through the Æneid, if Virgil had cared a sixpence for her displeasure? When I see these liberties taken with the Gods in writing, I feel convinced that equal liberties will be taken with them in life; when I find an immortal, and an invincible Being knocked on the head or run through the belly at the mercy of a terrestrial Wit, I naturally conclude that in the country where such a phenomenon takes place, few persons will boggle at a perjury from the apprehension of a thunderbolt. But this is not all! There seems to have existed an idea that a time was approaching when the great offspring of Saturn would be hurled down from the seat he occupied, and subjected to an ignominious destiny, if not to utter annihilation. This is one of the most singular and unaccountable points in their system of faith. Without going into discussions, to which I am unequal, upon the origin and import of this notion, I must express my surprise at the blindness of those who dressed up a figure, loaded with all these debilities, as their Supreme Power, and installed him in the seat of universal dominion.

As I have been making allusions to the introduction of the Gods in the battles of the Epics, I shall proceed to say a few words upon the subject. The worthy gentry of Olympus, resembling men in their vices, their passions, their liability to pain, and their delight in carnage, made a very tolerable figure in a fair stand-up fight. Their characters could suffer very little from their making use of brazen arms, riding in wooden chariots, and wrestling with antagonists of mere flesh and blood. Mars, to be sure, would have done better if he had refrained from howling; and Juno would not have lost in dignity, if she had been a little more cautious in boxing the ears of Diana. But, upon the whole, these people are very good matter for the poet; and I would as lief meet them in a Hexameter as in a Temple.

But it is a very different thing when the person of the only true God is to be introduced in a poem. A pigmy in poetry may trifle with the thunders of Jupiter, but a Hercules should beware how he handles the terrors of Jehovah: a rhymer may talk what nonsense he pleases of a mythology which consists of fiction and tinsel; but he should be afraid to touch upon a theme in which there is Truth, and Eternity, and Power. It is for this reason that I can never read without disgust those passages of Tasso, in which the Divine Agency is degraded to the level of the Machinery of the Poem.

When, however, the description falls into the hands of one who is able to do justice to it, see how the glories of the Heathen Mythology sink before the effulgence of the Living God. Search the most celebrated descriptions of Heathen writers; and where, where, in the brightest moments of inspiration, will you find a

passage that can for a moment be compared with that of the Psalmist :

"The earth trembled and quaked; the very foundations of the hills shook, and were removed, because he was wrath. There went a smoke out in his presence, and a consuming fire out of his mouth, so that coals were kindled at it. He bowed the Heavens also and came down, and it was dark under his feet. He rode upon the cherubims and did fly: he came flying upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him, with dark water and thick clouds to cover him. At the brightness of his presence his clouds removed; hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered out of Heaven, and the Highest gave his thunder; hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out his arrows and scattered them; he cast forth lightnings and destroyed them. The springs of waters were seen, and the foundations of the round world were discovered, at thy chiding, O Lord, at the blasting of the breath of thy displeasure."

When I look at the famous nod of Jupiter

Ἦ, και κυανέησιν ἐπ' ὀφουσι νευσε Κρονίων,
Αμβροσιαι δ' άρα χαιται ἐπερρώσαντο άνακτος
Κρατος απ' αθανατοιο· μεγαν δ ̓ ἐλελιξεν Ολυμπον.

I have before me a distinct image of a handsome terriblelooking man, sitting on a throne, and shaking his head; but when I read the passage which I have quoted above, I find no clear image represented; I feel only a dark and undefinable sensation of awe, a consciousness of the presence of the Deity, visible, yet clothed with darkness as with a veil.

Look now at the terrible magnificence with which Ezekiel has overshadowed the Almighty. After a gorgeous description of the attendant ministers, he says:

"And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their beads, when they stood and had let down their wings. And above the firmament that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake."

