Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

in long and sweeping garments, who looked with an eye of jealousy upon each other, and often related the same tale in different style and language, but still with all its shades of sorrow and horror. Their voices both seemed to have softened down the deep-toned thunder of Homer, into the refined tenderness of Athenian music. They were attended by a band of virgins, who mimicked all their motions,—— wept as they wept, and raged as they raged. Their language was sometimes so enigmatical, that, but for their beauty, I should have taken them for sphinxes.

The last of that illustrious train which my vision presented, unfolded an immense picture, where I saw Rome in all and through all its vicissitudes. I saw it rising under Romulus, -and sinking beneath the Gauls,-reviving under Camillus,-trembling before Hannibal, -triumphant with Scipio,-the mistress of the world beneath Augustus. But, alas! a large and brilliant portion was lacerated and defaced; and I, in the warmth of my emotions, cursed the unclassic hand that could mar so fair a picture. I then heard a confused noise of Reason, right Reason, Obligation, Government

-when, unluckily, my cap, which I had hung but loosely on a peg, fell and awoke me. I must however remark, that there were many forms, in academic dresses, passing to and fro during my dream, which I did not then notice, but which I have since learnt to value most dearly; friends, who have since formed the brightest parts of the picture, and without whom, the beauties of the rest would to me have almost terminated with the vision in which they appeared ;— friends, to whom I have turned from the page of Horace, to realize the scenes he has described; whose kindness has assisted me,-whose generosity has upheld me,—and whose conversation has heightened my hours of pleasure, and mitigated my days of despair: and when I shall revert from the toils of manhood, and the imbecility of age, to this youthful period, it shall not be one of least gratifications to recollect, that while I was employed in cultivating an acquaintance with the illustrious dead, I did not neglect to form a still more endearing attachment to the living.

my

PATRIOTISM.

Angels of glory! came she not from you?

Are there not patriots in the heaven of heavens ?
And hath not every seraph some dear spot-
Throughout th' expanse of worlds some favourite home
On which he fixes with domestic fondness?
Doth not e'en Michael on his seat of fire,
Close to the footstool of the throne of God,
Rest on his harp awhile, and from the face
And burning glories of the Deity,

Loosen his riveted and raptured gaze,

To bend one bright, one transient downward glance,
One patriot look upon his native star?

Or do I err ?-and is your bliss complete,

Without one spot to claim your warmer smile,

And e'en an angel's partiality?

And is that passion, which we deem divine,

Which makes the timid brave, the brave resistless,-
Makes men seem heroes,-heroes, demigods-

A poor, mere mortal feeling ?—No! 'tis false!

The Deity himself proves it divine;

For when the Deity conversed with men,

He was himself a Patriot !*-to the earth

* The observation of Bishop Newton upon the passage of Scripture thus alluded to, may be introduced here as authority for the boldness of this expression." So deeply was our "Saviour affected, and so tenderly did he lament over the

To all mankind a Saviour was he sent,

And all he loved with a Redeemer's love;

[ocr errors]

" calamities which were coming upon his nation! Such a generous and amiable pattern of a patriot-spirit hath he " left to his disciples, and so contrary to truth is the insinua"tion of a noble writer, that there is nothing in the Gospels "to recommend and encourage the love of one's country!"18th Dissert. on the Prophecies, vol. ii. p. 138.

-

I beg leave to add a quotation from Brown's admirable Essays on Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics. To the objection of the noble writer, that "Christianity does not enjoin a " zeal for the public and our country,"-it is thus replied: "If by zeal for the public, and love of our country, be meant "such a regard to its welfare as shall induce us to sacrifice

[ocr errors]

every view of private interest for its establishment, yet still "in subordination to the greater law of universal justice,→ "that is naturally, nay, necessarily involved in the law of "universal charity. The noble writer indeed affirms, that "it is no essential part of the Christian's charity. On the contrary, it is a chief part of the Christian's charity. It

66

66

comes nobly recommended by the examples of Jesus and "St. Paul; the one wept over the approaching desolation of "his country; the other declared his willingness to be cut "off from the Christian community, if by this means he

[ocr errors]

might save his countrymen." Speaking of the principle of universal love, in which this natural affection is included, the same author observes: Christianity alone hath kindled in "the heart of man this vital principle, which, beaming there as from a centre, like the great fountain of light and life

66

F

Yet still, his warmest love, his tenderest care,

His life, his heart, his blessings, and his mournings,
His smiles, his tears, he gave to thee, Jerusalem—
To thee, his country!-Though, with a prophet's gaze,
He saw the future sorrows of the world;

And all the miseries of the human race,

From age to age, rehearsed their parts before him;
Though he beheld the fall of gasping Rome,
Crush'd by descending Vandals; though he heard
The shriek of Poland, when the spoilers came;
Though he saw Europe in the conflagration
Which now is burning, and his eye could pierce
The coming woes that we have yet to feel ;--
Yet still, o'er Sion's walls alone he hung;
Thought of no trench but that round Sion cast;
Beheld no widows mourn, but Israel's daughters;
Beheld no slaughter but of Judah's sons—
On them alone the tears of Heaven he dropp'd;
Dwelt on the horrors of their fall—and sigh'd,
"Hadst thou but known, even thou in this thy day,
"The things which do belong unto thy peace,-
"Hadst thou, O hadst thou known, Jerusalem !"-
Yet well he knew what anguish should be his

"that sustains and cheers the attendant planets, renders its proselytes indeed burning and shining lights, shedding their kindly influence on all around them in that just proportion "which their respective distances may demand.”—Pp. 231, 236.-EDITOR.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »