more with anger than despair, and her black disshevelled locks floated on the breeze from below a coronet of gold. Ever and anon she lashed the untiring coursers, and her hands were red with gore, and the long skirt of her robe was stained with recent blood. The sight of habitations only made her drive more furiously, and the steeds careered with bloody whirling of the chariot-wheels more wildly over the shaking plain, which yet they scarcely seemed to touch. Whence she came, or whither she was going, no man could tell; but strange rumours reached our ears, how she had slain her children and her brother, and was fleeing in guilty haste with her paramour from the angry vengeance of a kingly father. Men said her lover was the leader of the hunderd warriors-but with what truth may not be known-for no tidings ever reached this land of the goodly ship or of her gallant crew. And now, my beloved child, though there are many things which I should wish to write to thee, I must postpone them till a more convenient season.

Assure me, and that early, of thy mother's welfare. Oh! honour her grey hairs, Perilla, for thy father's sake. Commend me to thy husband, and to thy children, in a kiss. Meanwhile, my daughter, may the immortal gods watch over thee and pour their choicest blessings on thy honoured head. When thou walkest in the street, let nothing come nigh thee to hurt thee; and when thou sittest in the house may peace and every happiness attend thee. Grieve no more for me-my destiny is fixed-the burden becomes light which is well borne."

Forget not that in adversity, or the prospect of death, there is no greater consolation than the remembrance of a well spent life.—Farewell! * "Leve fit, quod bene fertur onus."

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Ordination.-The Ordination of the Rev. Alexander Cosens as Minister of Fossaway and Tullibole, took place on Thursday the 13th instant, in the Parish Church. After the service, Mr. Cosens received a most cordial welcome from every member of the Congregation. On Sunday last, Mr. Cosens was introduced to his new charge by the Rev. Dr. Hunter of the Tron Church, Edinburgh.

Ordination.-On Thursday last, the Presbytery of Cupar met at Ceres, and ordained the Rev. Mr. Brown to the charge of that Church and Parish.May 1st, 1852.

Induction. The Presbytery of Dumfries met in St. Mary's Church, on Friday last, and inducted the Rev. J. M. Austin into the pastoral charge of that Congregation.

Gourock. At a meeting on Wednes

day night, the 13th instant, the Rev. James Somerville was unanimously chosen as Minister of the Church at Gourock, in place of the Rev. Mr. M'Ilraith, appointed to the Church of All Saints, Berbice.

Death of the Rev. Alexander Clark of Inverness.-The death of this clergyman took place at Glasgow on the morning of the 6th current. Mr. Clark, who had been complaining, had retired to Rothesay, in the hope that a few weeks of rest and relaxation would restore him to health; but whilst there, an attack of bronchitis (the third which he had had within the year) sapped his remaining strength, and he expired at Glasgow, as above stated, in the vain attempt to reach his home.

Died at the Manse, Beith, on the 13th instant, the Rev. George Colville, D.D.

"AFAR from Pisgah's rugged height,
Enrapt he cast his dying view,
To Canaan's happy land of light,
Bath'd in its beams of purple hue,
And spread before him, far and near,
In all its sunny radiance clear;

Till bright and brighter grew,
Before, beneath, from side to side,
The flooding glories streaming wide.

"He caught fair Gilead's mountain line-
The far-spread plain-the distant sea—

The purpled slopes of Eschol's vine,
And gardens of the olive-tree.
The south before him stretched away,
And Jericho's rich valley lay

Beneath him silently;

And fountains where the palm-tree waves,

And all the land which Jordan laves.

"And here, amid this solemn scene,

Afar from human sight or sound,
With thoughts unearthly and serene,
Turning his dying gaze around
On that sweet land, which basking lay
In glory's brightest, richest ray,
To its remotest bound;

Here must the Prophet's closing breath
Be breathed to God in tranquil death.

"No human hand prepared his grave—

No balms were brought-no cerements made;
By God, in some untrodden cave,

'Mid silent vales his form was laid.

Y

No eye his hallowed dust can trace;
No search can find his resting place,
In sunlight or in shade;
Angels alone spectators hung,

And o'er his tomb the requiem sung.

"Oh! thus to die in some still spot,

With waiting angels hov'ring near,
The world-the past-and pain forgot,
In Faith's wide vision op'ning clear;
Oh! thus to know that while we sleep,
God's eye above us watch will keep,
And mark our sepulchre !

And, though we sleep apart-alone,

Our resting place to Him is known."-NEWMAN.

The verses we have placed at the head of this article are from a very beautiful poem on`" the death of Moses"—and are here given, because they bring before our mental eye some of the most prominent portions of the scenery of that land which was the birth-place of the Hebrew poetry, -and the hills and valleys of which are constantly rising in beautiful vision before the minds of those who are affectionately engaged in the study of those divine strains in which they were so frequently alluded to and rapturously celebrated.