My quotations are running to a great length; nevertheless. I cannot refrain from transcribing the splendid description of the Messiah, in which our own Milton has united the above two passages:

"Forth rush'd with whirlwind sound

The chariot of Paternal Deity,

Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel withdrawn
Itself instinct with spirit, but convoyed

By four cherubick shapes, four faces each
Had wondrous, as with stars their bodies all
And wings were set with eyes, with eyes the wheels
Of beril and carriering fires between;

Over their heads a crystal firmament,
Whereon a sapphire throne inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch.
He in celestial Panoply all armed

Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought,
Ascended; at his right hand Victory
Sate eagle-winged, beside him hung his bow
And quiver, with three bolted thunder stored.
And from about him fierce effusion roll'd

Of smoke and bickering flame, and sparkles dire;
Attended with ten thousand thousand saints
He onward came, far off his coming shone,
And twenty thousand (I their number heard),
Chariots of God, half on each hand were seen.
He on the wings of Cherub rode sublime,
On the crystalline sky in saphir thron'd."

After having transcribed three such passages as these, I am in no mind to return at present to the dirt and filth of the Pagan superstition; and I shall hasten to a conclusion.

I have been digressing from my original propositum, until at last I have left the Divinities of the Ancients, and set to work at proving that Homer and Virgil are far inferior to David, Ezekiel, and Milton, which after all is a very easy task, and not very new. I intended to have made this a very learned paper, to have talked much of Egypt, a little of M. Belzoni, and several other matters, which I have not time to enumerate. Here, however, is the fruit of my labours; I am too lazy, or too busy, to alter, or add, or erase; in thus rambling through five pages, instead of labouring through fifty, my time has been expended, I am sure more pleasantly to myself, and I hope as agreeably to my readers. J. HARVEY.

Stanzas.

THOU hast left us, dearest Spirit, and left us all alone,
But thou thyself to glory and liberty art flown;

And the song that tells thy virtues, and mourns thy early doom,
Should be gentle as thy happy death, and peaceful as thy tomb.

Thy place no longer knows thee beside the household hearth,
We miss then in our hour of woe, we miss thee in our mirth ;
But the thought that thou wert one of us-that thou had borne

our name,

Is more than we would part with for fortune or for fame.

Thy dying gift of love, 'twas a light and slender token,
And thy parting words of comfort were few and faintly spoken;
But memory must forsake us, and life itself decay,

Ere those gifts shall be forgotten, or those accents pass away.

Farewell, our best and fairest! a long, a proud farewell!

May those who love thee follow to the place where thou dost dwell

Like the lovely star that led from far the wanderers to their God, May'st thou guide us in the pathway which thy feet in beauty trod.

W.

HORÆ PALUDANÆ;

OR, DROPS OF DERWENT WATER.

No. III.

SHE sang-perchance to while the hours,
Or exercise her fairy powers;
She sang-I sate in silence by,
And listen'd to her minstrelsy.
I ask'd her not to wake the note
'Which I lov'd best, because I thought
Choice and Fore-purpose would destroy,
Or mar at least, the freeborn joy;
Therefore I sate in silence by,
And listen'd to her minstrelsy.
I took it, as a sweet thing sent
By nature, a stray gift, not meant
For me, yet in fruition

To all intents and ends my own;
And listen'd to it, e'en as I
Would to the chance-heard melody
Of the Stock-dove from his bower,
Or Lark from her aërial tour.

Muswell Hill, April 1, 1821.

C. L.

Music.

THANKS for those soft and soothing numbers!
They've waked my dull heart from its slumbers;
And on the wings of thy sweet strain
I soar to live and love again.

By the spirit-thrilling sound
My chained feelings are unbound;
Like streams from winter-frost set free,
They leap and murmur joyously.

Hail to thee, Music, hail to thee!
Thou art the voice of Liberty!
-Swept in a flood of welcome tears,
Th' encroaching present disappears;

And to the soul's entranced eyes,
In dim and ghostly beauty rise;
As on the feign'd Elysian green,
The forms of all things that have been.

And thoughts and fancies, a sweet throng,
That in the Mind's dark corners long
Slumber'd unseen, come forth to play,
Like insects on a sunny day.

--Strange spell! yet wherefore seek to explore
The wond'rous source of Music's power,
As children search the white rose through
To find the secret of its hue?

No-Sages, vainly ye endeavour
Mystery from life to sever;

Since man's best joys and loves are wrought
From things he comprehendeth not!

G. M.