of bodily Senses; or the Decorum of an amiable Character thro' the
Faculties of moral Perception; or when we recall, by the imitative
Arts, both of them thro' the intermediate Power of the Imagination.
Nor is this delightful and immediate Sensation to be excited in an
undistempered Soul, but by a Chain of Truths, dependent upon one
another till they terminate in the hand of the Divine COMPOSER of the
whole. Let us cast our Eyes first upon the Objects of the Material
World. A rural Prospect upon the very first Glance yields a grateful
Emotion in the Breast, when in a Variety of Scenes there arises from
the whole ONE Order, whose different Parts will be found, by the
critical Eye of Contemplation, to relate mutually to one another,
and each examined apart, to be productive of the Necessaries, the
Conveniencies, and Emoluments of Life. Suppose you was to behold from
an Eminence, thro' a small range of Mountains covered with Woods,
several little Streams gushing out of Rocks, some gently trickling
over Pebbles, others tumbling from a Precipice, and a few gliding
smoothly in Willow-shaded Rivulets thro green Meadows, till their
tributary Waters are all collected by some River God of a larger Urn,
who at some few Miles distance is lost in the Ocean, which heaves
it's broad Bosom to the Sight, and ends the Prospect with an immense
Expanse of Waters. Tell me, EUPHEMIUS, would not such a Scene
captivate the Heart even before the intellectual Powers discover
Minerals in the Mountains; future Navies in the Woods; Civil and
Military Architecture in the Rocks; healing Qualities in the smaller
Streams; Fertility, that the larger Waters distribute along their
serpentising Banks; Herbage for Cattle in the Meadows; and lastly,
the more easy Opportunities the River affords us to convey to other
Climates the Superfluities of our own, for which the Ocean brings us
back in Exchange what we stand in need of from theirs. Now to heighten
this beautiful Landscape, let us throw in Corn Fields, here and there