The Thought of the Golden Compasses is conceived altogether in Homers Spirit, and is a very noble Incident in this wonderful Description.  Homer, when he speaks of the Gods, ascribes to them several Arms and Instruments with the same greatness of Imagination.  Let the Reader only peruse the Description of Minerva’s AEgis, or Buckler, in the Fifth Book, with her Spear, which would overturn whole Squadrons, and her Helmet, that was sufficient to cover an Army drawn out of an hundred Cities:  The Golden Compasses in the above-mentioned Passage appear a very natural Instrument in the Hand of him, whom Plato somewhere calls the Divine Geometrician.  As Poetry delights in cloathing abstracted Ideas in Allegories and sensible Images, we find a magnificent Description of the Creation form’d after the same manner in one of the Prophets, wherein he describes the Almighty Architect as measuring the Waters in the Hollow of his Hand, meting out the Heavens with his Span, comprehending the Dust of the Earth in a Measure, weighing the Mountains in Scales, and the Hills in a Balance.  Another of them describing the Supreme Being in this great Work of Creation, represents him as laying the Foundations of the Earth, and stretching a Line upon it:  And in another place as garnishing the Heavens, stretching out the North over the empty Place, and hanging the Earth upon nothing.  This last noble Thought Milton has express’d in the following Verse: 

  And Earth self-ballanc’d on her Center hung.

The Beauties of Description in this Book lie so very thick, that it is impossible to enumerate them in this Paper.  The Poet has employ’d on them the whole Energy of our Tongue.  The several great Scenes of the Creation rise up to view one after another, in such a manner, that the Reader seems present at this wonderful Work, and to assist among the Choirs of Angels, who are the Spectators of it.  How glorious is the Conclusion of the first Day.

 —­Thus was the first Day Ev’n and Morn
  Nor past uncelebrated nor unsung
  By the Celestial Quires, when Orient Light
  Exhaling first from Darkness they beheld;
  Birth-day of Heavn and Earth! with Joy and Shout
  The hollow universal Orb they fill’d.

We have the same elevation of Thought in the third Day, when the
Mountains were brought forth, and the Deep was made.

  Immediately the Mountains huge appear
  Emergent, and their broad bare Backs up-heave
  Into the Clouds, their Tops ascend the Sky: 
  So high as heav’d the tumid Hills, so low
  Down sunk a hollow Bottom, broad and deep,
  Capacious Bed of Waters—­

We have also the rising of the whole vegetable World described in this Days Work, which is filled with all the Graces that other Poets have lavish’d on their Descriptions of the Spring, and leads the Readers Imagination into a Theatre equally surprising and beautiful.

The several Glories of the Heavns make their Appearance on the Fourth Day.