174.-EVENING. EVENING has formed the subject of one of Collins' most finished poems: If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear Thy springs, and dying gales; O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun O'erhang his wavy bed: And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, The pensive pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim discover'd spires, Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; And rudely rends thy robes; So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favourite name. COLLINS. Thomas Warton's poems are less known than those of Collins. The following lines from his 'Ode on the Approach of Summer' will show that he possessed one of the characteristics of a real poet; that power of observation which is necessary to produce particular images, instead of vague descriptions: Oft when thy season, sweetest queen, And mists in spreading streams convey As slow he winds in museful mood, His wattled cotes the shepherd plants, Nor wants there fragrance to dispense Byron sings the evening of Italian skies: Nor lowings faint of herds remote, Nor mastiff's bark from bosom'd cot; The Moon is up, and yet it is not night- way; A single star is at her side, and reigns Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, Fill'd with the face of heaven, which from afar Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, Their magical variety diffuse : And now they change: a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray. BYRON. Brilliant as these stanzas are, the older poets have a more natural charm, to our tastes:—— Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, His day's hot task has ended in the west : Shepherds all, and maidens fair, SHAKSPERE. And let your dogs lie loose without, Or the crafty thievish fox Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers, Look how the flower, which ling'ringly doth fade, With swifter speed declines than erst it spread, FLETCHER. And blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been. 175.-THE COMING OF OUR SAVIOUR. [THOMAS BURNET, Master of the Charterhouse, was born in 1535. He was educated at the Free School of North Allerton, and at Cambridge. His great work. Telaris Thecria Sacra,' was published in 16-0; and in 1984 he translated his original Latin into English, with many additions and alterations. The Sacred Theory of the Earth was no doubt regarded by its author as a contribution to that science which we now call Geology: but at that time the facts upon which the science rests were so imperfectly known, that the book ess now no scientific value. But Burnet brought to his task the imagination of a poet; and some of his descriptions have been rarely surpassed in real sublimity. His English style s remarkably flowing and harmonious, and does not, like Milton's English prose writings, wear the appearance of being fed upon Latin models. The extract which we give is from the last chapter of the Third Book of the Sacred Theory. Dr. Burnet died in 1715.) Certainly there is nothing in the whole course of nature, or of human affairs, so great and so extraordinary as the two last scenes of them, the Coming of our Saviour, and the Burning of the World. If we could draw in our minds the pictures of these in true and lively colours, we should scarce be able to attend any thing else, or ever divert our imagination from these two objects: for what can more affect us than the greatest glory that ever was visible upon earth, and at the same time the greatest terror;-a God descending at the head of an array of angels, and a burning world under his feet? ***** As to the face of nature, just before the coming of our Saviour, that may be best collected from the signs of his coming mentioned in the precedent chapter. Those all meeting together, help to prepare and make ready a theatre fit for an angry God to come down upon. The countenance of the heavens will be dark and gloomy; and a veil drawn over the face of the sun. The earth in a disposition every where to break into open flames. The tops of the mountains smoking; the rivers dry: earthquakes in several places; the sea sunk and retired into its deepest chan and roaring as against some mighty storm. These things will make the day dead and melancholy; but the night scenes will have more of horror in them, when the blazing stars appear like so many furies with their lighted torches, threatening to set all on fire. For I do not doubt but the comets will bear a part in this tragedy, and have something extraordinary in them at that time, either as to number, or igness, or nearness to the earth. Besides, the air will be full of flaming meteors, unusual forms and magnitudes; balls of fire rolling in the sky, and pointed htnings darted against the earth, mixed with claps of thunder and unusual noises om the clouds. The moon and the stars will be confused and irregular, both in ir light and motions; as if the whole frame of the heavens was out of order, and l the laws of nature were broken or expired. When all things are in this languishing or dying posture, and the inhabitants of the earth under the fears of their last end, the heavens will open on a sudden, and God will appear. A glory surpassing the sun in its greatest radiancy; so cannot describe, we may suppose it will bear some resemblance or those representations that are made in Scripture of God upon his throne. * * * * * This wonder in the heavens, whatsoever its form may be, will presently attract the eyes of all the Christian world. Nothing can more affect than an object so unusual and so illustrious, and that probably brings along with it their last destiny, and will put a period to all human affairs. As it is not possible for us to express or conceive the dread and majesty of his appearance, so neither can we, on the other hand, express the passions and consternations of the people that behold it. These things exceed the measures of human affairs, and of human thoughts: we have neither words nor comparisons to make them known by. The greatest pomp and magnificence of the Emperors of the East, in their armies, in their triumphs, in their inaugurations, is but the sport and entertainment of children, if compared with this solemnity. When God condescends to an external glory, with a visible train and equipage; when, from all the provinces of his vast and boundless empire, he summons his nobles, as I may so say-the several orders of angels and archangels-to attend his person, though we cannot tell the form or manner of his appearance, we know there is nothing in our experience, or in the whole history of this world, that can be a just representation of the least part of it. No armies so numerous as the host of heaven; and, instead of the wild noises of the rabble, which makes a great part of our worldly state, this blessed company will breathe their hallelujahs into the open air, and repeated acclamations of salvation to God, which sits upon the throne. and to the Lamb. Imagine all Nature now standing in a silent expectation to receive its last doom; the tutelary and destroying angels to have their instructions; every thing to be ready for the fatal hour; and then, after a little silence, all the host of heaven to raise their voice, and sing alond: Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered; as smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. all the sublunary world breaks into flames, in heaven and in earth. * * * * * And upon this, as upon a signal given, and all the treasures of fire are opened Thus the conflagration begins. If one should now go about to represent the world on fire, with all the confusions that necessarily must be in nature and in mankind upon that occasion, it would seem to most men a romantic scene. Yet we are sure there must be such a scene. The heavens will pass away with a noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, and all the works of the earth will be burnt up; and these things cannot come to pass without the greatest disorders imaginable, both in the minds of men and in external nature, and the saddest spectacles that eye can behold. We think it a great matter to see a single person burnt alive; here are millions shrieking in the flames at once. It is frightful to us to look upon a great city in flames, and to see the distractions and misery of the people; here is an universal fire through all the cities of the earth, and an universal massacre of their inhabitants. Whatsoever the prophets foretold of the desolations of Judea, Jerusalem, or Babylon, in the highest strains, is more than literally accomplished in this last and general calamity; and those only that are spectators of it can make its history. The disorders in nature and the inanimate world will be no less, nor less strange and unaccountable, than those in mankind. Every element, and every region, so far as the bounds of this fire extend, will be in a tumult and a fury, and the whole habitable world running into confusion. A world is sooner destroyed than made; and nature relapses hastily into that chaos state out of which she came by slow and leisurely motions: as an army advances into the field by just and regular marches; but, when it is broken and routed, it flies with precipitation, and one cannot describe its posture. Fire is a barbarous enemy; it gives no mercy; there is nothing but fury, and rage, and ruin, and destruction wheresoever it prevails, as storm, or |