HE different conditions of

youth and age, with regard to this world, their enjoyments and views, I have often made the fubject of much-pleafing contemplation.

The glow of warm blood, the vigour of health, and the ftrong powers of imagination, have ever reprefented to my mind the morning of life like the morning of day; where every thing is fresh and chearful, inviting enjoyment, and contributive of great pleafure; love, paftime, and even bufinefs, are purfued with high delight. Every thing appears charming, as in the feafon of fpring, infpiring us with rapture, and inviting us to blifs. But as all fublunary tranfports have but tranfitory existence, the edge which tafting gives to our appetites, a full meal is fure to blunt; therefore, those who feek no higher enjoyments than from their paffions, will be fure to experience fafety in their indulgence; nature having doomed us to weariness in all the full gratifications of our fenfes.

Thofe only continue happy, who are fo precautionally prudent as to lay in early a ftock for true permanent fatisfaction; which is of a nature lefs violent, but infinitely

durable. This ftore must be compofed of virtue, wifdom, and their fruits; which are knowledge, temperance, and propriety, the needful inftruments of felicity.

Youth, therefore, to be happy, must acquire fome of the attainments of age; to attain which, reafon will have recourfe to the experience of grey hairs. It is in the difpenfing of wisdom that age appears venerable; and without the power of doing it, it forfeits its high dignity; for a head grown hoary in follies is a woeful object of derifion.

Our paffions in youth are very powerful feducers; they hurry us into hafty enjoyments, which have often their ending in very long and fruitless repentance. Against thefe imminent evils, which have their foundations in early life, we have no kind of defence, but in the experience of later days, which thofe are the most happy who fooneft ac quire and regard.

The long-practifed in life have found the futility of all raptures, and know that none are worth purchafing at the price of great hazards. The lover's dream of extacies, and the prodigal's of high delight, are equal delufions practifed by paffion on reafon; for in rational enjoyments only duration is to be found. We grow fpeedily fick of what we only admire, but are often laftingly gratified with what we reafonably approve.

Thus muft youth, to be happy, acquire fome of the qualities of age; and age, to be comfortable, muft retain fome of thofe of youth. The ftrong paffions and affections of both æras are alike deceitful; as in one ftage we have not attained to the vigour of found judgment, and in the other we have patt it, and got into the date of fecond dotage, without the benefits of refraints that were our fecurities in our first childhood; and we are apt to con-, tinue full in the pride of experiGgz ence,

ence, when the powers of reason are all decaying, or become loft.

Age pictured in the mind, is decrepidity in winter retiring in the evening to the comfortable fhelter of a fire fide; where, fecure from the rage of elements, and weary of vain purfuits, it can please itself with prattling of evils over-come, and pleafures that it has parted with the enjoyment of without regret; feeking nothing but to wear down the laft ftage of life with ease, and leaving bustle and folly to those to whom by nature they belong.

The greatest wifdom that can ornament hoary heads is, to quit the crowd with a good grace, and voluntarily to leave giddy fociety before they become forcibly excluded from it. Infirmity must take helter in the kindness of true friendfhip, and that is not to be expected from the many, but the few.

Talkativeness is the foible and gratification of old age, and has been fo diftinguifhed, by obfervation, from Homer's days to the prefent time. A chearfulness retained from youth gives a gracefulnefs to this humour, and recommends even its imperfections, if not to common approbation, at leaft to particular good-will.

If youth has its advantage of high fpirits and fond purfuits, old age can boaft its comforts of compofure and refignation. One ftage of life is to be reprefented by the pleasurable appetite with which we fit down to a meal: the other, by the fatisfied indifference with which we are fure to rife from it, and the willing difpofition we make after it for rest.

It is folly in youth to place too ftrong a reliance on long life; it is weakness in age to be over folicitous about it. In the former cafe, the expectation is indulged with uncertainty; in the latter, the defire is attended by anxiety, because the chances of probability are entirely against it.

All that, we are fure of in this life is, that we must quit it, we know not when and all that it most behoves us to do is, to be prepared for that call, which wisdom and virtue are our constant admonisher to. It little matters how long we live in this world; but it greatly does, in what manner we live in it. We have a full right, while we are here, to all rational enjoyments; and it is our fault, if we fuffer other purfuits to become our deluders into difquiet. We should in all things be the feekers of our own peace and welfare, and the promoters of thofe of others. While we make fuch the rules of our conduct, we fhall be certainly good and happy; equally ready to continue with life, and ready to refign it.

