find a single sentence, like those meek deliverances to God's mercy, with which Laud accompanied his votes for the mutilations and loathsome dunge. oning of Leighton and others!-no where such a pious prayer as we find in Bishop Hall's memoranda of his own life, concerning the subtle and witty atheist that so grievously perplexed and gravelled him at Sir Robert Drury's till he prayed to the Lord to remove him, and behold! his prayers were heard, for shortly afterward this Philistine-combatant went to London: and there perished of the plague in great misery! In short, no where shall we find the least approach, in the lives and writings of John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, to that guarded gentleness, to that sighing reluctance, with which the holy brethren of the Inquisition deliver over a condemned heretic to the civil magistrate, recommending him to mercy, and hoping that the magistrate will treat the erring brother with all possible mildness!-the magistrate, who too well knows what would be his own fate, if he dared offend them by acting on their recommendation. The opportunity of diverting the reader from myself to characters more worthy of his attention, has led me far beyond my first intention; but it is not unimportant to expose the false zeal which has occasioned these attacks on our elder patriots. It has been too much the fashion, first to personify the Church of England, and then to speak of different individuals, who in different ages have been rulers in that Church, as if in some strange way they constituted its personal identity. Why should a clergyman of the present day feel interested in the defence of Laud or Sheldon? Surely it is sufficient for the warmest partisan of our establishment, that he can assert with truth,-when our Church persecuted, it was on mistaken principles held in common by all Christendom; and at all events, far less culpable was this intolerance in the Bishops, who were maintaining the existing laws, than the persecuting spirit afterwards shown by their successful opponents, who had no such excuse, and who should have been taught mercy by their own sufferings, and wisdom by the utter failure of the experiment in their own case. We can say, that our Church,' apostolical in its faith, primitive in its ceremonies, unequalled in its liturgical forms; that our Church, which has kindled and displayed more bright and burning lights of genius and learning, than all other Protestant Churches since the Reformation, was (with the single exception of the times of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, when all Christians unhappily deemed a species of intolerance their religious duty; that Bishops of our Church were among the first that contended against this error; and finally, that since the Reformation, when tolerance became a fashion, the Church of England in a tolerating age, has shown herself eminently tolerant, and far more so, both in spirit and in fact, than many of her most bitter opponents, who profess to deem toleration itself an insult on the rights of mankind! As to myself, who not only know the Church-Establishment to be tolerant, but who see in it the greatest, if not the sole safe bulwark of toleration, I feel no necessity of defending or palliating oppressions under the two Charleses, in order to exclaim with a full and fervent heart, Esto perpetua! FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER. A WAR ECLOGUE. The Scene a desolated Track in La Vendée. FAMINE is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter FIRE and SLaughter. FAMINE. SISTERS! sisters! who sent you here? SLAUGHTER. [to FIRE.] I will whisper it in her ear. FIRE. No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell : Myself, I named him once below, Clapped their hands and danced for glee. But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters Spirits hear what spirits tell : FAMINE. Whisper it, sister! so and so! SLAUGHTER. Letters four do form his name- BOTH. The same! the same! SLAUGHTER. He came by stealth, and unlocked my den, BOTH. Who bade you do it? SLAUGHTER. The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! FAMINE. Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled, And the homeless dog-but they would not go. To see them gorge their dainty fare? I heard a groan and a peevish squall, BOTH. Whisper it, sister! in our ear. FAMINE. A baby beat its dying mother: I had starved the one and was starving the other! BOTH. Who bade you do't? FAMINE. The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. FIRE. Sisters! I from Ireland came! To see the sweltered cattle run With uncouth gallop through the night, By the light of his own blazing cot The house-stream met the flame and hissed, On some of those old bed-rid nurses, And in an hour would you repay Cling to him everlastingly. THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS. I. FROM his brimstone bed at break of day To visit his snug little farm the Earth, II. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane. III. And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best : His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through. IV. He saw a Lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother Abel. V. He saw an Apothecary on a white horse Ride by on his vocations; And the Devil thought of his old friend VI. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin VII. He peeped into a rich bookseller's shop, → And all amid them stood the tree of life High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold (query paper money :) and next to Life Our Death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by. VIII. Down the river did glide, with wind and with tide, And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, IX. As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint X. He saw a Turnkey in a trice Fetter a troublesome blade; "Nimbly," quoth he, “do the fingers move XI. He saw the same Turnkey unfetter a man Which put him in mind of the long debate XII. He saw an old acquaintance As he passed by a Methodist meeting ; She holds a consecrated key, And the Devil nods her a greeting. XIII. She turned up her nose, and said, And leered like a love-sick pigeon. So clomb this first grand thief Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life Par. Lost, iv. The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "life" Cod. quid. habent, "trade.' Though indeed the trade, i.e. the bibliopolic, so called kar' ¿¿óxη, may be regarded as Life sensu eminentiori; a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, &c. of the trade, exclaimed, 'Ay! that's what I call Life now!"-This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of authorship-Sic nos non nobis mellificamus apes. Of this poem, which with the Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, first appeared in the Morning Post, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 9th, and 16th stanzas were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface. If any one should ask who General meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel, |