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The goatherd-he who snatched him from the flood,
The sorcerer, who nursed him up to blood;
Who still, his evil genius felly bent

On one bold purpose, went where'cr he went;
That purpose, long in his own bosom sealed,
Ripe for fulfilment now, he thus revealed.
Fall in the midst he rushed; alarmed, aghast,
Giants and captives trembled as he passed,
For scarcely seemed he of the sons of earth;
Unchronicled the hour that gave him birth;

Though shrunk his cheek, his temples deeply ploughed,
Keen was his vulture-eye, his strength unbowed;
Swarthy his features; venerably gray,

His beard dishevelled o'er his bosom lay:
Bald was his front; but, white as snow behind,
His ample locks were scattered to the wind;
Naked he stood, save round his loins a zone
Of shagged fur, and o'er his shoulders thrown
A serpent's skin, that crossed his breast, and round
His body thrice in g'.ttering volumes wound.

All gazed with horror :-deep unuttered thought In every muscle of his visage wrought; His eye as if his eye could see the air, Was fixed; up-writhing rose his horrent hair; His limbs grew dislocate, convulsed his frame; Deep from his chest mysterious noises came, Now purring, hissing, barking, then they swelled To hideous dissonance; he shrieked, he yelled, As if the legion-fiend his soul possessed, And a whole hell were worrying in his breast, Then down he dashed himself on earth, and rolled In agony, till powerless, stiff, and cold,

With face upturned to heaven, and arms outspread,
A ghastly spectacle he lay as dead;

The living too stood round, like forms of death,
And every pulse was hushed, and every breath.

Meanwhile the wind arose, the clouds were driven In watery masses through the waste of heaven, The groaning woods foretold a tempest nigh, And silent lightnings skirmished in the sky.

Ere long the wizard started from the ground,
Gildily reeled, and looked bewildered round,
Till on the king he fixed his hideous gaze;
Then wrapt with ecstacy and broad amaze.
He kneeled in adoration, humbly bowed
His face upon his hands, and cried aloud;
Yet so remote and strange his accents fell,
They seemed the voice of an invisible:

-"Hail! king and conqueror of the peopled earth, And more than king and conqueror! know thy birth; Thou art a ray of uncreated fire,

The Sun himself is thy celestial sire;

The Moon thy mother, who to me consigned,
Her babe in secrecy, to bless mankind.

These eyes have watched thee rising, year by year,
More great, more glorious in thine high career.
As the young eagle plies his growing wings
In bounded flights, and sails in wider rings,

Till to the fountain of meridian day,
Full plumed and perfected b soars away;
Thus have I marked thee, since thy course began,
Still upward tending to thy sire the sun:

Now milway meet him; form yon flaming height,
Chase the vain phantoms of cherubic light;
There build a tower; whose spiral top shall rise,
Circle o'er circle, lessening to the skies:

The stars, thy brethren, in their spheres shall stand
To hail thee welcome to thy native land;
The moon shall clasp thee in her glad embrace,

The sun behold his image in thy face,

And call thee, as his offspring and his heir,
His throne, his empire, and his orb to share."

Rising and turning his terrific head,

That chilled beholders, thus the enchanter said;
-"Prepare, prepare the piles of sacrifice,
The

power that rules on earth shall rule the skies: Hither, O chiefs! the captive patriarchs bring, And pour their blood an offering to your king;

He, like his sire the sun, in transient clouds,
Has veiled divinity from mortals shrouds,
Too pure to shine till these his foes are slain,
And conquered paradise hath crowned his reign.
Haste, heap the fallen cedars on the pyres,

And give the victims living to the fires;
Shall he, in whom they vainly trust, withstand
Your sovereign's wrath, or pluck them from his land!
We dare him;-if he saves his servants now,

To him let every knee in nature bow,

For HE is GOD”—at that most awful name,

A spasm of horror withered up his frame;

Even as he stood and looked,-he looks, he stands,
With heaven-defying front, and clenched hands,
And lips half-opened, eager from his breast
To blot the blasphemy, by force represt;
For not in feigned abstraction, as before,
He practised foul deceit by damned lore,

A frost was on his nerves, and in his veins
A fire consuming with infernal pains;
Conscious, though motionless his limbs were grown;
Alive to suffering, but alive in stone.

