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strong sense of duty and desire of Christian usefulness prevented the prospect being realised. It was under such feelings, and contrary to the advice of prudent friends, that he accepted, in 1823, the difficult task of bishop of Calcutta. With his family

Heber's Parish Church.

he arrived safely at his destination on the 10th of October; and no man could have entered on his mission with a more Christian or apostolic spirit. During the ensuing year, he was engaged in visiting the several European stations in Bengal and the upper provinces of Hindostan. In January 1825 he made a similar tour to the stations under the Bombay government, consecrating churches at various places. In May 1825 he held his episcopal visitation at Bombay. During this progress he laid the foundation of two central schools. He also visited the Deccan, Ceylon, and Madras, on his return to Bengal, performing at each station the active duties of his sacred office. His whole energies appear to have been devoted to the propagation of Christianity in the East. In 1826 the bishop made a journey to Travencore, accompanied by the Rev. Mr Doran, of the Church Missionary Society. He preached, confirmed, and visited his Christian communities with his usual affection and ardour. On the 1st of April he arrived at Trichinopoly, and had twice service on the day following. He went the next day, Monday, at six o'clock in the morning, to see the native Christians in the fort, and attend divine scrvice. He then returned to the house of a friend, and went into the bath preparatory to his dressing for breakfast. His servant conceiving he remained too long, entered the room, and found the bishop dead at the bottom of the bath. Medical assistance was applied, but every effort proved ineffectual; death had been caused by apoplexy. The loss of so valuable a public man, equally beloved and venerated, was mourned by all classes, and every honour was paid to his memory. Much might have been anticipated, from the zeal and learning of Heber, in elucidation of the antiquities of India, and the moral and religious improvement of its people, had his valuable life been spared. At the time of his death he was only in his forty-third year-a period too short to have developed those talents and virtues which, as

one of his admirers in India remarked, rendered his course in life, from the moment that he was crowned with academical honours till the day of his death, one track of light, the admiration of Britain and of India. The widow of Dr Heber has published a Memoir of his Life, with selections from his letters; and also a Narrative of his Journey through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay. In these works the excellent prelate is seen to great advantage, as an acute and lively observer, graphic in his descriptions both of scenery and manners, and everywhere animated with feelings of Christian zeal and benevolence. As a poet, Heber is always elegant, and often striking. His hymns are peculiarly touching and impressive, and musical in versification. The highest honours of the lyre he probably never could have attained; for he is deficient in originality, and is more rhetorical than passionate or imaginative.

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Passage of the Red Sea.

[From 'Palestine."]

For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear,

The hireling guards of Misraim's throne, were there.
From distant Cush they trooped, a warrior train,
Siwah's green isle and Senaar's marly plain :
On either wing their fiery coursers check
The parched and sinewy sons of Amalek;
While close behind, inured to feast on blood,

rode !

Decked in Behemoth's spoils, the tall Shangalla strode.
'Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold,
Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots rolled!
Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,
Old Thebes hath poured through all her hundred gates,
Mother of armies! How the emeralds glowed,
Where, flushed with power and vengeance, Pharaoh
And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,
Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;
And still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmured-Victory!
Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?
These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train-
Whom come ye forth to combat?-warriors, whom?
Red from the scourge, and recent from the chain?
God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!
Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave!
North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.
On earth's last margin throng the weeping train;
Their cloudy guide moves on:- And must we swim
Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,
Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood;
He comes-their leader comes!-the man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,
And onward treads. The circling waves retreat,
In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard wet sand and coral hills below.

the main?'

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell, Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell; Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled, The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world; And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green, And caves, the sea-calves' low-roofed haunt, are seen. Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread; The beetling waters storm above their head; While far behind retires the sinking day, And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light, Or dark to them or cheerless came the night. Still in their van, along that dreadful road, Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of God.

Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave
On the long mirror of the rosy wave;
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye-
To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain;
Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling sight confine,
And tenfold darkness broods above their line.
Yet on they fare by reckless vengeance led,
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed;
Till midway now-that strange and fiery form
Showed his dread visage lightening through the storm;
With withering splendour blasted all their might,
And brake their chariot wheels, and marred their
coursers' flight.

