Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears,
Shrunk to a thing of nought! Oh, how he longs
To have his passport signed, and be dismissed!
'Tis done and now he's happy! The glad soul
Has not a wish uncrowned. E'en the lag flesh
Rests, too, in hope of meeting once again
Its better half, never to sunder more.
Nor shall it hope in vain: the time draws on
When not a single spot of burial earth,
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long-committed dust
Inviolate; and faithfully shall these
Make up the full account; not the least atom
Embezzled or mislaid of the whole tale.
Each soul shall have a body ready furnished;
And each shall have his own. Hence, ye profane!
Ask not how this can be? Sure the same power
That reared the piece at first, and took it down,
Can re-assemble the loose scattered parts,
And put them as they were. Almighty God
Hath done much more: nor is his arm impaired
Through length of days; and what he can, he will;
His faithfulness stands bound to see it done.
When the dread trumpet sounds, the slumbering dust,
Not unattentive to the call, shall wake;
And every joint possess its proper place,
With a new elegance of form, unknown
To its first state. Nor shall the conscious soul
Mistake its partner, but amidst the crowd,
Singling its other half, into its arms
Shall rush, with all the impatience of a man
That's new come home, and, having long been absent,
With haste runs over every different room,
In pain to see the whole. Thrice-happy meeting!
Nor time, nor death, shall ever part them more.
Tis but a night, a long and moonless night;
We make the grave our bed, and then are gone!
Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird
Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake
Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day,
Then claps his well-fledged wings, and bears away.
ISAAC WATTS-a name never to be pronounced without reverence by any lover of pure Christianity,
vided for placing him at the university, but he early inclined to the Dissenters, and he was educated at one of their establishments, taught by the Rev. Thomas Rowe. He was afterwards four years in the family of Sir John Hartopp, at Stoke Newington. Here he was chosen (1698) assistant minister by an Independent congregation, of which four years after he succeeded to the full charge; but bad health soon rendered him unfit for the performance of the heavy labours thus imposed upon him, and in his turn he required the assistance of a joint pastor. His health continuing to decline, Watts was received
in 1712 into the house of a benevolent gentleman of | There is no circumstance in English literary biograhis neighbourhood, Sir Thomas Abney of Abney phy parallel to the residence of this sacred bard in Park, where he spent all the remainder of his life. the house of a friend for the long period of thirty
six years. Abney House was a handsome mansion, surrounded by beautiful pleasure-grounds. He had apartments assigned to him, of which he enjoyed the use as freely as if he had been the master of the house. Dr Gibbons says, Here, without any care of his own, he had everything which could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the pursuit of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family which, for piety, order, harmony, and every virtue, was a house of God. Here he had the privilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn, the flowery garden, and other advantages to soothe his mind and aid his restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return to them with redoubled vigour and delight.' The death of Sir Thomas Abney, eight years after he went to reside with him, made no change in these agreeable arrangements, as the same benevolent patronage was extended to him by the widow, who outlived him a year. While in this retirement, he preached occasionally, but gave the most of his time to study, and to the composition of those works which have given him a name in the annals of literature. His treatises on Logic and on the Improvement of the Mind are still highly prized for their cogency of argument and felicity of illustration. Watts also wrote several theological works and volumes of sermons. His poetry consists almost wholly of devotional hymns, which, by their simplicity, their unaffected ardour, and their imagery, powerfully arrest the attention of children, and are never forgotten in mature life. In infancy we learn the hymns of Watts, as part of maternal instruction, and in youth his moral and logical treatises impart the germs of correct reasoning and virtuous selfgovernment. The life of this good and useful man terminated on the 25th of November 1748, having been prolonged to the advanced age of seventy-five.
How fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower, The glory of April and May!
But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day.
Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast, Above all the flowers of the field;
Behold the God! the Almighty King
Rides on a tempest's glorious wing:
His ensigns lighten round the sky,
And moving legions sound on high.
Ten thousand cherubs wait his course,
Chariots of fire and flaming horse:
Earth trembles; and her mountains flow,
At his approach, like melting snow.
But who those frowns of wrath can draw,
That strike heaven, earth, and hell, with awe?
Red lightning from his eyelids broke;
His voice was thunder, hail, and smoke.
He spake; the cleaving waters fled,
And stars beheld the ocean's bed:
While the great Master strikes his lyre,
You see the frighted floods retire:
In heaps the frighted billows stand,
Waiting the changes of his hand :
He leads his Israel through the sea,
And watery mountains guard their way.
Turning his hand with sovereign sweep,
He drowns all Egypt in the deep:
Then guides the tribes, a glorious band,
Through deserts to the promised land.
