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IN my dark cell, low prostrate on the ground,
Mourning my crimes, thy letter entrance found:
Too soon my soul the well known name confest,
My beating heart sprang fiercely in my breast.
Through my whole frame a guilty transport glow'd,
And streaming torrents from my eyes fast flow'd.
Oh, Eloisa! art thou still the same?

Dost thou still nourish this destructive flame ?
Have not the gentle rules of peace and heav'n
From thy soft soul this fatal passion driv'n?
Alas! I thought you disengag'd and free;
And can you still, still sigh and weep for me,
What powerful deity, what hallowed shrine
Can save me from a love, a faith like thine ?
Where shall I fly, when not this awful cave,
Whose rugged feet the surging billows lave,
When not these gloomy cloisters, solemn walls,
O'er whose rough sides the languid ivy crawls,
When my dread vows in vain their force oppose,
Oppos'd to love, alas, how vain are vows!
In fruitless penitence I wear away
Each tedious night and sad revolving day.
I fast, I pray, and with deceitful art
Veil thy dear image in my tortur'd heart.
My tortur'd heart conflicting passions move:
I hope, repent, despair-yet still I love!
A thousand jarring thoughts my bosom tear,

For thes, not God-oh, Eloise, art there!
To the false world's delusive pleasures dead,
Nor longer by its wandering fires misled,
In learn'd disputes harsh precepts I infuse,
And give the counsel, I want power to use.
The rigid maxims of the grave and wise
Have quench'd each milder sparkle of my eyes;
Each lively feature in this once-lov'd face,
By grief revers'd, assumes a sterner grace.
Oh, Eloisa! should the fates once more
Indulgent to my wish, thy charms restore,

How from my arms wouldst thou with horrour start,
To miss the form familiar to thy heart.

Nought could thy quick, thy piercing judgment see,
To speak me Abelard, but love to thee.
Lean abstinence, pale grief, and haggard care,
The dire attendants of forlorn despair
Have Abelard the gay, the young remov'd,
And in the Hermit, sunk the man you lov'd.
Wrapt in the gloom these holy mansions shed
The thorny paths of penitence I tread,
Lost to the world, from all its interests free,
And torn from all my heart held dear in thee!
Ambition with its train of frailties gone,
All loves, all forms forgot, but thine alone.
Amid the blaze of day, the dusk of night,
My Eloisa rises to my sight.

Veil'd as in Paraclete's secluded towers,

The wretched mourner counts the lagging hours;
I bear her sighs, see the swift falling tears,
Weep all her griefs, and pant with all her cares.
Oh vows, O convent! your stern force impart,
And frown the melting image from my heart.
Let other sighs, a worthier sorrow show,
Let other tears, for sin repentant flow !
Lo to the earth my guilty eyes I roll,
And humble to the dust my heaving soul.
Forgiving power! thy gracious call I meet,
Who first impower'd this rebel heart to beat ;
Who through this trembling, this offending frame,
For nobler ends infus'd life's active flame;
Oh change the temper of this lab'ring breast,
And form anew, this beating pulse to rest.

Let springing Grace, fair Truth, and Hope remove
The fatal traces of destructive love.

Destructive love from his warm mansions tear,
And leave no trace of Eloisa there.

Are these the wishes of my iumost soul?
Would I its soft, its tenderest sense control?
Would I this touch'd, this glowing heart refine
To the cold substance of that marble shrine.

Transform'd like these pale forms that round me move
Of blest insensibles, whok now not love;
Oh! rather let me keep this hapless flame,
Adieu false honour! unavailing fame!
Not your harsh rules but tenderer love supplies
The streams that gush from my despairing eyes.

I feel the traitor melt about my heart,

And through my veins its treach'rous influence dart.
Inspire me Heaven! assist me grace Divine!

Aid me ye Saints, unknown to griefs like mine!
You, who on earth all griefs serene could prove,
All but the torturing pangs of hopeless love.
A holier rage in your pure bosoms dwelt,
Nor can you pity what you never felt.
A sympathetick grief alone can cure,
The hand that beals, must feel what I endure.
Thou, Eloise, alone canst give me ease,
And bid my struggling soul subside to peace.
Restore me to my long lost heaven of rest,
And take thyself from my reluctant breast!
If crimes like mine could an allay receive.
That blest allay thy wond'rous charms could give.
Thy form, that first to love my heart inclin'd,
Still wanders in my lost, my guilty mind.
I saw thee, as the opening blossoms fair,
Sprightly as light, more soft than summer's air,
Bright as their beams, thy eyes a mind disclose,
While on thy lips, gay blush'd the fragrant rose.
Wit, youth and love, in each dear feature shone,
Prest by my fate, I gaz'd, and was undone !
There died the generous fire, whose vig'rous flame,
Enlarg'd my soul and led me on to fame.

Nor fame, nor wealth my softened heart could move,
Dull and insensible to all but love.

Snatch'd from myself, my learning tasteless grew,
Vain my philosophy oppos'd to you!

