Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight,
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
When shall I die?-When shall I live for ever?

THE GLORY OF GOD. (Night IV.)

The nameless He, whose nod is Nature's birth ;
And Nature's shield, the shadow of his hand;
Her dissolution, his suspended smile!
The great First-Last! pavilion'd high he sits,
In darkness from excessive splendour born,
By gods unseen, unless through lustre lost."
His glory, to created glory, bright,

As that to central horrors; he looks down
On all that soars; and spans immensity.

Though night unnumber'd worlds unfolds to view,
Boundless creation! what art thou? A beam,
A mere effluvium of his majesty :

And shall an atom of this atom-world

Mutter, in dust and sin, the theme of Heaven?
Down to the centre should I send my thought,
Through beds of glittering ore, and glowing gems,
Their beggar'd blaze wants lustre for my lay;
Goes out in darkness: if, on towering wing,
I send it through the boundless vault of stars!
The stars, though rich, what dross their gold to thee,
Great! good! wise! wonderful! eternal King!
If to those conscious stars thy throne around,
Praise ever-pouring and imbibing bliss,—

And ask their strain; they want it, more they want;
Poor their abundance, humble their sublime,
Languid their energy, their ardour cold;
Indebted still, their highest rapture burns,
Short of its mark, defective, though divine.

THE JUDGMENT DAY. (Night IX.)
Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour

Their melted mass, as rivers once they poured;
Stars rush; and final ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughshare o'er creation !-while aloft,
More than astonishment! if more can be!

Far other firmament than e'er was seen,

Than e'er was thought by man! far other stars!

1 Burns has (perhaps unconsciously) copied this image in the last stanza of his address to the Mountain Daisy.

FROM NIGHT THOUGHTS.

Stars animate, that govern these of fire:
Far other Sun!-A Sun, O how unlike
The Babe at Bethlehem! how unlike the Man
That groan'd on Calvary! yet He it is;

That Man of Sorrows! O how changed! what pomp!
In grandeur terrible, all Heaven descends!
And gods, ambitious, triumph in his train.
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,

As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.

And now, all dross removed, Heaven's own pure day,
Full on the confines of our ether, flames:

While (dreadful contrast !) far, how far beneath!
Hell, bursting, belches forth her blazing seas,
And storms sulphureous; her voracious jaws
Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey.
Lorenzo! welcome to this scene; the last
In Nature's course; the first in wisdom's thought.
This strikes, if aught can strike thee; this awakes
The most supine; this snatches man from death.

NIGHT. (Night IX.)

These thoughts, O Night! are thine;
From thee they came, like lovers' secret sighs,
While others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign,
In shadows veil'd, soft sliding from her sphere,
Her shepherd cheer'd-of her enamour'd less
Than I of thee. And art thou still unsung-
Beneath whose brow, and by whose aid I sing-
Immortal silence !-where shall I begin?
Where end? or how steal music from the spheres
To soothe their goddess? O majestic Night!
Nature's great ancestor-day's elder born!
And fated to survive the transient sun!
By mortals and immortals seen with awe!
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,

An azure zone thy waist, clouds, in heaven's loom
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,

Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train.

Thy gloomy grandeurs-Nature's most august,
Inspiring aspect !—claim a grateful verse;
And, like a sable curtain starr'd with gold,
Drawn o'er my labours past, shall close the scene.

1 Compare this with Cowper's personification of Evening.

297

THOMAS TICKELL.

(1686-1740.)

As a friend of Addison and the rival of Pope in the translation of Homer, and as the author of some sweet and graceful poems, Tickell has obtained a place in our literary annals. He was a native of Cumberland, and having studied at Oxford, entered into public life. Addison took him to Ireland as his under secretary, and from 1724 till his death in 1740 he was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland.

FROM THE ADDRESS TO THE EARL OF WARWICK
ON THE DEATH OF MR. ADDISON.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul's best part for ever to the grave?
How silent did his old companions tread,

By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead,
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings!
What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire;
The pealing organ, and the pausing choir;
The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid;

And the last words, that dust to dust convey'd !

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury, to vulgar minds unknown!
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallow'd mould below;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held;
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars and prodigal of blood;
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men, by whom impartial laws were given ;
And saints, who taught and led the way to heaven :
Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss convey'd
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade !

