it after dinner, we shall have no farther difpute upon that fubject. I could indeed with, if it were poffible, to have a scheme of thought, which would bear contemplating, at any time of the day; becaufe, otherwise, a perfon must be at the expence of maintaining a brace of these metaphyfical Hobby-Horses, one to mount in the morning, and the other in the afternoon.

After all, Sir, friend as I am to freedom of opinion (and no one living can be more fo) I am rather forry, methinks, that men fhould judge fo variously of Mr. HUME's philofophical fpeculations. For fince the defign of them is to banish out of the world every idea of truth and comfort, falvation and immortality, a future ftate, and the providence, and even exist

ence of GOD, it feems a pity, that we connot be all of a mind about them, though we might have formerly liked to hear the author crack a joke, over a bottle, in his life time. And I could have been well pleafed to have been informed by you, Sir, that before his death, he had ceased to number among his happy effufions tracts of this kind and tendency.

For-(let me come a little closer to you, Doctor, if you pleafe, upon this fubject-I -Don't be under any apprehenfions my name does not begin with a B-) Are you fure, and can you make us fure, that there really exift no fuch things as a GOD, and a future ftate of rewards and punishments? If so, all is well. Let us then, in our last hours, read LUCIAN, and play at WHIST, and droll upon CHA

RON and his boat; let us die as foolish and infenfible, as much like our brother philofophers, the calves of the field, and the affes of the defart, as we can, for the life of us. But if fuch things BE-as they moft certainly ARE-Is it right in you, Sir, to hold up to our view, as " perfectly "wife and virtuous", + the character and conduct of one, who feems to have been poffeffed with an incurable antipathy to all that is called RELIGION; and who ftrained every nerve to explode, fupprefs, and extirpate the fpirit of it among men, that it's very name, if he could effect it, might no more be had in remembrance? Are we, do you imagine, to be reconciled to a character of this fort, and fall in love with it, because it's owner was

* LIFE, &c. p. 47, et feq.

LIFE, &c, p. 62.

good company, and knew how to manage his cards? Low as the age is fallen, I will venture to hope, it has grace enough yet left, to refent fuch ufage as this.

You endeavour to entertain us with fome pleasant conceits that were fuppofed by Mr. HUME to pafs between himself and old CHARON. The philofopher tells the old gentleman, that,

he had been endeavouring to open "the eyes of the Public;" that he was "correcting his works for a new "edition," from which great things were to be expected; in short, "if " he could but live a few years longer (and that was the only reason

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why he would wish to do fo) he

might have the fatisfaction of seeing "the downfall of fome of the prevailing fyftems of fuperftition.

* LIFE, &c. p. 50.

We all know, Sir, what the word SUPERSTITION denotes, in Mr. HUME'S Vocabulary, and against what Religion his fhafts are levelled, under that name. But, Doctor SMITH, do you believe, or would you have us to believe, that it is CHARON, who calls us out of the world, at the appointed time? Doth not HE call us out of it, who fent us into it? Let me, then, prefent you with a paraphrafe of the Wish, as addreffed to HIM, to whom it should, and to whom alone, with any fenfe and propriety, it can be addreffed. Thus it runs

"LORD, I have only one reafon "why I would wish to live. Suffer

me fo to do, I moft humbly be"feech thee, yet a little while, till "mine eyes fhall behold the fuccefs "of of my undertaking to overthrow, by my metaphyfics, the faith which

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