In silent expectation, sore amazed,

The king and chieftains on the sorcerer gazed;
Awhile no sound was heard, save through the woods,
The wind deep-thundering, and the dashing floods:
At length, with solemn step, amidst the scene,
Where that false prophet showed his frantic mien,
Where lurid flames from green-wood altars burned,
Enoch stood forth; on him all eyes were turned,
O'er his dim form and saintly visage fell
The light that glared upon that priest of hell.
Unutterably awful was his look;

Through every joint the giant-monarch shook;
Shook, like Belshazzer, in his festive hall,
When the hand wrote his judgment on the wall;"
Shook, like Eliphaz, with dissolving fright,f
In thoughts amidst the visions of the night,
When as the spirit passed before his face,
No limb, nor lineament his eye could trace;
A form of mystery, that chilled his blood,
Close at his couch in living terror stood,
And deathlike silence, till a voice more drear,
More dreadful than the silence, reached his ear:
Thus from surrounding darkness Enoch brake,
And thus the giant trembled while he spake.

CANTO TENTH.

The prophecy of Enoch concerning the sorcerer, the king, and the flood. His translation to heaven. The conclusion.

"THE Lord is jealous :-He, who reigns on high,
Upholds the earth, and spreads abroad the sky;
His voice the moon and stars by night obey,
He sends the sun his servant forth by day:
From him all beings came, on him depend,
To him return their author, sovereign, end,
Who shall destroy when he would save? or stand,
When he destroys, the stroke of his right hand ?
With none his name and power will he divide,
For HE is GOD, and there is none beside.

"The proud shall perish :-mark how wild his air
In impotence of malice and despair,
What phrensy fires the bold blasphemer's cheek!
He looks the courses which he can not speak.
A hand hath touched him that he once defied
Touched, and for ever crushed him in his pride;
Yet shall he live, despised as feared before;
The great deceiver shall deceive no more;
Children shall pluck the beard of him, whose arts
Palsied the boldest hands, the stoutest hearts;
His vaunted wisdom fools shall laugh to scorn,
When muttering spells, a spectacle forlorn,
A drivelling idiot, he shall fondly roam
From house to house, and never find a home."

The wizard heard his sentence; nor renained,
A moment longer; from his trance unchained,

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He plunged into the woods;-the prophet then Turned, and took up his parable again.

"The proud shall perish :-Monarch! know thy doom;
Thy bones shall lack the shelter of a tomb;
Not in the battle-field thine eyes shall close,
Slain upon thousands of thy slaughtered foes;
Not on the throne of empire, nor the bed
Of weary nature, thou shalt bow thine head:
Death lurks in ambush; death, without a name,
Shall pluck thee from thy pinnacle of fame;
At eve, rejoicing o'er thy finished toil,
Thy soul shall deem the universe her spoil;
The dawn shall see thy carcase cast away,
The wolves, at sunrise, slumber on their prey.
Cut from the living, whither dost thou go?
Hades is moved to meet thee from below:
The kings thy sword had slain, the anghty dead,
Start from their thrones at thy descending tread;
They ask in scorn,- Destroyer! is it thus ?
Art thou,-thou too,-become like one of us?
Torn from the feast of music, wine, and mirth,
The worms thy covering, and thy couch the earth:
How art thou fallen from thine ethereal height,
Son of the morning! sunk in endless night:
How art thou fallen, who saidst, in pride of soul,
I will ascend above the starry pole,
Thence rule the adoring nations with my nod,
And set my throne above the mount of God.
Spilt in the dust, thy blood pollutes the ground;
Sought by the eyes that feared thee, yet not found,
Thy chieftains pause, they turn thy relics o'er,
Then pass thee by,-for thou art known no more.
Hail to thine advent! potentate, in hell,
Unfeared, unflattered, undistinguished dwell;
On earth thy fierce ambition knew no rest,
A worm, a flame for ever in thy breast;
Here feel the rage of unconsuming fire,
Intense, eternal, impotent desire;

Here lie, the deathless worm's unwasting prey,
In chains of darkness till the judgment-day.'

