may be performed by multitudes, who have not abilities fufficient to deferve well of their country, and to recommend themselves to their posterity, by any other method. It is the phrase of a friend of mine, when ufeful counany try neighbour dies, that you may trace him: which I look upon as a good funeral-oration, at the death of an honeft husbandman, who hath left the impreffions of his industry behind him, in the place where he has lived. UPON the foregoing confiderations, I can fcarce forbear representing the fubject of this paper as a kind of moral virtue which, as I have already fhewn, recommends itself likewife by the pleasure that attends it. It must be confeffed, that this is none of those turbulent pleasures which is apt to gratify a man in the heats of youth; but if it be not fo tumultuous, it is more lafting. Nothing can be more delightful than to entertain ourselves with profpects of our own making, and to walk under those fhades which our own industry has raised. Amusements of this nature compose the mind, and lay at rest all those paffions which are uneafy to the foul of man, befides, that they naturally engender good thoughts, and difpofe us to laudable contemplations. Many of the old philofophers paffed away the greatest part of their lives among their gardens. Epicurus himself could not think sensual pleafure attainable in any other fcene. Every reader who is acquainted with Homer, Virgil, and Horace, the greateft genuifes of all antiquity, knows very well with how much rapture they have spoken on this fubject; and that Virgil in particular has written a whole book on the art of planting. THIS art feems to have been more especially adapted to the nature of man in his primæ val ftate, when he had life enough to fee his productions flourish in their utmost beauty, and gradually decay with him. One who lived before the flood might have feen a wood of the tallest oaks in the acorn. But I only mention this particular, in order to introduce, in my next paper, a history which I have found among the accounts of China, and which may be looked upon as an antediluvian novel. NO N° 584. Monday, August 23. Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori, Virg. Ecl. 10. v. 42. Come fee what pleasures in our plains abound; Dryden. HILPA was one of the 150 daughters of Zilpah, of the race of Cohu, by whom fome of the learned think is meant Cain. She was exceedingly beautiful, and when she was but a girl of threefcore and ten years of age, received the addreffes of feveral who made love to her. Among thefe were two brothers, Harpath and Shalum. Harpath, being the first-born, was master of that fruitful region which lies at the foot of mount Tirzah, in the fouthern parts of China. Shalum (which is to fay the planter in the Chinese language) poffeffed all the neighbouring hills, and that great range of mountains which goes under the name of Tirzah. Harpath was of a haughty contemptuous fpirit; Shalum was of a gentle difpofition, beloved both by God and man. IT is faid that, among the antediluvian women, the daughters of Cohu had their minds wholly fet upon riches; for which reafon the beautiful Hilpa preferred Harpath to Shalum, because of his numerous flocks and herds that covered all the low country which runs along the foot of mount Tirzah, and is watered by feveral fountains and streams breaking out of the fides of that mountain. HARPATH made fo quick a difpatch of his courtship, that he married Hilpa in the hundredth year of her age; and being of an infolent temper, laughed to fcorn his brother Shalum for having pretended to the beautiful Hilpa, when he was mafter of nothing but a long chain of rocks and mountains. This fo much provoked Shalum, that that he is faid to have curfed his brother in the bitterness of his heart, and to have prayed that one of his mountains might fall upon his head if ever he came within the fhadow of it. FROM this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the valleys, but came to an untimely end in the 250th year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to crofs it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perished in it, the river Harpath, and what is very remarkable, iffues out of one of thofe mountains which Shalum wished might fall upon his brother, when he curfed him in the bitterness of his heart. HILPA was in the 160th year of her age at the death of her husband, having brought him but 50 children, before he was fnatched away, as has been already related. Many of the antediluvians made love to the young widow, though no one was thought fo likely to fucceed in her affections as her firft lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in those days that a widow fhould be feen by a man within ten years after the decease of her husband. SHALUM falling into a deep melancholy, and refolving to take away that objection which had been raised against him when he made his firft addreffes to Hilpa, began immediately, after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the divifion of this country. He knew how to adapt every plant to its proper foil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional fecrets of that art from the first man. This employment turned at length to his profit as well as to his amusement; his mountains were in few years shaded with young trees, that gradually fhot up into groves, woods, and forefts, intermixed with walks and lawns, and gardens; infomuch that the whole region, from a naked and defolate profpect, began now to look like a fecond paradife. The pleafantnefs of the place, and the agreeable difpofition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildeft and wifeft of all who lived before the flood, drew into it multitudes of people, who were perpetually employed in the finking of wells, the digging of trenches, and and the hollowing of trees, for the better diftribution of water through every part of this fpacious plantation. THE habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the space of 70 autumns, was wonderfully pleafed with the diftant profpect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with innumerable tufts of trees, and gloomy fcenes that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the finest landskips the eye of Iman could behold. THE Chinese record a letter which Shalum is faid to have written to Hilpa, in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I shall here translate it, without departing from that noble fimplicity of fentiments, and plainnefs of manners which appears in the original. SHALUM was at this time 180 years old, and Hilpa 170.. Shalum, Mafter of mount Tirzah, to Hilpa, Mistress of the valleys. . W In the 788 year of the creation. HAT have I not fuffered, O thou daughter of Zilpah, fince thou gavest thyself away in marriage to my rival? I grew weary of the light of the fun, ⚫ and have been ever fince covering myfelf with woods and 'forefts. These threefcore and ten years have I bewailed the lofs of thee on the tops of mount Tirzah, and footh⚫ed my melancholy among a thoufand gloomy fhades of my own raising. My dwellings are at prefent as the gar'den of God; every part of them is filled with fruits, and flowers, and fountains. The whole mountain is perfu'med for thy reception. Come up into it, O my beloved, and let us people this fpot of the new world with a beautiful race of mortals; let us multiply exceedingly among thefe delightful fhades, and fill every quarter of them with fons and daughters. Remember, O thou daughter of Zilpah, that the age of man is but a thou'fand years; that beauty is the admiration but of a few ' centuries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as a cedar on the top of Tirzah, which in three or four hun'dred years will fade away, and never be thought of by pofterity, unless a young wood fprings from its roots. • Think Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains.' HAVING here inferted this letter, which I look upon as the only antediluvian billet-doux now extant, I, fhall in my next paper give the answer to it, and the fequel of this story. N° 585. Wednesday, August 25. Ipfi lætitia voces ad fidera jactant Intonfi montes: ipfæ jam carmina rupes, Ipfæ fonant arbufta Virg. Ecl. 5. v. 63. Dryden: The mountain tops unshorn, the rocks rejoice ; The fequel of the ftory of Shalum and Hilpa. HE letter inferted in my last had fo good an effect Tupon Hilpa, that the anfwered it in lefs than a twelvemonth after the following manner. Hilpa, Miftrefs of the valleys, to Skalum, Master of mount Tirzah. In the 789 year of the creation. HAT have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Thou W praifeft Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not fecretly < enamoured with the verdour of her meadows? Art thou not more affected with the profpect of her green valleys, than thou wouldst be with the fight of her perfon? The lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my flocks, make a pleasant echo in thy mountains, and found fweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forefts, and thofe breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzab: are thefe like the riches of the valley? I KNOW thee, O Shalum; thou art more wife and happy than any of the fons of men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars; thou fearcheft out the diverfity of |