foo dazzling for religion, and too exquisite for repose. The following lines have great poetical beauty.

"Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,

Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,

Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee."

And the following fragment, addressed to love itself, with the exception of the first line, which is in extremely bad taste, is perhaps without its equal in poetry of this description.

"Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all
We can desire, O Love! and happy souls,
Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,

"Catch thee and feed from their o'erflowing bowls
Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew;-
Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls

"Investest it; and when the heavens are blue
Thou fillest them; and when the earth is fair
The shadows of thy moving wings imbue

"Its deserts, and its mountains, till they wear
Beauty like some bright robe;-thou ever soarest
Among the towers of men, and as soft air

"In spring, which moves the unawakened forest,
Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,
Thou floatest among men; and aye implorest

"That which from thee they should implore:-the weak
Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts

The strong have broken-yet where shall any seek

"A garment whom thou clothest not?"

From love, as a passion, it is truly delightful to turn to the consideration of love in its more social and do

mestic character; and here again we find the same poet offering to his wife the noblest tribute of affection, in language as tender as it is elevated and pure.

"So now, my summer task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his queen some victor knight of faery,
Earning bright spoils for his enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal might,
If it indeed may change its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise, thus I would unite

With thy beloved name, thou child of love and light.

"The toil which stole from thee so many an hour
Is ended, and the fruit is at thy feet!

No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet
Waterfalls leap among wild islands green
Which formed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trces and weeds, shall I be seen;
But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been."

It is worthy of remark, that these lines form the introduction to a work in which the poet concentrated all the powers of his genius. The merits of this work have nothing to do with the fact, that it was the richest offering he had to lay upon the shrine of affection, and that that offering was dedicated to his wife.

The late amiable Bishop of Calcutta, a less exceptionable poet, and a less eccentric genius, has left us a beautiful and affecting tribute to affection, under the same pure and sacred form; and the woman who could inspire these lines ought to have been satisfied for the rest of her life, never to receive the incense of less hallowed praise.

"If thou wert by my side, my love!
How fast would evening fail

In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening the nightingale !

If the language of a pure and dignified attachment, proved by long trial, refined by suffering, clothed in humility, and wholly divested of weakness or selfishness, was ever wrung out by the power of affliction from the inmost recesses of an elevated and virtuous mind, it is in the words of Mrs. Hutchinson, where she speaks of the love of her lamented husband.

"There is only this to be recorded, that never was there a passion more ardent and lesse idolatrous; he loved her better than his life, with inexpressible tendernesse and kindnesse, had a most high obliging esteeme of her, yet still considered honour, religion, and duty above her, nor ever suffered the intrusion of such a dotage as should blind him from marking her imperfections: these he looked upon with an indulgent cie, which did not abate his love and esteeme of her, while it augmented his care to blot out all those spotts which might make her appeare lesse worthy of that respect he payed her; and thus indeed he soon made her more equall to him than he found her; for she was a very faithfull mirror, reflecting truly, though but dimly, his own glories upon him, so long as he was present; but she that was nothing before his inspection gave her a faire figure, when he was removed, was only filled with a darke mist, and never could again take in any delightfull object, nor return any shining representation. The greatest excellencie she had was the power of apprehending, and the virtue of loving his soe as his shadow she waited on him every where, till he was taken into that region of light, which admitts of none, and then she vanished into nothing. 'Twas not her face that he loved, her honour and her virtue were his mistresses, and these (like Pigmalion's) images of his own making, for he polished and gave form to what he found with all the roughnesse of the quarrie about it; but meeting with a compliante subject for his own wise government, he found as much satisfaction as he gave, and never had occasion to number his marriage among his infelicities."

This beautiful illustration of love combines all that is essential to the most ardent, as well as the most ennobling sentiment, and wants nothing but metre to entitle it to a high place in the scale of poetical merit.

There remains one important observation to be made on the subject of love, that it marks the progress of national civilization, and the improvement or the deterioration of public morals. Love, above all other passions, is capable of producing the greatest happiness, or the greatest misery; of being the most refined, or the most degraded. It may be associated with the highest virtue, or made the companion of the lowest vice. Where a nation or a community is the most licentious, love is the least respected. Where deference is paid to moral laws, and religious duties, love is regarded as the bond of domestic union, the charm which diffuses a secret,

but holy influence over our domestic enjoyments. In patriarchal times, when men were dispersed over the face of the earth in separate families or tribes, love dwelt among them like a patient handmaid, ministering to their private comfort, but wholly uninfluential in directing their important movements. In the days of chivalry, when men, following the standard of false glory, maintained their possessions by force of arms, sacrificed ease, honesty, or life, to the laws of honour, and the adventures of knight-errantry, love was worshipped as a goddess, whose inspiration endowed her votaries with superhuman power, and whose protection was a shield of adamant. And thus through the different changes of national character and customs, love adopts itself to all, luxuriating in the indulgence of artificial life, or sharing the drudgery of corporeal toil.

Even in individuals, it is not going too far to say, that low notions of the nature and attributes of love, bespeak a vitiated mind, and show, like the "trail of the serpent," in the garden of Eden, that the principle of evil has been there. There is in its elevated nature, a character of constancy, truth, and dignity, which constitutes the essence of its being, and no pure eye can behold it robbed of these, without sorrow and indignation.

It is this faculty of adaptation to all circumstances and states of being, which renders love so entirely subservient to the purposes of the poet; because it takes the tone of the times, as well as that of individual character, and participating in good or evil, calls forth these opposing principles in all their power.

Besides the love here spoken of, poetry abounds in descriptions of that which assumes the sober garb of friendship, and which is perhaps of all others the most substantial support to the human mind, through the difficulties and temptations necessarily encountered in the