"Thus while the dead thy fearful welcome sing,
Thy living slaves bewail their vanished king.
Then, though thy reign with infamy expire,
Fulfilled in death shall be thy vain desire;
The traitors, reeking with thy blood, shall swear,
They saw their sovereign ravished through the air,
And point thy star revolving o'er the night,
A baleful comet with portentous light,
'Midst clouds and storms, denouncing from afar
Famine and havoc, pestilence and war.
Temples, not tombs, thy monuments shall be,
And altars blaze on hills and groves to thee;
A pyramid shall consecrate thy crimes,
Thy name and honors to succeeding times;
There shall thine image hold the highest place
Among the gods of man's revolted race!

"That race shall perish :-men and giants, all
Thy kindred and thy worshippers shall fall.
The babe, whose life with yesterday began,
May spring to youth, and ripen into man,
But ere his locks are tinged with fading gray,
This world of sinners shall be swept away.
Jehovah lifts his standard to the skies,
Swift at the signal winds and vapors rise;
The sun in sackcloth veils his face at noon,-
The stars are quenched, and turned to blood the moon,
Heaven's fountains open, clouds dissolving roll
In mingled cataracts from pole to pole.
Earth's central sluices burst, the hills upturn,
In rapid whirlpools down the gulf are borne;
The voice, that taught the deep his bounds to know,
Thus far, O sea! nor farther shalt thou go,’—
Sends forth the floods, commissioned to devour,
With boundless license and resistless power;
They own no impulse but the tempest's sway,
Nor find a limit but the light of day.

"The vision opens :-sunk beneath the wave, The guilty share a universal grave;

One wilderness of waters rolls in view,
And heaven and ocean wear one turbid hue;
Still strear unbroken torrents from the skies,
Higher beneath the inundations rise;

A lurid twilight glares athwart the scene,
Now thunders peal, faint lightnings flash between.
-Methinks I see a distant vessel ride,

A lonely object on the shoreless tide;
Within whose ark the innocent have found
Safety, while stayed destruction ravens round;
Thus, in the hour of vengeance, God who knows
His servants, spares them, while he smites his foca

"Eastward I turn ;-o'er all the deluged lands, Unshaken yet, a mighty mountain stands, Where Seth, of old, his flock to pasture led, Ard watched the stars at midnight. from its head; AL island now, its dark majestic form Scowls through the thickest ravage of the storm; While on its top, the monument of fame, Built by thy murderers to adorn thy name, Defies the shock;-a thousand cubits high, The sloping pyramid ascends the sky. Thither, their latest refuge in distress, Like hunted wolves, the rallying giants press; Round the broad base of that stupendous tower. The shuddering fugitives collect their power, Cling to the dizzy cliff, o'er ocean bend, And howl with terror as the deeps ascend. The mountain's strong foundations still endure, The heights repel the surge.-Awhile secure And cheered with frantic hope, thy votaries climb The fabric, rising step by step sublime. Beyond the clouds they see the summit glow In heaven's pure daylight o'er the gloom below; There too thy worshipped image shines like fire, In the full glory of thy fabled sire. They hail the omen, and with heart and voice, Call on thy name, and in thy smile rejoice; False omen! on thy name in vain they call; Fools in their joy ;-a moment and they fall. Rent by an earthquake of the buried plain, And shaken by the whole disrupted main, The mountain trembles on its failing base, It slides, it stoops, it rushes from its place: From all the giants burst one drowning cry; Hark! 'tis thy name-they curse it as they die; Sheer to the lowest gulf the pile is hurled, The last sad wreck of a devoted world.

"So fall transgressors :-Tyrant! now fulfil Thy secret purposes, thine utmost will; Here crown thy triumphs :-life or death decree, The weakest here disdains thy power and thee."

