Newton, that priest of nature, onward in those investigations, the results of which have contributed so much to enlarge the bounds of thought. How interesting was that single effort of his, in which he went from link to link in a chain of reasoning, till he arrived at the sublime conclusion, that the planets were stayed in their orbits by the same force that confines a pebble to the shore. He has, as it were, filled all space with suns and worlds, so that you may enlarge your perceptions till you have embraced all which the telescopic tube will bring within your reach, and imagine ocean on ocean of suns and worlds beside; and all these will be no more in comparison with the countless oceans which still roll on the bosom of infinity beyond, than a grain of sand to the numberless atoms that constitute For the Literary Miscellany. JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. The last ray of twilight rests on the hills, and illumes the tree tops, then calmly takes its flight, while the pale moon peeps forth from the eastern horizon, as if to catch one glimpse of the departing day. She no lon ger wears her crescent form, but appears in all her loveliness, But though lovely and splendid is this scene, yet a few hours ago, there was heard, in this very place, the din of battle, and the noise of strife. The shouts and exclamations of the victo rious-the groans of the wounded and dying, then mingled together. Above and around, the air was filled with smoke, and fearfully flashed the flames of the burning cities. Costly buildings which had towered for the globe. O, what have been the achieve-years toward the blue sky, fell never more to ments of thought! How unfettered in its rise from the ruined mass; the destruction range! how inconceivable in its rapidity of property, and the devastation were indeed It fixes upon all that is dreary, wild, and complete. Now all is hushed. The conwaste in nature-all that is beautiful, grand, quering army has departed-the children of and sublime. Mountains, plains, deserts, Ammon are subdued. Silence reigns queen solitudes, rivers, and oceans, winds and tem- of this deserted, yet forever renowned spot. pests, are its home. It finds a companion in every star, dwells on infinity itself, then rises to that Being who sits upon a throne that is high and lifted up, and whose bright-Ammon into my hands, then shall it be, ness fills the heaven of heavens. O, what is thought? Something that baffles expression--an immortal principle-an emanation of the Deity-a celestial fire, destined to burn and to glow forever! LET every man endeavor to make all the world happy, by a strict performance of his duty to God and man, and the mighty work of reformation will soon be accomplished. But the vow of Jephtha, which he vowed to the Lord, is yet to be fulfilled. "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of that whatever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering." The God of Israel has been with his people, and Jephtha is returning the leader of a triumphant host, a victorious army. The moon rises higher and higher, and the night breeze sings its lonely song as it rushes past the conquerors or stays to toy with the plumes that bedeck their noble crests.-Onward they march, and still onward. Their POWER and liberty are like heat and mois-leader is in his glory-his crest is "Judal's ture; where they are well mixed, everything prospers; where they are single, they are often destructive. kingliest," and firmly falls his foot, as with majesty he leads his mighty army onHastily he passes over the uneven surface which intervenes between him and his palace are seen vieing with the splendor of the queen of night. But hark! the melodious sound of music is borne by the evening zephyrs to his ear, and he views the forms of maidens, coming forth with timbrels and with dances. Nearer they approach until they are distinctly seen. BY GILFILLAN. We went early to the chapel where he was aunounced to speak, and ere the lion of the evening appeared, amused ourselves with watching and analyzing the audience which SOME seven or eight years ago, the inhabitants of a large city in the north of Scotland were apprised, by handbills, that James Montgomery, Esq., of Sheffield, the One there is among them, who excels that poet, was to address a meeting on the submerry groupe in beauty and loveliness-ject of Moravian missions. This announce Her dress denotes that she is of a high rank, ment, in the language of Dr. Caius, "did while her stately yet graceful mien bespeaks bring de water into our mouth." The her the daughter of a king. 