God accuses us not of loving wife or child, but of not loving Him. How could he so accuse us, since the love to Him but increases and deepens our love to them? One would think, if we could love these objects too much, that when we become lovers of Jehovah, our regard would be lessened. But is this the case? Ah, Christian, we can tell you that those hours in which we have been the most spirituallyminded, and when the very being seemed to float in a profound ocean of unruffled, and infinite, and delicious love, and when the Eternal seemed above, and beneath, and around us, and when earth, sea, and sky seemed to be lighted up with a soft golden glory, and when the air teemed with angelic hymns, and the clouds breathed out divine harmonies, and when the body itself seemed etherealized, and in sweetest accordance with the highest aspirations of the soul, even then have we beheld a chaster beauty and a fairer loveliness in the relationships of earth. And in like manner, when we have been far off from God, when we have erred and strayed like lost sheep, and when iniquity has prevailed against us as a tide, have we beheld less enchanting grace in the hallowed ties of our nature. How is this? If it be wrong to love with an infinite affection, then why, when holiest and purest, do we love the most?

An idol is that which prevents our entire love to the Eternal; but we know that the relationships of earth expand and deepen that affection. Wherefore, then, the wrong?whence the sin? "Covetousness is idolatry." Why? Because, where it reigns, the love of God cannot. But is it so with the tenderness of our hearts? Oh, when we have been the most in communion with the Everlasting, then have we felt a more bursting, throbbing, unutterable fondness for wife and child and kinsmen. Spirit! wilt thou shackle, wilt thou repress thy gushing attachments? Cherish, cherish, them!

some

Pollok, too, has fallen into the error so common amongst us, that God saw nothing in human nature, when fallen, to move his love; that we then became so corrupt and so polluted, that in us there was nothing which bound and united us to the Creator. We were sinful; we were a chaos of blasphemy, rebellion, impurity; we were as the broken cistern, and as the overthrown pillar. All this we acknowledge: we do well in so doing. But in this dim, black confusion, there were ever and anon streaks of a coming dawn, a breathing of lifegiving winds: amidst all this deep spiritual degeneracy, there was ever and anon thought arising to the Creator; some inquiry how could man be just with God: amidst this clashing of interests, there was ever and anon some true and mighty principle struggling into being, some rays of the Divine. There were moments when man was sick of guilt, and pined for purity; when he knelt himself down upon some sea-rock, and as the sun came bursting forth in all his magnificence upon the wide ocean, prayed for something higher and something holier; when he wept over sin; when he mourned his iniquity. If this were not the case, what means the poet of antiquity in his fine majestic hymn to the Supreme, exclaiming,

"For we are his offspring"? and in an earlier age, what means another bard, in addressing the same divinity, exclaiming, For thou hearest a man everywhere in pain"? and in later times, what means the altar raised beneath the beautiful Attic sky, and in the refined city itself, to the Unknown God, if they do not tell us that man is ever seeking, ever striving, in what way he may be reconciled to Jehovah; in what way he may regain his lost favour; in what way obtain back the ancient covenant of peace and blessedness?

Hast thou never beheld, O reader, the beautiful work of thy fingers destroyed, and hast thou not gathered up the fragments, and although it was broken into a thousand pieces, and its once beautiful form for ever lost, and that which was so exquisite a gem, and so often gazed upon with delight, and so frequently admired, has become shivered and splintered into shapeless atoms, yet hast thou not gathered up every part with a care and a gentleness never known before, and with feelings of love and yearnings of tender regard hast thou not placed it in thy cabinet of all precious things? Because it had forgotten its former grace, was it therefore without one sweet association, one pleasant memory?-rather, did it not win thy pity, and find its way to thy swelling heart?

And so God: he created us in his own bright image; we were his glory, his delight; he caused the balmy breath to breathe upon us, and outstretched a serene, cerulean canopy above; but we soon broke ourselves into a million chaotic substances, and where once reigned perfect beauty and unsullied love, nought was seen but disorder and impurity; and where once arose the high hymn of praise, issued the clashing of hoarse rebellion and the defiance of an enemy. Ah, would not God stoop and gather up the shattered being? had he no pity on that which he himself adorned with so much grace and so much loveliness? Think you there was no yearning of the heart over us-nothing in us to draw his attention and regard? Yes, there was; and in this very fact, that we were the creation of his own hands. True, we were despoiled, yet were there relentings, and strivings, and utterings, and sighings after our pristine nature-we still longed for our primeval condition: and God did gather up the broken fragments, and with them made he a new man, fairer, and loftier, and brighter than him who erst walked in Eden's garden amid its untainted sweets.

