"Tis Fancy's child, and folly is its father; Wrought of such stuff as dreams are. and baseless As the fantastic visions of the evening.

But, soft, my friend-arrest the present moments; For, be assured, they all are arrant tell-tales: And, though their flight be silent, and their path Trackless as the wingèd couriers of the air,

They post to heaven, and there record thy folly;-
Because, though stationed on the important watch,
Thou, like a sleeping, faithless sentinel,

Didst let them pass, unnoticed, unimproved.
And know, for that thou slumberedst on the guard,
Thou shalt be made to answer, at the bar,
For every fugitive; and when thou thus
Shalt stand impleaded, at the high tribunal
Of hood-winked Justice, who shall tell thy audit?
Then, stay the present instant, dear Horatio!
Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings;

'Tis of more worth than kingdoms! far more precious
Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain!-
O! let it not elude thy grasp; but, like

The good old patriarch upon record,

Hold the fleet angel fast, until he bless thee!

LV.-ODE TO ADVERSITY.-Gray.

DAUGHTER of Jove! relentless Power,
Thou tamer of the human breast;
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain;
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue his darling child-designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade thee form her infant mind.
Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,-

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,—
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom, in sable garb arrayed,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound;

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground;
Still on thy solemn steps attend:—
Warm Charity, the general friend;
With Justice, to herself severe;

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
Oh, gently, on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen)

With thundering voice and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty!

Thy form benign, oh Goddess, wear!
Thy milder influence impart!
Thy philosophic train be there,

To soften, not to wound my heart.

The generous spark, extinct, revive;
Teach me to love, and to forgive;

Exact my own defects to scan;

What others are, to feel; and know myself-a man!

LVI. THE PULPIT.-Cowper.

I VENERATE the man whose heart is warm,

Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Co-incident, exhibit lucid proof

That he is honest in the sacred cause.

To such I render more than mere respect,

Whose actions say that they respect themselves.
But, loose in morals, and in manners vain,

In conversation frivolous, in dress

Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse;
Frequent in park with lady at his side,
Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes!
But rare at home, and never at his books,
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;
Constant at routs, familiar with a round
Of ladyships a stranger to the poor;
Ambitious of preferment for its gold;
And well prepared, by ignorance and sloth.
By infidelity and love of world,

To make God's work a sinecure; a slave
To his own pleasures and his patron's pride:-
From such apostles, oh, ye mitred heads,
Preserve the church! and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.
Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul,
Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own,
Paul should himself direct me. I would trace
His master-strokes, and draw from his design.
I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impressed
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds
May feel it too; affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty man.
Behold the picture!-Is it like?-Like whom?
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,
And then, skip down again; pronounce a text;
Cry-hem; and reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!

In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
What!-will a man play tricks, will he indulge
A silly, fond conceit of his fair form,
And just proportion, fashionable mien,
And pretty face, in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,

As with the diamond on his lily hand;
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!
Therefore, avaunt all attitude, and stare,
And start theatric, practised at the glass!
I seek divine simplicity in him

Who handles things divine; and all besides,
Though learn'd with labour, and though much admired
By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,
To me is odious as the nasal twang
Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the pressed nostril spectacle bestrid.
Some, decent in demeanour while they preach,
That task performed, relapse into themselves;
And, having spoken wisely, at the close
Grow wanton, giving proof to every eye,
Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not!
Forth comes the pocket mirror. First, we stroke
An eye-brow; next, compose a straggling lock;
Then, with an air most gracefully performed,
Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,
And lay it at its ease,

With handkerchief in hand depending low:
The better hand, more busy, gives the nose
Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye
With opera-glass, to watch the moving scene,
And recognise the slow-retiring fair.
Now this is fulsome; and offends me more
Than in a churchman slovenly neglect

And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind
May be indifferent to her house of clay,
And slight the hovel as beneath her care;
But how a body so fantastic, trim,
And quaint, in its deportment and attire,
Can lodge a heavenly mind-demands a doubt.

LVII.-ODE IN IMITATION OF ALCEUS.-Sir W. Jones.

WHAT Constitutes a state?

Not high-raised battlement, or laboured mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;

Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays, and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride: —
No:-Men, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:
Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.
These constitute a state;

And sovereign Law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning Good, repressing Ill;
Smit by her sacred frown

The fiend, Dissension, like a vapour, sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling Crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.-
Such was this heaven-loved Isle,

Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore:
No more shall Freedom smile?

Shall we now languish, and be men no more?
Since all must life resign,

Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave
"Tis folly to decline,

And steal inglorious to the silent grave.

LVIII.-ON SACRED READING.*-Professor Bell.

THE sacred services in which the soul

Adores with awe the Power whence she sprung,
May well the culture of the tongue demand.

Alas! our solemn pulpits often show,

In the recital of the Book of Life,

From "The Tongue," a poem in two parts. By Alexander Bell, Professor of Elocution. London, 1846.