This might have been written by Cowley in his happiest mood. The following is in a still higher style of poetry.

What a strange moment will that be,

My soul, how full of curiosity,

When wing'd and ready for thy eternal flight,
On th' utmost edges of thy tottering clay
Hovering, and wishing longer stay,

Thou shalt advance, and have eternity in sight!
When just about to try that unknown sea,
What a strange moment will that be!

But yet, how much more strange that state,
When, loosen'd from th' embrace of this close mate,
Thou shalt at once be plung'd in liberty,

And move as swift and active as a ray

Shot from the lucid spring of day!

Thou who just now wast clogg'd with dull mortality,
How wilt thou bear the mighty change, how know
Whether thou'rt then the same or no?

• Then to strange mansions of the air,
And stranger company must thou repair!
What a new scene of things will then appear!
This world thou by degrees wast taught to know,
Which lessen'd thy surprise below;

But knowledge all at once will overflow thee there.
That world, as the first man did this, thou'lt see,
Ripe grown, in full maturity.

There with bright splendours must thou dwell,
And be what only those pure forms can tell.
There must thou live awhile, gaze, and admire,
Till the great Angel's trump this fabrick shake,
And all the slumbring dead awake,

Then to thy old forgotten state must thou retire.
This union then will seem as strange, or more,
Than thy new liberty before.

Now for the greatest change prepare,

To see the only Great, the only Fair.

Vail now thy feeble eyes, gaze and be blest;

Here all thy turns and revolutions cease,

Here's all serenity and peace:

Thou'rt to the center come, the native seat of rest.
There's now no further change, nor need there be,
When one shall be variety.'

Among some other writers whose works might have supplied Mr. Mitford with appropriate specimens, Bishop Ken ought not to have been forgotten. Andrew Marvel, the author of some of the hymns ascribed to Addison, whom Watts has imitated, and Mallet stolen from, has been treated with singularly unjust neg

lect. Mr. Johnstone has, indeed, inserted two short poems of his, but they do him not less injustice, than Mr. Mitford's silent omission of his name. There is a volume of sacred poems by an old writer named Mason, which contains many that are marked by the quaint beauty and simplicity of our elder bards.

Many of our older collections of Sacred Music will be found worthy of examination, for the fugitive pieces which have been preserved in them. We have already referred to a psalm of Milton's, which came into our hands by this means. In a book of Psalmody without a date, but which must have been published about the middle of the last century, we have found the following stanzas, which have, if we mistake not, an air of antique simplicity, and, at the same time, of devotional elevation, which entitle them to preservation. The air to which the words are set, has found a place in Rippon's Selection of Tunes, under the name of Tottenham Court: of its merit as a composition, we give no opinion, but the effect on our own mind, whether from association or from the genuine pathos of the air, is at once touching and solemn. That effect, however, would probably be lost in the vulgarizing performance of a modern choir. The Poem is said to be commonly entitled the Pilgrim's Hymn.

• Never weather beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tired Pilgrims' limbs affected slumber more,

Than my weary spirit longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!
'Ever blooming are the joys of Heaven's high Paradise;
Old age deafs not there our ears, nor vapours dim our eyes;
Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the blessed only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my spirit to Thee!
'O what love and concord's there, and what sweet harmony,
In Heaven above, where happy souls adore thy Majesty!

O how the Heavenly choirs all sing, to Him that sits enthron'd above!
What admiring, and aspiring, still desiring!

O how I long to see this feast of Love!'

In justice to Mr. Mitford, however, we must not dismiss his volume, without presenting another specimen or two of its contents. The following stanzas, by George Wither, are highly interesting.

Great Almighty, God of Heaven!
Honour, praise, and glory be
Now, and still hereafter given,

For thy blessings deigned to me;
Who hast granted and prepared,
More than can be well declared.

VOL. XXVII. N.S.

By thy mercy thou didst raise me
From below the pits of clay;

Thou hast taught my lips to praise thee,
Where thy love confess I may;

And those blessed hopes dost. leave me,
Whereof no man can bereave me.

