Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest Nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the Sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join, every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise

One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes;

Oh! talk of Him in solitary glooms,

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely-waving pine

Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake the astonished world lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound his stupendous praise; whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,

In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,

Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,

As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,

From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world,
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.

Ye woodlands all, awake! a boundless song
Burst from the groves! and when the restless day
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night his praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join

The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.

For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening East;
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me,

Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing; I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable!

Come then, expressive Silence, muse his praise!

EDWARD YOUNG was born in 1681, at Upham, near Winchester, of which parish his father, who was also Dean of Sarum, and fellow of Winchester College, was rector. He was educated at Winchester, till, October 13, 1703, he was chosen on the foundation of New College, Oxford. In less than a year, however, he removed to Corpus Christi, where he entered himself a gentleman commoner. Archbishop Tennison put him into a law fellowship in 1708, in the College of All Souls. He took the degree of bachelor in 1714, and became LL.D. in 1719.

Relinquishing successively his hopes of advancement at the bar, and his chances-proved to be rather poor-of court favour from his literary merits and political par

tizanship, he took orders in 1727; and was appointed chaplain to George II., in April, 1728. In 1730, he was presented by his college to the rectory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. The following year he married Lady Betty Lee, widow of Colonel Lee, and daughter to the Earl of Lichfield. His ecclesiastical preferment culminated in his appointment, in 1761, at the age of eighty, to be clerk of the closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales. He died at his parsonage-house, April 12th, 1765, aged eighty-four years, and was buried under the altar-piece of the church of Welwyn, by the side of his wife, who had preceded him to the grave.

The principal work of Young is his "Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality," which had its origin in a rapid and signal series of family bereavements. He was also the author of satires under the title of "Love of Fame, the Universal Passion;" "The Force of Religion; or, Vanquished Love," founded on the story of Lady Jane Grey; three tragedies entitled respectively "Busiris" (1719); "Revenge" (1721); and the "Brothers" (1723); a poem on the "Last Day," which his own age thought "elegant "; a "Paraphrase of part of the Book of Job;" "Conjectures on Original Composition," a prose work; and "Resignation," a poem. The two last were written when the indomitable author was upwards of eighty years of age.

Whoever speaks of the "Night Thoughts"- the poem with which we are especially concerned, as being that from which the following extracts are taken-is almost shut up to the use of certain fixed epithets and phrases. Only in the distribution of these is the display of individuality possible. We transcribe the verdict of Campbell, which is generally admirable for its propriety and nicety of discrimination:

"The Night Thoughts' certainly contain many splendid and happy conceptions, but their beauty is

thickly marred by false wit and over-laboured antithesis, and indeed his whole ideas seem to have been in a state of antithesis while he composed the poem. One portion of his fancy appears devoted to aggravate the picture of his desolate feelings, and the other half to contradict that picture by eccentric images and epigrammatic ingenuities. As a poet he was fond of exaggeration, but it was that of the fancy more than of the heart. This appears no less in the noisy hyperboles of his tragedies, than in the studied melancholy of the 'Night Thoughts,' in which he pronounces the simple act of laughter to be half immoral. That he was a pious man and had felt something from the afflictions described in the 'Complaint,' need not be called in question, but he seems covenanting with himself to be as desolate as possible, as if he had continued the custom ascribed to him at college, of studying with a candle stuck in a human skull, while at the same time, the feelings and habits of a man of the world, which still adhere to him, throw a singular contrast over his renunciations of human vanity. He abjures the world in witty metaphors, commences his poem with a sarcasm on sleep, deplores his being neglected at court, compliments a lady by asking the moon if she would choose to be called the 'fair Portland of the skies,' and dedicates to the patrons of 'a much indebted muse,' one of whom (Lord Wilmington) on some occasion he puts in the balance of antithesis as a counterpart to heaven. He was, in truth, not so sick of life as of missing its preferments, and was still ambitious, not only of converting Lorenzo, but of shining before this utterly worthless and wretched world as a sparkling, sublime, and witty poet.. Hence his poetry has not the majestic simplicity of a heart abstracted from human vanities, and while the groundwork of his sentiments is more darkly shaded than is absolutely necessary either for poetry or religion, the surface of his expression glitters with irony and