If the subjects of this canto appear more noble and elevated than those which usually employ the episodes of heroic poetry, that of the ensuing one must strike with still superior dignity. Having acquainted us with the philosophy of his admired sage, the poet now, by a beautiful kind of allegory, instructs us in his religion. Astragon had dedicated three temples, to PRAYER, to PENITENCE, and to PRAISE. The _Temple of Prayer_ is described as a building quite plain, open, and without bells; since nothing should tempt or summon to an office to which our own wants invite us. The duty of _Penitence_ being a severity unpleasing to nature, its _temple_ is contrived, by its solemn and uncommon appearance, to catch the sense. It is a vast building of black marble, hung with black, and furnished with that “dim religious light” which poets have so finely employed to excite kindred ideas of gloom and melancholy: but none, I think, have painted it with such strength of colouring as our author: Black curtains hide the glass; whilst from on high A winking lamp still threatens all the room, As if the lazy flame just now would die: Such will the sun’s last light appear at doom. A tolling bell calls to the temple; and every other circumstance belonging to it is imagined with great propriety and beauty. But the poet’s greatest exertions are reserved for his favourite _temple of Praise_. A general shout of joy is the summons to it. The building, in its materials and architecture, is gay and splendid beyond the most sumptuous palace. The front is adorned with figures of all kinds of musical instruments; all, as he most beautifully expresses it, That joy did e’er invent, or breath inspir’d, Or flying fingers touch’d into a voice. The statues without, the pictures within, the decorations, and the choir of worshippers, are all suited with nice judgment, and described with genuine poetry. This distinguished canto concludes with these noble stanzas, the sum and moral, as it were, of the whole. Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds; The diff’ring world’s agreeing sacrifice; Where heaven divided faiths united finds: But prayer in various discord upward flies. For Prayer the ocean is, where diversly Men steer their course, each to a sev’ral coast; Where all our interests so discordant be That half beg winds by which the rest are lost. By penitence when we ourselves forsake, ’Tis but in wise design on piteous heav’n; In praise we nobly give what God may take, And are without a beggar’s blush forgiv’n. Its utmost force, like powder’s, is unknown; And tho’ weak kings excess of Praise may fear, Yet when ’tis here, like powder, dangerous grown, Heav’n’s vault receives what would the palace tear. The last thought will be termed, in this cold age, a conceit; and so may every thing that distinguishes wit and poetry from plain sense and prose.