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As some proud bark that holds its gallant way
At midnight, strikes upon some barren rock
And checks with furling sail her wary course:
So o'er the shadow of the rolling Earth
The mystic gloom arrests them; the rich Sun
Poured the full splendour of his golden ray
Upon th' impassive darkness, that absorbed
The living glory of his perfect beams;
Nor was the light reflected, nor the vast
And black profound illumined: 'twas the throne
Of Death; that hopeless of his future prey
Waited the fall of Nature." P. 243.

Man was

Indeed no other victory was now left for Death. rescued from temptation; and as heaven knew no change its inhabitants could know no death. In hell, indeed, Death would find a welcome, as Brahma suggests to him. He would be hailed with joy, as the soother of unutterable torments; but there his dart would be ineffectual. The taunt, however, is expressed with spirit.

"Hence! hence to Hell! the myriads of mankind
Call with loud groans upon thy dreadful name!
Go! lull their torments in oblivion's sleep,

And close their anguish in eternal night!
Go! add new pangs to the infernal world,

There shew thy form: give the Damned hope of rest
To black annihilation then depart

To prove their miseries may

still increase!" P. 246.

Nothing, therefore, was left, on which Death might vent his rage, except the deserted world. Of that he might not only witness the desolation, but be an active agent in it, and so spread swifter destruction over smiling nature. Rouzed by this thought "The phantom cried

"Satan, I am thine!

Mine be the falling stars, the darkened suns, The hour when great Creation trembling feels The fierce convulsion of her conquered realms, And sees her shattered spheres one shapeless mass Of mingled elements: there, there shall Death, Pleased with the shadow of destruction, range, For ever; glutted with the wreck of Worlds." He spake, and together they proceed without delay to their work of destruction. The comet, hurled from the polar star,

"Onward roars, threatening,"

P. 251.

and is conducted through surrounding stars to the solar system,

all of which is destroyed, except the Georgium Sidus; that escapes in the wreck of worlds.

Towards the end of the seventh Book we are recalled to the main subject of the Poem, and reminded that the plain of Armageddon, having witnessed the final judgment of mankiud, is appointed as the scene of the last great contest between the powers of good and evil. During the time which the action of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Books take up, the song of Jediel, which was began in Book the second, is supposed to have continued. Here the song ends; and at its close, the leaders of the angelic army, encouraged by the Messiah's assurance, that

"Virtue's cause shall triumph,"

prepare for war. The demons also appear from the opposite quarter of the plain of Armageddon, not less anxious for the battle, and separated from the heavenly array only by the spot on which mankind had been judged.

Nothing, perhaps, can be imagined more sublime, than the pause preceding a conflict; the moment between life and death, ere armies come to shock of battle; the painful expectation to each individual of what may be his fate; that mingled sensation of hope and fear; the fear of failure, not of death. That aywna which, without timidity, implies a vehement and breathless earnestness to quit ourselves like men in the contest-all this rushes to the reader's mind; when, after describing the two mighty armies as ready to engage,

"While Discord waves with joy her vulture wings, proud of her victories,"

The poet pauses in the tale, and asks,

"Shall distance part them longer?"

There is a skill and spirit in this change of style, which, as it is impossible not to feel, would be unjustly passed over without commendation. It is from many brilliant touches like these, that, in the vast work before us, we trace the hand of genius. Time will strengthen it.

Mr. T. animated by a true love for Milton's song, opens the eighth Book with a just tribute of praise to the author of Paradise lost.

The march of the demon army was a while delayed by the return of Brahma and Ithream from their work of destruction; the former of whom relates to Satan, whom he terms " his king," the mode by which he executed the commission entrusted to his charge. His description of the burning of the earth is, in many parts, highly finished, and contains much varied beauty. Seas are

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dried up, and the several parts of the globe yield to the devouring element. The destruction of the Audes

"Shattered in the common mass"

is particularly marked. The fall of England is reserved for the closing passage; it sinks, merged in the burning ocean. Then

"The mighty island, whose majestic front

Opposed th' embattled World, and ruled the deep;
Earth's best and perfect state, the smiling land

Of Beauty, Truth, and Honour, England fell!" P. 309. whilst the whole surface of the earth becomes

"A shoreless, waveless, sea of molten glass."

In the four remaining books, not yet published, we are promised an account of the battle of Armageddon, the overthrow of the powers of evil, and the consequent consummation of all things.

From this view of the plan of Armageddon, a Poem which, if finished according to the author's present intention, will probably nearly equal, in length, the " Paradise Lost." It is plain that Mr. T. has proposed to himself a work requiring no moderate talents and no common share of exertion; for both must be proportioned to the interest his subject is so well calculated to excite. That, as far as we can judge by the part of the work now published, we think him not yet quite equal to the task, no one will perhaps be surprized.