JOHN GAY.
(1688-1732.)

GAY was the second son of John Gay, Esq. of Frithelstock, near Great Torrington, Devonshire. His parents died during his infancy, and after receiving his education at Barnstaple, the poet was placed

THE COURT OF DEATH.

299 apprentice to a silk-mercer in London. The Duchess of Monmouth in 1712 (by which time Gay had appeared as a poet) made him her private secretary, and he attracted the notice and friendship of Pope and the other leading literary men of the time. "Gay was the general favourite of the whole association of wits; but they regarded him as a playfellow rather than as a partner." His connections with the Tory party excluded him from the patronage of the house of Brunswick; but after the loss of an illusory wealth in the wreck of the South Sea Scheme in 1720, the compelled industry of the luxurious and indolent poet realized for him a tolerable competency. Sheltered in the last years of his life under the hospitable roof of his noble patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, and in the enjoyment of an affectionate correspondence with his friends, Pope and Swift, he suddenly died of fever in 1732. The death of this single-hearted man was deeply lamented.

Gay is best known by his Fables and his Beggars' Opera. The former bear the first rank in the language in their class of writing; the latter, though the applications of its political satire are obsolete, and its morality not especially commendable, still, by the vigour and liveliness of its portraitures, and its fine lyrics, retains its place in public favour. It banished the affectations of the Italian opera, as his Pastorals, written in ridicule of those of Ambrose Philips, effectually suppressed the false taste in that species of composition.

The style of Gay is fluent, lively, and natural. His genius is not of a high order, but is eminently adapted to the subjects it has selected. He may be termed the inventor of the English Ballad Opera. The most popular of his songs is "Black-eyed Susan."

THE COURT OF DEATH.

Death on a solemn night of state,
In all his pomp of terror sat;
The attendants of his gloomy reign,
Diseases dire, a ghastly train,
Crowd the vast court.

With hollow tone

A voice thus thunder'd from the throne:-
"This night our minister we name;

Let every servant speak his claim;
Merit shall bear this ebon wand."
All, at the word, stretch forth their hand.
Fever, with burning heat possess'd,
Advanced, and for the wand address'd:

"I to the weekly bills appeal,

Let those express my fervent zeal:

On every slight occasion near

With violence I persevere."

Next Gout appears with limping pace ;

Pleads how he shifts from place to place;
From head to foot how swift he flies,
And every joint and sinew plies;

Still working when he seems suppress'd,
A most tenacious stubborn guest.

Stone urged his ever-growing force;
And, next, Consumption's meagre corse,
With feeble voice that scarce was heard,
Broke with short coughs, his suit preferr'd,—
"Let none object my lingering way ;
I gain, like Fabius, by delay;
Fatigue and weaken every foe,
By long attack, secure, tho' slow."
Plague represents his rapid power,
Who thinn'd a nation in an hour.

All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand; Now expectation hush'd the band,

When thus the monarch from the throne:
"Merit was ever modest known.

What! no physician speak his right!—
None here?—but fees their toils requite.
Let then Intemperance take the wand,
Who fills with gold their zealous hand.
You Fever, Gout, and all the rest
(Whom wary men as foes detest),
Forego your claim; no more pretend :
Intemperance is esteem'd a friend;
He shares their mirth, their social joys,
And, as a courted guest, destroys.
The charge on him must justly fall
Who finds employment for you all."

THE PERSIAN, THE SUN, AND THE CLOUD.
Is there a bard whom genius fires,
Whose every thought the god inspires?
When Envy reads the nervous lines,
She frets, she rails, she raves, she pines;
Her hissing snakes with venom swell,
She calls her venal train from hell;
The servile fiends her nod obey,
And all Curll's' authors are in pay.
Fame calls up Calumny and Spite;
Thus Shadow owes its birth to light.

As prostrate to the god of day
With heart devout a Persian lay,
His invocation thus begun :
"Parent of light, all-seeing sun,
Prolific beam, whose rays dispense
The various gifts of Providence,
Accept our praise, our daily prayer,
Smile on our fields, and bless the year."
A Cloud, who mock'd his grateful tongue,

The day with sudden darkness hung;

1 The notorious Edmund Curll, the publisher.