A TERRIFIC DREAM.

[The following piece of extravagance and mysticism, is from the German of John Paul Richter. M. Klattowsky calls it "one of the finest efforts of German literature," and describes it as a dream, in which are pourtrayed all the horrors that must necessarily await man, were the creed of the atheist true. Paul Richter, himself, speaking of this brain-sick production says, "should my own heart ever lose those feelings which now tell me there is a God, with this dream alone, I would bring them back." We doubt whether any English reader will form the same opinion of what he has written.]

Reclining one summer's evening on a verdant bank, and beholding the sun, as he descended to the horizon, I fell asleep. Then I dreamed that I was awake, and in a church-yard. The church clock, striking eleven, had, as I thought, awakened me. I looked in the vacant, nocturnal sky for the sun, for I imagined the king of day was eclipsed by the moon. All the graves were open, as were the iron gates of the charnel-house, which shut again by invisible hands. Shades glided along the walls, that were not caused by any substance; and other shades flitted about, with erect posture, in the dun atmosphere. In the coffins none were sleeping, but children. The heavens were covered with a thick, undulating, grey, mist. Above me, I heard the distant fall of Alpine snows, and under me, the heavings of a continued earthquake. The church shook to an fro. Sometimes a momentary reflection of grey light struck the church windows, and the leaden and iron bars were suddenly molten. The trembling and rocking earth forced me into the dreadful temple, before whose portals, lay cowering, two basilisks with shining skins. I advanced through a throng of unknown shades, which bore the character of by-gone centuries. All the shades stood trembling round the deserted Altar; and instead of a heart, the breast of each was convulsively heaving. One only corse, which had been recently buried in the church, still lay extended on its bier, without a trembling breast, and on his smiling countenance a happy dream was impressed. But a living form now entered, and he awoke and smiled no more. With a slow effort he lifted his heavy eyelids, and below there were no eyes, and in his convulsed breast, instead of a heart, there was the gash of a wound. He raised his hands, and folded them in supplication; but his arms lengthened themselves, and dropped from his body, while his folded hands dropped away from his extended arms. Above, in the arched roof of the Church there was the DIAL OF ETERNITY, on which there were no figures, nor any hand; but a black finger pointed to it, and the dead endeavoured to discover TIME on it.

And now, a noble and dignified form, descended from above upon the altar, and all the dead exclaimed: "Lord Christ! Is there no God?"

The Lord answered: "There is none !"

Upon this the entire shade of each of the dead-not alone his breast-but the whole trembled, and one after another, they were gradually dissolved.

Christ continued: "I have roamed through myriads of worlds, I have ascended into suns-I have hastened along the milky way, and through the desert of heaven;-but there is no God! I descended, as far as existence casts a shadow, and looked into the profoundest depths, exclaiming: Father, where art thou?' But I heard only the everlasting storm, which no hand directs, and the radiant rainbow appeared, without a sun to form it, above the unfathomable abyss, till it sank, in small fragments, and disappeared. And when I looked on high, into boundless space, to discover the All-seeing eye, I beheld only an empty, black, bottomless soCKET staring on me, and Eternity lay on chaos which it gnawed and fed upon.'

The shades now dissolved, like light vapour, congealed by frost ; and all was vacant. Oh then, (fearful sight!) then came those children that had died, and now awoke in the churchyard. They came into the temple and kneeled before the glorious form at the altar, saying: "Lord Jesus! have we no father?" And the Lord Jesus answered, with streaming tears: "We are all orphans; I and you; we are without a father!" Then the harsh sounds grew louder, and became more shrill-the trembling walls of the church rocked and opened—and the church and the children sank together—and the whole earth, with the sun, sank after them-the whole universe sank before us. But on high, stood Christ, and when he saw the rushing throng of worlds, the flitting of heavenly lights, and the coral banks of throbbing hearts; when he saw, how one globe after another, scattered its gleaming souls on the sea of death; then, he raised his eyes towards nonentity and towards vacant infinity, saying: "lifeless, mute NOTHING! Cold, everlasting FATALITY! Chance without reason! Have ye any knowledge of passing events? When will ye destroy this vast frame and me? Chance, art thou conscious of thy doings? O Father! O Father! Where is thy infinite breast for me to recline on? Ah, if every being be its own father and creator, why then may it not also be its own destroyer?

"Is that which lies before me a human creature? Poor wretch! Your short life is but the sigh of nature, or rather its echo only. Behold the abyss over which clouds of ashes are driving; a mist of worlds rises from the ocean of death. FuTURITY is the ascending, the PRESENT, the sinking,—vapour. Dost thou recognize thy earth?”

Here Christ looked downward, and his eyes filled with tears, and he exclaimed: "Alas! I formerly dwelt on that earth; then

I was happy; then I still had an Eternal Father, and I gazed joyfully from the hills into the infinite expanse of heaven, and pressed my wounded breast on his soothing image, and said, even in the pangs of death: 'Father, take thy son from his bleeding frame, and lift him to thy heart!' Ah, ye thrice happy inhabitants of earth! ye believed in HIM then. Perhaps your sun is now descending, and among blossoms, among splendour, among tears ye are falling on your knees, uplifting, with emotions of felicity, your hands, and exclaiming, amid a thousand tears of joy, Thou knowest me, infinite Being! Thou knowest all my wounds; and after death, thou wilt receive me, and close them all!' Ah! when the wretched sufferer sinks beneath his burthen, to his repose in the grave; to slumber till a fairer morning of truth, of virtue, and of joy; he will awake amid the stormy blasts of chaos, in everlasting night—and no morning will dawn, and no gentle, healing hand, no Eternal Father will appear! Thou mortal at my side, if Thou art still alive, bring HIм adoration; else thou hast lost HIM for ever!" And when I fell upon my knees, and looked into the universe swimming in light, I beheld the convolving rings of the great serpent of eternity closing round the universe, and the rings began to sink, and were doubled round ALL. Then she twined a thousandfold round nature, and crushed one world against another, and compressed the vast temple of the universe, to the compass of an ordinary church. All became dark and fearfuland an enormous hammer was to strike the LAST HOUR, and to shiver the universe into atoms-WHEN I AWOKE!