Here camps, with wide-embattled force,
Here gates and bulwarks stop their course;
He storms the mounds, the bulwark falls,
The harp lies strewed with ruined walls.
See his broad sword flies o'er the strings,
And mows down nations with their kings:
From every chord his bolts are hurled,
And vengeance smites the rebel world.
Lo! the great poet shifts the scene,
And shows the face of God serene.
Truth, meekness, peace, salvation, ride,
With guards of justice at his side.
How fine has the day been, how bright was the sun,
How lovely and joyful the course that he run,
Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun,
And there followed some droppings of rain!
But now the fair traveller's come to the west,
When its leaves are all dead, and its fine colours lost, His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best;
Still how sweet a perfume it will yield!
So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, Though they bloom and look gay like the rose; But all our fond care to preserve them is vain, Time kills them as fast as he goes.
Then I'll not be proud of my youth nor my beauty,
Since both of them wither and fade;
But gain a good name by well-doing my duty;
This will scent like a rose when I'm dead.
He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest,
And foretells a bright rising again.
Just such is the Christian; his course he begins,
Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins,
And melts into tears; then he breaks out and shines,
And travels his heavenly way:
But when he comes nearer to finish his race,
Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace,
And gives a sure hope at the end of his days,
Of rising in brighter array.
EDWARD YOUNG, author of the Night Thoughts, was born in 1681 at Upham, in Hampshire, where his father (afterwards dean of Salisbury) was rector. He was educated at Winchester school, and subsequently at All Souls' college, Oxford. In 1712 he commenced public life as a courtier and poet, and he continued both characters till he was past eighty. One of his patrons was the notorious Duke of Wharton, the scorn and wonder of his days,' whom Young accompanied to Ireland in 1717. He was next tutor to Lord Burleigh, and was induced to give up this situation by Wharton, who promised to provide for him in a more suitable and ample
manner. The duke also prevailed on Young, as a scribes, must be true; but they did not permanently political supporter, to come forward as a candidate influence his conduct. He was not weaned from the for the representation of the borough of Cirencester world till age had incapacitated him for its purin parliament, and he gave him a bond for £600 to suits; and the epigrammatic point and wit of his defray the expenses. Young was defeated, Whar-Night Thoughts,' with the gloomy views it pre
sents of life and religion, show the poetical artist fully as much as the humble and penitent Christian. His works are numerous; but the best are the 'Night Thoughts,' the Universal Passion,' and the tragedy of Revenge. The foundation of his great poem was family misfortune, coloured and exaggerated for poetical effect
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
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Thy shafts flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain; And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn. This rapid succession of bereavements was a poetical license; for in one of the cases there was an interval of four years, and in another of seven months. The profligate character of Lorenzo has been supposed to indicate Young's own son. It seems to us a mere fancy sketch. Like the character of Childe Harold, in the hands of Byron, it afforded the poet scope for dark and powerful painting, and was made the vehicle for bursts of indignant virtue, sorrow, regret, and admonition. This artificial character pervades the whole poem, and is essentially a part of its structure. But it still leaves to our admiration many noble and sublime passages, where the poet speaks as from inspiration-with the voice of one crying in the wilderness-of life, death, and immortality. The truths of religion are enforced with a commanding energy and persuasion. Epigram and repartee are then forgotten by the ton died, and the court of chancery decided against poet; fancy yields to feeling; and where imagery is the validity of the bond. The poet, being now quali-employed, it is select, nervous, and suitable. In fied by experience, published a satire on the Uni- this sustained and impressive style Young seldom versal Passion-the Love of Fame, which is at once remains long at a time; his desire to say witty and keen and powerful, and the nearest approach we smart things, to load his picture with supernumehave to the polished satire of Pope. When upwards rary horrors, and conduct his personages to their of fifty, Young entered the church, wrote a pane-sulphureous or ambrosial seats,' soon converts the gyric on the king, and was made one of his majesty's chaplains. Swift has said that the poet was compelled to
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension. But it does not appear that there was any other reward than the appointment as chaplain. In 1730, Young obtained from his college the living of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire, where he was destined to close his days. He was eager to obtain further preferment, but having in his poetry professed a strong love of retirement, the ministry seized upon this as a pretext for keeping him out of a bishopric. The poet made a noble alliance with the daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, widow of Colonel Lee, which lasted ten years, and proved a happier union than the titled marriages of Dryden and Addison. The lady had two children by her first marriage, to whom Young was warmly attached. Both died; and when the mother also followed, Young composed his Night Thoughts.' Sixty years had strengthened and enriched his genius, and augmented even the brilliancy of his fancy. In 1761 the poet was made clerk of the closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales, and died four years afterwards, in April 1765, at the advanced age of eighty-four.