Thus when the patriarch ceased, and every ear
Still listened in suspense of hope and fear,
Sublime, ineffable, angelic grace

Beamed in his meek and venerable face;
And sudden glory, streaming round his head,
O'er all his robes with lambent lustre spread;
His earthly features grew divinely bright,
His essence seemed transforming into light.
Brief silence, like the pause between the flash,
At midnight, and the following thunder-crash,
Ensued:-Anon, with universal cry,

The giants rushed upon the prophet-" Die!"
The king leapt foremost from his throne ;-he drew
His battle-sword, as on his mark he flew;
With aim unerring, and tempestuous sound,
The blade descended deep along the ground;

The foe was fied, and, self 'erwhelmed, h strength
Hurled to the earth his Atlantean length;
But ere his chiefs could stretch the helping arm,
He sprang upon his feet in pale alarm;
Headlong and blind with rage he searched around,
But Enoch walked with God and was not ford.

Yet where the captives stood, in holy awe, Rapt on the wings of cherubim, they saw Their sainted sire ascending through the night; He turned his face to bless them in his flight,

Then vanished :-Javan caught the prophet's eye,
And snatched his mantle falling from the sky;
O'er him the spirit of the prophet came,
Like rushing wind awakening hidden flame:
"Where is the God of Enoch now ?" he cried;"
"Captives, come forth! despisers, shrink aside."
He spake, and bursting through the giant-throng,
Smote with the mantle as he moved along;
A power invisible their rage controlled
Hither and thither as he turned they rolled;
Unawed, unharmed the ransomed prisoners passed
Through ranks of foes astonished and aghast :
Close in the youth's conducting steps they trod;
-So Israel marched when Moses raised his rod,
And led their host, enfranchised, through the wave,
The people's safeguard, the pursuers' grave.

Thus from the wolves this little flock was torn,
And sheltering in the mountain-caves till morn,
They joined to sing, in strains of full delight,
Songs of deliverance through the dreary night.

The giants' phrensy, when they lost their prey, No tongue of man or angel might portray; First on their idol gods their vengeance turned, Those gods on their own altar-piles they burned; Then, at their sovereign's mandate, sallied forth To rouse their host to combat, from the north; Eager to risk their uttermost emprise, Perish ere morn, or reign in paradise. Now the slow tempest, that so long had lowered, Keen in their faces sleet and hailstones showered, The winds blew loud, the waters roared around, An earthquake rocked the agonizing ground; Red in the west the burning mount, arrayed With tenfold terror by incumbent shade, (For moon and stars were rapt in dunnest gloom,) Glared like a torch amidst creation's tomb: So Sinai's rocks were kindled when they felt Their Maker's footstep, and began to melt; Darkness was his pavilion, whence he came, High in the brightness of descending flame, While storm, and whirlwind, and the trumpet's blast, Proclaimed his law in thunder, as he passed.

1

The giants reached their camp :-the night's alarms
Meanwhile had startled all their slaves to arms;
They grasped their weapons as from sleep they sprang,
From tent to tent the brazen clangor rang;
The hail, the earthquake, the mysterious light
Unnerved their strength, o'erwhelmed them with affright.
"Warriors! to battle;-summon all your powers;
Warriors! to conquest;-paradise is ours;"
Exclaimed their monarch!-not an arm was raised,
In vacancy of thought, like men amazed,
And lost amidst confounding dreams, they stock,
With palsied eyes, and horror-frozen blood.
The giants' rage to instant madness grew;
The king and chiefs on their own legions flew,
Denouncing vengeance;-then had all the plain
Been heaped with myriads by their leaders slain,
But ere a sword could fall,-by whirlwinds driven,
In mighty volumes, through the vault of heaven,
From Eden's summit, o'er the camp accurst,
The darting fires with noon-day splendor burst;
And fearful grew the scene above, below,
With sights of mystery, and sounds of wo.
The embattled cherubim appeared on high,

And coursers, winged with lightning, swept the sky;
Chariots, whose wheels with living instinct rolled,
Spirits of unimaginable mould,

Powers, such as dwell in heaven's serenest light,
Too pure, too terrible for mortal sight,
From depth of midnight suddenly revealed,
In arms, against the giants took the field.

