TO HIS MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY amounting to seventy-eight, they KING GEORGE THE FOURTH, presented a copy of the Book of THIS BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER IS HUMBLY PRESENTED AS A TESTIMONY OF THEIR HIGH VENERATION FOR THE LITURGY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, AND OF THEIR LOYALTY TO THEIR BELOVED SOVEREIGN, BY FIVE JEWS, CONVINCED OF THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY THROUGH THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF WILLIAM BRIDGES. Common Prayer, with the following inscription written on each book:-viz. "A minute token of Christian Love to the Tender Lambs of Messiah's flock from five of the seed of Abraham, with the fervent prayers that the Holy Spirit may take and show unto them the things that be of Christ." Psalm cxxii. 6. Zech. viii. 23. Rom. ii. 28, 29. John xiv. 27. Rom. xi. 15, 21, and 24. If, with perfect propriety and good taste, these Jews intimated their conversion, in the first instance, to their Sovereign, the next step which they took, partaking of a publick character, was prompted by Christian benevolence and love. The whole, or part of them, had been in the habit for a considerable time, of attending the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Howells, of the Episcopal Chapel in Long Acre, in connexion with which there is a flourishing Sunday-school. To each of the children attending this school, THE MAGDALENE. O turn not such a withering look But think, ere thus the mourner's sigh, The haunts of vice might pleasing seem, But, ah! one hour dispell'd the dream, Amidst the crowds in pleasure's bow'r And where I thought to find a flow'r O say not, then, the cup of wrath It is not thus the Gospel speaks To those who cease from sin; The soul, Messiah's fold that seeks, Is ever welcom'd in. And say not that my guilt is great, I know, I feel, 'tis true; When such a wand'ring sheep as I A rigid sentence sought; Keview. We should not do justice to the friend who has favoured us with the following paper, if we omitted to state, that he did not send it to us as a Review, but as an article for the Miscellaneous part of our work. It is rather a comparison of Pollok with Milton, and incidentally with other poets, than a particular examination of the excellencies and defects of "The Course of Time." It, however, partakes of the nature of a review, and we are pleased to be able to place it in this department of our Miscellany. FOR THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. POLLOK'S COURSE OF TIME. Some of the transatlantick reviewers dealt out to the Rev. Edward Irving, when he first appeared as an author, the most unqualified praise; but scarcely had his orations reached this country before our men of taste settled their intellectual worth, pretty much as it is now estimated. Criticks, with all their sagacity, are like other men; that is, they are liable to be dazzled. We acquit them, however, of having spoken in terms too exalted of the poem which heads this article; whilst a few of them have descanted on its merits in a way, as we think, far too cautious and guarded. The poem evidently has faults. Its admirers cannot deny that a number of its lines might have been more harmoniously constructed; and there are certainly some instances in which the best taste did not preside over the poet's pen. But even Milton himself is not harmonious in all his lines, and he attained to the first rank among poets, not by the entire absence of perverted taste, but by the multitude of his redeeming excellencies. It seems strange that any critic should hesitate a moment about the class of poetical and intellectual excellence to which the poem of Pollok belongs. If the world of genius has kindred spirits, then Milton would not have disdained to own the author of "The Course of Time" as his son. Pollok can be compared, properly, with no poet but Milton; for he has not the witchery of Shakspeare, nor the coyness of Burns, nor the archness of Cowper. We cannot attribute to him either the summer radiance, or the autumnal fulness, which at once enlightens and burdens the pages of Thomson. He has not produced a strictly philosophical poem, like Akenside, ornamenting it, from beginning to end, by a rich and restive fancy. But he is free from the sudden starts which distinguish the muse of Young; and, like Milton, he is alternately calm, majestick, sublime, and inventive. The mind of Pollok climbs, with ease, the steeps of infinitude, anxious, seemingly, to suspend around each of them, some wreath betokening his exalted admiration; and he surveys the lower works of Divine Power, with the gladdened heart and the elated and glowing eye of the genuine poet. Had Pollok lived longer, he would, probably, have displayed greater versatility of genius, but that versatility might have injured the insulated moral grandeur in which his name is now enshrined. We claim not for "The Course of Time," an entire equality with Paradise Lost. But, after allowing for some points of discrepancy in the circumstances of the poets, we claim for Pollok as large a measure of genius as Milton possessed. Milton lived till his mental powers were matured. His poem was the fruit of profound and reiterated meditation. He wrote it after re linquishing the pen of controversy; a pen which he had wielded with a daring and martial spirit; and with a mind enlarged and improved