his last dying speech and confession,' though consisting of a few hurried, broken words, which almost every felon repeats, and hardly understands their meaning himself while he utters them, may produce feelings which all the breath of eloquence, from lips not about to be shut for ever, would fail to awaken. But a good man struggling with adversity, which even the heathen deem ed a spectacle worthy of the Gods to contemplate with admiration, becomes an oracle in his agony; and to know how he looked, and spoke, and felt, for the last time, does literally elevate and purify the soul by terror,-terror in which just so much compassion is mingled as to identify him with ourselves in sensibility to suffering, while we are identi'fied with him in exaltation of mind above the infirmity of pain and the fear of death. No eccentricity or perversity of taste, manifested in literary effusions under such circumstances, can destroy the force of nature, or render her voice unintelligible in them, though speaking a strange language, provided it be the language of the times, and not the affected style of the individual, assumed to express sentiments equally affected." How much of the pleasure which we derive from poetry does indeed depend upon contingent circumstances, which confer on the writer or the subject a peculiar, local, personal, or temporary interest and importance! Such interest and importance, says. Mr Montgomery, belong to all the subjects of this small volume,-for all the writers are dead! "These thoughts, then, of the departed, expressed in their own words, and brought to our ears in the very sounds with which they uttered them, and affecting our hearts even more than they affected their own, by the consideration that they are no longer living voices, but voices from beyond the tomb, from invisible beings, somewhere in existence, at this moment, these thoughts, thus awfully associated, will prove noble, strengthening, and instructive exercises of mind, for us to read and to understand; for the application required to comprehend them duly, will heighten the enjoyment of the poetry when it is thus understood; the obscurity and difficulty, not arising from the defects of the composition, but from the unacquaintedness of the reader with the models in vogue, when the author wrote. These specimens of 'pious verse' will not be idle amusements for a few spare minutes,-yet for the delight of spare minutes they are peculiarly adapted. They will not glide over a vacant mind, as sing-song verse is wont to do, like quicksilver over a smooth table, in glittering, minute, and unconnected globules, hastily vanishing away, or when detained, not to be moulded into any fixed shape. They will rather supply tasks and themes for meditation; tasks, such as the eagle sets her young when she is teaching them to fly; themes, such as are vouchsafed to inspire poets, in their happiest moods. Nor can the inexpert reader be aware till he has tried, how much the old language improves upon familiarity; and how the productions of the old poets, like dried spices, give out their sweetness the more, the more they are handled. The fine gold may have become dim, and the fashion of the plate may be antiquated, but the material is fine gold still, and the workmanship as perfect as it came from the tool of the artist; nor is it barbarous, except to eyes that -cannot see it as it was intended to be seen, in connexion with the whole state of human society and human intellect at the time. Changes have taken place, within the last century, in the style of religious poetry, which formerly was too much assimilated to the character of Solomon's song,-a portion of Scripture often paraphrased, and, it may be added, always unhappily. In judging of our poets of the middle age, from Elizabeth to James the II., we are bound to make the same allowances which we do natur ally, in reading the works of our divines of the same period, who, with many extravagances, have left monuments of genius and piety in prose, unexcelled by later theologians, in powerful argument, splendid eloquence, and learned illustration. With such a preparation of mind, the reader, sitting down to this volume, will find every page improve to his taste, in proportion as his taste improves, to relish what is most rare and exquisite in our language, the union of poetry with piety, in the works of men distinguished, in their generation, for eminence in the one or the other of these, and frequently for pre-eminence in both. It is, however, greatly to be lamented, that the heterogeneous compositions of the most popular of the Authors, even in the present muster-roll, (with few exceptions,) cannot be indiscriminately recommended. Few, indeed, of the poets of our Christian country, previous to the era of Cowper, have left such manuscripts of their wayward minds, as would be deemed altogether unexceptionable, even by men of the world, who had no particular reve rence for vital Christianity, In the present day. So far, at least, has the indirect influence of our holy religion purified popular literature, within the last forty years; few books, which are not notoriously profligate, now contain such indelicacies as contaminate the pages of some of our most celebrated moralists in rhyme, of former ages. The fact is cursorily mentioned, lest the inexperienced reader should imagine, that every writer, from whose remains a page or two has been adopted here, was a 'Christian Poet.' With the personal characters of those writers, the Editor had nothing to do in this case. His object was to present to the public a volume of miscellanies in verse, which, when candidly estimated, might be fairly called Christian Poetry; for though every piece (much more every line) may not be directly devotional, he thinks, that there is not one which might not have been written by a Christian Poet, or which may not, in some degree, tend to edify or delight a Christian read er. Of course, the Editor cannot be presumed to approve of every sentiment or phrase in such a multitude of extracts from the works of writers, themselves so much at variance on minor points of Christian doctrine. What is here given, is given, not as the word of God, but as the word of man, and consequently no more infallible in sentiment than it can be expected to be faultless in phrase. They who read for profit, will find profit in reading; others, if they be so inclined, may discover errors > and imperfections enough to gratify their taste, though not to compensate them for ths loss of time, which had been better spent in seeking better things." The subject which we have so im perfectly treated in this article begins to shew itself in many new lights, as we glance over its pages; and we shall return to it with fervour during some silent evenings, when, after the duties of the day-such as they are we have some "sacred leisure" to give our disengaged spirits up to the tender and lustrous contemplations, which the hymns of pious men-now gone to their reward-inspire by the hearth of home, when the household is hushed. Feelings and thoughts, we hope, may then arise, which may be not altogether an unworthy commentary on those breathed forth by the genius that sung by the altar of religion. Specimens, too, of many of these compositions may be thus presented to many minds to whom they are at present unknownand this miscellany of ours, which,various as its spirit has been, and will be, has we hope, amidst all its mirth and gaiety, and why should not fancy occasionally tinge with her streaks the melancholy atmosphere of human life, -ever been, with all its errors and defects, which none but the hopelessly base and wicked, or the hopelessly dull and stupid, would seek to exaggerate,-the friend-the enthusiastic and not unsteady friend of genius, virtue, and religion. One truly delightful volume alluded to in these pages, its excellent author must not think we have overlookedwe mean "The Christian Year." When we began to write, it was our intention to have confined ourselves almost entirely to it; but our illustrations took another course, and not one sacred composition of Keeble's now tian Year" deserves an article-and graces our disquisition. "The Chrisa long one too-exclusively devoted to itself for it is full of poetry and piety, both as simple and as sincere as the writer's own heart. This volibrary-nor will it lie unread on the lume is winning its way into many a shelves to which the soul, when wearied or alarmed with this life, turns for consolation to the musings of those men of holy spirit, who "Have built their Pindus upon Lebanon," and, in still more awful moods, have feared not to murmur their melodies even on Mount Calvary, at the very feet of the Cross. 68-On a late long debate in the House Review of Grillparzer's drama of the Gol- Sacred poetry, review of Montgomery's, Salmonia, or days of fly-fishing, review of, 248 Sea-side, a day at the, 335 Shakspeare a Tory, and a gentleman, 570 Speech which should have been delivered Tales of the O'Hara Family, remarks on, Tasso's Coronation, 614 Three years at Oxford, 862 Time, the Castle of, a vision, by Delta, Tour of Dulness, the, 29 Trade, the old system of, and the new, United States of America, notes on, 621 Wauch, Mansie, a chapter omitted in the Wellington, Duke of, his correspondence Whig-hater, notices, travelling and politi- Wife's Trial; or, the Intruding Widow. Works preparing for publication, 122, Zuinglius, the Swiss reformer, biographi |