On such a host Elisha's servant gazed,

When all the mountain round the prophet blazed; †
With such a host, when war in heaven was wrought,
Michael against the prince of darkness fought.

"And he (Elisha) took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him And smote the waters (of Jordan) and said.-Where is the Lord God of Elijah ?-and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hitner and thither; and Elisha went over."-2 Kings ii. 14. + 1 kings iv. 17

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Roused by the trumpet, that shall wake the dead, The torpid foe in consternation fled: The giants headlong in the uproar ran, The king himself the foremost of the van, Nor e'er his rushing squadron led to fight With swifter onset than he led that flight. Homeward the panic-stricken legions flew ;

Their arms, their vestments, from their limbs they threw,
O'er shields and helms the reinless camel strode,
And gold and purple strewed the desert road.
When through the Assyrian army, like a blast,
At midnight the destroying angel passed,
The tyrant that defied the living God,
Precipitately thus his steps retrod;
Even by the way he came, to his own land,
Returned to perish by his offspring's hand.
So fled the giant-monarch;-but unknown
The hand that smote his life;-he died alone,
Amidst the tumult treacherously slain;

At morn his chieftains sought their lord in vain,
Then, reckless of the harvest of their toils,
Their camp, their captives, all their treasured spoils,
Renewed their flight o'er eastern hills afar,
With life alone escaping from that war,

In which their king had hailed his realm complete,
The world's fast province bowed beneath his feet.

As when the waters of the flood declined,
Rolling tumultuously before the wind,
The proud waves shrunk from low to lower beds,
And high the hills and higher raised their heads,
Till ocean lay, enchased with rock and strand,
As in the hollow of the Almighty's hand,
While earth with wrecks magnificent was strewed,
And stillness reigned o'er nature's solitude.
-Thus in a storm of horror and dismay,
All night the giant army sped away;
Thus on a lonely, sad, and silent scene,
The morning rose in majesty serene.

Early, and joyful, o'er the dewy grass,
Straight to their glen the ransomed patriarchs pass;
As doves released their parent-dwelling find,
They fly for life, nor cast a look behind;
And when they reached the dear sequestered spot,
Enoch alone of all their train "was not."
With them the bard, who from the world withdrew,
Javan, from folly and ambition flew;
Though poor his lot, within that narrow bound,
Friendship and home, and faithful love he found;
There did his wanderings and afflictions cease,
His youth was penitence, his age was peace.

Meanwhile the scattered tribes of Eden's plain
Turned to their desolated fields again,

And joined their brethren, captives once in fight,

But left to freedom in that dreadful flight:

Thenceforth redeemed from war's unnumbered woes,

Rich with the spoils of their retreated foes,

By giant tyranny no more opprest,

The people flourished, and the land had rest.

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MR. JAMES MONTGOMERY is by birth a Scotchman, and ras born on the 4th of November, 1771, at Irvine, a small seaport town in Ayrshire, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a Mo ravian minister, by whom he was removed to Gracehill, in the county of Antrim, Ireland, in the year 1776; and afterward placed at the early age of six years in the seminary of the united Moravian brethren, at Fulneck, near Leeds, in York. shire. It may be almost said, that at this early period of Mr. Montgomery's life he was for ever separated from his parents. since, previous to their departure as missionaries for the West Indies, where his mother died in 1789, and his father in 1790, he resided with them but for three months in the year 1784.

