when, like a burst of thunder, a desolating voice cried out, Henrietta is expiring, Henrietta is no more! The usual march of Death is by perceptible but slow advances; in the present instance it was rapid as it was alarming. Did we not behold her in the morning attired with every grace, embellished with every attraction, and in the evening did we not behold her as a faded flower! Let us then survey her as Death presents her to our view: yet even these mournful honors, with which she is now encircled, will soon disappear, she will be despoiled of this melancholy decoration, and be conveyed into the dread receptacle, the last sombrous habitation, to sleep in the dust with annihilated kings; among whom it will be difficult to place her, so closely do the ranks press upon each other! so prompt, so indefatigable, is death in crowding this dreary vault with departed greatness. Yet even here our imagination deludes us; for this form, destitute of life, which still retains the human resemblance! the faint similitude which still lingers on the countenance, must undergo a change, and be turned into a terrific something, for which no language has a name; so true it is that everything dies belonging to man; even (as Tertullian observes) those funereal expressions which designate his remains. On a life which inevitably ends in such a catastrophe, what splendid project can the fondest hope erect? Is then despair the lot of Amidst this universal wreck is there no plank to lay hold of? Here I behold another order of things arise; the cloud breaks, the gloom of death disappears, a new scene bursts upon me, to which I beg leave to direct your attention. PART THE SECOND. Let us gratefully remember that God infuses into our perishable frame a spiritual power, which can acknowledge the truth of his existence, adore the redundant plenitude of his perfections, rely on his goodness, fear his justice, and aspire to his immortality. By the principle of analogy, as our material form shall return to its mother earth, so our spiritual part shall return unto its Creator. This, indeed, is a proud distinction which brings into contact and alliance the spiritual part of man with the supreme and primitive greatness, God! Let then the wise man speak with derision of every state and condition of life, since, wherever we cast our view, we behold the funereal gloom of death hovering over our brightest hours. Let the wise man equalize the fool and the sage; let him even confound the lord of the earth with the beast of the field for if we look at man, but through the medium of a coarse corpo real eye, what do we behold in his fugitive existence but folly, solicitude, and disappointment? and what do we behold in his death but an expiring vapor, or a machine whose springs are deranged, and which lose the power of action? Do ye wish to save anything from this total ruin? cast your affection as an anchor on God! This our Christian heroine eminently manifested during the period that immediately preceded her dissolution. She beheld the approaches of Death with an undaunted eye. He came to demand of her youth, the residue of its years! of her beauty, the resignation of its charms! of her high rank, the dispossession of its advantages! of her richly cultivated mind, the spoliation of its acquirements! To all which she meekly submitted without a murmur. Far other reflections now possess her soul. She calls for the same crucifix which the Queen, her mother, in her last moments bathed with her tears. She calls for the same crucifix, as if she fondly hoped still to find upon it the effusion of her mother's piety: she applied this signal of our salvation to her expiring lips: then did I hear her utter these affecting words, "Oh my God, why did I not always place my confidence in thee?" Ah! let the proud conqueror no longer engross our admiration; our heroine illustrates the truth of these words, "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." With a tranquillity almost amounting to satisfaction, she resigned herself to an unforeseen and untimely death. What an attention did she pay to the prayers that are offered up for the dying! which frequently (by some spiritual magic) suspend the agonizing pains, and, what I have been often a witness to, charm away the terrors of death. Have we not lamented that the opening flower was suddenly blasted? that the picture whose first warm touches excited such expectation was suddenly effaced? But I will no longer speak this language; I will rather say that Death has put an end to those perils to which she was in this life eminently exposed. What dazzling attractions, what seductive flattery, would have assailed so elevated a situation? Would not success have pampered her expectations, and adulation outrun her desire? And, to use the forcible expression of an ancient his torian, "she would have been precipitated into the gulf of human grandeur."— In ipsam gloriam præceps agebatur. (Tacitus, "Vita Agricolæ.") Let us draw some salutary reflection from the scene that is now before us. Shall we wait till the dead arise, before we open our bosom to one serious thought? What this day descends into the grave should be sufficient to awaken and alarm our lethargy. Could the Divine Providence bring nearer to our view, or more forcibly display, the vanity and emptiness of human greatness? How incurable must be our blindness, if, as every day we approach nearer and nearer to the grave (and rather dying than living), we wait till the last moment before we admit that serious and important reflection which ought to have accompanied us through the whole course of our lives! If persuasion hung upon my lips, how earnestly would I entreat you to begin from this hour to despise the smiles of fortune, and the favors of this transitory world! And whenever you shall enter those august habitations, those sumptuous palaces which received an additional luster from the personage we now lament; when you shall cast your eyes around those splendid apartments, and find their better wanting! then remember that the exalted station she held, that the accomplishments and attractions she was known to possess, augmented the dangers to which she was exposed in this world, and now form the subject of a rigorous investigation in the other. LOVE. BY SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. [1639-1701. Dramatist, poet, and wit of the Restoration, of unsavory life and works. His daughter Catherine was mistress of James II.] LOVE still has something of the sea, They are becalmed in clearest days, They wither under cold delays, One while they seem to touch the port, At first disdain and pride they fear; "Tis cruel to prolong a pain; An hundred thousand oaths your fears "Tis fitter much for you to guess Than for me to explain; But grant, oh! grant that happiness SONG-DORINDA. BY CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET. [1637-1706.] DORINDA's sparkling wit and eyes Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight. Love is a calmer, gentler joy, Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace: Her Cupid is a blackguard boy, That runs his link full in your face. ZEGRI AND ABENCERRAGE. BY DRYDEN. (From "The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards.") [JOHN DRYDEN, the great poet, was born at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, in 1631; educated under Dr. Busby at Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. The son of a Puritan clergyman, and himself a Parliamentarian, he wrote eulogistic stanzas on Cromwell at the latter's death; but his versatile intellect could assume any phase of feeling, and he wrote equally glowing ones on the Restoration of 1660. In 1667 he wrote "Annus Mirabilis," and in 1668 was made poet laureate. The Popish Plot brought out his famous satire “Absalom and Achitophel" (1681–1682), the “Og" of which (his rival Shadwell) was further castigated in "MacFlecknoe" (1682). After James' accession he became a Catholic (1686), and in 1687 wrote "The Hind and the Panther" to glorify his new religion. "Alexander's Feast," the finest of English odes, appeared in 1697. His powerful translations of Lucretius and Juvenal are also classics; those of Virgil are strong but less in keeping with the matter. He was a very voluminous playwright also, but has left nothing which lives; perhaps the burlesque of the "Rehearsal," indeed, chiefly preserves the memory that he was one at all. His "Essay on Dramatic Poesy," however, is excellent. He died in 1700.] Present: SCENE: Granada, and the Christian Camp besieging it. Boabdelin The alarm-bell rings from our Alhambra walls, [Within, a bell, drums, and trumpets. Enter a Messenger. How now? from whence proceed these new alarms? Messenger Boabdelin The two fierce factions are again in arms; Draw up behind the Vivarambla place; And try if all the fury they can bring Be proof against the presence of their king. [Exit BOABDELIN. |