And bade the lovely scenes at distance' hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,
REVENGE impatient rose;

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!

And, ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected PITY, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, JEALOUSY, to nought were fixed;

Sad proof of thy distressful state;

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed, And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale MELANCHOLY sat retired;

And, from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes, by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;
And, dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole;

(1) At distance, &c.-There are many beauties in this description of Hope. She hails the lovely scenes at a distance, She prolongs the strain, a conception nearly equivalent to Pope's expression-" Hope springs eternal in the human breast." The introduction, too, of Echo as an associate of Hope is most tastefully devised

and executed.

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs' died away.

But, oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone,
When CHEERFULNESS,3 a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known!
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Jor's3 ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;
But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought who heard the strain,
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing;
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth3 a gay fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound:
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, Wisdom's aid,
Why, Goddess! why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ?

(1) Hollow murmurs, &c.-In several parts of this Ode, as here, the sound is a very apt "echo of the sense."

(2) Its the horn's; the same instrument being introduced.

(3) Cheerfulness, joy, mirth-Cheerfulness is rather a habit, than a passion, of the mind; Joy is the outward revealing of inward happiness; Mirth is obstreperous joy.

As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders in that godlike age
Fill thy recording sister's1 page-
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
Even all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound-
Oh! bid our vain endeavours cease;
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state;
Confirm the tales3 her sons relate!

YOUNG.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-Edward Young-the poet of the "Night Thoughts"-was born in 1684, at Upham, a village near Winchester. At the renowned school of that city he received his early education, which was continued subsequently at New College, Oxford. His first profession was law, in which he graduated, but his success appearing doubtful, and his views undergoing a change, he, in 1727, took orders, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains. In 1731, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Litchfield. The remainder of his life was spent in seclusion, and though his ambitious temperament fre

(1) Recording sister, &c.-History.

(2) Even all, &c.-i. e. even when all the resources of the art are combined, as in the organ.

(3) Confirm the tales, &c.-i. e. prove to our own experience the wonderful influence attributed by the ancients to music.

quently led him to seek preferment in the Church, he never obtained it. He died in 1765.

PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Besides the "Night Thoughts," Dr. Young wrote a series of Satires in verse, entitled, "The Love of Fame, the Universal Passion," "The Last Day," "The Centaur not Fabulous," a prose satire, and some tragedies, of which The Revenge" is the finest.

CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"The Night Thoughts' contain many splendid and happy conceptions, but their beauty is thickly marred by false wit and overlaboured antithesis: indeed, the whole ideas of the author seem to have been in a state of antithesis while he composed the poem. One portion of his fancy appears devoted to aggravate the picture of his desolate feelings; and the other half to contradict that picture by eccentric images and epigrammatic ingenuities. The reader most sensitive to his faults must, however, have felt that there is in him a spark of originality which is never long extinguished, however far it may be from vivifying the entire mass of his poetry. Many and exquisite are his touches of sublime expression, of profound reflection, and of striking imagery. It is recalling but a few of these to allude to his description, in the eighth book, of the man whose thoughts are not of this world, to his simile of the traveller, at the opening of the ninth book, to his spectre of the antediluvian world, and to some parts of his very unequal description of the conflagration; above all, to that noble and familiar image

'When final Ruin fiercely drives

Her ploughshare o'er creation.'1

"It is true that he seldom, if ever, maintains a flight of poetry long free from oblique associations; but he has individual passages which philosophy might make her texts, and experience select for her mottoes."2

(1) This metaphor is borrowed by Burns in the poem "To a Daisy," see p. 78. The Scottish bard was a great admirer of Young.

(2) Campbell. "Specimens," &c., p. 467.

EXTRACTS FROM THE "NIGHT THOUGHTS."

THE WONDROUS NATURE OF MAN.

THE bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? With the years beyond the Flood.
It is the signal that demands dispatch:

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? A fathomless abyss:
A dread eternity!-how surely mine!-
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject,2 how august,

How complicate, how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder He who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures marvellously mixed,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain,
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorbed ;3
Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine;
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

3

(1) The bell strikes one-i. e. one in the morning. This passage is extracted from "Night the First" of the poem, and aptly exemplifies its characteristic beauties and faults-the condensed thought, the poetical turn of phrase, as well as the overlaboured antithesis.

(2) Abject, mean-may be thus distinguished; abject-from the Latin abjectus, cast away-refers rather to the circumstances, and mean, to the nature of the individual; hence the former word is correctly employed here, the object of the writer being to show that man's nature is essentially noble.

(3) Absorbed-not reflected, dull and dim.

(4) Helpless, immortal, &c.—A manlfest failure in expression, since there is no real antithesis between the first pair of words, and no distinct meaning in the

second.