Again, look on earth. Hast thou never seen, hast thou never heard of a love which has stood unquenched and undimmed amid the severest rebuffs and the cruellest desertion? Hast thou never seen it in one who, after giving her all of happiness and her all of being into the hands of the man who promised to cherish for ever, has been left desolate and alone; and who thus, left to pine in her cold and cheerless dwelling, has still loved on; and amid all his brutal and unfeeling conduct, hast thou not beheld her clinging with a fonder and a tenderer affection? We see, we hear it daily. It is true, that he whom she loves is ungenerous and unkind; but she loves him for what once he was. The days that are past, and in which

were seen his smile and thrilling tenderness, and in which was heard the liquid language of his lips, often return; nay, they are ever with her: and for what he was then-for his gentleness, his affection, his kindness, does she love him now-will she cleave to him for ever!

And if this sublime affection is found, and found often, in the creature, shall it not be found in the Creator? Can he not love us for what once we were? May he not gaze on those peaceful hours, and that unruffled quietude, and that undisturbed repose, which some thousands of years back awoke the happiness of the first pair? Is the hymn of Eden forgotten? Is the promise of everlasting love and everlasting truth, though broken, unremembered? Is the purity and the bliss that once reigned there unrecorded?

The human spirit, blasted as it is by the east wind, and burnt up by the scorching sun, and eaten into by the worm, still loves an object for its past beauty and its past truth; and shall not the Holy One, who is said to be love, regard us with affection for what once we were? Was there no tie between us-nothing in us which moved his heart? no breathings that touched, no relentings which melted? no aspirations after good? no cries after perfection? no strivings to bring back the lost relationship? Oh, there was a light gleaming on our darkness like the darting forth of a sun-ray upon the billowy and surging ocean when heaving beneath a black, brooding storm! This was enough; the clouds could be rolled away, and the deep and perilous waters become gently rippling under the fair, clear heavens.

To return. A few quotations from the Course of Time, and we have done. The following, on the abode of the wicked, is one of the most powerful and terrific in the volume. When our poet came to depict the dark scenery of the world of woe, he seemed to lose all strength; he felt that he was treading on the same ground with Milton and Dante; he trembled lest he should be found wanting; he tried to write, but could not; he swept the lyre, but no sound was emitted; he touched again, but still no strain,-all thoughts seemed too poor, all paintings too dull: his imagination failed-his faculties gave way. The hour was eventide-the time for solemn fancies; these departed, none were within call. Inspiration left, hope fled, energy reeled, darkness came; the stars were quenched in blackness; and then did Pollok cast himself upon his knees, and prayed for the assistance of the Supreme. He retired to rest in the slumbers of the night he dreamed; hell was disclosed; we have the vision:

Equipped and bent for heaven, I left yon world, My native seat, which scarce your eye can reach, Rolling around her central sun, far out

On utmost verge of light: but first to see
What lay beyond the visible creation,
Strong curiosity my flight impelled.

Long was my way, and strange. I passed the bounds
Which God doth set to light, and life, and love;
Where darkness meets with day-where order meets
Disorder, dreadful, waste, and wild; and down
The dark, eternal, uncreated night
Ventured alone. Long, long on rapid wing
I sailed through empty, nameless regions vast,
Where utter Nothing dwells, unformed and void.

There neither eye, nor ear, nor any sense
Of being most acute, finds object; there
For aught external still you search in vain.
Try touch, or sight, or smell; try what you will,
You strangely find nought but yourself alone.
But why should I in words attempt to tell
What that is like, which is and yet is not?
This past, my path descending, led me still
O'er unclaimed continents of desert gloom
Immense, where gravitation, shifting, turns
The other way; and to some dread, unknown,
Infernal centre downwards weighs: and now,
Far travelled from the edge of darkness, far
As from that glorious mount of God, to light's
Remotest limb, dire sights I saw, dire sounds
I heard; and suddenly, before my eye
A wall of fiery adamant sprung up,
Wall, mountainous, tremendous, flaming high
Above all flight of hope. I paused and looked;
And saw, where'er I looked upon that mound,
Sad figures traced in fire, not motionless,
But imitating life. One I remarked
Attentively; but how shall I describe
What nought resembles else my eye hath seen?
Of worm or serpent kind it something looked,
But monstrous, with a thousand snaky heads,
Eyed each with double orbs of glaring wrath;
And with as many tails, that twisted out
In horrid revolution, tipped with stings;
And all its mouths, that wide and darkly gaped,
And breathed most poisonous breath, had each a sting,
Forked and long and venomous, and sharp;
And in its writhings infinite, it grasped,
Malignantly, what seemed a heart, swollen, black,
And quivering with torture most intense;
And still the heart, with anguish throbbing high,
Made effort to escape, but could not; for,
Howe'er it turned-and oft it vainly turned-
These complicated foldings held it fast.
And still the monstrous beast, with sting of head
Or tail transpierced it, bleeding evermore.
What this could image, much I searched to know;
And while I stood and gazed, and wondered long,
A voice, from whence I knew not, for no one
I saw, distinctly whispered in my ear
These words: "This is the worm that never dies."
Fast by the side of this unsightly thing
Another was portrayed, more hideous still;
Who sees it once, shall wish to see't no more:
For ever undescribed let it remain !
Only this much I may or can unfold:
Far out it thrust a dart, that might have made
The knees of terror quake, and on it hung,
Within the triple barbs, a being, pierced
Through soul and body both. Of heavenly make
Original the being seemed, but fallen,
And worn and wasted with enormous woe.
And still around the everlasting lance

