Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung;
Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
How am I pleased to search the hills and woods,
For rising springs and celebrated floods;
To view the Nar tumultuous in his course,
And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source;
To see the Mincio draw his watery store,
Through the long windings of a fruitful shore ;
And hoary Albula's infected tide

O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide!
Fired with a thousand raptures, I survey
Eridanus through flowery meadows stray,
The king of floods! that, rolling o'er the plains,
The towering Alps of half their moisture drains,
And, proudly swoln with a whole winter's snows,
Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows.

Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng,
I look for streams immortalized in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,

(Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry), Yet run for ever by the Muses' skill,

And in the smooth description murmur still.

Thy mercy sweetened every toil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,
And smoothed the Tyrrhene3 seas.

Think, oh my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,

Thou saw'st the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rise.

1 A thanksgiving for preservation during his continental travels. 2 The Italian malaria.

3 Tuscan.

FROM THE CAMPAIGN.

Confusion dwelt in every face,

And fear in every heart;

When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs,
O'ercame the pilot's art.

Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free,

Whilst in the confidence of prayer,

My faith took hold on thee.

For, though in dreadful whirls we hung,
High on the broken wave,

I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.

The storm was laid, the winds retired
Obedient to thy will;

The sea, that roared at thy command,
At thy command was still.

In midst of dangers, fears, and death,
Thy goodness I'll adore,

And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.

My life, if thou preserv'st my life,

Thy sacrifice shall be ;

And death, if death must be my doom,
Shall join my soul to thee.

FROM THE CAMPAIGN.

Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound
The victor's shouts and dying groans confound,
The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies,

And all the thunder of the battle rise.

287

'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved,
That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved,

Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,
Examined all the dreadful scenes of war;
In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,
Inspired repulsèd squadrons to engage,
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.
So when an angel by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;

1 In November 1703 there was an almost unprecedented storm in England. "No other tempest was ever in this country the occasion of a parliamentary address or of a

And pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

It must be so-Plato,1 thou reason'st well,
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us,
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity!-thou pleasing-dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being—

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold :-If there's a Power above us

(And that there is all nature cries aloud

Through all her works), he must delight in virtue;

And that which he delights in must be happy:

But-when?-or where?-This world was made for Cæsar.

I'm weary of conjectures :-This must end them.

[Laying his hand on his sword.

Thus am I doubly armed; my death and life,

My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to an end,
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away, large mansions had been blown down, one prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace, London and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities just sacked, hundreds of families were still in mourning. The popularity which the simile of the angel enjoyed among Addison's contemporaries has always seemed to us to be a remarkable instance of the advantage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the general."-Macaulay.

1 The scene represents him as holding in his hand Plato's book on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn sword being on the table beside him.

FREE PHILOSOPHY.

289

ISAAC WATTS, D.D.

(1674-1748.)

THE name of this eminent theologian is familiar to our nursery associations. He was born at Southampton. His parents were Protestant Dissenters, who had suffered severely for their faith during the arbitrary times of Charles II. He devoted himself to the ecclesiastical profession, but his health was unequal to his professional duties, and, fortunately for literature and Christianity, he obtained, in the household of Sir Thomas Abney, a retreat in which for thirty-six years he devoted his whole energies to the Christian good of his fellow-men. The lyric poetry of Watts displays the easy elegance of a mind unbending itself from severer studies. His poems of " Heavenly Love" are the ecstatic expressions of his devotional feelings. Johnson finds fault with their sameness. "He is," the critic adds, "one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity; to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God."

FREE PHILOSOPHY.

CUSTOM, that tyranness of fools,
That leads the learned round the schools,
In magic charms of forms and rules,—
My genius storms her throne.

No more ye slaves with awe profound,
Beat the dull track and dance the round;
Loose hands and quit the enchanted ground,
Knowledge invites us each alone.

I hate these shackles of the mind,
Forged by the haughty wise:

Souls were not born to be confined,

And led, like Samson, blind and bound;
But when his native strength he found,
He well avenged his eyes.

Thoughts should be free as fire or wind.
The pinions of a single mind

Will through all nature fly.
But who can drag up to the poles
Long fettered ranks of leaden souls?
A genius, which no chain controls,
Roves with delight or deep or high:
Swift I survey the globe around,
Dive to the centre through the solid ground,
Or travel to the sky.

290

TRUE RICHES.

I am not concerned to know
What to-morrow fate will do ;
'Tis enough that I can say
I've possess'd myself to-day:
Then, if haply midnight death
Seize my flesh, and stop my breath,
Yet to-morrow I shall be

Heir of the best part of me.

*

*

*

Riches that the world bestows,
She can take and I can lose;
But the treasures that are mine
Lie afar beyond her line.

When I view my spacious soul,
And survey myself a whole,
And enjoy myself alone,
I've a kingdom of my own.
I've a mighty part within
That the world hath never seen,
Rich as Eden's happy ground,
And with choicer plenty crown'd.
Here on all the shining boughs
Knowledge fair and useless 1 grows;
On the same young flowery tree
All the seasons you may see;
Notions in the bloom of Light
Just disclosing to the sight;
Here are thoughts of larger growth
Ripening into solid truth;
Fruits refined of noble taste,-
Seraphs feed on such repast.
Here, in green and shady grove,
Streams of pleasure mix with love;
There, beneath the smiling skies,
Hills of contemplation rise;
Now upon some shining top
Angels light and call me up;
I rejoice to raise my feet;
Both rejoice when there we meet.

There are endless beauties more
Earth hath no resemblance for ;
Nothing like them round the pole ;
Nothing can describe the soul:
'Tis a region half unknown,
That has treasures of its own,

1 Apparently implying not to be used in this world.