opposite party-but with genuine independence he maintained the same undisguised opinions amidst all the changes through which he lived. He is more celebrated for his prose compositions than his poems, which are not many, but have generally a freshness and freedom, a natural and manly tenderness, and breathe that spirit of liberty and piety for which their author was eminently distinguished. His Emigrant's Hymn is far above the common order of devotional verse, and shews the warmth and power of his zealous and unpretending mind.

Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean's bosom, unespied,
From a small boat that row'd along,
The listening winds receiv'd their song.

"What should we do, but sing His praise
"That led us through the watery mazę
"Unto an isle so long unknown,

"And yet far kinder than our own!

"Where He the huge sea monsters racks,

"That lift the deep upon their backs,

"He lands us on a grassy stage,

"Safe from the storms and prelates' rage.

"He gave us this eternal spring
"Which here enamels every thing,
"And sends the fowls to us, in care,
"On daily visits through the air.

"He hangs in shades the orange bright,
"Like golden lamps in a green night,
"And in these rocks for us did frame
"A temple where to sound his name.

"Oh! let our voice His praise exalt,
"Till it arrive at Heaven's vault,
"Which then perhaps, rebounding, may
"Echo beyond the Mexique bay."

Thus sang they, in the English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note,

And all the way, to guide their chime,

With falling oars they kept the time.

There was also Old ISAAK WALTON, the quaint angler and poet, who loved to rove by the blue waters, with his fishing rod and hook, and enlivened his patient amusement with reflections upon the beauties of nature, and songs springing from the buoyancy of a light and happy heart.

After the restoration the crowd of wits who had fluttered about the former court again appeared, and the king was hailed to his throne with the congratulations of poets and courtiers, each eager to outdo his fellows in the fervor of his compliment and exultation, and to lay the richest offering at the shrine of revived royalty—but it was far different with Milton;-poor, blind, disgraced, with nothing but his virtues to console, and his intrepid mind to support him, he was driven into concealment until the first flush of public excitement had subsided. The Government, content with the sacrifice of nobler victims, pursued him not with vigilance, but caused some of his political writings to be burned by the ignominious hands of the common hangman. To a mind of less natural vigor or more relaxed discipline than Milton's, his

successive family afflictions, the overthrow of his present ambitions, the insecurity of his person, his blindness, and his infirmities would have produced a despondency destructive to its best and noblest powers-but he remained firm and serene through all, triumphing in the integrity of his purpose, *with a temper chastened, and a judgment matured by the mighty and conflicting scenes he had beheld, with an intellect accustomed to grapple with weighty arguments and grown unconquerable by the very process through which it had been nurtured. He had marked the stern and strong passions acting on a large scale; he had traced the soaring and ambitious mind through all the changes of labor, success, and ultimate defeat; he had seen the spirit rendered proud by victory, unnerved by reverses, or retaining its haughtiness even in misfortune-he had known those great characters, which in times of trouble rise from the mass of mankind like superior intelligencies to direct and control the energies of those from whom but yesterday they sprang, and he had a clear insight into the motives and principles which actuated the heroes of the day-and all this he had contemplated with a philosophical purpose-popular Liberty had been his idol, and when it wanted a champion he was the first beneath its banners—yet he defended it not as a mere partisan, but from thorough and carefully formed conviction, and when once convinced, he was no cold advocate, but his heart and affections were engaged

*He has left us a noble picture of the tranquillity of his dignified mind in one of his fine sonnets to Cyriac Skinner.

in the cause he espoused. He passed his life in a wild and unsettled school, but his mind drew nutriment from the discordant materials before it, and at a time of life when the faculties generally decay, and the invention becomes languid, his attained their fullest and most perfect power, and he stood like a fortress, round which tempests have careered, and ages, that could not destroy, have left their blue traces, but within the light still burns, and the tower rises through the mist, a beacon to the weary and weather beaten, and a defence to the shore upon which it stands.

It is with some feelings of pride for human nature, that we follow the disgraced and afflicted man to the seclusion of his study, and view him who had held converse with the master spirits of his time, meditating upon the loftier beings that people more spiritual realms, contemplating in fallen angels the passions and ambitions he had observed in human life, and looking beyond the world for the source of those virtues and principles that dignify the better part of mankind.

In Paradise Lost, after the proposition of the subject and invocation, we are introduced to those gloomy realms, where the infernal legions that warred against heaven and were defeated in their venturous design, lay thunderstruck in the burning lake, overwhelmed with waves of fire, that gave no light but rather made darkness visible; the horrid silence was broken by Satan addressing Beëlzebub, his

next in dignity, and after a conference between those fallen angels, Beelzebub advised his superior, the leader of the bright armies which none but the Omnipotent could foil, that if once they heard his voice-heard so often in extremes and on the perilous edge of battle-they would resume new courage and revive.

He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior Fiend
Was moving tow'rd the shore; his pond'rous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure, and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire;
Nathless, he so endur'd, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd

His legions, angel forms, who lay entranc'd,

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Valambrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
High over-arch'd embow'r.

*

*

So thick bestrewn,

Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded. "Princes, Potentates,
"Warriors, th' flow'r of heav'n, once yours, now lost,
"If such astonishment as this can sieze

"Eternal spirits; or have you chosen this place,