It writhed convulsed, and uttered mimic groans:
And tried and wished, and ever tried and wished
To die but could not die. Oh! horrid sight!
I trembling gazed, and listened, and heard this voice
Approach my ear: "This is eternal death."

Nor these alone: upon that burning wall

In horrible emblazonry, were limned

All shapes, all forms, all modes of wretchedness,
And agony, and grief, and desperate woe.
And prominent in characters of fire,

Where'er the eye could light, these words you read,
"Who comes this way behold, and fear to sin!"
Amazed I stood; and thought such imagery
Foretokened within a dangerous abode.
But yet to see the worst, a wish arose:
For Virtue, by the holy seal of God,
Accredited and stamped, immortal all,
And all invulnerable, fears no hurt.
As easy as my wish, as rapidly,

I through the horrid rampart pass'd, unscathed
And unopposed; and, poised on steady wing,

I hovering gazed. Eternal Justice! Sons

Of God! tell me, if you can tell, what then

I saw what then I heard! Wide was the place,

And deep as wide, and ruinous as deep.
Beneath, I saw a lake of burning fire,
With tempest tossed perpetually; and still
The waves of fiery darkness 'gainst the rocks
Of dark damnation broke, and music made

Of melancholy sort; and overhead

And all around, wind warred with wind, storm howled To storm, and lightning, forked-lightning crossed,

With pensive wing outspread, sat heavenly Thought
Conversing with itself. Vesper looked forth
From out her western hermitage, and smiled;
And up the east, unclouded, rode the moon,
With all her stars, gazing on earth intense,
As if she saw some wonder walking there.

Such was the night, so lovely, still, serene,
When, by a hermit thorn that on the hill
Had seen a hundred flowery ages pass,
A damsel kneeled, to offer up her prayer-
Her prayer nightly offered, nightly heard.
This ancient thorn had been the meeting place
Of love, before his country's voice had called
The ardent youth to fields of honour, far
Beyond the wave; and hither now repaired,
Nightly, the maid, by God's all-seeing eye
Seen only, while she sought this boon alone-
Her lover's safety and his quick return.
In holy humble attitude she kneeled,
And to her bosom, fair as moonbeam, pressed
One band, the other lifted up to heaven.
Her eye, upturned, bright as the star of morn,
As violet meek, excessive ardour streamed,
Wafting away her earnest heart to God.
Her voice, scarce uttered, soft as zephyr sighs
On morning lily's cheek, though soft and low,
Yet heard in heaven, heard at the mercy-seat.
A tear-drop wandered on her lovely face;
It was a tear of faith and holy fear,
Pure as the drops that hang at dawning time,
On yonder willows, by the stream of life.
On her the moon looked steadfastly; the stars,
That circle nightly round the eternal throne,
Glanced down, well pleased; and everlasting love
Gave gracious audience to her prayer sincere.
O had her lover seen her thus alone,
Thus holy, wrestling thus, and all for him!
Nor did he not; for ofttimes Providence,
With unexpected joy, the fervent prayer
Of faith surprised. Returned from long delay
With glory crowned of righteous actions won,
The sacred thorn, to memory dear, first sought
The youth, and found it at the happy hour,
Just when the damsel kneeled herself to pray.
Wrapped in devotion, pleading with her God,
She saw him not, heard not his foot approach.
All holy images seemed too impure

[thought!