'Tis Jephthah's thought of seeing a live poet, of European daughter coming forth to welcome her illus-reputation, arriving at our very door, in a trious sire. She is his only child, and dearer remote corner, was absolutely electrifying. to his sight, than all earth's countless wealth; then all earth's most enticing honors. And lovelier now than earth's most lovely thing is she, as with light step and beaming eye, she turows her arms around his neck and his celebrity had collected. It was not breathes the sacred name, "my father." He arrers not, and a deadly shade has passed o his noble countenance. Again she exclaim in painful earnestness, "Father, my father." The melody of her voice reaches bis car and pierces his heart, while sobs repete with agony burst from his pallid lips, as pressing his beloved child to his heart, he exclaims, "Alas my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me; for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back." The sound of mirth has ceased among those maidens, and sadness rests upon their featres as they gaze on that haughty brow, distorted with agony, and those features that Bee as if death itself had left its impress there. They look upon the face that rests upon bosom-perchance it has grown one lade peler, but there is seen a look of calm determination, of quiet resignation, as she acknowledges her willingness to submit to this, the providence of God. The moon has twine filled her horn, but the loving and beloved walks abroad no more with the daughters of earth; she has devoted herself to the service of her God. ANNA A very numerous, and not very select. Few of the grandees of the city had condescended to honor him with their presence. Stranger still, there was but a sparse supply of clergy, or of the prominent religionists of the town. The church was chiefly filled with females of a certain age, one or two stray “hero worshippers" like ourselves, a few young ladies who had read some of his minor poems, and whose eyes seemed lighted up with a gentle fire of pleasure in the prospect of seeing the author of those "beautiful verses on the Grave, and Prayer," and two or three who had come from ten miles off to see and hear the celebrated poet. When he at length appeared, we continued to marvel at the aspect of the platform. Instead of being supported by the elite of the city, instead of forming a rallying centre of attraction and unity to all who had a sympathy with piety or with genius for leagues round it, a few obscure individuals presented themselves, who seemed rather anxious to catch a little eclat from him, than to delight to do him honor. The evening was rather advanced ere he rose to speak. His appear ance, as far as we could cateh it, was quite in keeping with the spiritual cast of his poetry. He was tall, thin, bald, with face nfort and of hope,even from that stern abyss, It was a fine and bold idea to turn the great enemy into a comforter, and elicit such a reply, so tender and where is thy victory?" Triumphing in prospect over the sun himself, the grave proclaims the superiority and immunity of the soul we looked with no little reverence on the eye which had shot fire into the Pelican Island, and on the hand (skinny enough we ween), which had written "The Grave."- submissive, to the challenge, "O Grave, He spoke in a low voice, sinking occasionally into an inaudible whisper; but his action was fiery and his pantomine striking. In the course of his speech he alluded, with considerable effect, to the early heroic struggles of Moravianism, when she was yet alone in the death-grapple with the powers of Heathen darkness, and closed (when did he ever close a speech otherwise?) by quoting a few vigorous verses from himself. dexterous "The Sun is but a spark of fire, Surely no well in the wilderness ever sparkled out to the thirsty traveller a voice We left the meeting, we remember, with more musical, more tender, and more cheertwo wondering questions in our ears: first, ing, than this which Montgomery educes Is this fame? of what value reputation, from the jaws of the narrow house. Soon which, in a city of seventy thousand inhabi- afterwards we became acquainted with some tants, is so freezingly acknowledged? Would of his other small pieces, which then seized not any empty, mouthing charlatan, any and which still occupy the principal place "twopenny tear-mouth," any painted, stupid in our regards. Indeed, it is on his little savage, any elever juggler, any poemis that the permanency of his fame is player upon the fiery harp-strings of the pop-likely to rest, as it is into them that he has ular passions, have enjoyed a better recep- chiefly shed the peculiarity and the beauty tion than this true, tender, and holy poet? of his genius. James Montgomery has litBut secondly; Is not this true, tender, and tle inventive or dramatic power; he cannot holy poet partly himself to blame? Has he write an epic; none of his larger poems, not put himself in a false position? Has he while some are bulky, can be called great; not too readily lent himself as an instrument but he is the best writer of hymns (underof popular excitement? Is this progress of standing a hymn simply to mean a short his altogether a proper, a poet's progress?