Hail, holy task !-'Tis thine t'impart
More virtues to the melting heart:-
Such heights of moral grace to reach,
As proud Philofophy could never teach.

Maternal love!-The iron-foul'd
Melt at thy touch; the coward, bold
Become at once;-through rocks will force ;-
Nor flood, nor fire can stop their course;
Will brave the Lybian lion wild,
Should danger threat the favourite child.

Is there, whom fafhion, pride, or pleasure,
Tempts to forget the living treasure ?-
Who to her own indulgence grants
That care, or coft, her infant wants?
What wonder should the fage infist
She yields in Storget to a beast,
The good abhor, the wit deride her,
And read her history in the Spider?-
Who trufts her nurfling to another,
A Parent fhe;-but not a Mother.
Beneath a venerable fhade,
The pious PELICAN had made
Her humble neft ;-with rapture there
Inceffant ply'd the Mother's care.
From night to morn, from morn to night,
Not more her duty, than delight,
To watch the tender, chirping brood,
Protect them, and provide their food.
At dewy eve, at morning's spring,
Soft-canopy'd beneath her wing

The coward bold become]-The great Poet of Nature has touched this fenti. ment with exquifite beauty:

"Unreasonable creatures feed their young;

And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not feen them (even with thofe wings,
Which fometimes they have us'd with fearful flight)
Make war with him that climb'd unto their neft,

Offering their own lives in their young's defence?"

Storge Natural love and affection.] The tender and careful nurfing of And there children, is the first and most natural duty incumbent upon parents. cannot be a greater reproach to creatures that are indued with reason, than to neglect a duty, to which Nature directs even the brutes.-It cannot be neglected without a downright affront to Nature.

TILLOTSON, Vol, i, 606.

They

They flept fecure ;-herfelf fuftains,
Patient, the cold, and drenching rains,
Nor felt, nor fear'd the furious. ftorm,
Her callow nestlings dry and warm.
Whate'er her early search supplies,
Deny'd her own neceflities,

She gave her young, and prov'd from thence
The luxury of abftinence.

In vain the concert in the grove,
In vain the wing'd affembly strove
To tempt her from the nursery's care,
Her mufic and her mirth were there.

• Thus liv'd she, till one fatal day,
Doom'd all her virtues to display,
What time the morning's wifh'd supply
Eludes her utmost industry.
She fifh'd the brook ;-fhe div'd the main,
Search'd hill and dale, and wood in vain ;
Not one poor grain the world affords,
To feed her helplefs hungry birds.
What should fhe do?-Ah! fee they faint ;-
With unavailing, weak complaint,
Thefe dearer than her vital breath,
Refign to Famine's lingering death?
The thought was frenzy.-No ;-fhe prefs'd
Her fharp beak on her own kind breast,
With cruel piety, and fed
Her wondering infants as fhe bled*.

"Accept, the cry'd, dear, pretty crew!
This facrifice to love and you.'

""

"Mad fool, forbear," exclaim'd a SPIDER,
That indolently loung'd befide her;
"This horrid act of thine evinces
Your ignorance of courts and princes.
Lord, what a creature!-Tear thy neck fast,
To give thy peevish brats a breakfast!
Hadit thou among the great refided,
And mark'd their manners well, as I did,-
The Mother's milk, much less her blood,
Is ne'er the well-born infant's food.

Why there's my Lady OSTRICH † now,
Who vifits in the vale below,

Knows

Fed by wondering infants, &c.] In every place we meet with the pic tore of the Pelican, opening her breast with her bill, and feeding her young ones, with the blood diftilling from her. This hath been afferted by many holy writers, and was an hieroglyphic of piety, and pity, among the Egyptians; on which confi deration, they fpared them at their tables. PSEUDODOX. EPIDEM

The Pelican has a peculiar tenderness for its young, and is fuppofed to admit them to fuck blood from its breaft.

CALMET.

Lady OSTRICH-] On the leaft noife, or trivial occafion, the for fakes her eggs, or her young ones: to which perhaps the never returns; or if the

cori,

Knows all the fashion on this head:
Soon as her La'fhip's brought to-bed,
She,-elfe the birth would prove her carfe-

Gives it the elements to nurfe*.
'Tis true, fome accident may hurt it,
Its limbs be broken, and distorted,
Admit there's chance it does not live-
Pleafure is our prerogative.
And brooms and brushes be
Ere in a neft I'd fit a ftewing-
Or, for my duty's fake, forfooth,
To nurfing facrifice my youth;-
Ere let my brats my flesh devour;
I'd eat them up a fcore an hour."

my ruin!

Foul fiend-the lovely Martyr cry'd,
Avaunt! thy horrid perfon hide;
Folly and vice thy foul difgrace,
'Twas thefe, not Pallas, fpoil'd thy face †,
And funk thee to the reptile race.

"

Yes, thy own bowels hung thee there

A felon, out of Nature's care

}

doer, it may be too late either to restore life to the one, or to preferve the lives of the others. The Arabs often meet with a few of the little ones, no bigger than wellgrown pullets, half ftarved, fraggling, and moaning about, like fo many diftrefied pbans for their mother. SHAW'S TRAVELS.

Or

Gives it the elements to nurse] She leaveth her eggs in the earth-and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beat may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers; her labour is in vain without fear; becaufe God hath deprived her of wifdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. Job xxxix. They have fo little brains, that Heliogabalus had fix hundred heads for his fupper.

DR. YOUNG.

t-Net Pallas, Spoil'd thy face.] See Ovid's Metamorphofis, beginning of Book VI. the transformation of Arachne into a Spider, tranflated by Dr. Croxal.

