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used his interest to protect the royalists; but even at a time when all lies would have been meritorious against him, no charge was made, no story pretended, that he had ever directly or indirectly engaged or assisted in their persecution. Oh! methinks there are other and far better feelings, which should be acquired by the perusal of our great elder writers. When I have before me on the same table, the works of Hammond and Baxter; when I reflect with what joy and dearness their blessed spirits are now loving each other: it seems a mournful thing that their names should be perverted to an occasion of bitterness among us, who are enjoying that happy mean which the human TooMUCH on both sides was perhaps necessary to produce. The tangle of delusions which stifled and distorted the growing tree of our wellbeing have been torn away; the parasite-weeds that fed on its very roots have been plucked up with a salutary violence. To us there remain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual improvement, the cautious unhazardous labours of the industrious though contented gardener—to prune, to strengthen, to engraft, and one by one to remove from its leaves and fresh shoots the slug and the caterpillar. But far be it from us to undervalue with light and senseless detraction the conscientious hardihood of our predecessors, or even to condemn in them that vehemence, to which the blessings it won for us leave us now neither temptation nor pretext. We ante-date the feelings, in order to criminate the authors, of our present Liberty, Light, and Toleration.

that cometh into the world. Taylor, with a growing reverence for authority, an increasing sense of the insufficiency of the Scriptures without the aids of tradition and the consent of authorized interpreters, advanced as far in his approaches (not indeed to Popery, but) to Catholicism, as a conscientious minister of the English Church could well venture. Milton would be, and would utter the same, to all, on all occasions: he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Taylor would become all things to all men, if by any means he might benefit any; hence he availed himself, in his popular writings, of opinions and representations which stand often in striking contrast with the doubts and convictions expressed in his more philosophical works. He appears, indeed, not too severely to have blamed that management of truth (istam falsitatem dispensativam) authorized and exemplified by almost all the fathers: Integrum omnino Doctoribus et cœtus Christiani Antistitibus esse, ut dolos versent, falsa veris intermisceant et imprimis religionis hostes fallant, dummodo veritatis commodis et utilitati inserviant.

The same antithesis might be carried on with the elements of their several intellectual powers. Milton, austere, condensed, imaginative, supporting his truth by direct enunciation of lofty moral sentiment and by distinct visual representations, and in the same spirit overwhelming what he deemed falsehood by moral denunciation and a succession of pictures appalling or repulsive. In his prose, so many metaphors, so many allegorical miniatures. Taylor, eminently discursive, accumulative, and (to use one of his own words) agglomerative; still more rich in images than Milton himself, but images of Fancy, and presented to the common and passive eye, rather than to the eye of the imagination. Whether supporting or assailing, he makes his way either by argument or by appeals to the affections, unsurpassed even by the Schoolmen in subtlety, agility and logical wit, and unrivalled by

If ever two great men might seem, during their whole lives, to have moved in direct opposition, though neither of them has at any time introduced the name of the other, Milton and Jeremy Taylor were they. The former commenced his career by attacking the Church-Liturgy and all set forms of prayer. The latter, but far more successfully, by defending both. Milton's next work was then against the Prelacy and the then existing Church-Government-Taylor's, in vindication and support of them. Milton the most rhetorical of the fathers in the became more and more a stern republican, or rather an advocate for that religious and moral aristocracy which, in his day, was called republicanism, and which, even more than royalism itself, is the direct antipode of modern jacobinism. Taylor, as more and more sceptical concerning the fitness of men in general for power, became more and more attached to the prerogatives of monarchy. From Calvinism, with a still decreasing respect for Fathers, Councils, and for ChurchAntiquity in general, Milton seems to have ended in an indifference, if not a dislike, to all forms of ecclesiastic government, and to have retreated wholly into the inward and spiritual church-communion of his own spiFit with the Light, that lighteth every man

copiousness and vividness of his expressions and illustrations. Here words that convey feelings, and words that flash images, and words of abstract notion, flow together, and at once whirl and rush onward like a stream, at once rapid and full of eddies; and yet still, interfused here and there, we see a tongue or islet of smooth water, with some picture in it of earth or sky, landscape or living group of quiet beauty.

