The shrieking ghosts to their dark charnels flock;
The full-gorg'd wolves retreat; no more

The prowling lionesses roar,

But hasten with their prey to some deep-cavern'd rock.

Hail then, ye friends of Reason, hail,

Ye foes to Mystery's odious veil !

To Truth's high temple guide my steps aright,
Where Clarke and Wollaston reside,

With Locke and Newton by their side,

While Plato sits above enthron'd in endless night.

Joseph Warton.

CHAPTER V.

FROM the best days of the literary club, to those poets who now are most conspicuous in the public view, there was thought to have been a great dearth of English poetry. Cowper and Sir William Jones can hardly be said to have belonged to the first class, nor exactly to the second. Cowper had taste and talents, with highly respectable acquirements. Some of his poetry is sweet, and all of it honest and moral. The readers of his poetry always rise from the perusal of his graver poems with improvement and delight. There is a perfume in virtuous thoughts that lasts long, and never entirely perishes. Cowper preaches admirably in verse. We should, perhaps, have had much more from his pen, if the demon of melancholy had not been suffered to seize upon, and chain down his mind for many a year.

The delicate bosom bared to the storms of life often finds an energy growing out of every occasion to support and comfort it; but imaginary evils to a sensitive mind are often worse, a hundred times worse, than real ones. It was so with Cowper. He had no real difficulties to contend with; he and rocked by affection all his life.

was, as it were, cradled

"Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes, and a dungeon; and his body, serves
The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul,
Opprobrious residence, he finds them all.
Propense his heart to idols, he is held
In silly dotage on created things,
Careless of their Creator. And that low
And sordid gravitation of his powers

To a vile clod, so draws him, with such force
Resistless from the centre he should seek,
That he at last forgets it. All his hopes
Tend downward; his ambition is to sink,
To reach a depth profounder still, and still
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.
But ere he again the comfortless repose
He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul
In Heav'n-renouncing exile, he endures-
What does he not, from lusts oppos'd in vain,
And self-reproaching conscience? He foresees
The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace,
Fortune, and dignity; the loss of all
That can ennoble man and make frail life,
Short as it is, supportable. Still worse,

Far worse than all the plagues with which his sins

Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes
Ages of hopeless mis'ry. Future death,
And death still future. Not a hasty stroke,
Like that which sends him to the dusty grave:
But unrepealable, enduring, death.

Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears:
What none can prove a forgery, may be true;
What none but bad men wish exploded, must.
That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud
Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst
Of laughter his compunctions are sincere;

And he abhors the jest by which he shines.
Remorse begets reform. His master-lust

Falls first before his resolute rebuke,

And seems dethron'd and vanquish'd. Peace ensues. But spurious and short liv'd: the puny child

Of self-congratulating Pride, begot

On fancied Innocence. Again he falls,
And fights again; but finds his best essay
A presage ominous, portending still
Its own dishonor by a worse relapse.
Till nature, unavailing nature, foil'd
So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt,
Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now
Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause
Perversely, which of late she so 'condemn'd:
With shallow shifts and old devices, worn
And tatter'd in the service of debauch,
Cov'ring his shame from his offended sight.
"Hath God indeed giv'n appetites to man,
And stored the earth so plenteously with means
To gratify the hunger of his wish;

And doth he reprobate, and will he damn

The use of his own bounty? making first
So frail a kind, and then enacting laws

So strict, that less than perfect must despair?
Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth,
Dishonors God, and makes a slave of man.
Do they themselves, who undertake for hire
The teacher's office, and dispense at large
Their weekly dole of edifying strains,
Attend to their own music? have they faith
In what, with such solemnity of tone
And gesture, they propound to our belief?
Nay-Conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice
Is but an instrument, on which the priest
May play what tune he pleases. In the deed,
The unequivocal, authentic deed,

We find sound argument, we read the heart."

Sir William Jones was confessedly the most accomplished man of his age. He was a mathematician, poet, lawyer, linguist, and in all branches was superior to most men. His name will not be forgotten in England, or in India. His character was as pure as his talents were exalted. He was exiled to India under the specious appointment of a judge-ship; for there were men high in power who feared his virtues, for they were all on the side of liberal principles, such principles as are founded on reason, and are to be maintained by argument. He was the first orientalist of his age before he left England for India, but when he arrived in the East he pursued his studies with youthful ardor, not merely for the fame he might acquire by his exertions in this way, but for the purpose of enlightening mankind. He translated the laws of

India in order to administer justice to the millions under British control; by doing this he quieted the jealousies of Hindoo law-givers, and all who were influenced by them. This was not all-he examined the Veda and made us acquainted with its contents. He pushed his researches into the theology of the East, and traced a thousand mysteries to their origin, and they were no longer mysteries. Egyptian and Grecian mythology had until his time bounded the vision of all those who were anxiously looking behind the veil of Isis. He did not remove it, but he showed how it was made. He examined the learning of the East, and proved how much philosophy and taste it possessed. He gave oriental poetry in English measure, and while he chastened the wild and extravagant fancies of the original, he gave new beauties to his vernacular language, by infusing into it new melody, and throwing around a severe thought the fascinations of romance. He tarried too long on the banks of the Ganges, and wearied himself too much by tracing the origin of the river gods, and following them in all the strange shapes they had, in the succession of ages assumed, to their original nothingness. It is cheering to the heart to find such a mind as that of Sir William Jones; after pondering long and examining thoroughly-assisting us by his researches to stop the mouth of the infidel, and by the results of the most profound inductions, putting many things that were doubtful before, on the firmest basis of truth.

He died in the prime of manhood, in his forty-seventh year. His was a frame exhausted by too much mental labor. The oriental world is now opening its treasures to us, and on every leaf that is wafted to us