By thy grace, those passions, troubles,
And those wants that me opprest,
Have appeared as water-bubbles,
Or as dreams, and things in jest:
For thy leisure still attending,
I with pleasure saw their ending.
Those afflictions and those terrors
Which to others grim appear,
Did but shew me where my errors
And my imperfections were:
But distrustful could not make me
Of thy love, nor fright nor shake me.
When, in public to defame me,

A design was brought to pass,
On their heads that meant to shame me,
Their own malice turned was;

And that day most grace was shewn me,
Which they thought should have undone me.
Therefore, as thy blessed Psalmist,
When he saw his wars had end,
And his days were at the calmest,
Psalms and hymns of praises penn'd;

So my rest, by thee enjoyed,
To thy praise I have employed.
Yea, remembering what I vowed,
When enclosed from all but thee,

I thy presence was allowed,

While the world neglected me: This, my Muse hath took upon her, That she might advance thine honour. 'Lord, accept my poor endeavour, And assist thy servant so

In good studies to persever

That more fruitful he may grow; And become thereby the meeker, Not his own vain glory-seeker.

Oh, preserve me from committing Aught that's heinously amiss; From all speeches him unfitting

That hath been employed on this: Yea, as much as may be deigned, Keep my very thoughts unstained.

"And when I, with Israel's Singer,
To these songs of faith shall learn
Thy ten-stringed law to finger,
And that music to discern ;
Lift me to that angel quire,
Whereunto thy saints aspire !'

As our last extract, we cannot do better than take the striking specimen which is given from Habington's Castara.

Tell me, O great all-knowing God!
What period

Hast thou unto my days assigned?
Like some old leafless tree, shall I
Wither away?-or violently

Fall by the axe, by lightning, or the wind?

'Here, where I first drew vital breath,
Shall I meet death?

And find in the same vault a room,
Where my forefathers' ashes sleep?

Or shall I die, where none shall weep

My timeless fate, and my cold earth entomb?
'Shall I 'gainst the swift Parthians fight,
And in their flight,

Receive my death, or shall I see
That envied peace, in which we are
Triumphant, yet disturb'd by war,
And perish by th' invading enemy
'Astrologers, who calculate
Uncertain fate,

?

Affirm my scheme doth not presage
Any abridgement of my days;
And the physician gravely says,
I may enjoy a reverend length of age.

But they are jugglers, and by slight
Of art, the sight

Of faith delude; and in their school,
They only practice how to make

A mystery of each mistake,

And teach strange words credulity to fool.

For Thou who first didst motion give,
Whereby things live,

And time hath been, to conceal
Future events did'st think it fit,

To check ambition of our wit,

And keep in awe the curious search of zeal.

Therefore, so I prepared still be,
My God, for thee,

O' th' sudden on my spirits may
Some killing apoplexy seize,
Or let me by a dull disease,
Or weaken'd by a feeble age decay.
And so I in thy favour die,
No memory

For me a well-wrought tomb prepare:
For if my soul be 'mong the blest,
Though my poor ashes want a chest,
I shall forgive the trespass of my heir.'

Mr. Mitford's proem' to these specimens is highly elegant and erudite; too erudite, we fear, we might say recondite, to please very generally, and too long for a poem of a purely lyrical character. It should have been broken into parts or fyttes,' and an argument would have enabled the reader more easily to catch his design. It exhibits, however, so much genuine poetic taste and feeling, and abounds with so many picturesque passages, that it cannot fail to please in parts, and will, as a whole, amply repay perusal. It would be unjust to close this article without adding to our specimens one more, taken from this part of Mr. Mitford's volume.

• Ye aged towers of Solyma!

Thou ancient seat of sovereign sway!
Rich diadem of Judah's throne,
Holding thy desert realm alone!
Say, why yon noontide shadow falls
Like night upon thy ebon walls;
A veil of darkness o'er thee drawn,
A sable shroud that hides the dawn.
Why fades thy regal diadem,

Thou heavenly-thron'd Hierusalem ?
Why droops thy pale disceptred hand,
Great Queen of Jewry's ancient land?
Where is the promised crown, decreed
To Israel's faith, to Abraham's seed;
And why of hope, of help forlorn
Has sank the strength of Judah's horn?

Is the sun with shrouded head
From the deserted Zodiac fled;
And his old Ecliptic leaves,

For which the world in darkness grieves?
Are the aged stars on high
Dimm'd in the pure ethereal sky,
That night, with now unwonted sway,
Hath seized the empty throne of day,
And in her dull and murky shade,
His bright meridian glories fade?