position to seriousness may be required), will no doubt increase the number. In this age of urbanity and toleration, there is no fear of their having any but the best effects upon social intercourse, inculcative as they are of religious philanthropy.

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Madame de Stael criticises the "Night Thoughts" (in her ingenious Corinne") for their want of taste. But what is taste compared with force of description? Do we accuse the Scriptures of want of taste, in their mention of "the sow wallowing in the mire,” or "the dog returning to the vomit?" And what can be more forcible, or more appropriate, than these similes?

Perhaps I may have been too fond of interlarding my works with scraps of Latin, &c.; but this I have done from an idea that they would make a greater impression upon those who understand those languages, who might communicate that impression to others whom they may translate the quotations to. The best reason for introducing those quotations, is from their greater conciseness and energy. This is not pedantry. A further apology may be in the recollections of early education, of the acquirements then made, and the association of ideas which the passages quoted, themselves furnish. But to justify the quotations, a good deal must depend upon the character of the language.

EXTRACTS

FROM

YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS,

WITH

OBSERVATIONS UPON THEM.

NIGHT THE FIRST.

THIS noble poem, though poetical throughout, does not, as might be expected, begin with all the promise which is more than fulfilled afterwards, when the poet displays all the richness and force of his imagination and feelings, as his expression rises with his subject. He begins, awakened only to the consideration of himself, as,

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Emerging from a sea of dreams,

Tumultuous," &c.

dreams of his natural sleep, which he confounds with those of the " grave," of the sleepers in which he says,

“How happy they, who wake no more!"

How is this consistent with the main object of his poem, to give proofs, in addition to and accordance with the assurances of the Gospel, of our awakening in another life to an endless enjoyment, or sufferance, of happiness or of misery? Allowing, however, for this first effusion of his imagination and feelings, and giving all due applause to his beautiful description of

E

night and its accompanying scenery, we may pass on to his fervent address,

"O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun,"

A spark, perhaps, in comparison with other luminous bodies, among which it has been supposed that the principal star in the constellation Lyra is two thousand times as large as

our sun.

"Strike wisdom from my soul:

My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest."

I think we cannot but observe, how subservient Young, something like Shakspeare, makes the sallies of his imagination to what his subject requires. The specimens I have given, I think, must induce the reader to go on with these thoughts and aspirations, till he comes to the following general reflections:

"How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!

How passing wonder He, who made him such!
Who center'd in his make such strange extremes!"

*

*

"O what a miracle to man is man,

*

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave,
Legions of angels can't confine me there."

*

"Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal ;
Even silent night proclaims eternal day.

For human weal, Heaven husbands all events;
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.”