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Great variety of reading is exhibited, a rich fancy displayed, and a true love of the Miltonian style evident in the Poem before us, and to Mr. T's praise we add, genuine piety pervades the whole : but in more instances than one we can mention, particularly in points of composition, there is wanting that nice discrimination, that solid judgment, which are to a poem, what the effect of age is to a painting, its highest finish; and which nothing can give but the mellowing hand of time; though in the one case time works alone, in the other the poet works with him. We think it had been a fortunate circumstance for our author, if some friend had advised him to lay aside the Poem for a few years; he would then himself have been the critic, and we are sure, judging from his character as a liberal and good man, that he would without scruple have curtailed what he found redundant, amplified what parts of the Poem were confined, and submitted it at once to such corrections, as a riper judgment would have directed and approved. Indeed, to give fancy the wing on subjects so momentous, as the final doom of man, the contest of the powers of heaven and hell; and the feelings and sentiments of spiritual be

ings, to bear the reader through such a flight with ease and dignity, is a work well performed even though a long life be devoted to it. It is easy indeed to imagine beings, whether of a spiritual or mortal nature, and call them into action; but to call them only when occasion seems not merely to allow, but demand them to act; to make them and their proceedings, however improbable, or even sometimes morally impossible, have the air of probability, to carry us among beings of another world, and so to associate us with them that we feel not strange in their society, was done by our Milton, and may be (we trust, will be) done hereafter by Mr. T.; but at present he often makes bold attempts, without that commanding dignity which the subject requires, and to which the greatest natural powers, unless strengthened by time and exercise, must prove unequal. Amongst other instances, which we could point out in proof of this, we will adduce only one. In the fourth book are introduced to our notice seven distinct orders of spiritual beings: the teraphim, the chemarim, the angels, the seraphim, the cherubim, the archangels and the hierarchs. The subject is, as we feel it to be, of the gravest cast; yet Mr. T. must not be angry with us, if we honestly confess, that certain comic ideas did irresistibly arise in our minds, as we found these personages advance, set by set, with parts to perform, each with a distinguishing mark so slight, that our attention was continually on the stretch to avoid mistaking them and their performances. The whole scene strongly recalled to our memory the ingenuity which we once witnessed of an Italian in the conduct of his Fantoccini, where every device, however quaint was practised, every character given, however outre, to surprise the wondering crowd. But the reader of a poem having more time to reflect, than the mere gazer at a spectacle, pauses to enquire what difference is intended by this distinction, and much of his former pleasure is lost by having his attention strained at a novelty, which, to say the best of it, is unnecessary. The old advice is too good to be slighted-" nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus." No difficulty stood in the way, which at all required the intervention of such novel personages. Unless some evident good were to result, why this novelty? To be original is decidedly the first and strongest mark of genius; but to strive at being always original, only from a desire to be different from others, is very unworthy a man of Mr. T's acknowledged poetical genius: he would far more effectually have consulted his fame as a poet, if he had been contented with a more simple arrangement. Indeed, however much reading the fourth book may shew, we own, as our opinion, that the part of it, on which we have ventured a short remark, wants curtailing and recasting. No one can respect, more than we do, the

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man who would exercise his talents in justifying the ways of God to man. We are therefore the more anxious for Mr. T's solid fame, and in proportion to such anxiety, is our freedom in discussing the merits of his work; nor need he fear, lest the Poem be too short. If in the present instance we recommend curtailment, other parts of his work may, in, at least, as great a degree be amplified. Let him expatiate more at large upon the leading points of the history of the world in our own times; he will there have human characters to delineate; to paint the passions of men and their consequences; and such delineation being what every reader can feel and judge of, will carry with it so much the higher interest. He may well enlarge upon the probable state of the Turkish empire, ere many years shall have passed: Even now, at the moment we write, Turkey is setting itself in array against the great power of the north, and engaging in offensive preparations, which, it is no rash imagining to predict, will prove its own ruin. The crescent is waning, and soon (comparatively speaking, very soon) will be obscured to shine no more. The subject is copious and replete with all the richness of scenery and customs, of civil and religious policy, which a poet could desire, and which Mr. T. is well competent to bring forward more at large than he now has, a few lines only being made to suffice. The same observation will hold good with respect to the return of the Jewish nation to their land; a theme in every way poetical and interesting. The establishment of a Christian Church in India is also a subject capable of much enlargement, calculated to display the deepest learning and most brilliant fancy. It might, with propriety, therefore, have occupied a larger space in the Poem, than is at present allowed to it. In truth, this latter circumstance is one of peculiar interest. However pious the intentions of many former preachers of Christianity in the east, and great as may have been the benefits accruing from their labors, it was reserved for this period to establish, in that land, a Christian Church, in a manner worthy its apostolical purity. Accordingly a scion from the true vine is now planted there, and we earnestly trust it may flourish even to the end of the world. Our Church must surely esteem itself реси. liarly happy, that, in so important a part of the world as India, she has, for her people there, a pastor, whose deep and useful knowledge is applied by so steady and well-guided a zeal, that, under the blessing of the Almighty, we look forward to the happiest effects from his pastoral care.

It will be gratifying to every friend of the Established Church to be informed, that the great work of organizing, in the east, Christian congregations, and bringing them under the cognizance of a sound ecclesiastical polity, is already well begun, un

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