A life of so much action and worldly anxiety has rarely been united to so much literary industry and genius. In his youth, Young was gay and dissipated, and all his life he was an indefatigable courtier. In his poetry he is a severe moralist and ascetic divine. That he felt the emotions he de
great poet into the painter and epigrammatist. The
ingenuity of his second style is in some respects as
wonderful as the first, but it is of a vastly inferior
order of poetry. Mr Southey thinks, that when
Johnson said (in his Life of Milton') that the
good and evil of eternity were too ponderous for the
wings of wit,' he forgot Young. The moral critic
could not, however, but have condemned even witty
thoughts and sparkling metaphors, which are so in-
congruous and misplaced. The Night Thoughts,'
like Hudibras,' is too pointed, and too full of com-
pressed reflection and illustration, to be read con-
tinuously with pleasure. Nothing can atone for the
want of simplicity and connection in a long poem.
In Young there is no plot or progressive interest.
Each of the nine books is independent of the other.
The general reader, therefore, seeks out favourite
passages for perusal, or contents himself with a
single excursion into his wide and variegated field.
But the more carefully it is studied, the more ex-
traordinary and magnificent will the entire poem
appear. The fertility of his fancy, the pregnancy
of his wit and knowledge, the striking and felicitous
combinations everywhere presented, are indeed re-
markable. Sound sense is united to poetical ima-
gery; maxims of the highest practical value, and
passages of great force, tenderness, and everlasting
truth, are constantly rising, like sunshine, over the
quaint and gloomy recesses of the poet's imagina-
tion-
The glorious fragments of a fire immortal,
With rubbish mixed, and glittering in the dust.
After all his bustling toils and ambition, how finely
7
does Young advert to the quiet retirement of his And fondly dream each wind and star our friend; country life
Blest be that hand divine, which gently laid
My heart at rest beneath this humble shade!
The world's a stately bark, on dangerous seas,
With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril;
Here, on a single plank, thrown safe ashore,
I hear the tumult of the distant throng,
As that of seas remote, or dying storms;
And meditate on scenes more silent still;
Pursue my theme, and fight the fear of death.
Here like a shepherd, gazing from his hut,
Touching his reed, or leaning on his staff,
Eager ambition's fiery chase I see;
I see the circling hunt of noisy men
Burst law's enclosure, leap the mounds of right,
Pursuing and pursued, each other's prey;
As wolves for rapine; as the fox for wiles;
Till death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame,
Earth's highest station ends in 'here he lies,'
And dust to dust' concludes her noblest song.
And when he argues in favour of the immortality of
man from the analogies of nature, with what ex-
quisite taste and melody does he characterise the
changes and varied appearances of creation-
Look nature through, 'tis revolution all;
All change, no death; day follows night, and night
The dying day; stars rise and set, and set and rise:
Earth takes the example. See, the Summer gay,
With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers,
Droops into pallid Autumn: Winter gray,
Horrid with frost and turbulent with storm,
Blows Autumn and his golden fruits away,
Then melts into the Spring: soft Spring, with breath
Favonian, from warm chambers of the south,
Recalls the first. All, to reflourish, fades:
As in a wheel, all sinks to reascend:
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.
He thus moralises on human life-
From point to point, though seeming to stand still.
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth,
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone.
Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time;
As these are useless when the sun is set,
So those, but when more glorious reason shines.
Reason should judge in all; in reason's eye
That sedentary shadow travels hard.
But such our gravitation to the wrong,
So prone our hearts to whisper that we wish,
"Tis later with the wise than he's aware:
A Wilmington' goes slower than the sun :
And all mankind mistake their time of day;
Even age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown
In furrowed brows. To gentle life's descent
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain.
We take fair days in winter for the spring,
And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft
Man must compute that age he cannot feel,
He scarce believes he's older for his years.
Thus, at life's latest eve, we keep in store
One disappointment sure, to crown the rest-
The disappointment of a promised hour.
All in some darling enterprise embarked:
But where is he can fathom its event?
Amid a multitude of artless hands,
Ruin's sure perquisite, her lawful prize!
Some steer aright, but the black blast blows hard,
And puffs them wide of hope: with hearts of proof
Full against wind and tide, some win their way,
And when strong effort has deserved the port,
And tugged it into view, 'tis won! 'tis lost!
Though strong their oar, still stronger is their fate :
They strike and while they triumph they expire.
