currence of one Sunday in every week feems to hold out an inviting remedy for both these evils. The fweet and delightful pleafures of family fociery might then be uninterruptedly enjoyed, by the habitual exclufion of trifling and idle vifitors, who do not come to see their friends, but to get rid of themselves. Perfons of fashion, living in the fame houfe, and connected by the clofeft ties, whom bufinefs and pleasure keep afunder during the greatest part of the week, would then have an opportunity of fpending a little time together, and of cultivating that friendship for I each each other, and that affection for their children, to which the prefent manners are not very favourable. To the other fet of complainers, those who can find no time to read, this interval naturally prefents itfelf; and it luckily happens, that fome of the most enlightened men the world ever faw have, not unfrequently, devoted their rare talents to fubjects peculiarly fuited to this day; and that not merely in the didactic form of fermons, which meng of the world affect to disdain; but in every alluring fhape which human ingenuity could affume. It luckily K 2 luckily happens, among a thoufand other inftances, that the deepest metaphyfician, the greateft aftronomer, the fublimeft poet, the acuteft reafoner, the politeft writer, the moft confummate philofopher, and the profoundest investigator of nature, which this, or perhaps any country has produced, have all written on fuch fubjects as are analogous to the bufinefs of this day. Such authors as thefe, even wits, philofophers, and men of the world, * Locke, Newton, Milton, Butler, Addison, Bacon, Boyle. muft must acknowledge that it is not bigotry to read, nor enthusiasm to commend. Of this illuftrious groupe only one was a clergyman, which to a certain clafs of readers will be a ftrong recommendation: though it is a little hard that the faftidioufnefs of modern tafte fhould undervalue the learned and pious labours of divines, only because they are profeffional. In every other function, a man's compofitions are not the lefs efteemed because they peculiarly belong to his more immediate bufinefs. Blackstone's opinions in jurifprudence are of unquestionable vali |