A train of woes succeed-nor should we mourn
The hours that cannot-ought not to return!
As once to love I sway'd your yielding mind,-
Too fond, alas! too fatally inclin'd,
To Virtue now let me your heart inspire,
And fan with zeal divine the heavenly fire,
Teach you to injur'd heav'n all chang'd to turn,
And bid your soul with sacred raptures burn.
Oh! that my bright example might impart
This noble warmth to your soft, trembling heart;
That mine, with pious, undissembled care,
Could aid each latent virtue struggling there!
Alas! I rave. Nor grace, nor zeal divine,
Burns in a heart oppress'd with crimes like mine.
Too sure I find, while I the tortures prove,
Of feeble piety, conflicting love,

On black despair my forc'd devotion's built,
Absence for me has sharper pangs than guilt !
Yet, yet my Eloise, thy charms I view,

Yet my sighs breathe, my tears pour forth for you.
Each weak resistance stronger knits the chain-
I sigh, weep, love, despair, repent-in vain.

Haste Eloisa, haste, thy lover free,

Amid your warmest pray'rs, oh think on me!
Wing with your rising zeal my grov'ling mind,
And let me mine from your repentance find.
Ah! labour, strive, your love, yourself controu!,
The change will sure affect my kindred soul :

In blest contert our purer sighs shall breathe,
And Heav'n assisting shall our crimes forgive;
But if unhappy, wretched, lost-in vain,
Faintly th'unequal combat you sustain;
If not to Heav'n you feci your bosom rise,
Nor tears refin'd fall contrite from your eyes,
If still your heart its wonted passions move,
If still to speak all pains in one-you love;
Deaf to the weak essays of human breath
Attend the stronger eloquence of death.
When that kind pow'r this captive soul shall free,
(Which only then can cease to think of thee,
When gently sunk to my eternal sleep,

The Paraclete my peaceful urn shall keep;
Then, Eloisa, then, thy lover view,

See his quench'd eyes no longer gaze on you;

From their dead orbs that tender utt'rance flown,

Which first to thine, my heart's warm tale made known,
'This breast no more (at length to ease consign'd,)
Pant like the wav'ring aspen in the wind:
See all my wild tumultuous passions o'er,
And thou, amazing change, belov'd no more.
Behold the destin'd end of human love,
But let the sight your zeal alone improve.
Let not your conscious soul, to pity mov'd,
Recal how much, how tenderly we lov'd!
With pious care your fruitless griefs restrain,
Nor let one tear the sacred veil prophane.
Nor e'en a sigh in my cold urn bestow,
But let your breast with new-born raptures glow;
Let LOVE DIVINE frail mortal love dethrone,
And to your mind immortal joys make known.
Let heaven relenting strike your ravish'd view;
And still the bright, the blest pursuit renew,
So with your crimes shall your misfortunes cease,
Aud your rack'd soul be calmly hush'd to peace.

ON READING WERTER.

Thy self wrought sorrows Werter, when I view,
Why falls not o'er the page soft pity's dew?
Are there no tears for thy unhappy lot?
Is tenderness no more, and love forgot?
Or chill'd my breast by fifty winters' snow,
And dead the touch of sympathetick woe?
No! o'er this bosom fifty winters old,
Love, wedded love, still prints his shafts of gold;
Still waves his purple wings, and o'er my urn
With brightest rays his constant lamp shall burn.
Not such thy torch of Love, in angry mood,
By furies kindled, and put out in blood!
From the black deed affrighted pity flew,
And horrour froze the tear compassion drew.
While from thy gloomy page I learn to know,
That virtuous tears alone for virtuous sorrow flow.

THE BOSTON REVIEW.

FOR

DECEMBER, 1808.

ego

Librum tuum legiquam diligentissime potuí annotavi, quæ commutanda, quæ eximendaş arbitrarer. Nam dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur. PLIN.

ART. 41.

The Apostolick Origin of Episcopacy, asserted in a series of letters, addressed to the Rev. Dr. Miller, one of the pastors of the United Presbyterian churches in the city of NewYork By the Rev. John Boryden, D.D. professor of moral philosophy, logick, and belles lettres in Columbia College. New. York, printed and sold by T. & J. Swords. 1808. 2 vols. 12mo. WHETHER Controversy be friendly, or hostile, to the interests of religion, is a disputed point, on which mankind, probably, will never agree. On the one hand, it unquestionably tends to the investigation and developement of truth, excites industry, and promotes learning; but, on the other hand, it is too apt to kindle the flame of uncharitable zeal, and, by stimulating the bad passions of our nature, to lead to sectarian bigotry and personal animosity.

Every liberal and enlightened christian, of whatever persuasion, will readily acknowledge, that whoever believes in the Saviour, and makes his gospel the rule of his life, will be accepted; and that, at the

great day of final retribution, no enquiry will be made, to what sect we may have belonged, or what mode of worship we may have embraced.

feriour consideration, we may justly If these, then, are objects of intance that many attach to creeds express our surprise at the imporand forms, for the belief and adoption of which no man can, in reality, be either the better or the worse. In affairs of indifference, it is, perhaps, the wisest way to persevere in the mode of worship, in which we have been educated, whether it be Presbyterian, Congregational, or Episcopalian.

But, though we profess ourselves wholly uninterested in the present controversy, yet, as we have reviewed the work of Dr. Miller, the impartiality, which we boast, com pels us to do the same justice to Dr. Bowden. We shall state, as concisely as possible, the sentiments of the writer, and not, like some of our brother criticks, make ourselves parties in the dispute. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites.

Dr. Bowden, in his first letter, accuses his antagonist of having withholden from his readers, nume

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