satire of Boileau and Racine. 'Amongst his narratives we find many which are still the delight of ⚫ the nurseries of Europe; such as Blue Beard, Red Ridinghood, Puss in Boots, and Cinderella. But his tale of Finette, or the Adroit Princess, is said to have led particularly to that species of fictitious narrative which was immediately cultivated by a prodigious number of authors; and the works of this kind by the Countesses of Murat, d'Aulnoy, and d'Auneuil, Mademoiselle Laforce, &c. bestowed a vast popularity upon such works, and engaged some of the most ingenious writers in France to try their talents in the same species of composition. The celebrated author of Telemachus condescended to write fairy tales for the education of the Duke of Burgundy. They were made the vehicle of public and private abuse, and of philosophical and physical instruction. By Le Sage and others they were adapted to the stage with great success; and most of the little pieces collected in the Théatre de la Foire are founded on the fairy and oriental tales then at the height of public favour. The example of the French writers was soon followed by other nations, and by none more successfully than the English. "The success of these tales, and particularly the insipidity and ridiculous extravagance of some, naturally offered an occasion for burJesques. The tales of the celebrated Count Anthony Hamilton, author of the lively Memoirs of Grammont, seem to have been written partly with this design, although the ridicule is also directed against the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. The Abbé de Villiers had little success in satirizing these popular productions; and when Wieland, the celebrated German poet, undertook to banish them by the same means which Cervantes had so successfully employed against the ponderous romances of chivalry, his great inferiority to his illustrious predecessor became but too apparent. The adventures of Don Silvio de Rosalva are written with considerable animation, but with a ridiculous flippancy and affectation of style: the hero is the Don Quixote of fairy literature; but, like the other de scendants of the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, he is but a feeble shadow of his prototype. "To the popularity of the fairy tales we are chiefly indebted for the translations of the oriental works collected in these volumes. The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, as translated by Galland, met with a most favourable reception, and were soon followed by the Turkish and Persian Tales, which Petis de la Croix communicated to his countrymen, and by numerous imitations, some of the most successful of which will be found in these volumes. The superiority of these eastern compositions over most of the European productions of the kind, was very generally acknowledged; and their popularity has continued undiminished ever since their first appearance. ON ON THE CREED, Doctrines, and Ritual of the BOOK OF JOB. TH [From Mr. GooD's Translation of this Poem.] HIS inquiry will be found of no small moment or importance. For if it have succeeded in fixing the date of the book of Job at a period antecedent to the Egyptian exody, and of course to the Mosaic institution, and in bringing home the composition to Moses himself—then does this book immediately become a depository of patriarchal religion, the best and fullest depository in the world, and drawn up by that very pen which was most competent to do justice to it. Then also do we obtain a clear and decisive answer to the question which has so often been proposed, -What is the ultimate intention of the book of Job? and for what purpose is it introduced into the Hebrew and Christian canons? It will then appear, that it is for the purpose of making those canons complete, by uniting, as full an account as is necessary of the dispensation of the patriarchs, with the two dispensations by which it was progressively succeeded. It will then appear, that the chief doctrines of the patriarchal religion, as collected from different parts of the poem, were as follow: "1. The creation of the world by one supreme and eternal Intelligence. v. An apostacy, or defection, in some rank or order of these powers of which Satan seems to have been one, and perhaps chief. VI. The good and evil powers or principles, equally formed by the Creator, and hence equally denominated Sons of God;' both of them employed by him, in the administration of his providence ; and both amenable to him at stated courts, held for the purpose of receiving an account of their respective missions. VII. A day of future resurrection, judgment, and retribution, to all mankind. VIII. The propitiation of the Creator, in the case of human transgressions, by sacrifices, and the mediation and intercession of a righteous person. "Several of these doctrines are more clearly developed than others; yet I think there are sufficient grounds for deducing the whole of them. Some critics may perhaps conceive, that the different names by which the heavenly host are characterized, may be mere syno nyms, and not designed to import any variety of rank or order. Yet the names themselves, in most instances, imply distinctious, though we are not informed of their na, ture, 'non (Memitim) Destinies, or Destroyers, Ministers of Death, cannot possibly apply to all of them, and appear to be nearly synony mous with the Μόραι, Αἶσαι, οι Parce, of the Greek and Roman writers. The term itself, indeed, is obviously used in a limited and appropriate sense in chap. xxxiii.23, * As obedim, servants; malacim, angels; melezim, intercessors; memitim, destinies, or destroyers; alep, the chyliad or thousand; keɖosim, SANCTI, the heavenly saints, or hosts generally. 