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and fometimes fuch as imply no remarkable folicitude for posterity.

Nothing indeed can be more unreasonable and abfurd, than to require that a monarch, distracted with cares and furrounded with enemies, fhould involve himself in fuperfluous anxieties, by an unneceffary concern about future generations. Are not pretenders, mock-patriots, masquerades, operas, birth-nights, treaties, conventions, reviews, drawing-rooms, the births of heirs, and the deaths of queens, fufficient to overwhelm any capacity but that of a king? Surely he that acquits himself fuccessfully of fuch affairs, may content himself with the glory he acquires, and leave pofterity to his fucceffors.

That this has been the conduct of most princes, is evident from the accounts of all ages and nations; and therefore I hope it will not be thought that I have, without just reasons, deprived this infcription of the veneration it might demand as the work of a king.

With what laborious ftruggles against prejudice and inclination, with what efforts of reasoning, and pertinacity of self-denial, I have prevailed upon myself to facrifice the honour of this monument to the love of truth, none who are unacquainted with the fondness of a commentator will be able to conceive. But this instance will be, I hope, fufficient to convince the public, that I write with fincerity, and that whatever my fuccefs may be, my intentions are good.

Where we are to look for our author, it ftill remains to be confidered; whether in the high road of public employments, or the by-paths of private life.

It has always been observed of those that frequent a court, that they foon, by a kind of contagion, catch the regal fpirit of neglecting futurity. The minifter forms an expedient to fufpend or perplex an enquiry into his measures for a few months, and applauds and triumphs in his own dexterity. The peer puts off his creditor for the present day, and forgets that he is ever to fee him more. The frown of a prince, and the lofs of a pension, have indeed been found of wonderful efficacy, to abstract men's thoughts from the prefent time, and fill them with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to But I am inclined to think more favourably of the author of this prediction, than that he was made a patriot by disappointment or difguft. If he ever faw a court, I would willingly believe, that he did not owe his concern for pofterity to his ill reception there, but his ill reception there to his concern for pofterity.

However, fince truth is the fame in the mouth of a hermit, or a prince, fince it is not reafon but weakness, that makes us rate counsel by our esteem for the counfellor, let us at length defift from this enquiry, so useless in itself, in which we have room to hope for fo little fatisfaction. Let us fhew our gratitude to the author, by answering his intentions, by confidering minutely the lines which he has left us, and examining their import without heat, precipitancy, or party-prejudices; let us endeavour to keep the just mean, between fearching ambitiously for far-fetched interpretations, and admitting fuch low meaning, and obvious and low fenfe, as is inconfiftent with thofe great and extenfive views, which it is reasonable to afcribe to this excellent man.

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be may

It yet farther asked, whether this infcription, which appears in the stone, be an original, and not rather a verfion of a traditional prediction in the old British tongue, which the zeal of fome learned man prompted him to tranflate and engrave in a more known language for the inftruction of future ages: but as the lines carry at the firft view a reference both to the stone itself, and very remarkably to the place where it was found, I cannot fee any foundation for fuch a fufpicion.

It remains now that we examine the sense and import of the infcription, which, after having long dwelt upon it with the closest and most laborious attention, I must confefs myself not yet able fully to comprehend. The following explications, therefore, are by no means laid down as certain and indubitable truths, but as conjec tures not always wholly fatisfactory even to myself, and which I had not dared to propofe to fo enlightened an age, an age which abounds with those great ornaments of human nature, fceptics, anti-moralifts, and infidels, but with hopes that they would excite fome perfon of greater abilities, to penetrate farther into the oraculous obfcurity of this wonderful prediction.

Not even the four first lines are without their difficulties, in which the time of the discovery of the ftone seems to be the time affigned for the events foretold by it.

Cum lapidem hunc, magni
Qui nunc jacet incola ftagni,
Vel pede equus tanget,

Vel arator vomere franget,

Sentiet

Sentiet agra metus,

Effundet patria fletus,
Littoraque ut flu&tu,

Refonabunt oppida luctu.

Whene'er this ftone, now hid beneath the lake,
The borse fhall trample, or the plough fhall break,
Then, O my country! fhalt thou groan diftreft,
Grief in thine eyes, and terror in thy breaft.
Thy Streets with violence of woe fhall found,
Loud as the billows bursting on the ground.

When this ftone, fays he, which now lies hid beneath the waters of a deep lake, fhall be ftruck upon by the horse, or broken by the plough, then fhalt thou, my country, be aftonifhed with terrors, and drowned in tears; then shall thy towns found with lamentations, as thy fhores with the roarings of the waves. Thefe are the words literally rendered, but how are they verified? The lake is dry, the ftone is turned up, but there is no appearance of this difmal fcene. Is not all at home fatisfaction and tranquillity? all abroad fubmiffion and compliance? Is it the intereft or inclination of any prince or ftate to draw a fword against us? and are we not nevertheless fecured by a numerous standing army, and a King who is himfelf an army? Have our troops any other employment than to march to a review? Have our fleets encountered any thing but winds and worms? To me the present ftate of the nation feems fo far from any resemblance to the noife and agitation of a tempeftuous fea, that it may C

be

be much more properly compared to the dead ftillness of the waves before a ftorm.

Then through thy fields fhall fcarlet reptiles ftray,
And rapine and pollution mark their way.

Their hungry fwarms the peaceful vale fhall fright,
Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight ;
The teeming year's whole product shall devour,
Infatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r:
Shall glutton on the induftrious peasant's Spoil,
Rob without fear, and fatten without toil.

He seems, in these verses, to defcend to a particular account of this dreadful calamity; but his defcription is capable of very different fenfes with almost equal probability.

Red ferpents, fays he, (rubri colubri are the Latin words, which the poetical tranflator has rendered fcarlet reptiles,