by us a token of favour, or of wrath to come; on the contrary, we should hold that either may be used to the saving or ruin of the soul. Nor, if we will look only at the instance under review, does the rich man there seem to be tormented merely because he had been rich, or the beggar to be comforted merely because he had been poor. It is sufficiently clear from what is said, that the former had fallen into the snare of his riches, so as to be poor in heavenly treasure; whence we may reasonably conjecture of the latter (since a contrast is evidently intended between the two) that he had become rich in faith, under his want of earthly goods. The rich man was full, and his heart was lifted up to neglect or deny the Lord. Instead of repenting, and minding the things of the Spirit, he yielded to the sins most easily besetting his lot. His care was to make provision for the flesh, or to clothe himself in fine apparel, and to fare sumptuously every day, while Lazarus, doubtless, resisted the peculiar temptations of his condition, keeping a good conscience, and a pious trust in the Most High, notwithstanding the multitude of his distresses. Though poor, and full of sores, yet did he "not steal, nor take the name of his God in vain," but waited patiently until the time when his "heaviness should be turned into joy."

It is probably a mistaken, though a common notion, that the rich man denied relief to the afflicted beggar, and on that account chiefly was doomed to torment. The course of the parable, if we carefully examine it, so far from really suggesting, will be found rather to contradict such an idea. Our Lord represents Lazarus to have been laid at his gate desiring to be fed with what fell from his table, as though the poor and needy might generally expect to be thence in some measure supplied; and his statement subjoined should appear to intimate, that in the present case the customary relief was extended. We are not, indeed, expressly informed that Lazarus obtained his desire; but only that, moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. Yet this may sufficiently prove the point under inquiry; for the word moreover can hardly be understood otherwise than to signify, that the having his sores thus treated was in addition to some help or comfort which had previously been imparted to him by the rich man. Also, what is described to have been said in the future world may be argued upon to a similar effect. The rich man, crying out from the flame which tormented him, for a drop to cool his tongue, besought that Lazarus might be the person to administer it. The sight of Lazarus seems principally to have inspired a hope in the sufferer's breast that he might even then procure mercy, or, at the least, an alleviation of his anguish :-send Lazarus, he exclaimed, with some refreshment, or if that be indeed impossible, send him to testify unto my brethren, in my father's house, of the wretched end to which they are drawing nigh. Very different surely must have been his feelings and language upon beholding Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, had he formerly turned a deaf ear to his petitions. In that case, the recollection of having shut up his bowels of compassion from him, instead of administering to his necessities, would have unavoidably confirmed the rich man's despair. He could neither have uttered the name, nor regarded the form of Lazarus without incurring an

VOL. XI. NO. VIII.

3 R

while the sixth and last line will be found to bear an allusion to the lofty and commanding elevation to which the eye of the Christian Church has been elevated." We subjoin the stanza in question.

While, gloom-defying, o'er the vale rose crowned

A shaggy mount, from darkness sheltering light,

The sun's refracted rays still gleaming round,

Through blackening clouds forestalling hastening night,
A Boor, contented, traced his lonely way,
To where his cot spoke last and earliest day.

In devious glee his latent bosom shone, &c.

Now on perusing these lines, we honestly confess that we found ourselves much in the same situation with Mr. Puff's dull friend in the Critic, when unable to appreciate the comprehensiveness of Lord Burleigh's nod, and were tempted to exclaim with him, “Dear me! did the first stanza mean all that?" Almost despairing from this outset to unravel all the "didactic and allegorical texture of the work," we set ourselves in the first instance to decipher the narrative itself, leaving the concealed John-Bunyanisms for more mature consideration. The superficial story then, beneath which such a mass of abstruse matter lies hid from "the ordinary reader," is briefly this :A "Boor" (we are tempted to suspect here a trifling deviation from orthography in the reduplication of an o and the omission of a final e) is returning home in this very equivocal weather, and is saying to himself, or rather "Echo" is saying to him, that, "Man's real wants are but few;" when on a sudden, "distant thunder ends the slighted theme," and

Through rending heaven fierce spirits rush to battle
In lightning clash, and shout in thunder's rattle.
The calm succeeding headlong torrents broke:
Vast tumbling rocks and dashing trees swept down;
And in their boiling, plunging course, loud spoke
Portentous deeds, through Nature's lurid frown:
Yet fairer than what strew the cherished dead,
Manuring laurels for the guilty head!