'Fly, Misraim, fly!' The ravenous floods they see,
And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity.
"Fly, Misraim, fly!' From Edom's coral strand
Again the prophet stretched his dreadful wand.
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep;
Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast.
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

Oh! welcome came the morn, where Israel stood
In trustless wonder by the avenging flood!
Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below!
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car-
A few sad relics of a nation's war;
Alas, how few! Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose hardened heart alike had borne
The house of bondage and the oppressor's scorn,
The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude,
Till kindling into warmer zeal, around
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound;
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,
The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam's breast.
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,

Poured on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony.
'Where now,' she sang, 'the tall Egyptian spear?
On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where?
Above their ranks the whelming waters spread.
Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphëd!'
And every pause between, as Miriam sang,
From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang,
And loud and far their stormy chorus spread-
'Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphëd!'

Hymn.-Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Lo, the lilies of the field,
How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson, given
By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy:

'Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!

Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily.
Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!

One there lives, whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;
One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall.

Pass we blithely then the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!'

Missionary Hymn.

From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand;
From many an ancient river,
From many a balmy plain,
They call us to deliver
Their land from error's chain.

What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft on Ceylon's isle,
Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile;

In vain, with lavish kindness,
The gifts of God are strown,
The Heathen, in his blindness,
Bows down to wood and stone.

Shall we whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high;
Shall we to man benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation! Oh, salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's name.

[From Bishop Heber's Journal.]
If thou wert by my side, my love,
How fast would evening fail
In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening the nightingale !

If thou, my love, wert by my side,
My babies at my knee,
How gaily would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When on our deck reclined,
In careless case my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream
My twilight steps I guide,

But most beneath the lamp's pale beam

I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer,
But miss thy kind approving eye,
Thy meek attentive ear.

But when of morn or eve the star
Beholds me on my knee,

I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on! then on! where duty leads,
My course be onward still;
O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads,
O'er bleak Almorah's hill.

That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates,
Nor wild Malwah detain;

For sweet the bliss us both awaits
By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark-blue sea;

But ne'er were hearts so light and gay
As then shall meet in thee!

An Evening Walk in Bengal.

Our task is done!-on Gunga's breast The sun is sinking down to rest;

And, moored beneath the tamarind bough,
Our bark has found its harbour now.
With furled sail and painted side,
Behold the tiny frigate ride:
Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams,
The Moslem's savoury supper steams;
While all apart, beneath the wood,
The Hindoo cooks his simpler food.

Come, walk with me the jungle through-
If yonder hunter told us true,
Far off, in desert dank and rude,
The tiger holds its solitude;
Now (taught by recent harm to shun
The thunders of the English gun)
A dreadful guest but rarely seen,
Returns to scare the village green.
Come boldly on; no venomed snake
Can shelter in so cool a brake-
Child of the sun, he loves to lie
'Midst nature's embers, parched and dry,
Where o'er some tower in ruin laid,
The peepul spreads its haunted shade;
Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe,
Fit warder in the gate of Death.
Come on; yet pause! Behold us now
Beneath the bamboo's arched bough,
Where, gemming oft that sacred gloom,
Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom;1
And winds our path through many a bower
Of fragrant tree and giant flower-
The ceiba's crimson pomp displayed
O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade,
And dusk anana's prickly glade;
While o'er the brake, so wild and fair,
The betel waves his crest in air;
With pendant train and rushing wings,
Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs;
And he, the bird of hundred dyes,2
Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize.
So rich a shade, so green a sod,
Our English fairies never trod!

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Yet who in Indian bowers has stood,
But thought on England's good greenwood;'
And blessed, beneath the palmy shade,
Her hazel and her hawthorn glade;
And breathed a prayer (how oft in vain!)
To gaze upon her oaks again?

A truce to thought-the jackal's cry
Resounds like sylvan revelry;
And through the trees yon failing ray
Will scantly serve to guide our way.
Yet mark, as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes-
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring;
While to this cooler air confest,
The broad dhatura bares her breast,
Of fragrant scent and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night!
Still as we pass, in softened hum
Along the breezy alleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum:
Still as we pass, from bush and brier
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre;
And what is she whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane?

1 A shrub whose deep scarlet flowers very much resemble the geranium, and thence called the Indian geranium.

2 The Mucharunga.

I know that soul-entrancing swell,
It is it must be-Philomel!
Enough, enough, the rustling trees
Announce a shower upon the breeze,
The flashes of the summer sky
Assume a deeper, ruddier dye;
Yon lamp that trembles on the stream,
From forth our cabin sheds its beam;
And we must early sleep, to find
Betimes the morning's healthy wind.
But oh with thankful hearts confess
E'en here there may be happiness;
And He, the bounteous Sire, has given
His peace on earth-his hope of heaven.