-religious effusion) in the language. He Would Milton, or Cowper, or Wordsworth, catches the transient emotions of the pious have submitted to it? And is it in good heart, which arise in the calm evening walk, taste for him to eke out his orations by long where the saint, like Isaac, goes out into the extracts from his own poems? Homer, it is fields to meditate; or under the still and true, sang his own verses; but he did it for star-fretted midnight: or on his "own defood. Montgomery recites them, but it is lightful bed;" or in pensive contemplations of the "Common Lot;" or under the Swiss heaven, where evening hardly closes the eye of Mont Blanc, and stirs lake Leman's waters with a murmur like a sleeper's prayer; wherever, in short, piety kindles into the poetic feeling, such emotions he catches, refines, and embalms in his snatches of lyric song. As Wordsworth has expressed sentiments which the "solitary lover of nature was unable to utter, save with glistening eye and faltering tongue," so Mont for fame. We pass not gladly--as we did in thought then-from the progress to the poet-pilgrim himself. We have long admired and loved James Montgomery, and we wept under his spell ere we did either the one or the other, We will not soon forget theSabbath evening --it was in golden summer tide-when we first heard his "Grave" repeated, and wept as we heard it. It seemed to come, as it professed to come, from the grave itself-a still api eje, je covers at times his face with n wing; but he does not ask awful questions, or cast strong though baffled glances into the solid and intolerable glory. You can never apply the words of Gray. He never has "passed the bounds of flaming space where angels tremble as they gaze." He has never invaded those lofty but danger ous regions of speculative thought, where some have dwelt till they have lost all of piety, save its grandeur and gloom. He does not reason, far less doubt, on the sub der, to love, to weep, and to adore. Sometimes, but seldom, can he be called a sublime writer. In his "Wanderer of Switzerland," he blows a bold horn, but the echoes and the avalanches of the highest Alps will not answer or fall to his reveille. In his "Greenland," he expresses but faintly the poetry of Frost; and his line is often cold as a glacier. His "World before the flood" is a misnomer. gomery has given poetic form and words to breathings and paintings of the Christian's spirit, which himself never suspected to be poetical at all, till he saw them reflected in Vu.se. He has caught and crystallized the tear dropping from the penitent's eye; he has echoed the burden of the heart, sighing with gratitude to Heaven; he has arrested and fixed in melody the "upward glancing of an eye, when none but God is near." In his verse, and in Cowpe's, the poetry of ages of devotion has broken silence, and spoken out. Religion, the most poetical ofject of religion at all; it is his only to wonall things, had, for a long season, been divorced from song, or had mistaken pert jingle, impudent familiarity, and doggerel, for its genaine voice. It was reserved for the bards of Olney and Sheffield to renew and to strengthen the lawful and holy wedlock. Houtgomery, then, is a religious yrist and as such, is distinguished by many peculiar merits. His first quality is a certain quet simplicity of language, and of purpose. His is not the ostentations, elaborate, and systematic simplicity of Wordsworth; it is unobtrusive, and essential to the action of his mind. It is a simplicity, which the diligent student of Scripture seldom fails to derive from its pages, particularly from its histories and its psalms. It is the simplicity of a spirit which religion has subdued as well as elevated, and which coniously spreads abroad the wings of its imagination, under the eye of God. As if eich poem were a prayer, so is he sedulous that its words be few and well ordered. In short, his is not so much the simplicity of art, nor the simplicity of nature, as it is the simplicity of faith. It is the virgin dress of one of the white-robed priests in the ancient temple. It is a simplicity which, by easy and rapid transition, mounts into bold and marly enthusiasm. One is reminded of the artless sinkings and soarings, lingerings and hurryings of David's matchless minstrelsies Profound insight is not peculiarly Montgomery's forte. He is rather a seraph than a cherub; rather a burning than a knowing He kneels; he looks upward with Vol. 6, No. 3-8. Que. It is not the young virgin undrowned world