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with the nature of things !) that I may become an 

 intelligent fpirit, void of grols matter, gravity and 

 levity, endowed with a voluntary motive power, 

 either to pierce infinitely into boundlefs etherial 

 fpace, or into folid bodies ; to fee and know 

 how the parts of the great univerfe are connedt- 

 ed with each other, and by what amazing me- 

 chanifm they are put and kept in regular and 

 perpetual motion. But, oh vain and daring pre- 

 fumption of thought ! I moft humbly fubmk my 

 future exiftence to the fupreme will of the One 

 Omnipotent, 



If men, in the prefent age, at the conclufion 

 of their poetical, hiftorical, or other works, 

 fliould vaunt and promife themfelves immorta- 

 lity, as many of the ancients feem to have done, 

 I believe it would only ferve to render them ridi- 

 culous, and depreciate rather than enhance the 

 value of their peformances : nor can I believe 

 that the ancients were openly fo vain or felf- 

 conceited, as to promife themfelves immortality 

 in fuch a glaring manner -, but I rather imagine, 

 that thofe vain flourilhes were added by their 

 enthufiaftic admirers, in the copies that were 



made 



