No servile doctrines, such as power approves,
They to the poor and broken-hearted taught;
With truths, that tyrants dread, and conscience loves,
They wing'd and barb'd the arrows of their thought;
Sin in high places was the mark they sought,

6

They said not, Man, be circumspect, and thrive!
Be mean, base, slavish, bloody-and prevail !'
Nor doth the deity they worship'd drive
His four in hand, applaud a smutty tale,
Send Members to the House, and us to jail.

With zeal they preach'd, with reverence they were heard;
For in their daring creed, sublime, sincere,
Danger was found, that parson-hated word;

They flattered none-they knew nor hate nor fear,
But taught the will of God, and did it here.
Even as the fire-wing'd thunder rends the cloud,
Their spoken lightnings, dazzling all the land,
Abash'd the foreheads of the great and proud,
Still'd faction's roar, as by a God's command,
And meeken'd Cromwell of the iron hand."

We have met, Sir, with many arguments in the course of our lives, for and against free trade; it is very likely that you may not be able to convince me on this subject, but I think I am about to delight you, and to show you with what eloquence and power poetry can clothe a cause adopted by a mechanic's society, and more than all others the darling and pet object of this wearisome march of intellect.

"Argument for free Exchange in Trade.

"Look on the clouds, the streams, the earth, the sky!
Lo, all is interchange and harmony!

Where is the gorgeous pomp, which, yester morn,
Curtain'd yon orb, with amber fold on fold?

Behold it in the blue of Rivelin, borne

To feed th' all-feeding seas! the molten gold
Is flowing pale in Loxley's crystal cold,

To kindle into beauty tree and flower,

:

And wake to verdant life, hill, vale, and plain;
Cloud trades with river, and exchange is power :-
But should the clouds, the streams, the winds, disdain
Harmonious intercourse, nor dew, nor rain
Would forest-crown the mountains: airless day
Would blast, on Kinderscout, the heathy glow;
No purply green would meeken into grey
O'er Don at eve; no sound of river's flow
Disturb the sepulchre of all below."

Again, hark

"The Fruit of Commerce in redeeming the World from War.

"Sublime events are rushing to their birth;

Lo, tyrants by their victims are withstood!

And Freedom's seed still grows, though steep'd in blood!

When by our Father's voice the skies are riven,
That, like the winnow'd chaff, disease may fly;
And seas are shaken by the breath of heaven,
Lest in their depths the living spirit die;
Man views the scene with aw'd but grateful eye,
And trembling feels, could God abuse his power,
Nor man, nor nature, would endure an hour.
But there is mercy in his seeming wrath;
It smites to save, not, tyrant like, to slay;
And storms have beauty, as the lily hath:
Grand are the clouds, that, mirror'd on the bay,
Roll like the shadows of lost worlds away,

When bursts through broken gloom the startled light;
Grand are the waves, that, like that broken gloom,
Are smitten into splendour by his might;
And glorious is the storm's tremendous boom,
Although it waileth o'er a watery tomb,
And is a dreadful ode on ocean's drown'd.
Despond not, then, ye plunder'd sons of trade!
Hope's wounded wing shall yet disdain the ground,
And Commerce, while the powers of evil fade,
Shout o'er all seas, All lands for me were made:
Her's are the Apostles destined to go forth
Upon the wings of mighty winds, and preach
Christ Crucified! To her the South and North
Look through their tempests; and her lore shall reach
Their farthest ice, if life be there to teach.
Yes, world-reforming Commerce! one by one
Thou vanquishest earth's tyrants; and the hour
Cometh, when all shall fall before thee-gone
Their splendour, fall'n their trophies, lost their power!
Then o'er th' enfranchis'd nations wilt thou shower
Like dewdrops from the pinions of the dove,
Plenty and peace; and never more on thee
Shall bondage wait; but, as the thoughts of love,
Free shalt thou fly, unchainable and free;

And men, thenceforth, shall call thee Liberty."

The following tender yet august admonition, you, Sir, can feel and echo. The poor field-preacher can enjoin the keeping holy of the seventh day, not with less dignity than the saint in lawn, or the archsaint in crape;-no, nor with less depth and earnestness of truth,—in that he has felt (how much more than they !) the necessity and the blessing of that respite from the labour and anxiety of the "workingday world."

"Farewell, my friends!—we part no more to meet
As trampled worms; but we shall meet again
At God's right hand, and our Redeemer's feet;
And oft and oft! meantime, your solemn strain
Shall roll from Shirecliffe's side, o'er vale and plain.

Oh, keep the seventh day holy wheresoe'er
Ye be, poor sons of toil! sell not to those
Who sold your freedom, sell not for a sneer

Your day of rest; but worship God, where glows
The flame-tipp'd spire, or blooms the wild wood rose."

My task is nearly over-I proceed to the last extracts.
"He ceas'd-but still, while young and old retired,
Beneath the autumnal tree, and concave blue,
Stood, like the statue of a man inspir'd;
And many an eye turn'd fondly back, to view
His face, more saint-like than e'er pencil drew.
Then gush'd his tears. He cast a lingering look
On farthest moors-dear scenes, remember'd well!
And thought of that lone church, and verdant nook,
Where sleeps his mother, in the Alpine dell;
'I am alone,' he said—and sigh'd Farewell!

But shall they lay thy bones, oh, desert-born,
Where no wild bird hears infant rivers flow?
Oh not beneath that cloud, which night would scorn;
Not in vile earth where flowers refuse to grow

And Vanity in sables mimics woe;

Not in yon rank churchyard, where buried lie
Tyrant and slave, polluting still the air;

But where the rude heath hears the plover cry,
And swings the chainless cloud o'er summits bare;
There shouldst thou rest, thy heart was ever there!
There shouldst thou rest, beneath the mountain wind,
Far from the pauper's grave, the despot's door;
Though few would seek thy home, and fewer find
The brief inscription on the pathless moor :-
Here lies the preacher of the plunder'd poor.'