If this be not a sublime description of a storm, the deuce is in it. Here we have "succeeding," "tumbling," "dashing," "boiling," "plunging," and "manuring," all in six lines. The last two, indeed, are a little too "didactic and allegorical" for our entire comprehension, but they are not a whit the less magnificent. Amidst all this hurlyburly of thunder and lightning, the "Boor," in utter contempt of Dr. Franklin, gets under a tree, and "muses inwardly," how much snugger his wife and child are sitting by the fire in his "cot" at home. After a time, as it does not seem likely to hold up, his thoughts take a wider range, and ramble, in the course of the next 140 stanzas, over

Hoe and dibble, pruning-knife and spade,

'Mid tools, and stuff of various use and kind,

through a portion of the Book of Genesis, occasionally diverging to pictures of rural felicity, in which "living like dog and cat" does not, after all, appear in the unpleasant light depicted by the proverb.

Her (the goat's) tinklings stilled, she joins the evening's sport,
The playful dog repels in reared defence,

Or mocks him from the crag, her safe resort,
While on the bough puss keeps him in suspense;
Cur begs one look, then leaps and barks alarm,
His foe pursues, but knows he must not harm.

After six-and-forty pages, replete with imagery no less fanciful, exhibited in diction quite as felicitous, the rain leaves off, the "Boor" goes home, and finds his cottage has been the prey of the storm; it is in short completely blown down, his wife crushed in the ruins, and every thing animate and inanimate, except his son, reduced to a perfect wreck.

What then his growing woe!

When to the storm the crags dire trophies raise,

Of page revered, cloak, thatch, his plants and hoe!"

The unfortunate "Boor" is naturally enough exceedingly shocked at this sad loss of property, and, we are told, "sinks exhausted on a fallen rock," beneath a "circling cliff," which

Looks o'er his roofless cot with savage mien,

As blood-fed monsters on lost parents glare,

Grim death, then, limb by limb their children tear.

His Bible is torn to pieces by the fury of the elements; a single page alone remains, containing, as we are informed in a note, two chapters of the prophet Isaiah; this

He reads while midnight on the leaf shines clear.

His conscience "thrills;" why, we know not, as he has hitherto appeared a very meditative, harmless sort of personage: and seeing his "toil-relaxing seat" still standing beneath his "favoured tree," he goes to sit down upon

it:

As pines the eagle where his aërie hung,

Embattled by the ocean's distant roar,

But late by night's black tempest flung,

With mate and offspring, on the boiling shore;
So memory's pangs awhile the Boor endures,
Then pensive leads to where the shade allures.
With day had Virgo fled, but night proclaims
That Libra now revolves the equal year;
Bright Perseus' sword meridian justice flames
O'er light and darkness, hope and guilty fear.
Deep silence reigns, the moon declines serene,
And all looks glorious round the dreadful scene.

And seated under this strange configuration of the heavens, the poem somewhat abruptly leaves "the Boor," as we shall do the poet, with the elegant compliment paid long since by the Roman bard to a brother versifier:

Tale tuum carmen nobis, Divine Poeta,
Quale sopor!

Nei

aggravation of his torment. Likewise the answer of Abraham is in favour of the interpretation which has been offered: "Son (he replied) remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things.' ther here, nor in any thing which follows, does he at all accuse the rich man of having rejected or oppressed the poor, an omission which of itself might go far to convince us that he had not been specially guilty of so doing. The utmost laid by the Patriarch to his charge, is an undue enjoyment, while in the world, of carnal ease and gratification, that he had been a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God; notwithstanding which, one may act the part, though not of a truly charitable, yet of what is commonly called a generous and good-natured man.

