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 solicita tions 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. From this open and enlarged scene, they enter the skirts of a vast umbrageous, venerable forest. On 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 thèse dusky mazes, and sympathetic glooms, the pensive sages stray. ed. 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 solemnities 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. 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 lips+ of the channel, and drew at 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 ισοχείλης της γης clivity, on whose rude and rocky sides the timorous rabbit burrowed, and the bearded goat browzed. Not far from the summit, two or three fountains gushed, which, uniting their currents as they trickled down the steep, formed a natural cascade: here it was lost in the rushy dells, or obscured by the twisting roots; there it burst again into view, and playing full in the eye of day looked like a sheet of spouting silver. In this romantic retirement, said Theron, we are quite sequestered from society. We seem to be in a world of our own; and should almost be tempted to forget that we are encompassed with a kindred species, did not the music of those silver-tongued bells, poured from a distant steeple, and gliding along the gentle stream, bring us news of human kind. Escaped from man and his busy walks, methinks we are come to the house of tranquillity. Such a deep undis. turbed composure reigns all around! It is as if some august personage was making his entrance, or some ma jestic being was upon the point to speak, and all nature stood fixed in attentive expectation. No place better fitted to cherish or to inspire a contemplative sedateness, Observe the simplicity and grandeur of those sur rounding trees, the noble plainness of their verdure, and the prodigious stateliness of their aspect. What a speck are our gardens, and what a mere dwarf are our groves, compared with these vast plantations? Here is none of your nice exactness, but all is irregularly and wildly great. Here are no traces of the shears, nor any footsteps of the spade, but the handy-work of the Deity is apparent in all. Give me the scenes which dis. dain the puny assistance of art, and are infinitely su perior to the low toils of man. Give me the scenes which scorn to bribe our attention with a little borrowed spruceness of shape, but by their own native dignity command our regard. I love the prospects which, the moment they are beheld, strike the soul with veneration, or transport it with wonder; and cry aloud in the ear of reason, ascribe ye greatness to our God.' Such, I think, in a very eminent degree is the forest, · High waving o'er the hills, Asp. Solomon's refined genius seems to have been fond of the same situation, and delighted with the same objects. Therefore, at a great expense, and in the most curious taste, he built the house of the forest.' Isaiah's divine imagination was charmed with the same grand spectacle. More frequently than any of the prophets, :he derives his illustrations from it. One comparison I particularly remember. Speaking of the Assyrian king, and his military forces, he likens them to such an assemblage of trees, numerous as their amazing multitudes; strong as their massy trunks. Yet, numerous and potent as they were, they should all be brought low, and laid in the dust. For behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts shall lop the bough with terror, and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled; and he shall cut down the thickets of his forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one." Then he passes by a most beautiful transition to his darling topic, the redemption of sinners. He gives us, to. gether with one of the finest contrasts+ imaginable, a view of the Messiah and his great salvation. When those lofty cedars are levelled with the ground, there shall come a rod,' a twig shall spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. Which, notwithstanding its mean original and unpromising appearance, shall rear its head to the skies, and extend its shade to the ends of the earth. Ther. You do well, Aspasio, to recal my roving thoughts. This magnificent solitude had captivated my imagination, and I was giving a loose to the usual sallies of my fancy. But, with a willing compliance, I turn to a more excellent subject. Only I must assure you, that your remark awakens a painful idea in my mind, though a joyful one in your own; for my hopes, which were once high and lifted up, are now too much like that devoted prostrate forest. Asp. My dear Theron, give me leave to say, they This fine contrast, and that artful transition are, by the injudicious division of the two chapters, very much obscured, if not quite lost to many readers. The chapters, I think, should by no means be separated; but the tenth and the eleventh, as a continuation of the same prophecy, should be united. Isa. xi. 1. |