III.

While these contend, with varied shriek and groan,
For the dread honours of the fatal throne,

Wildly begrimmed, and seamed with grisly scar,
Forth strides the scourge of nations, trampling War.
Grimly quoth he, "Begone! for all must yield
To one who chokes the deep and heaps the field—
Who made of thee, fair suicidal Spain,

One ghastly burial place of tombless slain-
Whose ravenous eagles, scenting carnage, flew
To death's chief altar, gory Waterloo-
Who strikes his myriads on the Indian sand,
As once he struck on Egypt's heathen strand:
Ay! and beneath whose fiercely-dinting heel
Mad modern kingdoms to their centre reel-
Devoted Hungary and Denmark's soil,
Where, but for me, was nought save happy toil-
Awakening Italy, and, worse than all,
Hot-blooded, fiery-eyed, tormented Gaul,
Mine, gloomy Monarch! be the vacant place—
Me! the great waster of the human race."

IV.

But who comes next, with feeble, reeling limb,
Relaxed lip, and eye so foul and dim,

Cheek bloated, feverish hand, and faltering tongue,
That quavers like a harp unfitly strung?

With staggering gait the unearthly thing comes on,

And gazing wildly at the vacant throne,

"Back! back!" he cries-" that recompence I claim-
Ye know me well-Intemperance my name!
Vain, vain diseases! while you count your ten,
My cup of poison slays a thousand men.
Loud boasting war! this fell envenomed bowl
Wars with the frame-and grapples with the soul.
What, mighty murderer! your sword and spear,
And gun, and bursting mine that rends the ear,
And fills the startled air with stone and limb,
And shattered skull, till heaven itself grows dim-
Say! what are these to subtle streams that flow
Through every rank that crowds this world of woe-
Blighting whate'er they touch, like demon's breath,
And leaving all behind a waste of death?

You heap the field-you choke the sea-'tis well,
But hark! I furnish multitudes for hell.
My poison-drops can pale the freshest lip-
The opening buds of industry can nip-
Sap the nice sense of honour-whet the knife
That drunken anger grasps to shorten life—
Bid want arise for plenty-order hence
The once fair blush of conscious innocence-
And, like a canker, eat into the core

Of master minds that ne'er can govern more,
The very image of the power divine
Washed from their tablet by this drug of mine.

V.

Next Famine came, a lean and ragged form,
Pinched by the frost and battered by the stormı.
Her sunken cheek a fearful story told,

And 'neath her caverned brows her eyeball rolled,
Sullen and red as tigers in her den

When pierced and baited by unfeeling men.
She spoke of thousands foodless, homeless, cast
To street or wold to battle with the blast,
The cutting hail or driving sleet to bear,
And pine o'er savage look and bootless prayer-
Kept by the cruel mercy of a crust

From the unhungering realms of peaceful dust.

VI.

While worn-out Famine thus prefers her claim,
A new aspirant, lately sprung to fame,

"Free-trade" emblazoned on his shameless crest,
Steps boldly forward to out-bid the rest.

"And what," cries he, "your bands of nameless slaves
In life unknown, and filling vulgar graves?
What now the millions who obscurely fell
'Neath pale disease, or battle's shot and shell?
Soon shall my numbers roundly cope with these;
For lo! what galleys crowd the groaning seas,
Bearing the sad-eyed, hopeless emigrant,
From peace and competence, to toil and want.
Full many a grey-haired sire, who hoped to rest
In the fair native land he loved the best,
The rippling stream, in whose exulting wave
He bathed in youth, low murmuring near his grave,
Must grasp his staff, and cross the unfriendly sea,
And pine by foreign wastes, and all for me.
But these I count not-what though myriad poor
The grinding miseries of my reign endure?
A nobler victim's life-blood shall I drain
From every gaping wound and panting vein,
Till, a few bleaching bones, Great Britain's frame
Shall waste and die, and only live in fame.
Ye pigmy butchers of a pigmy race,
Who now disputes with me yon ghastly place?
What banded nations vainly strove to wound,
I pull in tottering vastness to the ground.
That noble monarchy, whose freedom, peace,
And wisdom, rival those of Rome and Greece-
With whose proud strength no Macedon might vie,
By me shall droop and pine, and sadly die-
Her armies feared no longer on the plain-
No more her navies on the vassal main;
But a mere wreck in abject weakness laid,
To tell the unrivalled prowess of Free Trade."

VII.

Grimly and grizly, Death, the victor, rose, "Here let the record of destruction close.

Of all the murders history brings to honour,
From royal Cæsar down to Pat O'Connor-
All, brother Free Trade! must give way to thee ;
More baleful thou than deadly Upas tree.
Now hence, my ministers! waste, pinch, and burn;
But to our ghastly presence ne'er return,
Until some bloody conquest has been made
To dwarf the deadly victory of Free Trade.
And if ye meet with Peel, pray, greet him kind-
Tell him his lethal conduct suits our mind.
Assure him Cataline was but a fool,

And honest Fawkes a miserable tool

In ruin's hand, compared with his endeavour,
To sink the British power for ever and for ever."

GIRLISH FRIENDSHIP.

