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MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.
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century and a half , to command the general admiration of Europe , * Grotius continued , even in our British universities , the acknowledged oracle of jurisprudence and of ethics , till long after the death of Montesquieu . Nor was Bacon himself unapprised of the slow growth of his posthumous fame .
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No writer seems ever to have feltm deeply , that he properly belonged to ! later and more enlightened agesentiment which he has pathetical h expressed in that clause of his testa ment , where he " bequeaths his name to posterity , after some generations shall be past /'
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On Poetical Scepticism . No . V . ( See pp . 157 , 217 , 2 78 * 383 ^ ¦ *< I must tread on shadowy ground , and sink Deep : and aloft ascending" breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil /' Wordsworth .
" I cannot go Where universal love shines not around , Sustaining ail these worlds and all their suns From seeming" evil still educing good , And better thence again and better still In infinite progression . " Thomson .
Sir , ^ THHOSE who contend for the affi-JL nities of religion and poetry , can scarcely refuse to give the preference to that system which teaches that all the children of men are destined to be
finally and immortally happy . This doctrine has more of the grand , the beautiful and the joyous : it opens to imagination more glorious vistas ; it encircles us with more beatific visions > it supplies more firm and abiding objects on which the soul can repose , than any other hope of future joy which " it has entered into the heart of man
to conceive ; " it bursts upon us in all ** the glory and the freshness of a dream ; " it enables us to extend our anticipations far into the abyss of
fu-* " La ce'le'brite' en France des Merits du Chancelier Bacon n ' a guere pour date que celle de 1 * Encyclopedic" ( Mistoire des Jb'Iathc ' matiques par Afontucla , Preface , p . ix . ) It is an extraordinary circumstance , that Bayle , who has so often wasted his erudition and acuteness on the most
insignificant characters , and to whom Le Clerc has very justly ascribed the merit of une exactitude dtonnante dans des chases de ? ie * a ? tfy should have devoted to Bacon 4 ) njy twelve lines of his Dictionary .
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tunty without trembling , to dwell on the idea of God with nothing but delight , to identify the feeling of immortality with that of joy ; it does that for the species which the orthodox system of Christianity does onl y for the individual who receives it ; it robs death of its sting and deprives the grave of its victory .
The happiness which the most confident believer in the doctrines of Calvin anticipates in heaven is both selfish and imperfect : it is built on the ruins of the best and tenderest affections , for it implies an eternal separation from many who are objects of regard now ,
from some perhaps who have been more passionately loved even for their errors , or who are knit to the heart by ties so strong and sacred that no human frailty can sever them . In order to enjoy it , the most disinterested of all emotions must be torn from the heart ,
attachments cemented by the courtesies and the distresses of life must be rent in twain , early loves must lose their charm , and the holiest instincts of nature must wither and die within us ! Not onl y must the profligate child , on whom trie heart delighted , as it were , to waste its tenderness—the Absalom
loved in the midst of rebellion and vice above his brethren—be dear to us no more ; but we must forget the friend who , though associating with us in deeds of charity , professed not to have experienced any supernatural change \ we must learn to think with
tranquillity on the sufferings of him , who , though the benefactor of earth , was not the favourite of heaven ; we must be callous to the misery of an old ana dear companion , who , endowed with all that could render life delig htful , did
not agree with us in certain s peculative points of faith ! With those who cheered our passage through this vale of tears we must sympathize no-longer-The deathless agonies ofcthose on who *
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508 On Poetical Scepticisms . No . V .
Miscellaneous Communications.
MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1816, page 508, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2456/page/8/
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