THE DYING HUSBAND.

And now our falling house leans all on thee;
This little nation to thy care commend them:
In thee it lies that hence they want not me;

Themselves yet cannot, thou the more defend them;
And when green age permits, to goodness bend them:
A mother were you once, now both you are;

Then with this double style double your love and care.

Turn their unwary steps into the way:

What first the vessel drinks, it long retaineth;
No bars will hold, when they have used to stray;
And when for me one asks, and weeping plaineth,
Point thou to heaven, and say, 'He there remaineth:'
And if they live in grace, grow, and perséver,
There shall they live with me: else shall they see me never.

My God, oh! in Thy fear here let me live!

Thy wards they are, take them to Thy protection :
Thou gavest them first, now back to Thee I give;
Direct them Thou, and help her weak direction;
That re-united by Thy strong election,

Thou now in them, they then may live in Thee;
And seeing here Thy will, may there Thy glory see.
Farewell, farewell! I feel my long, long rest,

And iron sleep my leaden heart oppressing:
Night after day, sleep after labour 's best;

Port after storms, joy after long distressing:
So weep thy loss, as knowing 'tis my blessing:
Both as a widow and a Christian grieve:

Still live I in thy thoughts, but as in heaven I live."

213

Philosophical poems are usually a failure. Dr Darwin and Dr Thomas Brown, notwithstanding all the genius with which they were gifted, did wrong in "marrying to immortal verse their mortal theories of life and organisation: for the latter being long since dead, the deathless partner is a disconsolate widow. Amongst ourselves, perhaps the most successful attempt, in a species of composition which even the lofty powers of Lucretius could not make popular, is the "Nosce Teipsum, or the Soul of Man and the Immortality thereof," by SIR JOHN

DAVIES,* Chief-Justice of the Court of King's Bench.

The

argument is not obsolete: it abounds in beautiful images: and the versification is in general delightfully harmonious.

The Dignity of Human Nature.

"Oh! what is man, great Maker of mankind!

That Thou to him so great respect dost bear!
That Thou adorn'st him with so bright a mind,
Mak'st him a king, and e'en an angel's peer!
Oh! what a lively life, what heavenly power,
What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire,
How great, how plentiful, how rich a dower

Dost Thou within this dying flesh inspire!
Thou leav'st thy print in other works of Thine;
But Thy whole image Thou in man hast writ:
There cannot be a creature more divine,
Except (like Thee) it should be infinite!

But it exceeds man's thought, to think how high
God hath raised man, since God a man became :
The angels do admire this mystery,

And are astonish'd when they view the same.
Nor hath He given these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the body's life depend:
The soul, though made in time, survives for aye;
And though it hath beginning, sees no end."

The Soul's Aspirations, a Proof of its Emmortality.
"Again, how can she but immortal be,

When with the motions of both will and wit,

She still aspireth to eternity,

And never rests till she attains to it?

Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher

Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring:

Then since to eternal God she doth aspire,

She cannot be but an eternal thing.

All moving things to other things do move,

Of the same kind, which shews their nature such :

* Born 1570; died 1626.

IMMORTALITY.

So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above,
Till both their proper elements do touch.
And as the moisture, which the thirsty earth
Sucks from the sea, to fill her empty veins,
From out her womb at last doth take a birth,

And runs a nymph along the grassy plains;
Long doth she stay, as loath to leave the land,
From whose soft side she first did issue make:
She tastes all places, turns to every hand,

Her flowery banks unwilling to forsake;

Yet nature so her streams doth lead and carry,
As that her course doth make no final stay,
Till she herself unto the ocean marry,

Within whose watery bosom first she lay:
Ev'n so the soul, which in this earthly mould
The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse,
Because at first she doth the earth behold,

And only this material world she views,—

At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear,
And doth embrace the world and worldly things;
She flies close by the ground, and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings:
Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught
That with her heavenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be.
For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth,

Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?
Who ever ceased to wish, when he had health?
Or having wisdom, was not vex'd in mind?

Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall,
Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay ;

She lights on that and this, and tasteth all,

But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away:

So when the soul finds here no true content,

And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to him that first her wings did make.

215

Wit, seeing truth, from cause to cause ascends,
And never rests, till it the first attain;

Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends,
But never stays, till it the last do gain.
Now God the truth, and first of causes is;
God is the last good end, which lasteth still;
Being Alpha and Omega named for this;
Alpha to wit, Omega to the will.

Sith then her heavenly kind she doth display
In that to God she doth directly move,
And on no mortal thing can make her stay,

She cannot be from hence, but from above."

"Hence springs that universal strong desire,

Which all men have of immortality.

Not some few spirits unto this thought aspire
But all men's minds in this united be.

Then this desire of nature is not vain,
She covets not impossibilities;

Fond thoughts may fall into some idle brain,
But one assent of all is ever wise.

....

From hence that general care and study springs,
That launching and progression of the mind,
Which all men have so much of future things,
As they no joy do in the present find.
From this desire that main desire proceeds,
Which all men have surviving fame to gain,
By tombs, by books, by memorable deeds;

For she that this desires, doth still remain."

Other specimens of the beautiful poetry in which this period abounded we must reserve for a future opportunity.

BISHOP HALL: THE ENGLISH SENECA.

DROPPING down a river-the Rhine or other-as crag follows crag, and castle succeeds to castle, the eye at last grows weary, and beauty itself becomes monotonous. You are glad of a halting-place-a Coblenz or St Goar-where you may disembark and rest a while. Our stream runs fast, and in the rapid succession of names and objects which we have already opened, it is hardly to be wondered at if the eye is bewildered and the memory confused. We shall therefore indulge ourselves in an occasional excursion on shore. In other words, instead of skimming onwards at an equal rate, and quitting every author after a momentary glimpse, we shall occasionally devote an entire section to some name outstanding and pre-eminent.

Of these little monographs the first is claimed by Dr Joseph Hall, successively Bishop of Exeter and Norwich in the reign of Charles I. Of our Christian classics, he is the earliest who still retains extensive popularity. Hooker's "Polity" is no doubt as valuable to Churchmen in the reign of Victoria as it was in the days of Elizabeth, and individual treatises of Sibbs, and a few others, will long continue to be reprinted; but the author of the "Contemplations" is as dear and delightful a companion to his modern admirers as he was to his ruffed and bearded contemporaries. In many other respects a remarkable man, for our immediate purpose he possesses a special value, as a link between two periods widely sundered. Commencing the career of authorship under the "good Queen Bess," had he lived four years longer he would have seen the restoration of Charles II.; and during all that interval his pen was seldom idle. Nor are there many writers who can be perused with equal profit. With his cheerful tone, his playful touches, his

T