THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

Ode.

"Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,

Sister spirit, come away.

What is this absorbs me quite ?

Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be Death?

The world recedes; it disappears!

Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears

With sounds seraphic ring :

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O Grave! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?"

The spirit and character of the " Essay on Criticism" ascertained from such lines as these:

"Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,

What the weak head with strongest bias rules,

Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth deny'd,

She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind:
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

"A little learning is a dangʼrous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Piërian spring : There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

"Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. In ev'ry work regard the writer's end,

Since none can compass more than they intend ;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.

"Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue;
But like a shadow, proves the substance true ;
For envy'd wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known
Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own.
When first that sux too pow'rful beams displays,
It draws up vapours which obscure its rays;

But ev'n those clouds at last adorn its way,
Reflect new glories, and augment the day."

Having propounded, as a canon of poetry, that

"The sound must seem an echo to the sense,"

he proceeds, immediately, in the eight lines next succeeding, to exemplify his critical dogma. The imitations of smoothness and asperity, of slowness and velocity, are as complete, as, in the nature of things, they can be:

"Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives, some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."

In this specimen, however, (which is probably the best in the English language,) the imitation is imperfect, because it arises merely from the regulation of time, and the facility or difficulty of articulation. A stranger to the language would have no conception of the things or actions described. On the impossibility of perfect poetical imitations of this kind, we beg to refer you to our observations in p. 132.

The entire moral of the "Rape of the Lock" is comprised in the following extract:

"Say why are beauties prais'd and honour'd most,
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast?
Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,
Why angels call'd, and angel-like ador'd?

Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd beaus,
Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows?
How vain are all these glories, all our pains,
Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains!

"But since, alas! frail beauty must decay,
Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey;
Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
And she who scorns a man, must die a maid;
What then remains but well our pow'r to use,
And keep good humour still whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear! good humour can prevail,

When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may

roll;

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

Page 36.

"Their loftier verse had beam'd in rich display,

A thousand years before e'en Homer's day.”

By referring to the TABLE of Biographical Dates appended for the illustration of this work, the reader may ascertain, at one glance, in what relation the poetical works of Palestine stand to those of Greece. To establish the truth of the position assumed in the lines above quoted, we need not elaborate a proof of the

ante-patriarchal date of the wonderful Poem of JOB. Whoever is anxious to form a decisive opinion upon so intricate a subject as the era of the Person and the Book of Job, may bring all his critical acumen to the observations of Calmet, Spanheim, Kennicott; the Lectures of Bishop Lowth, with Dr. Gregory's Notes; Mr. Peters, Dr. Grey, Dr. Magee, and the introductory dissertation of Mr. Mason Goode; and perhaps, in no place, will he find information and criticism more concentrated, or better arranged, than in Dr. Adam Clarke's Preface to the Book of Job in his Commentary. It is probable, moreover, he may, at the end of his lucubrations, be less decided than when he began the investigation. All this uncertainty, however, affects not, in the least, the poetical character of the work; any more than the dubious eras of Ossian or Homer. It's great antiquity is conceded by all. Critics, anxious to discover the earliest examples of poetic excellence, refer us to the address of Lamech to his wives; and to the execration of Noah upon Ham, with the predictions of prosperity to his two brothers. These passages being reducible to the Hebrew distich, may have somewhat of the form, but they do not possess, eminently, the spirit of poetry. Of a much superior character are the valedictory blessings of the patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob; which we subjoin:

THE BENEDICTIONS OF ISAAC.

"And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: let people

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