by foreign travel, and a practical acquaintance with state affairs. Whatever might have been his original genius, it must be confessed that Milton's whole education fitted him to be a poet. Nothing, perhaps, expands and beautifies the poetical mind, so effectually as travel. Especially must the powers of Milton have derived nourishment from this source, looking, as he did, at every thing grand in nature and majestick in art, with a prepared and cultivated vision. Hence the mountain which showed itself from afar, the vale curtained in its foliage of green, or decked with empurpled leaves, the glassy lake, glistering in beauty, and the landscape, with its thousand varied charms, must have powerfully affected his mind. Had he gone immediately back to his academick hermitage, even there such objects, once seen, would have wrought into his mind, a mixture of their own inherent grandeur and beauty. But the years of Pollok_hurried rapidly to their close. Few suns, comparatively, set before him, spangling his horizon, and staining the wooded haunts beneath. He wrought his poem in the midst of studies, preliminary to the discharge of his weighty office; and we regret to add, that he appears to have received, once or twice, a skilfully insinuated hint, that his fancy was rather too overwhelming for the didactick exhibitions of the pulpit. The wit of Swift, or the humour and levity of Sterne, might have been a disqualification for the pulpit; but we do not understand how Heber and Young, Kirke White and Grahame, or Pollok and Watts, were disqualified for the sacred desk, by an elevated and excursive imagination. This preposterous sentiment exiled Thomson from the service of the sanctuary. We freely confess, indeed, that without of the Seasons would have done no a revolution in his habits, the poet honour to the church; but the same vituperation which outlawed him, might have outlawed Pollok,-the builder of immortal rhyme, whose ambition was subdued and chastened by Scriptural truth, and whose work will live long after the rhapsodies of Ossian, and Klopstock, and Gessner, shall be forgotten. is by far the most abundantly Of the two poems, Paradise Lost stocked with learning. In "The Course of Time," mythological lore is more sparsely used; and in a poem so decidedly Christian, this selfdenial is rather commendatory than offensive. Still, gleams of learning appear at proper intervals, sufficient to show that the author had frequently drank at the fountains of Greece, and the wells of Italy. Whilst Burns was educated a poet by the side of the hawthorn bush, or by mingling speech with the wheeling bird and the murmuring brook, or by marking closely the passions at work, and the manners which prevailed just around him, we cannot forget the learning in furnishing hundreds of agency of poets with the elements and resources of their art. But, in addition to this superiority of learning, Paradise Lost is distinguished by greater animation, as a whole. With the exception of particular passages, in "The Course of Time," its pages are less stirring to the heart: nor should we have been surprised, had Pollok lived, if his mind had occasionally led him away from the burning zone of poetry, into the temperate, yet still the sunshine, region of philosophy. radise Lost, is more profound than The rural taste displayed in Pathat which appears in "The Course of Time." There have been poets more conspicuous for a furtive rural imagery than even Milton; but there have been none whose rural imagery is so stupendous and mag nificent. Some princes have so delighted in indigenous productions, that whenever they journeyed, their artificial travelling gardens bore them company: so that whether in the brilliant saloon, or in the deep wilderness, they could pluck alike the blushing grape, or the golden orange, or repose at will beneath the palm tree or the pomegranate, the myrtle or the woodbine arbour. But the mind of Milton was itself so luxuriant in rural imagery, that whether in the noisy street, or in the resting spot of the country prospect, he could pluck at pleasure the distinct fruits of the Chinese, Italian, or English garden. He could pause on the silver fountain, or detach the smoothest leaf from the knot of the velvet rose; or he could range mountain scenery, and render his descriptions wild as the pictures of Salvator Rosa. Like Thomson, he could trace the outer lines of the pastoral view; or like Spenser, turn in as a guest to the ring of its interior charms. But he made it evident that the notice of such objects was but the transient descent of his mind, from the sublimity in which it delighted to soar. Beyond Eden's walls of verdure, even close to its hedged gates, he kept his car in waiting; for Milton was always the master of sublimity-a sovereign in the grandeur of his thoughts, and the power of his numbers. The resemblance, mentioned by some of the English criticks, between Milton and Pollok, is not wholly imaginary. They fixed alike on an exalted theme. The one turns the opening leaves of the book of creation, the other impressively closes them, after they have all been rustled by the last trump, and shaken by the celestial retinue of the Judge. The one leads us back to the first hour of our world, when the songs of angels were gushing up and down the lawned steeps of Eden. The other carries us forward to the last hour of earthly probation, and emptying the mind of all other