How happy the parents of Mr. Montgomery had been in placing their son, circumstanced as they were, under the guidance and tuition of the pious and learned Moravian brethren, can now be easily perceived from the result it has produced. Fer, notwithstanding that every reader of Mr. Montgomery's

works may trace in them the effects of a mind naturally Virtuous and religious, we can not withhold fron believing that he is in a great measure indebted to the education he has received for his well-earned fame as a moral poet. He began to write sacred poetry when he was no older than ten years, and report even goes so far as to say, that he had composed at this tender age, two volumes of such poetry. On finishing his studies in the seminary of the Moravian brethren, which occupied ten years, he was placed by his friends as an apprentice with a very worthy man of his own persuasion, who kept a retail shop at Mirfield, near Wakefield. This was a calling in no manner calculated to suit the genius of Montgomery; and not being under the articles of apprenticeship, he left his master at the end of a year and a half, with only three shillings and sixpence in his pocket, but big with the expectation of reaching London, which now his youthful imagiration portrayed as the patron city of learning and talent. His humble means, however, did not allow him to proceed as far as he expected, and he found himself constrained on the fifth day, to enter into an employment at Wath, near Rotherham, which was not dissimilar to that he had left behind him at Mirfield. Previous to his departure from this latter place, he had left a letter with his employer, in which, besides testifying his uneasiness of mind, he promised to be heard from again in a few days. He now fulfilled his promise, and requested at the same time a character to recommend him to the trust of his new master. His upright conduct and virtuous habits not only gained him this from his late employer and the rest of the Moravian brethren, but also the promise of an establishment more congenial to his wishes, if he would return. This, however, he declined, candidly confessing the cause of his melancholy, but concealing the ambitious motives which prompted him to withdraw from their benevolent protection. It was his present master, with whom he remained only twelve months, that many years afterward, in the most calamitous period of Montgomery's life, sought him out amidst his misfortunes, not for the purpose of offering consolation only, but to serve him substantially by every means in his power. The interview which took place between the old man and his former servant, the evening previous to his trial at Doncaster, will ever live in the memory of him who can forget an injury but not a kindness. No father could have evinced a greater affection for a darling son; the tears he shed were honorable to his feelings, and were the best testimony to the conduct and integrity of James Montgomery.

On leaving Wath, he found means to introduce himself to Mr. Harrison, a bookseller, in London, in consequence of naving sent him, previous to his departure, a volume of manuscript poems. This gentleman gave Mr. Montgomery employment in his shop, but not undertaking the publication of his poems, he recommended the poet to the study of prose, as likely to be more profitable than poetry. Mr. Montgomery began now to perceive that London was not so much the land of promotion as he fancied it to be; and having had at the end of eight months a misunderstanding with Mr. Harrison, which was accompanied with the misfortune of not being able to dispose of an eastern tale in prose, he returned to his former employment in Yorkshire.

He removed in 1792 to Sheffield, and engaged himself with Mr. Gales, the publisher of a very popular newspaper, at that time known by the title of the Sheffield Register. Mr. Montgomery became a useful correspondent to this paper, and gained so far the good opinion and affection of Mr. Gales and his family, that they vied with each other in demonstrating their respect and regard for him. In 1794, when Mr. Gales left England to avoid a political prosecution, Montgomery, with the assistance of a literary gentleman, with whom he had not been even personally acquainted, became the publisher of the Register, which title he changed for that of the Iris. He was not, however, long in his new profession before he fell twice into the hands of Justice, and underwent each time the penalty of fine and imprisonment. His first crime was to have printed a song, composed by an Irish clergyman, at the entreaty of a man whom he had never seen before. He was tried for this at the Quarter Sessions of 1795, and found guilty of publishing; but this verdict being tantamount to an acquittal, it was refused by the court, and the jury were sent to reconsider for another hour, when they gave in a general verdict of guilty. The sentence, which was a fine of twenty pounds and three months imprisonment in York Castle. Our readers nay think that we are forgetting ourselves in this part of Mr. Montgomery's biography, and are leading them back to some remote and barbarous age; but such a trial did take place at no earlier a period than thirty or forty years ago. During his confinement, an active friend superintended his business, and on resuming his editorial duties he commenced a series of essays, entitled the Whisperer, which, notwithstanding that they were written in haste for his paper, contained a very considerable share of genuine humor.

