What thanks then, what ardent and ceaseless thanks are due to that all-superintending, ever-gracious Lord, who has dashed the torch from her hand, has broke her murderous weapons, and driven the baleful pest from our island! May the same almighty goodness shortly banish the accursed monster from all lands! Banish the monster, with her hated associate rapine, and her insatiable purveyor ambition, to the deepest, deepest hell. Branded with everlasting infamy, and bound in adamantine chains, there let them gnash their teeth, and bite the inevitable curb! While peace, descending from her native heaven, bids her olives spring amidst the joyful nations: and plenty, in league with commerce, scatters blessings from her copious horn; while gladness smiles in every eye; and love, extensive universal love, levelling the partition-wall of bigotry, cements every heart in brotherly affection.

Near those heaps of havoc lies the spot, ever-memorable and still revered, on which an obstinate and fatal battle was fought. The husbandman, as he breaks his fallow land, or rends the grassy turf, often discovers the horrid implements, and the more horrid effects of that bloody conflict. He starts to hear his coulter strike upon the bosses of a rusty buckler, or glide over the edge of a blunted sword. He turns pale to see human bones thrown up before his plough, and stands aghast to think that, in cutting his furrow, he opens a grave. The gray-headed sire often relates to his grandsons, hanging with eager attention on the tale, and trembling for the event, relates the dismal, the glorious deeds of that important day. How the fields now covered with waving crops, were then loaded with mangled and ghastly corpses; how the pastures, now green with herbage, were then drenched and incrimsoned with human gore.

On that extended common, "he says,' where the busy shepherd is erecting his hurdled citadel, the tents were spread, and the banners displayed; the spears bristled in air, and the burnished helmits glittered to the sun. On yonder rising ground, where the frisking lambs play to astonishment, we can have any relish for the cold correctness of a heathen genius, we may find something of the same nature in Horace, lib. ii. Od. 1.

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their harmless frolics, stood the martial files, clad in mail, and ranged in battle-array; stood war, with all its collected horrors, like some portentous cloud, ready to burst into an immediate storm. On the nearer plain, where the quiet steed grazes in safety, and those sober oxen chew the juicy herb, the fierce encounter mixed. There the javelins, launched from nervous arms, and aimed by vengeful eyes, flew and reflew, whizzing with death. The arrows lightened from the strings, and drenched their keen points, and dipped their feathery wings in blood. Soon as this shower of missive steel ceased, instantly outsprung thousands of flaming swords. They clash on the brazen shields, they cut their way through the riven armour, and sheath their blades in many a gallant dauntless heart. Here, on this distinguished level, the proud presumptuous enemy, confi. dent of victory, and boasting of their numbers, poured in like a flood: there, a bold, determined battalion, of which myself was a part, planted themselves like a rock, and broke the fierce attack.

Then, adds the brave old warior, then the coward herd fled before the vengeance of our conquering arms. Then these hands strewed the plains with a harvest, different far from their present productions. Then the fathers, smitten with inexpressible dread, "looked not back on their children," though shuddering at the

Habak. iii. 11. p literally translated, presents us with what that beautifully bold figure, The lightening of thy spear. Which, with innumerable other graces of speech, that give dignity and spirit to our modern compositions, are borrowed from the language of Zion, are transplanted from the school of the prophets. If we start into a pleasing amazement at Homer's dopu μaweтaι, have we not equal reason to be

Every ? יתחוללו הרכב charmed and surprised at Nahums

chariot raged with violence and impetuosity: was eager, was even mad to destroy. Nah. ii. 5.

+ For this very striking and most terrific image, we are obliged to the prophet Jeremiah; who, in a few words, but with all the pomp of horror, describes the din of approaching war, and the consternation of a vanquished people. At the nofse of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses, at the rushing of his charlots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back uuto their children, for feebleness of hands.' Jerem.

xlvii. 3.

Not to mention the thunder-like sound of the diction, and that in a language much less sonorous than the original, I appeal to every reader, whether the last circumstance does not awaken the idea of so tremendous a scene, and so horrible a dread, as no

lifted spear, or screaming under the brandished sword. "The fathers looked not back on their children," though they fell among the slain, gashed with deadly wounds, or lay expiring, in groans of agony, under our feet.'

We leave the warrior to repeat his shocking story, and enjoy his savage satisfaction. For calmer scenes, and softer delights, we willingly leave him. The eye is pleased with the elegant gaiety of the parterre; the ear is soothed with the warbling melody of the grove, but grand objects, and the magnificence of things, charm and transport the whole man. The mind, on such occasions, seems to expand with the prospect, and secretly exults in the consciousness of her greatness. Intent upon these large and excursive views, our friends scarce advert to the minuter beauties which address them on every side. The swan, with her snowy plumes and loftily bending head; notwithstanding all her superb air, and lordly state, rows by without exciting admiration or obtaining notice. Equally unnoticed is both the array, and the action of the duck; her glossy neck and finely chequered wings, her diving into the deep, or her darting up into day. The swallow, skimming the air in wanton circles, or dipping her downy breast in the flood, courts their observation in vain, Nor could the finny shoals attract their regard, though they played before the boat in sportive chace; or, glancing quick to the surface, shewed their pearly coats, bedropped with gold. Thus they, engaged in sublime, neglect inferior speculations. And if the sons of religion overlook the diminutive, transient, delusory forms of pleasure, which float on the narrow stream of time, words can express. Virgil has imitated the prophet's manner, in that very delicate descriptive touch, where, representing the prodigious alarm excited by the yell of the infernal fury, he

says;