In stress of weather most, some sink outright:
O'er them, and o'er their names the billows close;
To-morrow knows not they were ever born.
Others a short memorial leave behind,
Like a flag floating when the bark's ingulfed;
It floats a moment, and is seen no more.
One Cæsar lives; a thousand are forgot.
How few beneath auspicious planets born
(Darlings of Providence! fond Fate's elect !)
With swelling sails make good the promised port,
With all their wishes freighted! yet even these,
Freighted with all their wishes, soon complain;
Free from misfortune, not from nature free,
They still are men, and when is man secure?
As fatal time, as storm! the rush of years
Beats down their strength, their numberless escapes
In ruin end. And now their proud success
But plants new terrors on the victor's brow:
What pain to quit the world, just made their own,
Their nest so deeply downed, and built so high!
Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.
With such a throng of poetical imagery, bursts of
sentiment, and rays of fancy, does the poet-divine
clothe the trite and simple truths, that all is vanity,
and that man is born to die!
These thoughts, O Night! are thine;
From thee they came like lovers' secret sighs,
While others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign,
In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her sphere,
Her shepherd cheered; of her enamoured less
Than I of thee. And art thou still unsung,
Beneath whose brow, and by whose aid, I sing?
Immortal silence! where shall I begin?
Where end or how steal music from the spheres
To soothe their goddess?
Nature's great ancestor ! Day's elder born!
And fated to survive the transient sun!
By mortals and immortals seen with awe!
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,
An azure zone thy waist; clouds, in heaven's loom
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,
Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train:
Thy gloomy grandeurs-Nature's most august,
Inspiring aspect !-claim a grateful verse;
And, like a sable curtain starred with gold,
Drawn o'er my labours past, shall clothe the scene.
This magnificent apostrophe has scarcely been
equalled in our poetry since the epic strains of
Milton.
On Life, Death, and Immortality.
Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
And again in a still nobler strain, where he com- He, like the world, his ready visit pays pares human life to the sea
Self-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope,
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinion flies from wo,
When young, with sanguine cheer and streamers gay, And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
We cut our cable, launch into the world,
From short (as usual) and disturbed repose
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Tumultuous; where my wrecked desponding thought Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
From wave to wave of fancied misery
At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain
(A bitter change!), severer for severe :
The day too short for my distress; and night,
E'en in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye nor listening ear an object finds;
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfilled:
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Silence and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought To reason, and on reason build resolve
(That column of true majesty in man),
Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;
The grave your kingdom: there this frame shall fall
A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.
But what are ye?
Thou, who didst put to flight
Primeval Silence, when the morning stars,
Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;
Oh Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.
Through this opaque of nature and of soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer. Oh lead my mind
(A mind that fain would wander from its wo),
Lead it through various scenes of life and death,
And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, poured
On this devoted head, be poured in vain.
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder He who made him such!
Who centered in our make such strange extremes,
From different natures marvellously mixed,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distingushed link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust:
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god! I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels!
Oh what a miracle to man is man!
Triumphantly distressed! what joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed!
What can preserve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof:
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields; or mourned along the gloom
Of silent woods; or, down the craggy steep
Hurled headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool;
Or scaled the cliff; or danced on hollow winds,
Of subtler essence than the common clod:
Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal!
Why, then, their loss deplore that are not lost? *
This is the desert, this the solitude:
How populous, how vital is the grave!
This is creation's melancholy vault,
The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom;
The land of apparitions, empty shades!
All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond
Is substance; the reverse is folly's creed;
How solid all, where change shall be no more!
This is the bud of being, the dim dawn,
The twilight of our day, the vestibule ;
Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death,
Strong death alone can heave the massy bar,
This gross impediment of clay remove,
And make us embryos of existence free
From real life; but little more remote
Is he, not yet a candidate for light,
The future embryo, slumbering in his sire.
Embryos we must be till we burst the shell,
Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life,
The life of gods, oh transport! and of man.
Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh.
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon,
Here pinions all his wishes; winged by heaven
To fly at infinite: and reach it there
Where seraphs gather immortality,
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God.
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow
In his full beam, and ripen for the just,
Where momentary ages are no more!
Where time, and pain, and chance, and death expire!
And is it in the flight of threescore years
To push eternity from human thought,
And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured or alarmed,
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands despatch:
How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss.
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
O time! than gold more sacred; more a load
Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squandered, wisdom's debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days all due to that discharge.
Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he's at the door,
Insidious Death; should his strong hand arrest,
No composition sets the prisoner free.
Eternity's inexorable chain
Fast binds, and vengeance claims the full arrear.
Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor;
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment, but in purchase of its worth;
And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
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