Differing, then, so widely, and almost contrariantly, wherein did these great men agree? wherein did they resemble each other? In Genius, in Learning, in unfeigned Piety, in blameless Purity of Life, and in benevolent aspirations and purposes for the moral and temporal improvement of their

fellow-creatures! Both of them wrote a La- has kindled and displayed more bright and tin Accidence, to render education more easy burning lights of Genius and Learning, than and less painful to children; both of them all other protestant churches since the recomposed hymns and psalms proportioned formation, was (with the single exception to the capacity of common congregations; of the times of Laud and Sheldon) least both, nearly at the same time, set the glo- intolerant, when all Christians unhappily rious example of publicly recommending and deemed a species of intolerance their relisupporting general Toleration, and the Li-gious duty; that Bishops of our church were berty both of the Pulpit and the Press! In among the first that contended against this the writings of neither shall we find a single error; and finally, that since the reformation, sentence, like those meek deliverances to God's when tolerance became a fashion, the Church mercy, with which LAUD accompanied his of England, in a tolerating age, has shewn votes for the mutilations and loathsome herself eminently tolerant, and far more so. dungeoning of Leighton and others!-no both in Spirit and in Fact, than many of where such a pious prayer as we find in her most bitter opponents, who profess to Bishop Hall's memoranda of his own Life, deem toleration itself an insult on the rights concerning the subtle and witty Atheist that of mankind! As to myself, who not only so grievously perplexed and gravelled him know the Church-Establishment to be tolerat Sir Robert Drury's, till he prayed to the ant, but who see in it the greatest, if not Lord to remove him, and behold! his prayers the sole safe bulwark of Toleration, I feel were heard; for shortly afterward this phi- no necessity of defending or palliating oplistine-combatant went to London, and there pressions under the two Charleses, in order perished of the plague in great misery! In to exclaim with a full and fervent heart. short, no where shall we find the least ap- ESTO PERPETUA ! proach, in the lives and writings of John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, to that guarded gentleness, to that sighing reluctance, with which the holy Brethren of the Inquisition | The Scene, a desolated Tract in la Vendée. deliver over a condemned heretic to the civil magistrate, recommending him to mercy, and hoping that the magistrate will treat the erring brother with all possible mildness!-the magistrate, who too well knows what would be his own fate, if he dared offend them by acting on their recommendation.

The opportunity of diverting the reader from myself to characters more worthy of his attention, has led me far beyond my first intention; but it is not unimportant to expose the false zeal which has occasioned these attacks on our elder patriots. It has been too much the fashion, first to personify the Church of England, and then to speak of different individuals, who in different ages have been rulers in that church, as if in some strange way they constituted its personal identity. Why should a clergyman of the present day feel interested in the defence of Laud or Sheldon? Surely it is sufficient for the warmest partizan of our establishment, that he can assert with truth, --when our Church persecuted, it was on mistaken principles held in common by all Christendom; and at all events, far less culpable was this intolerance in the Bishops, who were maintaining the existing laws, than the persecuting spirit afterwards shewn by their successful opponents, who had no such excuse, and who should have been taught mercy by their own sufferings, and wisdom by the utter failure of the experiment in their own case. We can say, that our Church, apostolical in its faith, primitive in its ceremonies, unequalled in its liturgical forms; that our Church, which

FAMINE is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter FIRE and SLAUGHTER.

Famine. SISTERS! sisters! who sent you here?

Slaughter (to Fire). I will whisper it in

her ear.

Fire. No! no! no!
Spirits hear what spirits tell:
Twill make an holiday in Hell,
No! no! no!

