'd: and then, of fadder hue,
emerg'd the deepened Indico, as when
the heavy skirted evening droops with froft,
while the last gleamings of refracted light
dy'd in the fainting violet away.

The

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