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nexed lines, displaying, very accurately, the varied hues and shapes, which sometimes, during the night, shoot along the cope of heaven, and alarm the ignorant and unphilosophic.

Such are the forms it in the air resembles;
At sight whereof, th' amazed Vulgar trembles :
Here, in the night, appears a flaming spire,
There a fierce dragon folded all in fire;
Here a bright comet, there a burning beam,
Here flying lances, there a fiery stream:--
There, with long bloody hair, a blazing star
Threatens the world with famine, plague and war:
To princes, death: to kingdoms, many crosses:
To all estates, inevitable losses:

To herdmen, rot: to ploughmen, hapless seasons:
To sailors, storms: to cities, civil treasons.

W. 1. D. 2.

Milton, who has so admirably discriminated the sexes in his delineation of the garden of Eden, must have read, with no common pleasure, a part of the description which Sylvester has drawn of our first parents; the lines, considering the period at which they were written, are truly exquisite, both as to imagery and versification.

hardly one,

Could have the Lover from his Love descry'd,

Or known the Bridegroom from his gentle Bride:
Saving that she had a more smiling eye,
A smoother chin, a cheek of purer dye,
A fainter voice, a more enticing face,
A deeper tress, a more delighting grace,
And in her bosom, more than lilly-white,
Two swelling mounts of ivory, panting light. ·

W. 1. D. 6:

The portion marked by Italics in this quo tation, strongly recals to my recollection. four beautiful lines in the Luciad of Camoens, as translated by Mickle.

Ah, who can boast he never felt the fires,
The trembling throbbings of the young desires,
When he beheld the breathing roses glow,
And the soft heavings of the living snow.

The character and abilities of David af ford ample scope for poetical eulogy, and, in the work before us, some fancy and many lines are devoted to the memory of the sacred Bard. I have selected a few from the mass, which are well worth preservation.

Scarce was he born, when in his cradle prest
The Nightingale to build her tender nest;→

And th' heav'nly Muse, under his roof descending,
As in the summer, with a train down-bending,
We see some meteor, winged brightly fair
With twinkling rays, glide thro' the crystal air,
And suddenly, after long-seeming flight,

To seem amid the new-shorn fields to light,
Him softly in her ivory arms infolds
And sings-

Live, live, sweet Babe! thou miracle of mine,
Live ever saint, and grow thou all divine:-
May thy sweet voice, in peace, resound as far
And speed as "swift" as thy dread arm in war &
"Thy voice," so sweet, that it shall ever be
Th' immortal nectar to posterity:

So clear, that Poesy, whose pleasure is
To bathe in seas of heav'nly mysteries,
Her chastest feathers in the same shall die,
And dew with all her choicest workmanship:-
O sooner shall sad Boreas take his wing
At Nilus head, and boist'rous Auster spring
From th' icy floods of Iceland, than thy fame
Shall be forgot, or honour fail thy name.-
Nought but thine airs thro' air and seas shall sound;
In high-built temples shall thy songs resound;
Thy sacred verse shall clear God's cloudy face,
And in thy steps the noblest wits shall trace.
Gross Vulgar, hence! with hands profanely vile,
Such holy things presume not to defile,

Touch not these sacred stops, these silver strings:
This kingly harp is only meet for kings.
W. 2. D. 4. P. 1.

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In this passage, three lines, which I have distinguished by Italics, have been quoted by Mr. Dunster; the whole, however, as here selected, is excellent. The second, third, and fourth couplets, have much that is Miltonic in their style and imagery, and the address of the heavenly Muse may justly termed apposite and melodious.

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Israel having offended the Almighty, he permits the Canaanites to prevail, and their Prince, who is represented of an immense stature, is introduced arming his gigantic form. Numerous have been the attempts in poetry to describe Beings beyond the common dimensions of mankind, and the picture, in Sylvester's version, will hold no mean rank in the collection.

Their Prince

Arms the broad mountain of his hairy breast
With horrid scales of Nilus greedy beast:
His brawny arms and shoulders, with the skin
Of the dart-darting wily Porcupine:
He wears for Helm a Dragon's ghastly head,
Whereon for plume a huge horse-tail doth spread;
Not much unlike a birch-tree bare below,
Which at the top in a thick tuft doth grow,

Waving with every wind, and made to kiss Th' earth, now on that side, and anon on this; In quiver made of lizard's skins he wears His poison'd arrows; and the bow he bears. Is of a mighty tree, strung with a cable; His shaft a lever, whose keen head is able To pierce all proof, stone, steel and diamant; Thus furnished, the Tyrant thus doth vaunt: "Sirs, shall we suffer this ignoble race, "Thus shamefully us from our own to chace? Shall they be victors ere they overcome? "Shall our possessions and our plenty come "Among these mongrels? Tush! let children quakę "At dreams of Abram: let faint women shake "At their dread God, at their sea-drying Lord; "I know no Gods above my glittering sword:" This said, he sallies, and assaults the foe With furious skirmish, and doth charge them so As stormy billows rush against a rock; As boisterous winds, that have their prison broke, Roar on a forest.

W. 2. D. 3. P. 4,

The speech of this Herculean Warrior is spirited and characteristic, and the similies, at the close, have force and propriety.

As a contrast to the above, in point of imagery, I shall now present a delineation, which, I think, in any poet, would be

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