Youth has no more blifs than fober reason can infure to it; nor has: age more unhappiness than indif cretion brings upon it.

All de-.

pends on our acting right parts in thofe different ftages of our being; our credit and felicity being fuch as we ourselves make them: fo that it is not Providence, but perversenefs, that makes us otherwife than happy.

of Eratofthenes the mathematician, and Callimachus, the poet; and in holy writ as being the birth place of Simon, whom the Jews compel, led to bear our Saviour's cross, Matt. xxvii. 32. There were a great many Jews in Cyrene, and great numbers of them embraced the Chriftian religion, Acts xi. 20, and xiii. but others oppofed it with much obstinacy.

D.

DABERATH, a town belonging to the tribe of Zebulon, or at least in the confines of this tribe, Josh. xix. 16. but Jofhua fhews very clearly (xxi. 28.) that there is a town of this name in the tribe of Iffachar. This tribe having made a ceffion of this town to the Levites

for their habitation. Jofephus frequently speaks of this place under the name of Daburitta, or Darabitta, fituated in the plain at the extremity of Galilee and Samaria.

DALMANUTHA: St. Mark viii. 10. fays, that our Saviour embarked with his difciples upon the fea of Tiberias and came to Dalmanutha: St. Matt. xvi. 59. fays, that he went to Magdala, fome copies read Magedan, and many manufcripts of St. Mark read it thus: the Syriac, Arabic, and several old copies read Magdan. The place to which our Saviour came at this time, fays Dr. Wells, lay between, or in the neighbourhood of Magdala and Dalmanutha; and there were feated on the eastern fide of the fea.

DALMATIA, a part of Old Illyria, lying along the gulph of Venice. Titus preached the gofpel here, 2 Tim. iv. 10.

DAMASCUS, a celebrated city in Syria, and one of the molt venerable for antiquity in the whole, world being the birth-place of Eliezer the steward of Abraham. Nor has it been lefs confiderable on account of its ftrength and greatnefs, being for a long time the capital of Syria, and the refidence of the Syrian kings, mentioned in the Old Teftament.

To pafs by other titles, it is filed by Julian the eye of the eaft, and ftands in every refpect in one of the most delightful fituations of the whole world. Mr. Maundrell acquaints us, that no place can promise the be holder, at a distance, greater volup tuoufnefs; infomuch that the Turks have a tradition, that their Prophet coming near Damafcus, took his ftation upon a certain precipice for fome time, in order to view the city, and confidering the ravishing beauty and delightfulness of it, he would not tempt his frailty by entering into it, but inftantly departed with this reflection upon it, that there was but one paradife defigned for man, and for his part he was refolved not to take his in this world. The city is fituate in an even plain, that you can but juft difcern the mountains, that encompass it on the farther fide. It ftands on the weft fide of the plain, at not above two miles diftant from the place where the river Barrady breaks out from between the mountains its gardens extending almost to that very place. At about five hundred paces from Damafcus on the fouth fide upon the highway, the place was fhewn where St. Paul was thrown upon the ground, and heard a voice faying unto him, "Saul, Saul, why perfecuteft thou me." Here a church was built, which at prefent is entirely ruined. In the fame city there is to be feen the house which is faid to be that of Ananias, who baptized and inftructed St. Paul; it was changed into a church, but the Turks have made a mofque of it. Several writers have been of opinion, that Cain and Abel dwelt near Damafcus, and that this city took its name from the blood of Abel, Dam, in Hebrew, fignifying blood, and fachi, a righteous perfon; and they ftill fhew in these parts, Abel's mo nument, which is, as they fay, forty feet in length. The Jews and Chriftians have a tradition, that Paradise was fituated in the valley of DamafThe beauty and fertility of this

cus.

was

place induced the inhabitants to be of this opinion, though it is at a good distance from the Tigris and Euphrates they also affert, that Adam was created near Damafcus, of a certain red earth, which is to be seen at the fame place, and which to them feemed more proper than any other to form flesh. For a further account of this delightful place we refer our readers to the Mr. Maundrell's journey from Aleppo to Jerufalem.

DAPHNE, a grove or fuburb near Antioch, the capital of Syria. This fuburb was not contiguous to the city, but at about forty furlongs, or a league and a half diftant from it: it was celebrated for its fine water, its wood, and its temple, which was a fanctuary to all those who retired thither. The high-prieft Onias apprehending the defigns of the ufurper Menelaus, retreated to this place of refuge; but Menelaus having corrupted Andronicus, who commanded at Antioch in the abfence of Antiochus Epiphanes, Onias was treacheroufly prevailed with to come out of his fanctuary, and maffacred, by order of Andronicus, in the year of the world, 3838. 2 Maccab. iv. 33.