thoughts, makes it ring with the knell that tolls the dissolution of our world. These are difficult themes. Milton and Pollok could not be satisfied with subjects easy and playful. From the natural repugnance of men to sacred things, sacred poetry must be executed in such a way as to subdue this antipathy. Young himself has failed in some of his flights; especially on subjects whose grandeur is impaired by the least deviation from simplicity. Yet Young was a manly poet, notwithstanding his occasional incongruities and exaggerations. Unlettered men almost invariably admire his faults; but lettered men also admire him, and that too at the time they are most studiously engaged in separating between his defects and his excellencies. His Night Thoughts, taken as a whole, form an original and wonderful production. Milton and Pollok resemble each other in their resolution to accomplish something illustrious. Milton fled from controversy that he might set himself apart to sing his elaborate song. At one time he appears to have resolved upon making England and its neighbouring islands his theme, and of course the principal theatre of his fame. But this must have been in some moment of dejected feeling, for he panted to be universally known, by intertwining his name with the immortal subject of his verse. It is true that posthumous fame can do no good to its possessor; but it may do good or evil to generations that exist long after its possessor has crumbled into dust. It is not improper to extend our moral and intellectual influence to remotest time, if, with the praise of men, we seek a nobler plaudit from our Maker. This last was the elevated ambition of Pollock. There is no doubt he loved fame, although he has not shown that he loved it inordinately. He no where makes his poem the stepping-stone to reputation. The epic dignity of his song shows us the resistless desire by which he was influenced, to acquit himself well; but the chief acquittal which he sought was from his final and unerring Judge. He rises and looks within the curtains of the heavens, asking upon his work the benignant smile of his Maker. In thus seeking, primarily, the approbation of his Maker, we will venture to say, that he has secured the permanent admiration of men. "The Course of Time" will be speedily read in all countries, where any taste for literature prevails. But it will pass these limits, in that blissful period when the church shall fill the world-a period which Pollok has descanted on with such ample and felicitous eloquence. Then it will be read alike in the fens of the Cam, and among the flags of the Nile; in the bower of philosophy, and on the oasis of the Arab; in the refreshing grove, and amid the wreaths of polar snows. Of the two poems, we cannot suppress the belief that "The Course of Time" is decidedly the more useful. Usefulness is thought by some to be incompatible with such an exercise of the imagination as poetry demands. What, then, will such persons say to Blair's Grave, a poem, terse, pungent, didactick, humbling-and far before Gray's Elegy, in moral effectiveness? Who will deny the soothing influence on our feelings of Bishop Porteus's poem on death? Is there any one who does not feel a deeper veneration for the Sabbath, as Grahame paints its obligations and its blessings before his mental eye. Or did any one ever read Burns's Cotter's Saturday-night, without feeling that it was a useful poem? But Dr. Beattie asks, if we seek for usefulness, why not adopt plain prose as the vehicle of our thoughts? The answer is obvious. Because where a poem is useful, it can be useful only, or principally, by affecting the imagination. Thus, Pilgrim's Progress, as to its truths, might be reduced to a few pages, or, certainly, to a few chapters; but then the imagination would have lost the odour and the sanctity shed over it, by the work in its present formWe should not then have been allured onward by each turn in the ingenious allegory, nor ever have ascended the delectable mountains with well grouped shepherds for our guides. We have little doubt that Paradise Lost has been highly useful. It has served, at least, to keep in mind some salutary impressions of that great event, the fall of man. It has also produced a powerfully dramatick effect on persons of sentimental taste; and some of its Eden scenes impart such serious feelings as dispose us to seek communion with our Maker. But we do not recollect that Milton makes us feel the evil of sin as sin. We lament the destruction of natural beauty, and every where we see the misery introduced by apostacy; but the evil of sin is not to be altogether measured by its consequences. But no one can possibly read "The Course of Time," without perceiving that the views of the writer are all clear and Scriptural. There is no scepticism in his creed. He attacks sin, whether it appear in the shape of literary pride, of military glory, of fastidious epicurism, of priestly hypocrisy, or papal domination. He confines himself strictly, within the bounds of divine revelation; hence all his events lie in their natural order. He has gathered together all the results of the great system, the celebration of which Milton began. On the subject of the millennium, the views of Pollok are glowing, but at the same time sufficiently chastened. In speaking of this event, too many forget their character as simple interpreters of the sacred oracles, in their assumption |