Et trepida matres pressere ad pectora natos. That is, Each frighted mother clasped the infant to her fluttering bosom,'

No one, I believe, need be informed, that the panic is painted with a very superior energy by the poet of heaven. In the Pagan's draught, the effect of fear results from the constitution, and coincides with the bias of humanity; whereas, in the prophet's picture, it counteracts, it suspends, it entirely overbears, the tenderest workings and strongest propensities of nature, though instigated, on one hand, by the most importunate calls of exquisite distress; and stimulated on the other, by all the solicitations of the most yearning compassion.

or flit along the scanty bounds of sense, it is only to contemplate and enjoy a happiness in their God, which is elevated, substantial, and immortal: compared with which, whatever the eye can survey, from pole to pole, from the rising to the setting sun, is a cockle-shell, a butterfly, a bubble.

On

From this open and enlarged scene, they enter the skirts of a vast umbrageous, venerable forest. either side, the sturdy and gigantic sons of earth rear their aged trunks, and spread their branching arms. Trees of every hardy make, and every majestic form, in agreeable disorder, and with a wild kind of grandeur, fill the aerial regions. The huge, expansive, roaming boughs unite themselves over the current, and diffuse their umbrage, broad and brown as evening.' The timorous deer start at the clashing of the waves; alarmed with the unusual sound, they look up, and gaze for a moment, then fly into covert by various ways, and with precipitate speed; vanishing rather than departing from the glade.

How awful to reflect, as they glide along the shelving shores, and the moss-grown banks, as they sail under the pendent shades of quivering poplar, of whistling fir, and the solemn-sounding foliage of the oak; how awful to reflect; These were the lonely haunts of the Druids two thousand years ago! Amidst these dusky mazes, and sympathetic glooms, the pensive sages strayed. Here they sought, they found, and with all the solemnity of superstitious devotion, they gathered their misletoe. Here the visionary recluses shunned the tumultuous ways of men, and traced the mysterious paths of providence. Here they explored the secrets of nature, and invoked their fabled gods.'

If the reader pleases, he may see these pompous solemnitles described in Vanierii Præd. Rust.' page 125, &c. where the curious narrative of Pliny, is embellished with the harmonious numbers of Virgil. With regard to the reflections occasioned by this account, the compliments lavished on the French, their religion, and their monarch; I believe, the judicious Protestant will confess with me, that as our charming author has copied the language, and entered into the spirit of the ancients, he has also catched a tincture of their superstition; imbibing, together with all their elegancies and graces, some of their fanciful and legendary levities.

Verùm ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
Offendar maculis.-Hor.

Sometimes wrapt in a sudden reverie of thought, sometimes engaged in conversation on the solemn appearances of things, the voyagers scarce perceive their progress. Before they are aware, this venerable scene is lost, and they find themselves advanced upon the borders of a beautiful lawn. The forest, retiring to the right hand, in the shape of a crescent, composed what Milton styles, a verdurous wall of stateliest aspect,' and left in the midst an ample space for the flourishing of herbage.

Here, said Theron, if you please, we will alight, and leave the bearer of our floating sedan, to pursue his ceaseless course; to enrich the bosom of other vallies, and leave the feet of other hills; to visit cities, and make the tour of counties; to reflect the image of many a splendid structure, which adorn his banks; and, what is far more amiable, to distribute all along his winding journey innumerable conveniences both for man and beast; acquiring the farther he goes, and the more benefits he confers, a deeper flow, and a wider swell; to the remarkable confirmation of that beneficent maxim, 'there is that scattereth, and yet increaseth."

Theron and Aspasio, walking across the spacious amphitheatre, seated themselves at the extremity of the bend. Before them lay a verdant area, quite even, perfectly handsome, but far from gay. Green was all the dress, without any mixture of gaudy flowers, or glittering colours. Only now and then a gentle breeze skimming over the undulating mead, impressed a varying wavy gloss on its surface. The whole seemed to resemble the decent and sober ornaments of maturer age, when it has put off the trappings, and bid adieu to the levities of youth. The broad transparent stream ran parallel with the lipst of the channel, and drew a line of circumvallation as it were to guard the calm. retreat. It appeared, where shaded with boughs, like a barrier of polished steel; where open to the sun, like a mirror of flowing crystal. The eastern edges of the river were barricaded with a kind of mountainous de

* Prov. xi. 24.

+ The Greek, which is above all languages happy, in its beautiful variety of compound words, very neatly expresses this appearance by ισόχείλης της γι