European and native; and his example will continue to animate many a man with the conviction, that the talents which God has intrusted to us find their best and their happiest employment in an unremitting course of endeavor to leave the world better than we found it. Bishop Heber's Journey through India" is one of our most interesting books of travels. There are three volumes of his Sermons; and his Poems, from which we extract the "Passage of the Red Sea," form a volume of themselves.]
With heat o'erlabor'd, and the length of way,
On Ethan's beach the bands of Israel lay.
'Twas silence all, the sparkling sands along;
Save where the locust trill'd her feeble song,
Or blended soft in drowsy cadence fell
The wave's low whisper, or the camel's bell.
'Twas silence all !-The flocks for shelter fly
Where, waving light, the acacia shadows lie;
Or where, from far, the flattering vapors make
The noontide semblance of a misty lake:
While the mute swain, in careless safety spread,
With arms enfolded, and dejected head,
Dreams o'er his wond'rous call, his lineage high,
And late revealed his children's destiny.
For, not in vain, in thraldom's darkest hour,
Had sped from Amram's sons the word of power;
Nor failed the dreadful wand, whose godlike sway
Could lure the locust from her airy way;
With reptile war assail their proud abodes,
And mar the giant pomp of Egypt's gods.
Oh helpless gods! who nought availed to shield
From fiery rain your Zoan's favor'd field!
Oh helpless gods! who saw the curdled blood
Taint the pure lotus of your ancient flood,
And fourfold night the wandering earth enchain,
While Memnon's orient harp was heard in vain!
Such musings held the tribes, till now the west
With milder influence on their temples prest;
And that portentous cloud which, all the day,
Hung its dark curtain o'er their weary way,
(A cloud by day, a friendly flame by night,)
Rolled back its misty veil, and kindled into light!
Soft fell the eve:-but, ere the day was down,
Tall waving banners streak'd the level sun;
And wide and dark along the horizon red,
In sandy surge the rising desert spread.
"Mark, Israel, mark!"-On that strange sight intent,
In breathless terror, every eye was bent;
And busy faction's fast increasing hum,
And female voices shriek, "They come, they come !"
They come, they come! In scintillating show,
O'er the dark mass the brazen lances glow;
And sandy clouds in countless shapes combine,
As deepens or extends the long tumultuous line;
And fancy's keener glance e'en now can trace
The threatening aspects of each mingled race:
For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear,
The hireling guards of Misraim's throne, were there.
From distant Cush they troop'd, a warrior train,
Sinah's green isle, and Sennaar's marly plain :
On either wing their fiery coursers check
The parched and sinewy sons of Amalek;
While close behind, inured to feast on blood,
Deck'd in Behemoth's spoils, the tall Shangalla strode.
'Mid blazing helms, and bucklers rough with gold,
Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots roll'd?
Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,
Old Thebes hath pour'd through all her hundred gates,
Mother of armies !-How the emeralds glow'd,
Where, flush'd with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode!
And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,
Aziris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;
And still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly systrum murmur'd-Victory!
Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?
Whom come ye forth to combat?-Warriors, whom?
These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train—
Red from the scourge, and recent from the chain?
God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!
Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave!-
North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.
On earth's last margin throng the weeping train :
Their cloudy guide moves on:-"And must we
'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,
Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood.
He comes their leader comes !-the man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,
And onward treads.-The circling waves retreat,
In hoarse deep murmurs from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard, wet sand, and coral hills below.
With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,
Down, down they pass,-a steep and slippery dell.-
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are seen.
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;
The beetling waters storm above their head;
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.
Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,
Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night.
Still in their van, along that dreadful road,
Blazed broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of God.
Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave
On the long mirror of the rosy wave:
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye—
To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain :
Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight confine,
A tenfold darkness broods above their line.
Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led,
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed:
Till midway now-that strange and fiery form
Show'd his dread visage lightening through the storm;
With withering splendor blasted all their might,
And brake their chariot-wheels, and marr'd their courser's flight.
"Fly, Misraim, fly!"-The ravenous floods they see,
And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity.
"Fly, Misraim, fly!"-From Edom's coral strand
Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand :—
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep-
Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swell'd the mighty blast:
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.
Oh! welcome came the morn, when Israel stood
In trustless wonder by th' avenging flood!
Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below;
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car—
A few sad relics of a nation's war.
Alas, how few!-Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose harden'd heart alike had borne
The house of bondage and th' oppressor's scorn,
The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude-
Till, kindling into warmer zeal around
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound;
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,
The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam's breast.
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,
Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony.
"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear?
On's warlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where?
Above their ranks the whelming waters spread.
Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed!"
And every pause between, as Miriam sang,
From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang;
And loud and far their stormy chorus spread,-
"Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed!"
114, 115.—THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON.
[IN 1787 were published two octavo volumes, entitled "Letters addressed chiefly to a Young Gentleman upon the Subject of Literature," by the Rev. Charles Davy. In these letters there is nothing very remarkable, with the exception of a most graphic account of the earthquake at Lisbon, in 1755. We remember that our attention was first called to the book by a passage in some one of M. De Quincey's writings, in which he exclaims "Oh, that I could describe like Davy!" It is held, however, that Davy did not write this description, but that it was given to him by an English merchant, who was residing at Lisbon at the time of the event he narrates.
In some books of extracts this narrative is much curtailed; we prefer to give it entire, dividing it into two Half-hours.]
There never was a finer morning seen than the 1st of November; the sun shone out in its full lustre; the whole face of the sky was perfectly serene and clear; and not the least signal or warning of that approaching event, which has made this once flourishing, opulent, and populous city, a scene of the utmost horror and desolation, except only such as served to alarm, but scarcely left a moment's time to fly from the general destruction. It was on the morning of this fatal day, between the hours of nine and ten, that I was set down in my apartment, just finishing a letter, when the papers and table I was writing on began to tremble with a gentle motion, which rather surprised me, as I could not perceive a breath of wind stirring. Whilst I was reflecting with myself what this could be owing to, but without having the least apprehension of the real cause, the whole house began to shake from the very foundation, which at first I imputed to the rattling of several coaches in the main street, which usually passed that way, at this time, from Belem to the palace; but on
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