isll act* AND RECOVERY, &c. philosopher, and the common opinion of the most intelligent ob- servers of mankind. The poets were generally loose enough themselves, but they were wise enough to observe the universal wickedness of mankind and agree entirely in this obvious and general truth. Virgil tells us, that few are virtuous enough to escape the punishmentsof the other world : Be brings in a ghost telling his son, " Panel !seta area tenemus." And in this life the character of human nature among the poetsis this : Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusquenegata." Gens humana ruit per vetitum netas, Audaxominia perpeti. Hog. And that vice is early and universal he says, "Nam vitiis nemesine nascitur." And when this author speaks of young men in general, he gives them thischaracter : ' Cereus invitum fiecti, monitoribus aver? Seneca says just the same, " Pejoa juvenes facile procepta audiunt." AndJuvènal abounds in this account of human nature; "Raci quippe boni : Numero vix sent totidem que Thebarum porno, eel divitis Ostia Nib. Quse tam testa dies ut cesset prodere furem Ad mores natura recurrit Daninatos, fixa & mutari nescia. Quisnam hominumest quern to contentumvideris uno Flagitio ? Dociles imitandis Turpibus & pravisomnes sumus. "-- ..dev. They own indeed there was once a golden age, or a state of innocence at first. Their reason told them, that the great God must and did make man upright and good ; but they imagined that mankind did degenerate by degrees in successive ages, and at last grew universally wicked. This is asserted not only by satyrical writers, but by those of a gentler disposition and a softer pen. Ovid and Manilius were not satyrists, yet they speak the' very same language : " Protium erupitvense pejoris in sevum Omne nefas : Fugerepudor, verumque fidesque. In quorum subiere locumfraudesque dolique Insidique, & vis, & amor sceleratus habendi Vieta jacet pietas, terras Astraea reliquit. " Ov. " Perque tot setates hominum, tot tempora& annos, Tot bella, & varies ehiam sub pace labores, Cum fortunefidem qumrat, vix invenit usquam. At quanta est scelerum moles per smalls cuneta.? In populo seelus est : Et abundant cuneta furore, Et fas atque nefas mistom; legesque per ipeas Neevit nequities.". Hank..
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