y just as well as
striking picture: for however exalted in theory the Platonic doctrines
may appear, it is certain that Platonism and Pyrrhonism are nearly
allied:

"Farewell the porch, whose roof is seen,
Arch'd with the enlivening olive's green:
Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest,
By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest,
Comes like a bride, so trim array'd,
To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade!"

When the mind goes in pursuit of visionary systems, it is not far
from the regions of doubt; and the greater its capacity to think
abstractedly, to reason and refine, the more it will be exposed to,
and bewildered in, uncertainty.--From an enthusiastic warmth of
temper, indeed, we may for a while be encouraged to persist in some
favourite doctrine, or to adhere to some adopted system; but when that
enthusiasm, which is founded on the vivacity of the passions,
gradually cools and dies away with them, the opinions it supported
drop from us, and we are thrown upon the inhospitable shore of
doubt.--A striking proof of the necessity of some moral rule of wisdom
and virtue, and some system of happiness established by unerring
knowledge, and unlimited power.

In the poet's address to Humour in this ode there is one image of
singular beauty and propriety. The ornaments in the hair of Wit are of
such a nature, and disposed in such a manner, as to be perfectly
symbolical and characteristic:

"Me too amidst thy band admit,
There where the young-eyed healthful Wit,
(Whose jewels in his crisped hair
Are placed each other's beams to share,
Whom no delights from thee divide)
In laughter loosed, attends thy side."

Nothing could be more expressive of wit, which consists in a happy
collision of comparative and relative images, than this reciprocal
reflection of light from the disposition of the jewels.

"O Humour, thou whose name is known
To Britain's favour'd isle alone."

The author could only mean to apply this to the time when he wrote,
since other nations had produced works of great humour, as he himself
acknowledges afterwards.

"By old Miletus," &c.
"By all you taught the Tuscan maids," &c.

The Milesian and Tuscan romances were by no means distinguished for
humour; but as they were the models of that species of writing in which
humour was afterwards employed, they are, probably for that reason only,
mentioned here.

THE PASSIONS.

AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

If the music which was comp