11. Its regulation, by his perpetual and superintending providence. III. The intentions of his providence carried into effect by the ministration of a heavenly hierarchy. IV. The heavenly hierarchy, composed of various ranks and orders, possessing different names, dignities. and offices.* and and is distinctly opposed to on (malacim) angels; pp (melizia) intercessors; and (alep) chiliad or thousand: As his soul draweth near to the grave, And his life to the destinies, Surely will there be over him an angel, An intercessor, one of the thousand. "Our established lection, for destinies, gives destroyers, which is a good word, but less appropriate. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17, the ministring spirit employed is exhibited under the character of the destroying angel, and in 1 Cor. x. 10, is OxAPEUTES; which, in our common version, is still rendered THE DESTROYER: though the verb destroy, which immediately precedes it, is dπwλoo; Neither murmur ye, as some of them also nurmured, and were destroyed of the Destroyer.' "The general term for the whole of these different ranks appears to be 'wp (kedosim), sancti, or holy ones. pay (obedim) ministers or servants,' seems to convey, in every instance in which it occurs, a subordinate idea, in office as well as in name, to ' (malacim) angels, thrones, or princedoms. (alep) the chiliad or thousand distinctly imports a particular corps or class; and is probably denominated, by a rule common to most countries and langu ges, from the number of which it con sisted, as militia, centurion, decemvir, heptarch, tithingman. "The same general belief has descended, in Arabia, to the present day; and forms a distinct and prominent doctrine of the Alcoran. The Memit, Destroying Angel or Destiny,' of the poem before us, is there denominated Azraël; as the Angel of Resurrection,' or he who is to sound the trumpet at that so lemn period, is called Israfil. Both these are supposed to belong to the most dignified order of the heavenly hierarchy, which is named Azazil, and of which Gabriel and Michael are also members. Satan (who is still thus denominated, as he is also Eblis or Perdition, from his present hopeless state) is conceived to have been of the same order, before his defection In a subordinate order, we meet with two angels of considerable celebrity in the Mahommedan mythology, who are entitled Examiners, and whose names are Monkir and Nakir: the title of Examiners being given to them from their office of examining the dead, immediately on their decease, Preparatory to their happiness or misery. The doom of Satan, and of those who fell with him, will not take place till that of mankind, at the general resurrection; till when, agreeably to the doctrine of the book of Job, they are permit, ted, under the superintendance of the Almighty, to roam about the world, and prove mankind by temptations and afflictions; twoguardian angels, however, being in the mean time assigned to every man for his and write down his actions; and protection, who impartially notice lieved daily. these angels are supposed to be re In addition to this regular hierarchy, the modern Arabians, and indeed the Mahommedans in general, believe in the existence of a still lower race of beings, filling up the intermediate space between men and angels, whom they denominate Jin, or Genii (?), formed, like the angels, of fire, but of a grosser fabric, who eat and drink, propagate their kind, are both good and bad, are subject to death, and will, like mankind, be rewarded or punished at the resurrection: the whole of which is a pal a palpable appendage to the original tenets of A. abia, and of the patriarchs in general, as communicated in the poem before us; and was probably borrowed from the Persians. "The general doctrine, indeed, and under the form here supposed, of a series of ascending orders, has been common to almost all ages, countries, and religions, and was in all probability derived, in every instance, from patriarchal tradition. The ancient Persians,' observes Mr. Sale, firmly believe th ministry of angels, and their superintendence over the affairs of this world (as the Magians still do), and therefore assign them distinct charges and provinces, giving their names to their months, and the days of their months." Mr. Sale, however, appears to be in an error, in supposing that the Arabians derived this general