Being assured, however, that for himself no hope remained, he next conceived a desire of awakening his five surviving brethren (who were walking after his example in ungodliness and worldly lusts) to a sense of their dangerous condition: O, that Lazarus might be sent for the purpose of urging them to repentance, ere they too should be tormented without remedy! Yet herein also his petition was unsuccessful. There seemed to Abraham no occasion for any such messenger to persons who had Moses and the Prophets for their admonition and instruction in righteousness; let them (he answered) hear or obey them. "Nay, Father Abraham (pleaded again the rich man) but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." And he said unto him, "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Whatever be the cause that many continue hardened and impenitent, notwithstanding the testimony of Holy Scripture against their ways, such are not the persons who ought to be favoured with, or who would probably be converted by extraordinary warnings and revelations. Having already light enough to see the things which belong unto their peace, they will not be learned, nor understand, but choose to walk on still in darkness; is it likely then that they would duly profit by more? Having heard and read, to no purpose, of the wonders wrought in old time for the conviction of unbelievers, would they be induced to believe unto righteousness by the sight of one restored from the dead? They might wonder and be amazed at such an occurrence, but their hearts would probably remain untouched, and appear again, after a momentary pause, no less fruitful than before in evil, and bent upon unrighteous ways: the which we may remember to have been actually the case with the people to whom our Lord was speaking, after that he had raised both the brother of Martha and himself.

But, for the better illustration of this point, there is another view of the parable before us, distinct from, though not inconsistent with the above, which it is intended on the present occasion to propose.

The whole narrative concerning the rich man and Lazarus appears calculated, like many other of the parables which Jesus spake, to represent the relative conditions of Jews and Gentiles. Having pointedly reproved the Pharisees, who were a principal sect of the Jews, for justifying themselves before men, while God was observing

and condemning their hearts, he began only a few verses after,"There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table." May we not here see described, on the one hand, a selfrighteous Pharisee, glorying in the rich privileges and outward holiness of his profession,-a profession, the priests of which were literally clothed in purple and fine linen;-and on the other, a sinner of the Gentiles, fainting under the corruptions of his guilty nature?-the Pharisee full, and self-complacent, and in his own opinion having need of nothing; the Gentile confessing himself to be wretched, and poor, and blind, and naked, and needing everything for his soul's health? So agreeable is such a notion with the style of the ancient Scriptures, that we can hardly read our Lord's description of Lazarus without recalling that given by Isaiah of a sinful nation or city: "From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." In this condition, then, the beggar was laid at the gate of the rich man, desiring some wholesome nourishment. He resorted to Jerusalem, where alone at that time grace and instruction were to be found, with a view (as the Canaanitish woman expressed it in terms most apposite to our purpose) to eat of the crumbs which fell from the table of God's children. And it will not be amiss to observe, that persons thus coming were commonly called proselytes of the gate, from the circumstance of their not being admitted within the holier places of the temple, or beyond the part which was named the Court of the Gentiles, as having been specially designed for their use.

Further; the description of the place to which Lazarus is said to have been transported may serve for an additional argument for a spiritual intention in this parable. "He was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom," afar off from the rich man, and the place of torment to which he was consigned. Is not here a lively signification of the Divine purpose (since performed) to justify the Gentiles through faith, and to cast away the unbelieving Jews? The Jews were continually boasting, "We have Abraham to our Father," and trusting that they should therefore certainly be exalted in the kingdom of Heaven; whereas Jesus would have them understand that God was both able and preparing to raise up children unto Abraham, in their stead, from among the beggars and outcasts of the earth. Accordingly, he presented to the eye of their minds a child of faithful Abraham,- -a child by grace rather than by nature,-in other words, a follower of the faith and righteousness of that honoured Patriarch, advanced to a blissful place in his bosom; while one of the circumcision only-a child by nature alone, and not by grace, who had neglected to walk in the steps of Abraham, after the Spirit-such an one is thrust down into Hell. "Father Abraham," cried the wretched victim, upon awaking in the midst of flames from his former vain dream of security, and Abraham in his answer called him Son; but