NATURE AND DUTY.

Guarini in his Pastor Fido composes a remarkable scene. He introduces a young woman, who, being at the discretion of two tyrants, who hate one another, Love and Honour, envies the happiness of beasts, whose love is directed by no other rule than love itself. She is amazed at the opposition that is between nature and the law. One of them annexes a great pleasure to certain things, and the other will have them to be severely punished. Her conclusion

is, that it cannot be accounted for without the revelation of Moses; and I have often wondered that the ancient philosophers have so little reflected upon

it. I mean only such philosophers, as acknowledged the unity of God; for those, who admitted of many gods would find no difficulty in it: it was only to suppose, that one deity was the cause of the inclination of nature; and that some other deities imprinted the instincts of conscience and the notions of honour. The difficulty concerns only those, who believe, that the world is the work of one most holy Being. How is it possible that under such a Being men should be drawn to evil by a bait that is almost insurmountable, I mean, by the sense of pleasure, and be deterred from it by the fear of remorse, infamy, or several other punishments? They spend their lives, tossed by these contrary passions, pulled sometimes one way, and sometimes another; sometimes overcome by the sense of pleasure, and sometimes by the fear of the consequences. Manicheism probably arose from a strong meditation on this deplorable condition of man.—Art. Guarini.