Though he was very anxious not to leave it in the power of the law to find him guilty of an offence a second time. it was not however long after undergoing his first penalty, that he

had to experience the severity of another. He gave in bis paper, as he thought, in a correct manner, the particulars of a riot that took place in the streets of Sheffield, and in which two men were shot by the military. His statement of the cir cumstances, however, gave offence to a magistrate in the neighborhood, who preferred a bill of indictment against Mr Montgomery; and notwithstanding that the latter had a great many witnesses who verified his account of the transaction à the Iris, he was found guilty at Doncaster Sessions, in Janoary, 1796, and sentenced to pay a fine of thirty pounds, and suffer another imprisonment in York Castle, for the space of six months.

He found his constitution greatly impaired in consequence of these two imprisonments, and immediately after his last liberation, he repaired to Scarborough for the benefit of his health. It may be said that this was the first time for him to behold the sea as a poet, and the delight which the sight of it afforded his mind was not greater than the health restored to his body. His visite thither were consequently repeated, and it was one of these which gave birth to his poem on the Ocean, written in the summer of 1805. la 1797, he published lis Prison "Amusements," and in 1806, produced the volume containing the "Wanderer of Switzerland." His time was now chiefly occupied in editing his paper, and no work of considerable magnitude appeared from his pen until the year 1809, when his West Indies was published in quarto, with superb embellishments. Three years after the appearance of this last-mentioned poem, he produced "The World before the Flood," which is to stamp his fame for ever as a superior poet.

It has been frequently, and perhaps justly, observed, that the delight which beautiful poetry affords, is obtained to often to the prejudice of moral feelings and precepts, which are better calculated to ennoble the human mind. But had we not Milton, Fenelon, Klopstock, and even the divine writers themselves, to show the fallacy of this bold accusation, brought against the most powerful language and effort d man, the poems of Montgomery alone would form a compilation of proofs so able and so manifest in themselves, as tele fully sufficient for composing a refutation at once unanswer ble and undoubted. Every line of his poetry invites to a love of virtue and all that is amiable in our nature; while it filis the soul at the same time with the sweet luxury of pure, yet delightful enjoyment, and creates within us an admiration and esteem for that art under which so many great and happy powers have been put forth.

The "World before the Flood," is by far Mr. Montgomery's best poem. It is divided into ten cantos, written in the he roic couplet, and has for the foundation of its story, the inve sion of Eden by the descendants of Cain. The author's introductory note says:

No place having been found, in Asia, to correspond exactly with the Mosaic description of the site of Paradise, the Auther of the following Poem has disregarded both the learned and the absurd hypotheses on the subject, and at once imagining an inaccessible tract of land, at the confluence of four rivers, which after their junction take the name of the largest, and become the Euphrates of the ancient world, he has placed "the happy garden" there. Milton's noble fiction of the Mount of Paradise being removed by the deluge, and pushed

"Down the great river to the opening gulf,"

and there converted into a barren isle, implies such a change in the water-courses as will, poetically at least, account for the difference between the scene of this story and the preser-t face of the country, at the point where the Tigris and the E phrates meet. On the eastern side of these waters, the Author supposes the descendants of the younger children of Adam to dwell, possessing the land of Eden: the rest of the world having been gradually colonized by emigrants from these, r peopled by the posterity of Cain. In process of time, aft the sons of God had formed connexions with the daughters of men, and there were giants in the earth, the latter assumed to be lords and rulers over mankind, till among themselves arose one, excelling all his brethren in knowledge and power, who became their king, and by their aid, in the course of a long life, subdued all the inhabited earth, except the land of Eden. This land, at the head of a mighty army, principally composed of the descendants of Cain, he has invaded and conquered, even to the banks of Euphrates, at the opening of the action of the poem. It is only necessary to add, that for the sake of distinction, the invaders are frequently denominated from Cain, as "the host of Cain," the force of Cain," "the camp of Cain," and the remnant of the defenders of Eden are, in like manner, denominated from Eden.-The Jews have an ancient tradition, that some of the giants, at the deluge, fled to the top of a high mountain, and escaped the ruin that involved the rest of their kindred. In the tenth Canto of the preceding poem a hint is borrowed from this tra dition, but is made to yield to the superior authority of Scrip ture testimony.

AN EXCELLENT POEM

UPON THF

LONGING OF A BLESSED HEART,

WHICH,

LOATHING THE WORLD,

DOTH

LONG TO BE WITH CHRIST.

