with an "Essay on Divine Poesie." Then follows an exhortation to the youth of Great Britain, which endeavours to carry out the principle which the paper professed, viz., "to establish them in the principles of Religion and Virtue, and fortify them against the attacks of Vice." The swearer and the gambler are denounced in two separate numbers. "The Witch of Endor" is the subject of a sublime dialogue, full of pious profanity. Another is a description of "The Upright Man," and is a bombastic paraphrase of Horace's "justum et tenacem propositi virum." The stern stoicism of the character is depicted in a couplet, which prophetically expresses a phrase of modern slang—
"Though whirl'd by storms the racking clouds are seen,
His unmolested breast is all serene."
In the number for April 6th, a prose notice is added, which contains an anecdote not in the least à-propos to the subject of the paper, but referring to a matter which has been alluded to in a former part of this work. "We shall beg the reader's pardon for mentioning a passage told us by a gentleman of our society, almost forty years since, by Mr. Dryden, who went, with Mr. Waller in company, to make a visit to Mr. Milton, and desire his leave for putting his 'Paradise Lost' into rhyme for the stage. 'Well, Mr. Dryden,' says Milton, 'it seems you have a mind to tagg my points, and you have my leave to tagg 'em; but some of 'em are so awkward and old-fashioned, that I think you had as good leave 'em as you found 'em.'" In the last number but one, we are told that those "who particularly approve of these Divine subjects, seem anxious that entertaining ones may be mixed with them, and that to meet this want, some gentlemen of the brightest parts are setting upon such a work." Whether "The Oracle" ever appeared, we know not; but next day "The Monitor" died.
