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the peculiarities of the age in which it was composed, are prepared to make due allowance for defective taste, and can distinguish merit amidst every kind of blemish and defect.

The faults of Fletcher's poem are partly of the subject, and partly of the writer. If Phineas was unfortunate in selecting anatomy as the ground-work of his poem, his brother was not happy in making choice of the mysterious facts connected with the establishment of the Christian faith. Much talent has been wasted in all ages in the attempt to decorate the mysteries of religion with the flowers of verse; it is one of those errors in judgment which modern poets have borrowed from their masters of old, and they have applied it to the doctrines of Christianity without duly considering how much less capable they are of poetic embellishment than the absurdities of the ancient polytheism.The gods of Greece interest us only, when used as poetic agents, by the close resemblance they bear to men in all the incidents which poets have chosen to adopt; for assuredly the only legitimate fountain of poetry is man, in his present state of enjoyment and suffering. Even the beauties and sublimities of external nature require to be connected with the destinies of mankind to fit them for the poet's use. The perfume of the violet, the song of the nightingale, the beauty of the landscape, are poetical only in association with human enjoyment: with the sublimity of the storm, we connect the horrors of the shipwreck; with inclement seasons, the sufferings of the exposed and indigent; with the grandeur of Alpine scenery, the dangers of the traveller, and the emotions it excites in the mind of the spectator. This connection, to be

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poetical, must be immediate and certain,—not remote, or contingent. The mysteries of religion, as they apply to man, are connected only with a future state of his existence; they are designed by the great author of our being, as exercises of our faith, not as subjects of our comprehension; they are definite, not liable to change, or capable of embellishment; and consequently, they fail to produce poetic interest,-by being placed out of the pale of human suffering or enjoyment,-by being incomprehensible to human reasoning,-and by being already familiar to the mind, and known as far as a knowledge of them can be attained.

Nothing but the undue influence of authority, and the example of great names, could have produced or tolerated the poetic licenses which have been taken with the sacred records. All that we are permitted to know of the divine agents in the Christian system of religion, is confined to the letter of revelation, and it is nothing short of profanation to invest them with poetic ornaments, or apply them to the irreverend creations of poetic fiction. The time will come, nay perhaps now is, when this will be no more permitted.They are unfit for poetry by their essence, and should have been secured from it by the sanctity of their character.

The great fault of Giles Fletcher's poem is its obscurity; it is even difficult without a reference to the argument prefixed, to comprehend at all times the poet's meaning. The minor faults are those peculiar to his time; he seeks eagerly for antithesis; overloads his subject with ornaments and comparisons,-is not sufficiently select in his choice of words and phrases,-is pedantic and prolix,—and occasionally, but not generally, harsh and inharmonious.

The first part entitled "Christ's Victory in Heaven," commences with proposing the subject, and invoking the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The judgment seat of God is then shortly described in the following stanza:

There is a place beyond that flaming hill,

From whence the stars their thin appearance shed, A place beyond all place, where never ill, Nor impure thought was ever harboured; But saintly heroes are for ever said To keep an everlasting sabbath's rest! Still wishing that of which they are possess'd; Enjoying but one joy, but of all joys the best!

Slight allusion is then made to the fallen state of man, and Mercy is described as interceding with God for his forbearance:

But Justice had no sooner Mercy seen
Smoothing the wrinkles of her father's brow,
Than up she starts, and throws herself between:
As when a vapour from a moory slough
Meeting with fresh Eöus, that but now
Open'd the world which all in darkness lay,
Doth heav'ns bright face of his rays disarray,
Aud sads the smiling orient of the springing day.

She was a virgin of austere regard :

Not as the world esteems her, deaf and blind; But as the eagle that hath oft compar'd

Her eye with heav'n, so, and more brightly shin'd Her lamping sight; for she the same could wind Into the solid heart, and with her ears

The silence of the thought loud speaking hears:
And in one hand a pair of even scales she bears.

No riot of affection revel kept

Within her breast, but a still apathy Possessed all her soul, which softly slept Securely without tempest; no sad cry Awakes her pity, but wrong'd poverty, Sending his eyes to heav'n swimming in tears, With hideous clamours ever struck her ears, Whetting the blazing sword which in her hand she bears.

The winged lightning is her Mercury,

And round about her mighty thunders sound: Impatient of himself, lies pining by

Pale Sickness with his kercher'd head upbound;

And thousand noisome plagues attend her round : But if her cloudy brow but once grow foul, The flints do melt, and rocks to waters roll, And airy mountains shake, and frighted shadows howl. Famine, and bloodless Care, and bloody War, Want, and the knowledge duely how to use Abundance, Age, and Fear that runs afar Before his fellow Grief, that aye pursues His winged step; for who would not refuse Grief's company, a dull and raw-bon'd spright, That lanks the cheeks, and pales the freshest sight, Unbosoming the cheerful breast of all delight.

Upon two stony tables plac'd before her

She lean'd her bosom, more than stony hard; There slept the impartial judge, and strict restorer Of wrong or right, with pain, or with reward; There hung the score of all our debts; the card Where good and bad, and life and death were painted: Was never heart of mortal so untainted,

But when that scroll was read, with thousand terrors

fainted.

Witness the thunder that Mount Sinai heard,
When all the hill with fiery clouds did flame,
And wandering Israel with the sound afeard,

Blinded with seeing, durst not touch the same,
But like a wood of shaking leaves became :
On this dread Justice, to the living law
Bowing herself with a majestic awe,

All heaven to hear her speech, did into silence draw.

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The speech of Justice occupies twenty stanzas.

She ended, and the heavenly hierarchies

Burning with zeal, now quickly marshall'd were;

Like to an army that alarum cries,

When every one doth shake his dreadful

spear;

And the Almighty's self, as he would tear The earth from her firm basis quite asunder, Flames all in just revenge, and mighty thunder; Heaven stole itself from earth by clouds that gather'd under.

As when the cheerful sun, elamping wide,

Glads all the world with his diffusive ray,
And woos the widow'd earth afresh to pride
And paint her bosom with the flow'ry May,
His silent sister steals him quite away;
Wrapt in a sable cloud from mortal eyes,
The hasty stars at noon begin to rise,

And headlong to his early roost the sparrow flies.

But soon as he unclouded is again,

Restoring the blind world his ravish'd sight,
As though another day was now begun,
The cozen'd birds industrious take their flight,
And wonder at the shortness of the night :-

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