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Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised father (j) of the future age.
No more shall nation (k) against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover❜d o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son (1)
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts (m) with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys (n), once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn :

To leafless shrubs the flowery palm succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs (0) with wolves shall graze the verdant
mead,

And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead.
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents (p) lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.

21, 22.

j) Isa. ix. ver. 6.
(n) Ch. xli. ver. 19. and
(0) Ch. xi. ver. 6, 7, 8.

(k) Ch. ii. ver. 4.
(m) Ch. xxxv. ver. 1, 7.
ch. xlv. ver. 13.
(p) Ch. Ixv. ver. 25.

P

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem (q), rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race (r) thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations (s) at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean (t) springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun (u) shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!

The seas (v) shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

THE DYING CHRISTIAN.

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:

Isa. lx. ver. 1.

Ch. Ix. ver. 4.

(3) Ch. lx. ver. 3.

(u) Ch. lx. ver. 19, 20.

(t) Ch. Ix. ver. 6.

(v) Ch. li. ver. 6. and ch. liv. ver. 10.

Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying-
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
Oh grave! where is thy victory?

Oh death! where is thy sting?

EPITAPH ON MRS CORBET.

HERE rests a woman, good without pretence,
Bless'd with plain reason, and with sober sense :
No conquests she, but o'er herself, desired,
No arts essay'd, but not to be admired.
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinced that virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so composed a mind;
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refined;
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried;
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

JAMES THOMSON.

BORN 1700-DIED 1748.

THIS admired poet was the son of the minister of Ednam, a place of great beauty on the banks of the Tweed. He was educated at the grammar school of Jedburgh, and afterwards went to Edinburgh to study for the church. The professors of divinity taxed the boldness of some of the phrases in his exercises as indecent, if not profane, and his friends thought very meanly of his poetry. He abandoned all thoughts of the church, and went to London on the encouragement of a lady, who did nothing more to further his views. His finances were low, his friends none, his prospects the most precarious. But he published Winter, which, after a little time, attracted notice, and procured the friendless poet some really useful patrons. By one of these he was introduced to the Lord Chancellor Talbot; and, after publishing the other portions of the Seasons, Thomson became a person of celebrity in the world of letters, and was appointed to travel with Mr Talbot, the Chancellor's son. The young man died abroad, and was deeply lamented by his tutor, who paid a tribute to his memory in the poem of Britannia. Thomson's services were rewarded by the place of Secretary to the Briefs; but at the death of the Chancellor the place fell to his successor, and the indolence, bashfulness, or pride of the poet, or probably a mixture of all these feelings, prevented him from soliciting its renewal from Lord Hardwicke, who might have offered it, had his desire that Thomson should retain the office been very strong.

The Secretary of the Briefs, living in ease and plenty, did not trouble the world with his publications. But the disposted poet found it necessary to resume his pen; and in this interval he produced some of his tragedies. By the

kindness of Mr Lyttelton, who animated and directed the Court of the Prince of Wales, who then lived in open hostility with the Court of St James's, Thomson was allowed a pension of a hundred a year from the Prince, who affected to patronize men of letters. When his friend Lyttelton came into power, the place of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, bestowed on Thomson, set him at ease for life. But his life was not of long duration. He died on the evening of the 27th August, 1748, of a fever caught by taking cold on the Thames. The Castle of Indolence, his last and most finished production, was published shortly before his death. His play of Coriolanus was performed under the auspices of his friend Lyttelton to pay off his debts, and assist his relatives in Scotland. The life of Thomson gives one a better opinion of man. kind than can be drawn from the private history of most poets. From the urbanity of his natural disposition it was impossible that he could make an enemy; but he found many disinterested friends, by whom he was not only served in many essential points, but tenderly and warmly beloved. He never lost a friend, nor dropt one when his own worldly prospects brightened and extended. He was a very kind relation. His letters to his family in Scotland, after the lapse of many years spent in the pestiferous atmosphere of the great world, breathe regard as warm and tender as if he had never left his home; and he deserved the high and singular praise bestowed by Lyttelton of never having written a line which on his deathbed he could wish to blot. Thomson is described as "more fat than bard beseems," of a heavy and lumpish figure and countenance, silent in mixed society, but cheerful with his friends. His indolence was extreme; and a most happy graphic account of his habits and appearance describes him standing in luxurious laziness, his hands in his pockets, eating the sunny-side of a peach as it temptingly hung on a friend's garden wall: laziness in

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