Girl friends, sweet friends, how loving were we all,-
I think I see you; there the glowing cheek,
The merry shaking of those dark brown curls,
And those quiet braids of jet; blue eyes and dark,
But all alight with joy, I think I feel

Your gentle arms around my neck or waist,
Again your warm pure kisses on my cheek;
Lips dearer, purer, ne'er shail press it, though
Children should climb my knee, to kiss and see
Their baby faces in their mother's eyes.
Girl friends, sweet friends, how happy were we all.
In that so happy time, when we did blush,
As much to tell each other how we loved
As if we had been lovers, when no thought
Of all our inmost heart, but was revealed
In that so close companionship, and when
A little strife, a few hours parted us,
How sweet the reconciliation was.
Now we have parted on our several ways,
And other happiness and other love

Has filled our hearts, yet some of us may meet
In after years, and kindle our old love,

And feed it with these fond remembrances;

But oh, dear friends, all ne'er shall meet again,

(For some are gone) except we meet in heaven.-Isa.

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Presentation.-Sir G. Graham Montgomery of Stanhope, Bart., has presented the Rev. Alex. Cosens, Assistant to the Rev. Dr. Brunton, of the Tron Church, Edinburgh, to the United Parishes of Fossoway and Tulliebole, vacant by the translation of the Rev. Duncan Campbell to the Parish of Luss.

St. Mary's Church, Dumfries.-The Rev. John Mein Austin, of Johnston

Chapel, Paisley, was, on Monday the 1st March, unanimously elected Pastor of this charge.

University Degrees.-On Saturday the 13th March, the Senatus of the Univer sity of St. Andrews, conferred the degree of Doctor in Divinity on the Rev. James Barty, Minister of Bendochy, and on the Rev. Mr. Robertson, Minister of Eddlestone.

MACPHAIL'S

EDINBURGH ECCLESIASTICAL JOURNAL.

No. LXXVI.

MAY 1852.

LIFE OF LORD JEFFREY, BY LORD COCKBURN.

Ir seems quite unnecessary to characterise this book generally, by saying that it is interesting, instructive, and well-composed; the well known talents of Lord Cockburn-although he had no previous experience of book-making-was a sufficient pledge of the respectability of the expected production ;-and its character, now that it has appeared, has been so widely diffused and published by journals of all kinds, great and small, monthly, weekly, and daily, that there is no person capable of reading who does not already know, both the general character of the work, and many of the most remarkable passages or anecdotes which it contains. The author, indeed, has himself said, "that there is an age, after which it is seldom safe for one who has never tried to write a book to make the attempt ;" and we do not deny that there are, occasionally, peculiarities of phraseology in the work before us, which seem to indicate that the author was more accustomed to speaking than to the severely accurate niceties of written composition,-as there are other modes of diction occasionally occurring in the course of the work, which are rather to be referred to the intellectual temperament of the author himself, and of which no practice in writing could, probably, have entirely divested him-peculiarities we mean, which every person who has heard Lord Cockburn speak, will at once recognise as quite characteristic-and which, indeed, by their recurrence, never fail to bring his Lordship, not merely as a writer, but as a living speaker and pleader, directly before the mental eye of the peruser of this biography. Still it is quite true that his style, though unadorned, is rich-that his sentiment, though unambitious, is lofty-that his humour is natural, unctuous, and most decidedly Scotch,"-that the tone and polish of his composition invariably rise with the grandeur or importance of the topics that necessarily present themselves to his view, and that the whole work is so artistically constructed, that from a plain and seemingly familiar be

ginning, it passes through a series of most splendid and curiously intermingled discussions, corresponding with the actual progress of the life of its distinguished subject, till it gradually passes away in some of the most soft and simple, but yet graceful and effective touches by which any similar production was ever terminated. The proudest stickler for the exclusive dignity of the bench, certainly, has no reason to be offended at this exhibition of his Lordship's powers in the field more commonly occupied by men of simply literary acquirements and habits.

Neither do we think it at all indispensable to say, that the subject of the work was every way worthy of such a biographer-and of so splendid a monument. Lord Jeffrey is known to the whole civilized world to have accomplished as much in his life-time, as would, in the case of almost any other person, have been deemed miraculous. From a comparatively humble and unfriended origin, he gained for himself, not only without extraneous aid, but in opposition to interests that would most effectually have crushed most other men, and simply by the use of his own rare endowments, an influence in society and in literature and at the bar, which, by a gradation slowly begun, but firmly continued, placed him successively in some of the most important employments and dignities which his profession implied; till towards the end of his career he took his place among the most honoured of those to whom the high office of administering justice, and also of those to whom the duty of swaying the destinies of the entire community is intrusted. His powers, by the sole use of which he accomplished all this-though not perhaps singly of the very highest order-were yet so various and so peculiar-so finely intermingled and adjusted-so incessantly active-and so uninterruptedly at his command, that whether in literature, in politics, or at the bar, he was universally acknowledged to hold a place of pre-eminent rank among all contemporaries and rivals; in some respects, indeed, his powers might justly be styled miraculous-and so complete and universal was the public impression regarding them, that in whatever line of exertion their possessor chose to employ them—or to whatever objects he at any particular time chose to direct their energy, no observer or expectant doubted, that in that line, or towards that object, their influence would be as effective as it was possible for any human accomplishments to be— and that if the purpose in view could be gained, Jeffrey was the very person to whom the achievement might be intrusted with the greatest probability of success. He was not only one of a band of men in some respects the most remarkable that this country has ever producedbut he was conspicuous even amidst this unrivalled band; among men young in years at their first appearance on the public stage, but every one of them gifted with talents such as few others of their contemporaries could match-and who, by their united and persevering efforts, not only achieved unprecedented distinction for themselves, but left an influence on literature, on politics, and on the general taste and order of the community, whether for good or for evil, which only such a band so united and so gifted could have accomplished-and which will long make their history one of the most attractive subjects of speculation and of enquiry,