My soul wept with joy, that she was able again to adore the Deity! And my joy, and my tears, and my faith in Him were my devotion.

ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER OF LEONARD WELSTED

BY GEOFFREY OLDCASTLE.

It must be allowed that many of the writers whom Pope, in the moment of irritation, or from the dictates of vanity, consigned to a station in his Duncaid, were persons of no ordinary talent, and who had no other claim to the angry and petulant notice of the satirist, but that they had opposed, censured, or ridiculed him. Among this number was Welsted, whose works exhibit many proofs of taste and genius; but he offended Pope, and therefore his reputation was to be sunk. This offence consisted of some sarcastie lines which he wrote against the " What d'ye call it?" that celebrated abortion of a celebrated triumvirate, Pope, in revenge, placed him in the Duncaid, and attacked him in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. When the war was openly commenced, Welsted buckled on his shield, and marched against

his antagonist.

That he was no weak opponent let the follow

ing character of Pope testify

"Oh mighty rhymer, haste, new palms to seize,

Thy little, envious, angry genius teaze.

Let thy weak, wilful head, unrein'd by art,
Obey the dictates of thy flattering heart.

Divide a busy, fretful life, between

Smut, libel, sing-song, vanity, and spleen.

With long brew'd malice, warm thy languid page,
And urge delirious nonsense into rage.

Reams heap'd on reams, incessant mays't thou blot,
A little, trifling, pert, one knows not what.
With all thy might pursue, and all thy will,
That unbating thirst to scribble still.

He knows little of Pope's character who can believe that he read these lines with indifference; and impartial truth must allow that the pen which could produce them was to be feared rather than despised.

The works of Welsted, which were collected and published in 1787, by John Nichols, to whom our native literature is indebted for many valuable accessions, consist of various essays in prose and verse. He was a man who had received a good classical education, as his translations from Longinus, Horace, and Tibullus, prove. He attempted the drama also, but much cannot be said in favor of his Dissembled Wanton, a comedy, though it met with some success, when first performed. It must be confessed, indeed, that in some of his early poems he afforded too much room for sportive criticism, by many feeble lines, and tautologies. The following, for instance, are selected from a poem, on the victory of Oudenarde, which contains, however, many fine thoughts, happily and forcibly expressed.

"Hang on their flight, and hover o'er their rear."

"Hot in pursuit, and eager in the chace."

"Resolves to stand the shock, and bear the fray."

"High, eminent, and all the ranks above."

"Though to an empire born, and destined to a throne."
"That fancied kingdom, and that fairy realm."

If the reader examine these lines, he will find that the second half of each one contains only an iteration of the idea expressed in the first. To "hang on the flight of an army," is surely "to hover o'er their rear," to be "hot in pursuit," is to be eager in the chace ;" and he who is " born to an empire," may be considered as "destined to a throne." Faults such as these a young writer may commit; but when the critic is in search of errors, it cannot be supposed he will overlook them. The poem, however, which contains these blemishes, is not destitute of merit. The following lines, descriptive of the Duke of Marlborough's exploits, may almost be considered as prophetic of

our living hero, who transcends his great predecessor no less in military glory than in moral excellence.

"Yes, still that ornament of virtue's name,
That mighty favorite and friend of fame;
Shall, like great Cyrus, Heav'n's immortal son,
Go on successful, as he first begun.

Make haughty Gallia's proudest turrets bend,
And o'er the continent his arms extend:
A suffering monarch's injur'd cause maintain,
Till he his empire has, her freedom, Spain:
That, thus defeating France's vast designs,
We may not tremble with her western mines:
That the new world, no more, may vex the old,
Nor Europe's freedom shake with India's gold."

Welsted possessed considerable powers of staire; nor do I think that any thing from his antagonist Pope, could be selected more felicitous in expression, or more musical in cadence, than the following description of a fashionable beauty in the reign of George I.

"Our shining Picts* with borrow'd lustre reign,
And o'er our hearts, felonious conquest gain :
They buy the artful beauties which they wear,
And every nymph that is not poor, is fair.
To blend with skill the blushing red, is known,
And glaze the neck with lillies, not its own;
To teach the coral on the lip to stand,
And polish with eburnean white, the hand:
The swains, whose souls in dying murmurs waste,
See not, they pine for wash, and sigh for paste:
Each the complexion that she loves can frame,
And is, at will, another or the same.
Her, whom the evening saw a gay brunette
The morning oft admires in lovely jet.
The same that sleeps with eye-brows of japan,
To-morrow shines more snowy than the swan.
She, on whose cheek too high the color glows,
Mingles the softer olive with the rose;
Her lover views, with doubts perplexing tost,
Another face, and mourns his mistress lost."

I come now to a poem of Welsted's, which I have no hesitation in pronouncing eminently beautiful in its descriptions. It is entitled " Acon and Lavinia, a Love tale," and was first printed in the Free, Thinker in 1718, a periodical paper projected by Ambrose Philips, and carried on in conjunction with Welsted, and other associates, one of whom was Dr. Boulter, then only minister of a parish in Southwark, but afterwards elevated to the primacy of Ireland. Its title implies a character which the work does not

** Every reader of the Spectator, who remembers Will Honeycombe's adventure with a Pict in the forty-first number, will understand this term.