BY NICHOLAS BRETON, GENTLEMAN.

Printed at London, A. D. 1601.

WHAT life hath he that never thinks of love?
And what such love but hath a special liking?
And what such liking but will seek to prove
The best to find the comfort of his seeking?

But while fond thoughts in Folly's pack are peeking,
Better conceited wits may easily find,

The truest wealth that may enrich the mind.
But since the difference 'twixt the good and bad
Is easily seen in notes of their delights;
And that those notes are needful to be had,
To see whose eyes are of the clearest sights;
Whose are the days, and whose may be the nights;
From the poor crutch unto the princely crown,
I will the difference, as I find, set down.
The worldly prince longs to increase his state,
To conquer kingdoms, and to wear their crowns,
A foreign power by forces to abate,

To make but footstools of their fairest towns;
And hates the spirits of those home-made clowns,
That will not venture life for victory:

But yet forgets that God should have the glory.

The worldly counsellor doth beat his brains,
How to advise his sovereign for the best,
And in his place doth take continual pains
To keep his prince in such a pleasing rest,
That he may still be leaning on his breast,
Thinking his hap unto a heaven so wrought;
But yet perhaps God is not in his thought.
The soldier he delighteth all in arms,
To see his colors in the field displayed;
And longs to see the issue of those harms,
That may reveal an enemy dismayed,
A fort defeated, or a town betrayed;
And still to be in action day and night,
But little thinks on God in all the fight.

The worldly scholar loves a world of books,
And spends his life in many an idle line:
Meanwhile his heart to heaven but little looks,
Nor loves to think upon a thought divine;
These thoughts of ours, alas! so low incline:
We seek to know what Nature can affect;
But unto God have small or no respect.
The poet with his fictions and his fancies,
Pleaseth himself with humorous inventions;
Which well considered are a kind of phrensies,
That carry little truth in their intentions:
While Wit and Reason falling at contentions,
Make Wisdom find that Folly's strong illusion
Brings Wit and Senses wholly to confusion.

The worldly lawyer studieth right and wrong;
But how he judgeth, there the question lies:
For, if you look for what his love doth long,
It is the profit of his plea doth rise:
There is the worldly lawyer's paradise!

He neither longs the right or wrong to see,
But to be fing'ring of the golden fee.

The cosmographer doth the world survey,
The hills and dales, the nooks and little crooks.
The woods, the plains, the high, and the by-way,
The seas, the rivers, and the little brooks:
All these he finds within his compast books;

And with his needle makes his measure even;
But all this while he doth not think of heaven
Th' astronomer stands staring on the sky,
And will not have a thought beneath a star;
But by his speculation doth espy

A world of wonder, coming from afar;
And tells of times and natures, peace and war:
Of Mars his sword, and Mercury his rod;
But all this while he little thinks on God.

The worldly merchant ventureth far and near;
And shuns nor land nor sea to make a gain;
Thinks neither travel, care, nor cost too dear,
If that his profit countervail his pain,
While so his mind is on the getting vein,
That if his ship do safely come on shore,
Gold is his god, and he desires no more.

The worldly courtier learns to crouch and creep,
Speak fair, wait close, observe his time and place,
And wake and watch, and scarcely catch a sleep,
Till he have got into some favor's grace,
And will all cunning in his course embrace,
That may unto authority advance :
But if he think on God, it is a chance.

The worldly farmer fills his barns with corn,

And ploughs, and sows, and digs, and delves, and hedges
Looks to his cattle, ill not lose a horn,
Fells down his woods, nd falls unto his wedges,
And grinds his axes, and doth mend their edges,

And dearly sells that he good cheap hath bought;
But all this while, God is not in his thought.
The sailor, he doth by his compass stand,
And ghs his anchor, and doth hoist his sails,
And longs for nothing but to get on land,
While many a storm his starting spirit quails,
And fear of pirates his poor heart assails:
But once on shore, carouse and casts off fear,
Yet scarcely thinks on God that set him there.

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