doctrine from the Persian sages; since it is obvious, from the present poem, that it existed in Arabia before the earliest date that can be attributed to either of the Zoroasters, from whom the Persians derived their religion. From the east the same system flowed successively into Greece and Rome, and is thus distinctly ap. pealed to by Hesiod, who calculates the whole number of heavenlyguards, or deputies, appointed to watch over the earth, at thirty thousand; Op. et Dies, I. 246. Εγγὺς γὰρ ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἐόντες Αθάνατοι λεύσσουσιν, ὅσοι σκολιῇσι δίκησι Αλλήλους τρίβουσι, θεῶν ὅπιν οὐκ ἀλέγοντες. Τρὶς γὰρ μύριοι εἰσιν ἐπὶ χθονι πουλυβοτείρη Αθάνατοι Ζηνός, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων Οι δε φυλάσσουσιν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα, wrongs Oft they commit, regardless of their ire. Thrice-told ten thousand blest immortale mark; Etherial-veil'd, and wand'ring at their will. Whence Milton, in exquisite poetry, vying with Hesiod, but derived from a superior source; Par. Lost, IV. 677. "Millions of spiritual creatures walk the, earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep. All these, with ceaseless praise, his works behold, Both day and night. How often, from the steep Of echoing hill or thicket, have we heard Sole or responsive to each other's note, With heavenly touch of instrumental In full harmonic number join'd; their songs Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven." "The source from which these lines are derived, is the Bible; and it is of far more consequence to us that the doctrine they develope pervades the Bible, than that it pervades any other work; and especially that it runs through the whole of the scriptures, both Jewish and Christian, from Genesis to the Revelations there being scarcely a book which has not a reference to it, and without a single caution or hint that the language employed is merely figurative, or designed to convey any other than the obvious and popular idea which must necesa sarily have been attached to it by those to whom it was delivered. Thus especially Coloss. i. 16. in which we have, in few words, a description of invisible as well as visible "Milton has understood this passage of St. Paul in the sense in which Mr. Locke laments that all the different passages of the scriptures have not been uniformly understood. What you say, obselves he, to his friend Mr. Bold, about critics and critical interpretations, particularly of the scriptures, is not only, in my opinion, true, but of great use to be observed in reading learned commentators, who, not seldom, make it their busiuess to show in what sense a word has been used by other authors: whereas the proper business of a conimentator is to show in what sense it was used by the author bimself in that place; which, in the scripture, we have reason to conclude, was most commonly in the ordinary vulgar sense of the word or phrase known at that time, because the books were written and adapted to the people.' Bishop Horsley, in the last sermon he ever composed, and which is full of that boldness of thought, and manliness of style, so peculiarly characteristic of his writings, (the text, Dan. iv. 17) seems, in various parts of it, open to Mr. Locke's animadversion; and especially, in contending that the term 'Michael, or Michael the archangel," wherever it occurs, is nothing more than a name for our Saviour; and that the WATCHERS and HOLT ONES of his text import no other than the different persons of the Trinity. He warmly inveighs against the doctrine that God's government of this lower world is carried on by the administration of the holy angels (and those, continues he, who broached this doctrine could tell us and how many angels in each or exactly how many orders there are, der) that the different orders have their different departments in govern. ment assigned to them; some, constantly attending in the presence of God, form his cabinet council; others are his provincial governors; every kingdom in the world having its appointed guardian angel, to whose management it is intrusted : others again are supposed to have the charge and custody of individuals. This system is in truth nothing better than pagan polytheism, somewhat disguised and qualified; for, in the pagan system, every nation had its tutelar deity, all subordinate to Jupiter, the sire of gods and men. Some of these prodigies of ignorance and folly, the rabbin of the Jews, who lived since the dispersion of the nation, thought all would be well, if, for tutelar deities, they substituted tutelar angels. From this substitution the system which I have described arose ; and from the Jews, the christians, with other fooleries, adopted it.' "The order of transmission is here strangely confused: for, instead of christian dotards having obtained this doctrine from rabbinical dotards, and these again from pagan dotards, the plain and common sense of the terms referred to in the very ancient poem before us-those of a synonymous kind employed in other books |