Eupolis. But do you really think that those faults are inseparable from poetry? May not the ONE SUPREME

be sung, without any intermixture of them?

Plato. I must own I hardly ever saw any thing of that nature. But I shall be glad to see you, or any other, attempt and succeed in it. On that condition, I will gladly exempt you from the fate of your brother poets.

Eupolis. I am far from pretending to be a standard. But I will do the best I can.

THE HYMN.

AUTHOR of Being, Source of light,
With unfading beauties bright,
Fulness, goodness, rolling round
Thy own fair orb without a bound:
Whether thee thy suppliants call
Truth, or good, or one, or all,
Ei, or Jao; thee we hail

Essence that can never fail,

Grecian or Barbaric name,

Thy stedfast being still the same.

Thee, when morning greets the skies
With rosy cheeks and humid eyes;
Thee, when sweet declining day
Sinks in purple waves away;
Thee will I sing, O parent Jove,
And teach the world to praise and love,

Yonder azure vault on high,

Yonder blue low liquid sky,

Earth, on its firm basis plac'd,

And with circling waves embrac'd,

All creating pow'r confess,

All their mighty Maker bless.

Thou shak'st all nature with thy nod,
Sea, earth, and air confess the God:

Yet

Yet does thy pow'rful hand sustain

Both earth and heav'n, both firm and main.
Scarce can our daring thought arise
To thy pavillion in the skies;
Nor can Plato's self declare

The bliss, the joy, the rapture there.
Barren above thou dost not reign,
But circled with a glorious train:
The sons of God, the sons of light,
Ever joying in thy sight:

(For thee their silver harps are strung)

Ever beauteous, ever young,

Angelie forms their voices raise,

And through heav'n's arch resound thy praise.

The feather'd fowls that swim the air,

And bathe in liquid ether there,
The lark, precentor of the choir,
Leading them higher still and higher,
Listen and learn; th' angelic notes
Repeating in their warbling throats:
And ere to soft repose they go,
Teach them to their lords below:
On the green turf their mossy nest,
The ev'ning anthem swells their breast;
Thus like thy golden chain from high
Thy praise unites the earth and sky.

Source of light, thou bid'st the sun
On his burning axles run;
The stars like dust around him fly,
And strew the area of the sky.
He drives so swift his race above
Mortals can't perceive him move,

So smooth his course, oblique or straight,
Olympus shakes not with his weight.

As the queen of solemn night
Fills at his vase her orbs of light,

Imparted

O ye nurses of soft dreams,
Reedy brooks and winding streams,
Or murmuring o'er the pebbles sheen
Or sliding through the meadows green,
Or where through matted sedge you creep,
Trav'lling to your parent deep:

Sound his praise by whom you rose,

That sea which neither ebbs nor flows.

O ye

• This word signifies a kind of garland composed of a branch of olive, wrapt about with wool, and loaded with all kinds of fruits of the earth, as a token of peace and plenty. The poet says he will no more worship. the imaginary power, supposed to be the giver of these things; but the great Pan, the creator from whom they all proceed.

O ye immortal woods and groves,
Which th' enamour'd student loves;
Beneath whose venerable shade,

For thought and friendly converse made,
Fam'd Hecudem, old hero lies,

Whose shrine is shaded from the skies,
And through the gloom of silent night
Projects from far its trembling light;
You, whose roots descend as low,
As high in air your branches grow ;
Your leafy arms to heav'n extend,
Bend your heads, in homage bend:
Cedars and pines that wave above,
And the oak belov'd of Jove.

Omen, monster, prodigy,
Or nothing are, or Jove from thee!
Whether varied nature play,
Or re-invers'd thy will obey,
And to rebel man declare

Famine, plague, or wasteful war.

Laugh ye prophane, who dare despise
The threatning vengeance of the skies,
Whilst the pious on his guard,

Undismay'd is still prepar'd :

Life or death, his mind's at rest,

Since what thou send'st must needs be best.

No evil can from thee proceed:

'Tis only suffer'd, not decreed.
Darkness is not from the sun,

Nor mount the shades till he is gone:
Then does night obscure arise
From Erebus, and fill the skies,
Fantastic forms the air invade,
Daughters of nothing and of shade.

Can we forget thy guardian care,
Slow to punish, prone to spare;

Thou

Thou brak'st the haughty Persian's pride,
That dar'd old ocean's pow'r deride;
Their shipwrecks strew'd the Eubean wave,
At Marathon they found a grave.

O ye blest Greeks who there expir'd,
For Greece with pious ardour fir'd.
What shrines or altars shall we raise

To secure your endless praise?
Or need we monuments supply,
To rescue what can never die!

And yet a greater hero far
(Unless great Socrates could err)
Shall rise to bless some future day,
And teach to live, and teach to pray.
Come, unknown instructor come!
Our leaping hearts shall make thee room;
Thou with Jove our vows shalt share,

Of Jove and thee we are the care.

O Father, King, whose heav'n'y face
Shines serene on all thy race,
We thy magnificence adore,
And thy well-known aid implore;
Nor vainly for thy help we call;
Nor can we want-for thou art all.

Every good judge, we apprehend, will readily allow

that the author of these verses did not want talents for poetry. But wherever we fix his standing in the scale. of learning and abilities, he still rises higher in our view of genuine piety, and a firm attachment to justice, mercy and truth, in various trying situations in life. His integrity was conspicuous, and his conduct uniform. As he had chosen God and his service for his own portion, he chose the same for his children also. When two of his sons were pursuing a course of piety at Oxford, which threw their future prospects of preferment