Poetic fields encompass me around, O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide! Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng, (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, Think, oh my soul, devoutly think, Thou saw'st the wide extended deep 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, Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, Whilst in the confidence of prayer, My faith took hold on thee. For, though in dreadful whirls we hung, I knew thou wert not slow to hear, The storm was laid, the winds retired The sea, that roared at thy command, In midst of dangers, fears, and death, And praise thee for thy mercies past, My life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be ; And death, if death must be my doom, FROM THE CAMPAIGN. Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound And all the thunder of the battle rise. 287 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, 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, CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. It must be so-Plato,1 thou reason'st well, Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Eternity!-thou pleasing-dreadful thought! Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! (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. 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, No more ye slaves with awe profound, I hate these shackles of the mind, Souls were not born to be confined, And led, like Samson, blind and bound; Thoughts should be free as fire or wind. Will through all nature fly. 290 TRUE RICHES. I am not concerned to know Heir of the best part of me. * * * Riches that the world bestows, When I view my spacious soul, There are endless beauties more 1 Apparently implying not to be used in this world. |