Myself, I nam'd him once below,
And all the souls, that damned be,
Leapt up at once in anarchy,
Clapp'd their hands and danced for glee.
They no longer heeded me;
But laugh'd to hear Hell's burning rafters
Unwillingly re-echo laughters!
No! no! no!

Spirits hear what spirits tell:
"Twill make an holiday in Hell!

Famine. Whisper it, sister! so and so!
In a dark hint, soft and slow.
Slaughter. Letters four do form his name
And who sent you?

Both. The same! the same!
Slaughter. He came by stealth, and un-
lock'd my den,

And I have drank the blood since then
Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

Both. Who bade you do't?
Slaughter. The same! the same!
Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried, Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

Famine. Thanks, sister, thanks! the men
have bled,

Their wives and their children faint for bread

I stood in a swampy field of battle;
With bones and skulls I made a rattle,
To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow
And the homeless dog-but they would not go.
So off I flew for how could I bear
To see them gorge their dainty fare?
I heard a groan and a peevish squall,
And through the chink of a cottage-wall-
Can you guess what I saw there?

Both. Whisper it, sister! in our ear. Famine. A baby beat its dying mother: I had starv'd the one and was starving the

other!

Both. Who bade you do't?
Famine. The same! the same!
Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried, Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

Fire. Sisters! I from Ireland came!
Hedge and corn-fields all on flame,
I triumph'd o'er the setting Sun!
And all the while the work was done,
On as I strode with my huge strides,
I flung back my head and I held my sides,
It was so rare a piece of fun
To see the swelter'd cattle run
With uncouth gallop through the night,
Scared by the red and noisy light!
By the light of his own blazing cot
Was many a naked Rebel shot:

The house-stream met the flame and hiss'd,
While crash! fell in the roof, I wist,
On some of those old bed-rid nurses,
That deal in discontent and curses.
Both. Who bade you do't?
Fire. The same! the same!
Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried, Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

All. He let us loose, and cried, Halloo!
How shall we yield him honour due?
Famine. Wisdom comes with lack of food.
I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude,
Till the cup of rage o'erbrim:
They shall seize him and his brood-
Slaughter. They shall tear him limb from
limb!

Fire. O thankless beldames and untrue!
And is this all that you can do
For him, who did so much for you?
Ninety months he, by my troth!
Hath richly cater'd for you both;
And in an hour would you'repay

An eight years' work?-Away! away!
I alone am faithful! I

Cling to him everlastingly.

Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust, Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,

Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose (In vain the darling of successful love) Stands, like some boasted beauty of past

years, The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.

Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed flowret of the
brook,

Hope's gentle gem, the sweet FORGET-ME-NOT!
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has work'd, (the flowers which most she
knew I lov'd)

And, more belov'd than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning-twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyless restlessness,. Leaving the soft bed to her sleeping sister, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Down the slope coppice to the woodbinebower,

Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning-breeze, Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung, Making a quiet image of disquiet In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool; There, in that bower where first she own'd her love,

And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretch'd

The silk upon the frame, and work'd her

name

Between the Moss-ROSE and FORGET-ME-NOT— Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair! That, forc'd to wander till sweet spring return,

I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look, Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood Has made me wish to steal away and weep) Nor yet th' entrancement of that maiden kiss With which she promis'd, that when spring return'd,

She would resign one half of that dear name, And own thenceforth no other name but mine!

THE KEEP-SAKE.

THE tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil, The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field, Shew summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall

OR

THE PICTURE,

THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION.

THROUGH Weeds and thorns, and matted underwood

I force my way; now climb, and now descend O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts; while oft

unseen,

Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves, As safe and sacred from the step of man The scared snake rustles. Onward still I As an invisible world-unheard, unseen, And listening only to the pebbly brook

toil,

Tinkling, or bees, that in the neighbouring trunk

I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,That murmurs with a dead, yet bell-like Lovely as light, sudden as summer-gust, sound And gladsome as the first-born of the spring, Beckons me on, or follows from behind, Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quell'd,

I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark The fir-trees, and th' unfrequent slender oak, Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake

Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.
Here Wisdom might resort, and here
Remorse;

Here too the love-lorn Man who, sick in soul
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of unconscious life
In tree or wild-flower.-Gentle Lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to be,
He would far rather not be that, he is;
But would be something, that he knows
not of,

In winds or waters, or among the rocks!