And now, I think, you will admit that I am borne out in the praises with which I have prefaced this poem. I do not know whether the author be young or old; if the former, I must unaffectedly add, that, to my judgment, he has given such a promise as few men, even in this age-an age wronged and unappreciated-would be capable of performing. The poem was shown to me by Dr. Bowring, a man who, whatever be our different opinions of his political creed, has ever taken a deep and lively interest in the lowlier tribes of mankind, and who, in his zeal for their moral amelioration, has given, I opine, a yet happier impetus to that ardour of mind, and that disdain of petty obstacles, which have contributed to render him the most accomplished and remarkable of the "masters of many tongues."

More than I have stated of the author I know not, nor despite my admiration have sought to know; and my reason is this: it seems to me a grave and serious responsibility that we take upon ourselves whenever we personally cheer on any man, not rich enough to disregard the golden

chances of success, to the vocation of a poet. We are too apt to encourage whatsoever conduces to our pleasure, without a sufficiently accurate foresight of the pain we may entail on our benefactor. From literature, it is true, spring our purest and most lasting enjoyments; but I fear there is little joy in the life of a man of letters. Perhaps, Sir, could we profit by your confessions, you who, compared with others, have been eminently fortunate-you who, remote from the strepitum Roma, and not disgusted, like so many of your brethren, of domestic seclusion by household wants, have, in the most beautiful scenes of Nature, cultivated a genius so nobly successful both in verse and prose-who, even from the midst of political enmities and literary jealousy, have gone forth into glory with a character unscathed and a temper unembittered:-even you, were you closely questioned, might admit a doubt whether your honours had not been dearly purchased, and whether the laurel ever fully atones by its chaplets for the poison that is distilled from its leaves. With what heart, then, while the happiness of authorship is at best so doubtful, can we decoy the poor mechanic from the secret and occasional raptures with which his genius consoles his labour, into the anxiety and the care, the precarious fame, and certain distresses of the poet by profession? I dare not do it—I would not attempt it, even if I were well able to advance him on that hazardous career. This pamphlet the utmost price of which, I suppose (for it is not marked in the page), can scarcely be sixpence -has come before me as a critic, and in that capacity I have ventured to recommend it to you,-you whom, while learning has softened to indulgence, a bright genius has lighted to sound judgment there ceases my task.

THE BRIGHT SUMMER-TIME.

WE met in a region of gladness,

We met in the beautiful bowers,

Where the wanderer loses his sadness,

Mid blossoms, and sunbeams, and flowers:
Around us, sweet voices were breathing
The songs of a far distant clime;
Above us, in garlands were wreathing
The buds of the bright Summer-time!

That vision of fairy-land never

Can fade from my heart or my sight-
It casts on my pathway for ever

Its sparkles of magical light:

I still hear the harp's joyous measure,
Still scent the faint bloom of the lime;
Oh! years cannot banish one pleasure
I felt in the bright Summer-time!

M. A.

CONVERSATIONS WITH AN AMBITIOUS STUDENT

IN ILL HEALTH, NO. IV.*

CONVERSATION THE FOURTH.-Continued.

"OH God! what a difference throughout the whole of this various and teeming earth a single DEATH can effect! Sky, sun, air, the eloquent waters, the inspiring mountain-tops, the murmuring and glossy wood, the very

Are they as a part and proHave they aught which is Alas! their attraction is the

'Glory in the grass, and splendour in the flower,' do these hold over us an eternal spell? perty of an unvarying course of nature? unfailing, steady-same in its effect? creature of an accident. One gap, invisible to all but ourself in the crowd and turmoil of the world, and every thing is changed. In a single hour, the whole process of thought, the whole ebb and flow of emotion, may be revulsed for the rest of an existence. Nothing can ever seem to us as it did: it is a blow upon the fine mechanism by which we think, and move, and have our being-the pendulum vibrates aright no more-the dial hath no account with time-the process goes on, but it knows no symmetry or order;-it was a single stroke that marred it, but the harmony is gone for ever!

"And yet I often think that that shock which jarred on the mental, renders yet softer the moral nature. A death that is connected with love unites us by a thousand remembrances to all who have mourned: it builds a bridge between the young and the old; it gives them in common the most touching of human sympathies; it steals from nature its glory and its exhilaration, not its tenderness. And what, perhaps, is better than all, to mourn deeply for the death of another, loosens from ourself the petty desire for, and the animal adherence to, life. We have gained the end of the philosopher, and view, without shrinking, the coffin and the pall.

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"For a year my mind did not return to its former pursuits: my scholastic ambition was checked at once. Hitherto I had said, ' If I gain honours, she will know it' now, that object was no more. I could not even bear the sight of books: my thoughts had all curdled into torpor a melancholy listlessness filled and oppressed me-the truditur dies die-the day chasing day without end or profit-the cloud after cloud over the barren plain-the breath after breath across the unmoved mirror-these were the sole types and images of my life. I had been expected by my friends to attain some of the highest of academical rewards; you may imagine that I deceived their expectations. I left the University and hastened to London. I was just of age. I found myself courted, and I plunged eagerly into society. The experiment was perilous; but in my case it answered. I left myself no time for thought: gambling, intrigue, dissipation, these are the occupations of polished society; they are great resources to a wealthy mourner. The 'man' stirred again within me; the weakness of my repinings gradually melted away beneath the

Although this series of papers has been erroneously attributed to two or three known writers, the real author is determined to remain unknown.