To emblem her he saw. A seraph kneeled,
Beseeching for his ward, before the throne,
Seemed fittest, pleased him best. Sweet was the
But sweeter still the kind remembrance came,
That she was flesh and blood, formed for himself,
The plighted partner of his future life.

And as they met, embraced, and sat, embowered
In woody chambers of the starry night,
Spirits of love about them ministered,
And God, approving, blessed the holy joy!

Poets have been accused of painting life fairer than it is: their colours, it is thought, have been too bright and beautiful. And on no other subject have they been questioned so much as upon their delineation of the affections. We cannot say that we have any sympathy with such complaints; we doubt very much if the tints have been too glowing: to our minds, the rays of heaven have not fallen too strongly their sketches are not flower-scented and sunlit enough; they do not reach the reality. The throbbing emotion, the bursting soul, the keen sensibility, the rich silence, the tender glance, the rapturous countenance, the beaming expression, the soft, dream-like pressure, the hallowed embrace, the deep thrilling language, the undisturbed and profound peace, the gathering together of all regard around one object, the gentle clinging, the sweet dependence, the sheltering under the wing of love, the vast stretchings into infinitude, the union of spirit-oh, what pencil can shadow these in all their fulness and unutterable blessedness? The heart is higher, and loftier, and holier than the intellect.

And yet there are some who deem it manly to scoff at these divine feelings. Shall the holiest ties be trifled with? If the spirit loves, there is increase of happiness; there is sweeter sunlight; there is softer felicity; there is more melting bliss; there is the exaltation of every faculty; there is the enthronement of every beautiful reality. Love is too sublime to be made the subject of our sport: make ourselves merry with it?-shame on manhood! It is a solemn and a sacred thing: the mind which trifles with the theme is lowered in our estimation; it is the sign of a thoughtless heart. That which is the nearest approach to the Divinity that which ennobles the intellectthat which expands and elevates the whole moral being-that which dignifies the soulthat which renders creation more exquisitely beautiful, and gives a deeper tinge to its waters, and a deeper blue to its skies, and more magnificent tints to its rising and its setting suns, and envelopes every form and shape of nature in a more spirit-like loveliness, and makes every flower and every tree breathe out a more mellifluous hymn-that which renders home worthy of heaven-that from which the Eternal draws to describe his own feelings and his own emotions towards the children of this estranged orb-shall it excite our merriment ?

We rejoice when the spirit of man loves; for it is then bracing itself with vigour, and clothing itself with power; it is the commencement of a diviner existence. We speak not of sickly sentimentalism; that we know not. Ah, it commands our reverence when, in the deep solitude of our bosom, we muse over its character and hallowed bearings: its influence is genial as a sunbeam, and yet gigantic as the vast swellings of eternity. It may be, and doubtless is, the fashion among a certain class to trifle with its blessedness. Let it be so; it has taught us a holier lesson. We may be alone in our view; and yet we are not alone: the celestial hierarchy is with us, the Deity himself is with us, all heaven-the beautiful and glorious heaven-is with us. "God is love." Trifle, then, with love? It was love which made the universe, and cast therein her million stars; it was love which created man : ah! it was love that when that being had erred and strayed far out into the wild, wintry desert of sin, brought him back again to the fold and family of God. The Omnipotent sits on the throne of love; his sovereignty is a rule of love; his presence is the perfection of love. Love beams in every flower, and glitters in every dewdrop. The vast canopy of day whispers of love-its clouds, its showers, its rainbows all breathe out love. Even the storm, which beats so loudly against our windows, and the hurricane which lashes the ocean into fury, tell of love. Love is everywhere; it pervades all existence; it is the highest, holiest, divinest essence.

But take another note of woe; it is the poet's humour, not ours :

Our sighs were numerous, and profuse our tears,
For she we lost was lovely, and we loved
Her much. Fresh in her memory, as fresh
As yesterday, is yet the day she died:
It was an April day; and blithely all
The youth of nature leaped beneath the sun,
And promised glorious manhood; and our hearts

Were glad, and round them danced the lightsome blood,
In healthy merriment, when tidings came
A child was born; and tidings came again,
That she who gave it birth was sick to death:
So swift trode sorrow on the heels of joy!
We gathered round her bed, and bent our knees
In fervent supplication to the Throne

Of mercy, and perfumed our prayers with sighs
Sincere, and penitential tears, and looks
Of self-abasement; but we sought to stay

An angel on the earth, a spirit ripe

For heaven; and Mercy, in her love, refused:

Most merciful, as oft, when seeming least!