This race of beings may be eafily diflinguifhed by their pride, felf conceit, and utter impatience of all advice. Ovid introduces one of them anfwering the goddess of Wisdom herself in this manner :

Rev. Oct. 1772.

Thou doating thing! whofe idle babling tongue
But too well hews the plague of living long;
Hence! and reprove with this your fage advice
Your giddy daughter, or your awkward neice;
Know, I defpife your counsel, and am fill-
A Woman ever wedded to my will.

CROXAL.

What then muft a poor poet expect from the modern Arachnes ?-if there be any fach among us.

Coterieans, Pantheifts, &c.] It is impoffible to guess what particular people are here addreffed by the Author. The geographical dictionaries, ancient and modern, have been fearched in vain. It has been thought, when we are favoured with fuller accounts of the island of Orabita, and its inhabitants, the difficulty may be removed. For my own part, however, judging from the fingularity of their mannets, I am apt to fufpect they are particular cafts of thofe very extraordinary people,

the HOTTENTOTS,

SLAWKENBERGIUS.

X

Pantheifts!

Pantheifts! who no God adore,
Housewives, that stay at home no more,
Wives without hufbands, mothers too,
Whom your own children never knew,
Who lefs the bleffed fun esteem
Than lamps and tapers' greafy gleam;
Ye morning gamefters, walkers, riders,
Say, are you PELICANS OF SPIDERS ?'

In the foregoing extract we have given the Author's notes, as a fpecimen of his manner of commenting on himself; but we apprehend that his poems would have proved more acceptable to his Fair Readers, had they lefs required, or obtained, fo much expofition.

As to the Critics, our Bard affects to be very indifferent about their cenfures. His appeal, he fays, is to the ladies. If their encouragement of the work (of which the prefent publication is only the first part) fhall juftify its continuation, he affures them that the fecond Book fhall wait on them in a few months if not, he adds, this is his laft vifit.'

We must not forget to add, that this work is decorated with elegant engravings.

ART. V. A free Enquiry into the Origin, Progrefs, and prefent State of Pluralities. By W. Pennington. 8vo. 4 s. White. 1772. E think has been remarked by Dr. Sherlock, late

W Bishop of London, in a charge delivered to his clergy,

that if a fea-captain hires a pilot to conduct his veffel to a particular port, he does not think it requifite exprefsly to ftipulate that the pilot fhall accompany him in the veffel, because this is taken for granted in the contract, and is the very end for which it is formed. Though the Bifhop entered into other confiderations on the fubject, he feemed to think that this illuftration conveyed a fufficient argument against non-refidence, and confequently against pluralities, at lealt in that degree and excess in which they have prevailed in the Chriftian Church.

The Author of the work now before us is one who is fcandalized by inftances of this kind: but he tells us that, had a fingle perfon held an hundred benefices, and taken care to provide a refident fubflitute in every large or populous parish, whofe falary was fufficient, and his qualifications fuitable; or had no perfon whatever been fuffered to undertake the care of more than two of the fmalleft parishes, which in many fitua tions is very practicable, he would never have made any public complaint. Nor would he now, it is added, had he not found, a few months ago, that an anonymous application, which he made to a certain Prelate in 1767, had fo little effect, that this very Prelate himfelf became a commendamift as foon as he could.'

7

We

We are told, that he had rather fee the evil redreffed than expofed; but as the anonymous letter has been difregarded, his view is, by a larger publication, to excite a more general and careful attention to a fubject, in which he apprehends the public is immediately interefted. What reafons Mr. Pennington may have to think that this performance will meet with any greater fuccefs than the private letter, or whether there is any probability of its producing any great effect, it is not in our power to determine.

The nature and defign of the clerical office, without doubt, plainly evince that those who are engaged in it fhould refide with the people among whom they are to officiate, and for whofe affiftance and benefit fuch an appointment has folely been made. And fhould it be allowed that particular and extraordinary circumftances may fometimes, though rarely, render pluralities tolerable, it muft, nevertheless, appear very unreasonable and abfurd that the profits annexed to the minifterial function should be engroffed by those who do not attend to the discharge of the duties for which thefe emoluments are defigned to support and recompence them.

The public, fays this Writer in his preface, fhall be made fenfible that religion fuffers as much (or more) by the oppreffion of pluralities under a Proteftant as it ever did under a Popish prelacy. And if there be any remains of manly virtue, any undiffembled affection for truth and piety, it is to be hoped that we fhall endeavour by every method becoming Chriftians, to deliver ourselves from a burthen, which neither the foreign Catholics nor our fathers were able to bear, and from every relique of a fpiritual tyranny.'

As every well-meant attempt to remove or leffen whatever is oppreffive or detrimental to the public is worthy of praise, our Author's defign undoubtedly merits commendation; and we muft add, that he profecutes it with fpirit. The fubject of his difquifition required a freedom of fentiment and expression, and this he is not at all folicitous to reftrain. The abufes of which he complains are, in his view, numerous and great, and have excited a kind of honeft indignation which rifes fuperior to ceremony or politenefs. But while he writes with the afperity of a fatirift, it may be doubted whether, at least as to fome parts of his performance, his acrimony may not rather tend to dif guft than to convince thofe who are more immediately concerned; in which cafe, it is hardly to be expected, that they will ufe any warm endeavours to rectify the evil.

Blufh, fays he in the conclufion of his preface, ye dignitaries of the highest rank, blush at your own forbearance, and do not make your negligence ftill more criminal by an attempt to juftify it. Can you expect the people will fupprefs their cenfures when they fee fo many hundreds of parishes without a re

Y

fident