In an inhabited country we must, perhaps, be forced to fight and destroy the natives; here, without encroaching upon others, without the guilt of a conquest, we may have a land that will supply us with all the neceffaries of life. Why then fhould we go farther? Let us thank the Gods, and reft here in peace. This affords room for a beautiful defcription of the land of Laziness.

Brutus, however, rejects the narrow and selfish propofition, as incompatible with his generous plan of extending benevolence, by instructing and polishing uncultivated minds. He defpifes the mean thought of providing for the happiness of themselves alone, and fets the great profpect of Heaven before them.

His perfuafions, being feconded by good omens, prevail: nevertheless they leave behind them the old man and the woman, together with fuch as are timid and unfit for service, to enjoy their ease there, and to erect a city. Over this colony, confifting however of about three thousand persons, he proposes to make Pifander King, under fuch limitations as appear to him wifest and best.

To this propofal they all affent with great fatif faction; only Pifander abfolutely refuses to be King, and begs, notwithstanding his age, that he may attend Brutus in his enterprise. He urges that his experience and counfels may be of use, though his ftrength

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strength is gone; and that he fhall die unhappy, if

he does not die in the arms of his friend.

Brutus accepts his company, with great expreffions of gratitude; and having left his colony a form of pure worship, and a fhort and fimple body of laws, orders them to choose a government for themselves, and then fets fail with none but refolute and noble affociates.

Here the Poet, by way of episode, meant to have introduced the paffion of fome friend, or the fondness of fome female, who refused to stay behind, and determined to brave all hardships and perils, rather than quit the object of their affections.

Providence is now supposed to send his spirit to raise the wind, and direct it to the northward. The veffel at length touched at Lisbon or Ulyffipont, where he meets with the fon of a Trojan, captive of Ulyffes. This gives occafion for an episode; and, among other things, furnifhes an account of Ulyffes fettling there, and building of Lisbon; with a detail of the wicked principles of policy and fuperftition he had established, and of his being at length driven away by the discontented people he had enslaved.

Brutus is afterwards driven by a storm, raised by an evil fpirit, as far as Norway. He prays to the Supreme God. His Guardian Angel calms the feas, and conducts the fleet fafe into port; but the evil fpirit excites the barbarian people to attack them at their landing.

Brutus,

Brutus, however, repulfes them, lands, and encamps on the fea-fhore. In the night an aurora borealis aftonishes his men, fuch a phenomenon having never been seen by them before.

He endeavours to keep up their spirits, by telling them that what they look upon as a prodigy, may be a phenomenon of nature ufual in thofe countries, though unknown to them and him; but that if it be any thing fupernatural, they ought to interpret it in their own favour, because Heaven never works miracles but for the good.

About midnight they are attacked again by the barbarians, and the light of the aurora is of great use to them for their defence.

three next in command.

Brutus kills their chief leader, and Orontes the This difcourages them, and they fly up into the country. He makes prifoners of fome of the natives, who had been used to thofe feas, and inquires of them concerning a great ifland to the fouth-west of their country; they tell him they had been in fuch an ifland upon piratical voyages, and had carried fome of the natives into captivity. He obtains fome of thofe captives, whom he finds to be Britons; they describe their country to him, and undertake to pilot him.

In the next Book, Brutus touches at the Orcades, and a picture is given of the manner of the Savages. The North Britons he brought with him from Norway relate strange stories concerning one of the greatest

of their islands, fuppofed to be inhabited by dæmons, who forbid all access to it, by thunders, earthquakes, &c. Eudemon relates a tradition in Greece, that in one of the Northern Islands of the Ocean, fome of the Tians were confined after their overthrow by Jupiter. Brutus, to confound their superstition, refolves to land in that ifland.

Brutus fails thither in a small veffel of fix oars, attended only by Orontes, who infists on fharing with him in this adventure. When the boat approaches the fhore, a violent hurricane rifes, which dafhes it against the rocks, and beats it to pieces. All the men are drowned but Brutus and Orontes, who fwim to land. They find a thick foreft, dark and impenetrable, out of which proceeds a dreadful noise.

All at once the fun was darkened, a thick night comes over them; thundering noises and bellowings are heard in the air, and under ground. A terrible eruption of fire breaks out from the top of a mountain, the earth fhakes beneath their feet. Orontes flies back into the wood, but Brutus remains undaunted, though in great danger of being fwallowed up, or burnt by the fire. In this extremity he calls upon God; the eruption ceases, and his Guardian Angel appears to Brutus, telling him God had permitted the evil spirit to work feeming miracles by natural means, in order to try his virtue, and to humble the pride of Orontes, who was too confident in his courage, and too little regardful of Providence. That

the hill before them was a volcano; that the effects of it, dreadful, though natural, had made the ignorant favages believe the Ifland to be an habitation of fiends. That the hurricane, which had wrecked his boat, was a usual symptom, preceding an eruption. That he might have perished in the eruption, if God had not sent him his good Angel to be his preferver.

He then directs him to feek the fouth-west part of Great Britain, because the northern parts were infefted by men not yet disposed to receive religion, arts, and good government, the fubduing and civilizing of whom was referved by Providence for a fon, that should be born of him after his conqueft of England.

Brutus promises to obey; the Angel vanishes: Brutus finds Orontes in a cave of the wood; he is fo ashamed of his fear, that he attempts to kill himself. Brutus comforts him, afcribes it to a fupernatural terror, and tells him what he had heard from the Angel. They go down to the coaft, where they find Hanno, with a fhip to carry them off.

The enfuing Book defcribes the joy of Brutus, at fight of the white rocks of Albion. He lands at Torbay, and, in the western part of the Island, meets with a kind reception.

The climate is described to be equally free from the effeminacy and foftness of the fouthern climes, and the ferocity and favageness of the northern. The natural genius of the natives being thus in the medium between these extremes, was well adapted to receive