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of religious reverence. It is scarcely possible to suppose that a man could write such noble lines as the following-lines which few writers of moral and didactic poetry have equalled, and none have surpassed-without having (at least for the time he wrote them) the most just and becoming sentiments of religious reverence :

"Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent us not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere ;
So pale grows reason at religious sight,

And dies, and so dissolves, in supernatural light."

The grandeur of thought and of expression-the magnificent melody of Dryden's sounding verse -cannot be better exemplified than in the concluding four lines. Much as one loves simplicity of expression-much as one dreads the pompous circumlocution of some authors, who think that nothing can be said well if said in common words, it is impossible not to delight in the splendid redundancy with which Dryden signifies the idea of the rising of the sun :"When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere." But if the poetry be good, the philosophy of the passage is still better-I mean of the whole passage. Let every line be carefully considered

-each will be found pregnant with thought, and thought upon the most important of all subjects. Reason is but the guide-the help to something above reason, better than reason, and more practically useful than reason in promoting man's peace and happiness, and in leading onward, and upward, the noblest faculties of his soul.

It may be useful, and certainly it will be found interesting, while under the impression of these noble lines of Dryden, to compare the sense and sentiment of them with a passage in the Bampton Lectures for 1817, a book of deep wisdom, which cannot be too generally studied by those who can think as well as read. "The average of solid capacity and knowledge," says the lecturer, "is not to be set high-the true strength of man is not to be sought in any intellectual but in a moral excellence. Neither in the one, however, nor in the other, can he hope to escape through all the difficulties wherewith he is encompassed, without possession of some sure refuge in the season of pressing danger, which refuge is only to be found in some one simple and unreserved submission to the commands of an infallible guide."

That guide is religion. Our reason leads us to this guide, but in thousands of cases which threaten our peace, can do nothing else for us that is satisfactory. We may pride ourselves as much as we will on intellectual power, but

we find practically its inadequacy. As soon, however, as it leads us to religion, and puts us under her guardianship, then we have a tower of defence wherein we may rest, no matter what storm or battle rages without.

MEDDLING IMPROVERS.

THERE is a couplet of Dryden's, which admirably describes at once and ridicules, the pretensions of certain projectors, who would fain persuade the world that they could better arrange everything, and even change men's nature, if they were but allowed to have their way in re-adjust

ment:

"At once divine and human laws control, And mend the parts by ruin of the whole." The second line embodies a faithful, though sarcastic, description of almost all the great plans of reform which abound in an age of great vanity, because of great shallowness. In proportion as people are sound and thoughtful, they are suspicious of unsettling that which has accommodated itself to existing circumstances. They are more anxious to elevate principles than to adopt new machinery, being satisfied that all the wit of man cannot contrive the parts of a system so that the whole shall not be corrupt, if corrupt people be concerned in it. The men who are for changing everything to fit their

present views, are certainly much more likely to ruin the whole," than to mend the parts of that upon which they lay their adventurous hands.

PERSONAL SKETCHES.

As we have Dryden before us, I may venture to entertain my listeners (for I have too high an opinion of their taste to suppose that Dryden's verse could not entertain them) with a personal sketch or two from his vigorous pen. Perhaps it may be thought that some characters more modern than of Dryden's time are as it were anticipated. But men are not so very various that similarity of circumstances should not often produce similarity of character. Let us at all events admire the force of the portraiture, and learn something from the traits which are painted so vividly that we cannot but see at once whether they were well or ill favoured. Let us take the Earl of Shaftesbury, the victim of too keen and fervent intellect, who is drawn under the name of Achitophel:

"Of these the false Achitophel was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and crooked councils fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless-unfix'd in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which working out its way,

Fretted the pigmy body to decay,

And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleased with the danger when the waves were high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease;

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In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin or to rule the State;
To compass this, the triple bond he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke :

Then seized with fear, but still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name.

So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.”

It cannot be said that in these days we could point out any public character to which the above description might be applied, for energy of any kind, or on any side, is certainly not the distinction of statesmen. But it is not in statesmen alone that we find such restless and overanxious beings as "Achitophel:"

The fiery soul, which working out its way,
Doth fret the pigmy body to decay,

may be observed in many conditions of life; and, though sometimes an object of admiration, it is always an object of pity.

Let us now turn to a portrait still more striking, and more admirably painted. It is

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