of a few exquisite passages in the body of the work, is more uniformly melodious and

correct.

From these appendices to the poem of Du Bartas, I have selected a portion from one, which struck me as the most interesting and the most highly finished. The poet, after requesting protection from his country in his old age, dwells upon the glory, riches and happiness of old England, and concludes by taxing her with ingratitude to the giver of all things, reminding her of former visitations, and inculcating the necessity of penitence and prayer.

Ah, courteous ENGLAND, thy kind arms I see Wide-stretched-out, to save and welcome me. Thou, tender Mother! wilt not suffer age To snow my locks in foreign pilgrimage: That fell Brasil my breathless corse should shroud, Or golden Peru of my praise be proud.

All, hail, dear Albion! Europe's pearl of price, The world's rich garden, earth's rare paradise: Thrice-happy Mother, which ay bringest forth Such chivalry as daunteth all the earth, Planting the trophies of thy glorious arms By sea and land, where ever Titan warms,

About thy borders, O Heav'n-blessed isle!
There never crawls the noisome Crocodile ;
Nor bane-breath'd serpent, basking in thy sand,
Measures an acre of thy flow'ry land;
The swift-foot tiger, or fierce lioness
Haunt not thy mountains, nor thy wilderness;
Nor ravening wolves worry thy tender lambs,
Bleating for help unto their helpless dams.

What though thy Thames and Tweed have never roll'd

Among their gravel, massy grains of gold?
What though thy mountains "pour" no silver
streams?

Though every hillock yield not precious gems?
Though in thy forests hang no silken fleeces?
Nor sacred incense, nor delicious spices?
What though the clusters of thy colder vines
Distil not clarets, sacks, nor muscadines?
Yet are thy wools, thy corn, thy cloth, thy tin,
Mines rich enough to make thee Europe's Queen,
Yea Empress of the world; yet not sufficient
To make thee thankful to the Cause efficient
Of all thy blessings!-

O wanton England! why hast thou forgot
Thy visitation, as thou had'st it not?

Thou hast seen signs, and thou hast felt the rod
Of the revenging wrathful hand of God.
The frowning heav'ns in fearful sights forespoke
Thy Roman, Saxon, Dane and Norman yoke;

And since, alas! unkinder wounds than those,
The civil rents of thy divided Rose.*

Dear Mother England! bend thine aged knee, And to the heav'ns lift up thy hands with me; Off with thy pomp, hence with thy pleasures past, Thy mirth be mourning, and thy feast a fast. 01 W. 2. D. 2. P. 3.

The texture of these lines is perfectly modern; their energy and melody are great, and they are entirely free from affectation, quainness, or puerility.

In this passage are clearly discernible the excellencies in metre and modulation, which acquired their author the epithet" of silvertongued." I know not that from any of his contemporaries, Jonson, Chapman, Daniel, Drayton, Davis or Hall, a specimen, so nearly approaching the present polished state of the rhymed pentameter, so well-woven and condensed, can, after the most diligent search, be produced.

These eight lines beginning "O wanton England" are taken from some original lines subjoined to Week the first, Day the second.

After the pathetic apostrophe to his beloved country for protection in his old age, it is with extreme regret we learn, that persecution, on account of his religious opinions, which were those of rigid Calvinism, compelled him to expatriate, and that Middleburgh, in Zealand, according to Wood, gave that last asylum to his remains, which his native island ungratefully refused.