[blocks in formation]

at morn

The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs!
You, oh ye wingless AIRS! that creep between
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed-
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless
damp,
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin
Gnomes!

With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedge-
hog's back.

This is my hour of triumph! I can now With my own fancies play the merry fool, And laugh away worse folly, being free. Here will I seat myself, beside this old, Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine Cloaths as with net-work: here will couch my limbs,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,

Make honey-hoards. This breeze, that visits

me,

Was never Love's accomplice, never rais'd The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half disclosed The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence Eye - poisons for some love-distempered Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspengrove

youth,

Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, Who swells his little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine,

Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, Her face, her form divine, her downcast look Contemplative! Ah see! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! He, meanwhile,

Who from her countenance turn'd or look'd by stealth, (For fear is true love's cruel nurse) he now, With stedfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed.

She, sportive tyrant! with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,

Lychnis, and willow-herb,and fox-glove bells; And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the

charm

Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes!

The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon

The visions will return! And lo! he stays: And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once

more

The pool becomes a mirror, and behold Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree-but where

land maze

O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd | One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand
On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone! Holds loosely its small handful of wild-
Homeward she steals through many a wood-
flowers,
Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths.
A curious picture, with a master's haste
Sketch'd on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
Peel'd from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!
Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries
Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried
On the fine skin! She has been newly here;
And lo! yon patch of heath has been her
couch-

Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime
In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes,
and thou

Beholdst her shadow still abiding there,
The Naiad of the Mirror!-Not to thee,
O wild and desert Stream! belongs this tale:
Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs
Tower from thy shores, and stretch across
thy bed,

Making thee doleful as a cavern-well:
Save when the shy king-fishers build their

nest

On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild Stream!

This be my chosen haunt-emancipate
From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,
I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,
Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms!
Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs
How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,
Isle of the river, whose disparted waters
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet,
Each in the other lost and found: And see!
Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye!
With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief

feuds!

But hark, the noise of a near waterfall!
I come out into light-I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful
Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods!)
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts,
The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make
A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might

scem,

With brook and bridge, and gray stone
cottages,

Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,
The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray,
Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass
Swings in its winnow! All the air is calm.
The smoke from cottage-chimnies, ting'd
with light,

Rises in columns: from this house alone,
Close by the waterfall, the column slants,
And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is
THIS?

The pressure still remains' O blessed couch!
For this mayst thou flower early, and the
Sun,

Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long
Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!
Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!
More beautiful than whom Alcæus woo'd
The Lesbian woman of immortal song!
O child of genius! stately, beautiful,
And full of love to all, save only me,
And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,
Why beats it thus? Through yonder cop-
pice-wood

Needs must the pathway turn, that leads
straightway

On to her father's house. She is alone!
The night draws on-such ways are hard to
hit-

And fit it is I should restore this sketch,
Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I

yearn

To keep the relique? 'twill but idly feed
The passion that consumes me. Let me haste!
The picture in my hand which she has left;
She cannot blame me that I follow'd her:
And I may be her guide the long wood
through.

LOVE.

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo,
le puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta
Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas,
Vivendoque simul morimut, rapimurque manendo.
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor:
Frous alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Voxque alind sonat-

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,
Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus
Mens horret relegensque alium putat ista locutum.
PETRARCHA.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

That cottage, with its slanting chimney- Oft in my waking dreams do I

smoke,

Live o'er again that happy hour, And close beside its porch a sleeping child, | When midway on the mount I lay,

His dear head pillowed on a sleeping dog

Beside the ruin'd tower.

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