466 REMNANTS OF TIME. III. Ileathen Poesy Christianized. 1736. IT is a piece of ancient and sacred history which Moses informs us òf, that when the tribes of Israel departed from the land of Egypt, they borrowed of their neighbours gold and jewels by the appointment of God, for the decoration of their sacrifices aml solemn worship when they should arrive at the appointed place in the wilderness, God himself taught his people how the richest of metals which had ever been abused to the worship of idols, might be purified by the fire, and being melted up into a new form might be consecrated to the service ofthe living God, and add to the magnificence and grandeur of his tabernacle and temple. . Such are some of the poeticalwritings of the ancient heathens ; they have a great-deal of native beauty and lustre in them, and through some happy turn given them by the pen of a christian poet may be transformed into divine meditations, and may assist the devout and pious soul in several parts of the christian life and worship. Amongst all the rest of the Pagan wtiters, I know none so fit for this service as the odes of Horace as vile a sinner as he was. Their manner of composure comes nearer the spirit and force of the psalms of David than any other ; and as we take the devotions of the .Ietvish king, and bring them into our christian churches, by changing the scene and the chronology and superadding some of the glories of the gospel, so may the representation of some of the heathen virtues, by a little more labour, be changed into christian graces, or at least into the image of them so far as human power can reach. One day musing on tisis subject, I made au experiment on the two last stanzas of Ode 23. $3ook III. " Non meum est, si mngiat Africis " Malus procellis, ad miseras preces " Decorrere, & votis patisci, " Ne Cypriw Tyriseque merces " Addant avaro divitias mari. " Tune me biremis praesidio scaphte, " Tuturq per .Egeos tumultes Aura feiet, geminisque Pollux." 1V. .The British Fisherman. I LIFT Spain's proud traders, when the mast Bends groaning to the stormy blast, Run to their beads with wretched plaints, And vow and bargain with their saints, Lest Turkish silks or Tyrian wares Sink in the, drowning ship, Or the rich dust Peru prepares, Defraud their long projecting cares, And add new treasures to the greedy deep.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=