Most gracious, when she seemed the most to frown!
The room 1 well remember and the bed

On which she lay, and all the faces, too,
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there and mother, bending stood;
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness. Her husband, too, was there,
And brothers, and they wept; her sisters, too,
Did weep, and sorrow comfortless; and I,
Too, wept, though not to weeping given; and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.
This I remember well; but better still

1 do remember, and will ne'er forget,
The dying eye! That eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew as nearer death approached:
As I have seen the gentle little flower
Look fairest in the silver beam which fell
Reflected from the thunder-cloud that soon
Came down, and o'er the desert scattered far

And wide its loveliness. She made a sign

To bring her babe: 'twas brought, and by her placed;
She looked upon its face, that neither smiled,

Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon't, and laid
Her hand upon its little breast, and sought
For it, with look that seemed to penetrate
The heavens, unutterable blessings, such
As God to dying parents only granted,
For infants left behind them in the world.
"God keep my child!" we heard her say, and heard
No more. The Angel of the Covenant
Was come, and faithful to his promise, stood
Prepared to walk with her through death's dark vale.
And now her eyes grew bright, and brighter still,
Too bright for ours to look upon, suffused
With many tears, and closed without a cloud.
They set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempest of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven.

We have, in our quotations, chosen passages of a pensive cast, because they are more in accordance with the spirit of our poet. There are but few hymns of joy in the volume. In this he is the most perfect contrast to Cowper that we have. Cowper loves the beautiful of creation: Pollok, its sullen grandeur;-Cowper delights to dwell on mercy: Pollok, on vengeance ;-Cowper lingers over the green slopes of the heavenly paradise: Pollok, over the dreary and dismal plains of woe;-Cowper's voice is like the mellow tones of the lute: Pollok's, like the broken sounds of the muffled drum;-Cowper speaks of the clear blue sky, and singing of birds: Pollok, of the lowering thunderstorm, darkening the whole hemisphere into gloom;-Cowper reminds one of the tenderness of Jesus, and the sunlight radiance of eternal love: Pollok, of the stern mandates of Mount Sinai, and the awful claims of incensed justice; -Cowper is the silver chime of peace and

plenty: Pollok, the solemn knell of the dying

and the lost.

CHRISTOPHER SMART.

GENIUS, it would seem, from past and present experience, is subject to manifold changes: to-day prosperous, to-morrow in adversity, appears to be the portion of great intellectual power. While moral worth triumphs over every sullen circumstance, and bends it to its own advantage, intellectual is the sport and prey of every passing breath; it has not in itself the might to quell each storm, and to disperse each tempest-cloud; nor can it endure for any length of time the bright radiant sunshine of favour, without suffering for it in the loss of strength and power.

Moral greatness renders exalted the man, and gives him that whereby he is able to bend all things to his will; intellectual raises, but gives no such talisman. Moral greatness ennobles the creature, assimilates him to the Supreme, places him in a region where the sky is never clouded, and the heavens never dark; intellectual, makes the spirit like some majestic vessel upon a tossing, surging ocean, without ballast, and without pilot.

Great intellect requires greater moral principle, and this has rarely been found in our gigantic men; subject to more than ordinary temptations, they necessarily need more than ordinary piety. What wonder, then, that so many have been guilty of excesses which sully their glorious names?

Christopher Smart does not, in any degree, lessen the truth of these remarks; his history tends rather to confirm them: he was born at Shipbourne, in Kent, on the 11th of April, 1722; during his boyhood his father died, but, through the kind assistance of some influential friends, he was entered at Pembroke College, Cambridge: ah, how often do we pacing its venerable courts. In his twentythink of his perturbed and broken spirit when third year he obtained a fellowship, and soon afterwards became a candidate for the Seatonian prize, in which he was five times suc

cessful.

The poems thus produced would not have bestowed immortality on Smart: though there are a few striking lines, yet, upon the whole, they are anything but true poetry.

In 1753, he resigned his fellowship, and married Miss Carnan. From that time his former imprudence became more striking; but what can His is a strange story of poverty, unhappiness, we say when insanity was already in the brain? and disease. We desire not to enter into details; over sorrow we would ever draw the veil. He, indeed, seemed to have some saner moments, but are we quite sure that even in these there was no lurking delirium-no concealed madness?

Song to David. Part of it was indented, by a key, upon the walls of his prison, where he was confined for debt. It has some tame passages, but as a whole, it is a great and sublime hymn; some few of its stanzas are inimitable; it has no parallel in the language. A grandeur and a splendour characterize this magnificent production. Smart mostly wrote upon his

Smart's most remarkable production is his