DEBIR, otherwife called Kirjathfephir, or the city of letters, or Kirjatharba, a city in the tribe of Judah, very near Hebron. The first inhabitants of it were giants of the race of Anac. Joshua x. 39. took it and put the king to death who commanded in it: Debir fell by lot to Caleb; and Othniel going firft to the fault, and entering the place, Caleb gave him his daughter Achfah in marriage. Debir was one of the cities belonging to the Levites.

DECAPOLIS, a country in Paleftine, fo called, because it contained ten principal cities, fituated fome on this, and fome on the other fide Jordan. There is mention of this country in Matth. iv. 26. and in Mark- v. 20. DERBD, a city of Licsonia, whither St. Paul and Barnabas retreated after having been driven from Iconium, Acts xiv. 6. in the year of Jefus Christ 41.

DOR, or DORA, the capital of a certain country in the land of Canaan, called in Hebrew Nephat-Dor. Jofhua xii. 23. conquered it and killed the king of it. He gave the city Dor to the half tribe of Manaffeh, on this fide Jordan, Jofhua xvii. 11. Dor is fituated upon the Mediterra nean fea, with a very bad port belonging to it: it lies near Cæfarea, in Palestine, near Mount Carmel. Antiochus befieged Tryphon, the ufurper of the kingdom of Syria, in this city.

DOTHAIM, or DOTHAN, a town at the distance of twelve miles north

ward of Samaria. Jofeph's brethren were at Dothan, when they fold him to the Ishmaelitifh merchants, who came from Gilead, Gen. xxxvii. 17. E.

ECBATANA, a city of Media, which, according to Herodotus, was built by Darius, king of the Medes, and encompaffed with feven walls of unequal heights and different colours; the firft was white, the fecond black, the third red, the fourth blue, the fifth a deep crimson, the fixth was done over with filver, and the feventh with gold. The first book of Judith attributes the building of this city to Arphaxad, who, in the opinion of Archbishop Ufher and Dr. Prideaux, is. the fame with Dejoces, though F. Calmet takes him to be no other than. Phraortes, the fucceffor of Dejoces, as may be feen under the article Arphaxad. In the vulgate bible, Ezra vi. 2. we read that at Ecbatana, in Media, there was found a copy of Cyrus's edict, whereby the Jews were permitted to return into their own country But feveral interpreters tranflate Achmetha (which is the word in the original, and which our tranflators have not nained) a ftrong box, a prefs, a coffer, which lay amongst the old records of Media; this, though the most modern, &c. Clare affures us, is the true reading. The name of this city occurs frequently in the apochryphal writings of the Old Testament.

And, when thofe lands the bufy fun forfakes, With us, again, the rofy morning wakes; In lazy fleep, the night rolls fwift away, And neither clime laments his abfent ray.

When the pure fout is from the body flown, No more thall night's alternate reign be known:

The fun no more fhall rolling light beftow,
But from th' Almighty ftreams of glory flow.
O, may fome nobler thought my foul employ
Than empty, tranfient, fublunary joy;
The stars fhall drop, the fun fhall lofe his-
flame,

But thou, O God! for ever fhine the fame.

MATTHEW XI. 28.

BY THE REV. MR. MERRICK.

T°

"Come unto me, all ye that labour," &,
O me, ye fous of forrow come,"
"That o'er life's rugged road,
"With weary ftep uncertain roam,
"And bend beneath your load.

"Come, take my yoke, and learn of me;
"For I am meek of mind:
"Come, and your foul, from error free,
"The reft it feeks thall find."

Such was the voice of him who spoke
As never man before:
His burden light, and eafy yoke
My foul thall fhun no more.

I come my prayer to thee addrefs'd,
Whofe lips the precept gave:
Do thou, within my inmoft breast,
The heav'nly leffon grave.

So fhall I learn, my deftin'd racë
To run, with willing fect;
Unmov'd, as honour or difgrace,
In truth's defence, I meet.
Humility, with meeknefs join'd,
My exaltation fee,

And freedom's fulleit measure find,
Blefs'd Lord! in ferving thee.

V. E R SES

WROTE ON THE AUTHOR'S BIRTH DAY.

B

It