And smother souls immortal in the dust?
A soul immortal, spending all her fires,
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness,
Thrown into tumult, raptured or alarmed
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge,
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.

PROCRASTINATION.

BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:1
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment 2 leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm-that all men are about to live,
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel; and their pride3
On this reversion takes up ready praise-
At least their own-their future selves applauds.
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest

Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.

At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty chides his infamous delay,

(1) Defer, delay, procrastinate—thus differ; to delay is to hold back in general; to defer, to put off for some specific purpose; to procrastinate, to put off till tomorrow, as a habit of the mind, and therefore culpably.

(2) Moment-i.e. the moment of death.

(3) Their pride, &c.-The construction here is somewhat abrupt and obscure, but the meaning seems to be that their pride, in the expectation of their one day becoming wise, compliments them with being so already-the present being at least their own, whatever the future may be-and thus they applaud their future selves.

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves,' when some alarming shock of Fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found,
As from the wing no scar the sky retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.

THE MAN WHOSE THOUGHTS ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD.

SOME angel guide my pencil, while I draw-
What nothing less than angel can exceed―
A man on earth devoted to the skies;
Like ships in seas, while in, above the world.
With aspect mild, and elevated eye,

Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm;
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace.

Earth's genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wandering herd! he sees,
Bewildered in the vale: in all unlike !
His full reverse in all! what higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?
The present all their care, the future his.
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to fame; his bounty he conceals.
Their virtues varnish Nature, his exalt.
Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own.
Theirs the wild chace of false felicities;
His the composed possession of the true.
Alike throughout is his consistent peace,

(1) Themselves, &c.-They think even themselves mortal when, &c.

(2) Young's peculiar style is finely displayed in this extract: the subject required strong contrasts of light and shade, and they are very strikingly introduced, especially in the passage commencing "He sees with other eyes," &c.

All of one colour, and an even thread;
While party-coloured shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of Fortune blows
The tatters by, and shows their nakedness.

He sees with other eyes than theirs where they
Behold a sun, he spies a Deity.

survey,

What makes them only smile, makes him adore.
Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees;
An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain.
They things terrestrial worship as divine;
His hopes immortal blow them by as dust,
That dims his sight, and shortens his
Which longs in infinite to lose all bound.
Titles and honours (if they prove his fate)
He lays aside to find his dignity;
No dignity they find in aught besides.
They triumph in externals, (which conceal
Man's real glory,) proud of an eclipse; 1
Himself too much he prizes to be proud,
And nothing thinks so great in man as man.
Too dear he holds his interest to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade;
Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey.
They kindle at the shadow of a wrong;
Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on Heaven,
Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe.

Nought but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace.
A covered heart their character defends;
A covered heart denies him half his praise.
Their no-joys end where his full feast begins:
His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss.
To triumph in existence, his alone;
And his alone, triumphantly to think
His true existence is not yet begun.

His glorious course was, yesterday, complete:
Death, then, was welcome; yet life still is sweet.

(1) Proud of an eclipse-i. e. proud of that which eclipses or obscures them. (2) His glorious course, &c.-i.e. even yesterday his course was complete, he was ready for death.

AKENSIDE.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-Mark Akenside was born in 1721, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His father was a butcher, and being a member of the Presbyterian Church, seems to have desired to bring up his son as a minister of that communion. With this view, after receiving elementary instruction at a private school, he went at the age of eighteen to the University of Edinburgh. While resident here he decided on the profession of medicine, in preference to that of divinity, and having studied for three years, he went to Leyden, where he took his degree of M.D. On arriving in England, he settled at Northampton, whence he afterwards removed to Hampstead, and subsequently to London, but was never very successful as a physician. He died in 1770.

PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Besides his most distinguished work, "The Pleasures of Imagination," Akenside wrote many mediocre odes, and a finely conceived poem entitled, "Hymn to the Naiads," together with some very classical "Inscriptions."

CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"The Pleasures of Imagination,' published, as it was, at the age of twenty-three, raised expectations that were not afterwards very amply satisfied. It has undoubtedly a just claim to very particular notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon amplitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them.

66

The subject is well chosen, as it includes all images that can strike or please, and thus comprises every species of poetical delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of examples and illustrations, and it is not easy in such exuberance of matter to find the middle point between penury and satiety. The parts seem artificially disposed, with sufficient coherence, so that they cannot change their places without injury to the general design.

"His images are displayed with such luxuriance of expression, that they are hidden, like Butler's moon, by a veil of light; they are forms fantastically lost under superfluity of dress.

Pars min

ima est ipsa puella sui. The words are multiplied till the sense is hardly perceived; attention deserts the mind and settles in the ear. The reader wanders through the gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and sometimes delighted, but, after many turnings in the

flowery labyrinth, comes out as he went in. and laid hold on nothing."

"1

He remarked little,

"If his genius is to be estimated from this poem, it will be found to be lofty and elegant, chaste, correct, and classical; not marked with strong traits of originality, not ardent, nor exuberant. His enthusiasm was rather of that kind which is kindled by reading and imbibing the spirit of authors, than by contemplating at first hand the works of nature. As a versifier, Akenside is allowed to stand amongst those who have given the most finished models of blank verse. His periods are long but harmonious, the cadence full of grace, and the measure is supported with uniform dignity; the muse professed the 'mien erect and high commanding gait. We shall scarcely find a low or trivial expression introduced, a careless and unfinished line permitted to stand. His stateliness, however, is somewhat allied to stiffness. His verse is sometimes feeble, through too great a redundancy of ornament; and sometimes laboured into a degree of obscurity, from too anxious a desire of avoiding natural and simple expressions."

2

EXTRACTS FROM "THE PLEASURES OF
IMAGINATION."

GOD THE SOURCE OF EXCELLENCE.

FROM heaven my strains begin; from heaven descends
The flame of genius to the human breast,

And love, and beauty, and poetic joy,

And inspiration. Ere the radiant sun

Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night

The moon suspended her serener lamp;

Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorned the globe,

Or wisdom taught the sons of men her lore,

Then lived the Almighty One; then deep retired
In his unfathomed essence, viewed the forms,3
The forms eternal, of created things:

(1) Dr. Johnson. "Lives of the Poets."

(2) Mrs. Barbauld. "Essay" prefixed to her edition of Akenside's Poems. (3) The forms, &c.- The allusion here is to the notion that the idea or image of the universe dwelt in the divine mind from eternity, until at length his vital smile" unfolded it into being."