CHARLES WOLFE.

The REV. CHARLES WOLFE (1791-1823), a native of Dublin, may be said to have earned a literary immortality by one short poem, and that copied, with considerable closeness, from a prose account of the incident which it relates. Reading in the Edinburgh Annual Register a description of the death and interment of Sir John Moore on the battlefield of Corunna, this amiable young poet turned it into verse with such taste, pathos, and even sublimity, that his poem has obtained an imperishable place in our literature. The subject was attractive -the death of a brave and popular general on the field of battle, and his burial by his companions in arms-and the poet himself dying when young, beloved and lamented by his friends, gave additional interest to the production. The ode was published anonymously in an Irish newspaper in 1817, and was ascribed to various authors; Shelley considering it not unlike a first draught by Campbell. In 1841 it was claimed by a Scottish student and teacher, who ungenerously and dishonestly sought to pluck the laurel from the grave of its owner. The friends of Wolfe came forward, and established his right beyond any further question or controversy; and the new claimant was forced to confess his imposture, at the same time expressing his contrition for his misconduct. Fame, like wealth, is sometimes pursued with unprincipled covetousness; but, unless directed by proper motives, the chase is never honourable, and very seldom safe. The great duties of life-its moral feelings and principles-are something more important than even the brightest wreaths of fame! Wolfe was a curate in the established church, and died of consumption. His literary remains have been published, with an interesting memoir of his life by Archdeacon Russell, one of his early college friends.

The Burial of Sir John Moore.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him-
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-
But we left him alone with his glory!

The passage in the Edinburgh Annual Register (1808) on which Wolfe founded his ode is as follows: Sir John Moore had often said that if he was killed in battle, he wished to be buried where he fell. The body was removed at midnight to the citadel of Corunna. A grave was dug for him on the ramparts there by a body of the 9th regiment, the aides-de-camp attending by turns. No coffin could be procured, and the officers of his staff wrapped the body, dressed as it was, in a military cloak and blankets. The interment was hastened; for about eight in the morning some firing was heard, and the officers feared that if a serious attack were made, they should be ordered away, and not suffered to pay him their last duty. The officers of his family bore him to the grave; the funeral service was read by the chaplain; and the corpse was covered with earth.'

Song.

Oh say not that my heart is cold

To aught that once could warm it ;
That Nature's form, so dear of old,
No more has power to charm it;
Or that the ungenerous world can chill
One glow of fond emotion
For those who made it dearer still,
And shared my wild devotion.

Still oft those solemn scenes I view
In rapt and dreamy sadness;
Oft look on those who loved them too
With Fancy's idle gladness;
Again I longed to view the light

In Nature's features glowing,
Again to tread the mountain's height,
And taste the soul's o'erflowing.

Stern duty rose, and frowning flung
His leaden chain around me ;
With iron look and sullen tongue
He muttered as he bound me:
'The mountain breeze, the boundless heaven,
Unfit for toil the creature;
These for the free alone are given-

But what have slaves with Nature?'

The above verses were written while Wolfe attended the university of Dublin, where he greatly distinguished himself. In 1817 he took orders, and was first curate of Ballyclog, in Tyrone, and afterwards of Donoughmore. His incessant attention to his duties, in a wild and scattered parish, not only quenched his poetical enthusiasm, but hurried him to an untimely grave.

Song.

[The following pathetic lyric is adapted to the Irish air Grammachree. Wolfe said he on one occasion sung the air over and over till he burst into a flood of tears, in which mood he composed the song.]

If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;

But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past
The time would e'er be o'er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!
And still upon that face I look,

And think 'twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain!
But when I speak-thou dost not say
What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,

Sweet Mary! thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene-

I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been !
While e'en thy chill bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there I lay thee in thy grave→
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;

And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart,
In thinking too of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!

HERBERT KNOWLES.

HERBERT KNOWLES, a native of Canterbury (17981817), produced, when a youth of eighteen, the following fine religious stanzas, which, being published in the Quarterly Review, soon obtained general circulation and celebrity: they have much of the steady faith and devotional earnestness of Cowper.

Lines written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire. It is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.-Matthew, xvii. 4.

Methinks it is good to be here,

If thou wilt, let us build-but for whom?
Nor Elias nor Moses appear;

But the shadows of eve that encompass with gloom
The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb.
Shall we build to Ambition? Ah no!

Affrighted, he shrinketh away;

For see, they would pin him below

In a small narrow cave, and, begirt with cold clay, To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey.