In our preceding articles, we have reviewed some specimens of the matchless strains of " the Monarch Minstrel"-some also of those which are commonly and justly considered as the composition of other authors, whose names have not been so decidedly ascertained-the sacred Idylls also have been rapidly passed in review-and lastly, we have noticed some of the more remarkable of these short, but very characteristic hymns, known by the name of the "Ascension Odes," which are generally understood to have been sung by the heads of the Hebrew families, either in commemoration of the remarkable deliverances which had signalised their national history-or when advancing yearly from the different portions of their sacred territory to the devout celebration of their august solemnities. There still remain for consideration those short but spirited snatches of praise, with which the entire collection is wound up—and which are so instinct with spirit and with devotion, that they have not only commanded the admiration of all succeeding times-but, more than any others of the same sacred collection, have been the subjects of imitation by the most gifted of modern composers.

Before proceeding, however, to the consideration of the LAUDATION HYMNS, there are three other specimens of Hebrew poetry, more nearly related in their topics to those we have more recently been reviewingand which are well deserving of special notice-we mean, the universally admired hymn, known as the lament of the captive Hebrews, while sitting by "the waters of Babylon"-the funeral eulogy of David pronounced over Saul and Jonathan-and lastly, the small poem, not found in our collection of Psalms, but given by the Septuagint, as the composition of David in his early years-and in which the remarkable events of his youthful history are very simply, but touchingly, recorded.

Respecting the first of these,-" BY BABEL'S STREAMS"-we may remark, that it belongs to a small but precious class of compositions, in which the feelings meant to be expressed are given with such simple but winning power-with such a perfect adherence to nature—and with such utter disregard of every thing but the deep emotion meant to be conveyed by the poetry-that they not only defy all attempts at imitation or reproduction, but maintain their place, throughout all times and changes, as the purest specimens of what the artistic powers of the human mind are capable of producing. All succeeding ages, accordingly, have agreed in admiring the simple pathos of the hymn now under consideration-and we further believe, that, as no attempt to reproduce or imitate it has yet succeeded, so its own pathetic simplicity will never be superseded by any future attempts that may be made to transpose its sentiments into the more artificial rhymes of coming ages.

Byron's poem upon the same subject cannot be considered as properly a translation of the Hebrew hymn-it is rather an attempt to bring out, in his own way, the sentiment by which the Hebrew poem is understood to be pervaded. But neither in the kind of verse which the modern poet has chosen, nor in the evolution of the pervading spirit of the ancient poem, can we consider the attempt to have been successful. The poem is entitled, "BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND Wept,”and is as follows:

T.

"We sate down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;

And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd, all weeping, away.

II.

"While sadly we gazed on the river
Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be wither'd for ever
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!

III.

"On the willows that harp is suspended,
Oh Salem ! its sounds should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were ended
But left me that token of thee;
And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me !"

Every thing that Byron did was marked by power suitable to the feeling which was present in his mind at the moment of compositionand even in the verses we have now quoted, there are one or two lines which evince the hand of a great master-for instance, the distich,

"The hour when thy glories were ended

But left me that token of thee."

Still we are of opinion that the simple pathos of the original is not seized in this composition-as we also think, that the peculiar kind of verse chosen by the poet on this occasion is entirely out of unison with the flow of sentiment meant to be expressed.

We think the following imitation, by another hand, is better, because simpler, and more accordant with the tenor of sentiment in the original :

I.

"By Babel's streams that slowly crept

"Neath willowy banks, we sat and wept;
Our hearts to Zion fondly turn'd,
And for her vanished state we mourn'd;
Our harps upon the trees we hung,
That to the plaintive breezes swung.

II.

"For there our spoilers ask'd a song
Of Zion's festive day;
Their choral dances to prolong,
And chase our grief away.

Alas! for mirth our hearts had woe,
And only notes of sadness flow.

III.

"How could we, in a foreign land,
With slavery's heavy chain,
Or sweep the lyre with willing hand,
Or sorrow's tears restrain?

O city of the Lord !—if e'er
My heart thy fate forget,
My hand and voice for evermore
In helplessness be set!

IV.

"Remember Edom's children, Lord,

Their haughty looks and threat'ning word;
Who, in Jerusalem's troubled day,

Raze, raze it to the ground, did say.

Happy the man, to Babylon

Who does as she to us has done;

Her doom is fixed, and she shall see,

Torn ruthless from the parent's knee,

And dash'd against the blood-stain'd stones,

Her helpless, guiltless little ones."

We still believe, however, that no translation will ever match the pathetic simplicity of the original, as literally rendered in our prose ver

sion:

"By the waters of Babylon we sat down-
And we wept, when we thought of Zion-
We hung our harps upon the willows," &c.

Respecting the vehement tone of imprecation directed against the enemies of the Jews, with which this plaintive little Ode is concluded, there has been no small quantity of very unnecessary criticism employed, by a certain not very enlightened class of commentators and expounders -some thinking that the vindictive tone which the verses display is not