it professes to be. In his "West Indies," there is more of the ardent emancipator than of the poet; you catch but dimly, through its correct and measured. verse, a glimpse of Ethiopia-a dreadful ap pellant, standing with one shackled foot on the rock of Gibraltar, and the other on the Cape of Good Hope, and "stretching forth. her hands" to an avenging God. And although, in the horrors of the middle passage, there were elements of poetry, yet it was a poetry which our author's genius is too gentle and timid fully to extract. As soon could he have added a story to Ugolino's tower, or another circle to the Inferno, as have painted that pit of heat, hunger, and howling despair, the hold of a slave vessel, Let him have his praise, however, as the constant and eloquent friend of the negro, and as the laureate of his freedom. The high note struck at first by Cowper in his lines, "I would not have a slave," &c, it was reserved for Montgomery to echo and swell up, in reply to the full diapason of the liberty of Ham's children, proclaimed in al the isles which Britain claims as hers. And et us hope that he will be rewarded, beion, the close of his existence, by hearing, though it were in an ear half-shut in death, a louder, deeper, more victorious shout springing from emancipated America, and of saying, like Simeon of old, "Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." which nas so long loomed before our imaginations, and so often visited our dreams.Indeed, it is a question, in reference to objects which must, even when seen, derive their interests from imagination, whether they be not best seen by its eye alone. Among Montgomery's smaller poems, the finest is the "Stanzas at Midnight," composed in Switzerland, and which we see inserted in Longfellow's romance of Hyperion, with no notice or apparent knowledge of their authorship. They describe a mood of his own mind while passing a night among the Alps, and contain a faithful transcript of the emotions which, thick and sombre as the shadows of the mountains, crossed his soul in its solitude. There are no words of Foster's which to us possess more meaning The plan of "The Pelican Island" was an unfortunate one, precluding as it did almost entirely human interest, and rapid vicissitude of events; and resting its power principally upon the description of foreign objects, and of slow though majestic processes of nature. Once, and once only, in this and perhaps any of his poems, does he rise into the rare region of the sublime. It is in the description of the sky of the south, a subject which indeed is itself inspiration.-than that simple expression in his first esAnd yet, in that solemn sky, the great constellations, hung up in the wondering evening air, the Dove, the Raven, the Ship of Heaven, "sailing from eternity;" the Wolf "with eyes of lightning watching the Centaur's spear; the Altar blazing, "even at the footsteps of Jehovah's throne; the Cross, ❝meek emblem of redeeming love," which bends at midnight as when they were taking down the Savior of the world, and which greeted the eye of Humboldt as he sailed over the still Pacific, had so hung and so burned for ages,and no poet sung their praises. Patience, ye glorious tremblers. In a page of this "Pelican Island," a page bright as your own beams, and like them immortal shall your splendors be yet inscribed. This passage, which floats the poem, and will long memorize Montgomery's name, is the more remarkable, as the poet never saw but in imagination that unspeakable southern midnight. And yet we are not sure but, of objects so transcendent, the "vision of our own" is the true vision, and that ought to be perpetuated in song. For our parts, we, longing as we have ever done to see the Cross of the South, would almost fear to have our longings gratified, and to find the reality, splendid as it must be, substituted for that vast image of bright, quivering stars, say, "solemn meditations of the night." Nothing in spiritual history is more interesting. What vast tracts of thought does the mind sometimes traverse when it cannot sleep! What ideas, that had bashfully presented themselves in the light of day, now stand out in bold relief and authoritative dignity! How do, alas! past struggles and sins return to recollection, rekindling on our cheeks their first fierce blushes unseen in the darkness! How new a light is cast up on the great subjects of spiritual contempla- "In lonely glens, smid the roar of rivers, When thought revisits them!" And when, through the window, looks in on us one fuil glance of a clear large star, how startingly it seems, like a conscious, mild, yet piercing eye; how strongly it points, how soothingly it mingles with our meditations, and, as with a pencil of fire points them away into still remoter and |