To Beauty? Ah no! she forgets The charms which she wielded before;

Nor knows the foul worm that he frets The skin which but yesterday fools could adore, For the smoothness it held or the tint which it wore. Shall we build to the purple of Pride, The trappings which dizen the proud? Alas! they are all laid aside,

And here's neither dress nor adornments allowed, But the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud.

To Riches? Alas! 'tis in vain ; Who hid in their turns have been hid; The treasures are squandered again; And here in the grave are all metals forbid But the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin lid.

To the pleasures which Mirth can afford, The revel, the laugh, and the jeer?

Ah! here is a plentiful board!

But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer, And none but the worm is a reveller here.

Shall we build to Affection and Love?

Ah no! they have withered and died,

Or fled with the spirit above.

Friends, brothers, and sisters, are laid side by side, Yet none have saluted, and none have replied.

Unto Sorrow?-the Dead cannot grieve;

Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear,

Which Compassion itself could relieve.

Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear;
Peace! peace is the watchword, the only one here.

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow?
Ah no! for his empire is known,

And here there are trophies enow!

Beneath the cold dead, and around the dark stone, Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown.

The first tabernacle to Hope we will build,

And look for the sleepers around us to rise!

The second to Faith, which insures it fulfilled; And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when He rose to the skies.

ROBERT POLLOK.

In 1827 appeared a religious poem in blank verse, entitled The Course of Time, by ROBERT POLLOK, which speedily rose to great popularity, especially among the more serious and dissenting classes in Scotland. The author was a young licentiate of the Scottish Secession church. Many who scarcely ever looked into modern poetry were tempted to peruse a work which embodied their favourite theological tenets, set off with the graces of poetical fancy and description; while to the ordinary readers of imaginative literature, the poem had force and originality enough to challenge an attentive perusal. Its publication is said to have been suggested by Professor Wilson, and this alone may be considered an evidence of its possessing merit. The Course of Time' is a long poem, extending to ten books, written in a style that sometimes imitates the lofty march of Milton, and at other times resembles that of Blair and Young. The object of the poet is to describe the spiritual life and destiny of man; and he varies his religious speculations with episodical pictures and narratives, to illustrate the effects of virtue or vice. The sentiments of the author are strongly Calvinistic, and in this respect, as well as in a certain crude ardour of imagination and devotional enthusiasm, the poem reminds us of the style of Milton's early prose treatises. It is often harsh, turgid, and vehement, and deformed by a gloomy piety which repels the reader in spite of the many splendid passages and images that are scattered throughout the work. With much of the spirit and the opinions of Cowper, Pollok wanted his taste and his refinement. Time might have mellowed the fruits of his genius: for certainly the design of such an extensive poem, and the possession of a poetical diction so copious and energetic, by a youth of twenty-six, indicate remarkable intellectual power and determination of

character.

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He studied five years in the divinity hall under Dr Dick. While at college, he wrote a series of Tales of the Covenanters, in prose, which were published anonymously. His application to his studies brought on symptoms of pulmonary disease, and shortly after he had received his license to preach, in the spring of 1827, it was too apparent that his health was in a precarious and dangerous state. This tendency was further confirmed by the composition of his great poem, which was published by Mr Blackwood of Edinburgh about the time that the author was admitted to the sacred office for which he was so well qualified. The greater part of the summer was spent by Pollok under the roof of a clerical friend, the Rev. Dr Belfrage of Slateford, where every means was tried for the restoration of his health. The symptoms, however, continued unabated, and the poet's friends and physicians recommended him to try the climate of Italy. Mr Southey has remarked of Kirke White, that it was his fortune through his short life, as he was worthy of the kindest treatment, always to find it.' The same may be said of his kindred genius, Pollok. His poetry and his worth had raised him up a host of fond and steady friends, who would have rejoiced to contribute to his comfort or relief. Having taken his departure for London, accompanied by a sister, Pollok was received into the house of Mr Pirie, then sheriff of London. An immediate removal to the south-west of England was pronounced necessary, and the poet went to reside at Shirley Common, near Southampton. The milder air of this place effected no improvement, and after lingering on a few weeks, Pollok died on the 15th of September 1827. The same year had witnessed his advent as a preacher and a poet, and his untimely death. The Course of Time,' however, continued to be a popular poem, and has gone through nine or ten editions, while the interest of the public in its author has led to a memoir of his life, published in 1843. Pollok was interred in the churchyard at Millbrook, the

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