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Thy oaths I quit, thy memory refign; Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was "mine,"

She then welcomes grace and virtue, in a Arain of devout enthufiafin, which is beautifully poetical.

"Oh Grace ferene! oh virtue heav'nly fair!
"Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care!
"Fresh blooming hope, gay daughter of the
"fky!

"And Faith, our early immortality!
"Enter, each mild, each amicable guest ;
"Receive, and wrap me, in eternal reft!"

The poet fhews great fkill and addrefs in thus making the violence of her paffion fubfide, and give way by degrees to the afcendancy of religious zeal. Having brought her to fuch a temper of refignation, that fhe is prepared for eternity, an awful circumftance is next introduced, more firmly to reconcile her to her deftiny. She defcribes herself as ftretched on a tomb, and fancies that he hears a fpirit call to her in each low wind. The imagery of this folemn fcene is ftrongly conceived, and poetically expreffed.

"Here, as I watch'd the dying lamps around, "From yonder fhrine I heard a folemn found. "Come, Sifter, come! (it faid, or feem'd to fay)

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Thy place is here, fad Sifter, come away!

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"Once like thyfelf, I trembled, wept, and pray'd;

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"Love's victim then, tho' now a fainted maid: "But all is calm in this eternal fleep;

"Here grief forgets to groan, and love to "weep,

"Ev'n Superftition lofes every fear:

"For God, not man, abfolves our frailties "here*."

This is beyond all encomium in a poem where every line obliges us to pay our warmeft tribute of applaufe.

At the fancied call of this aerial fympathetic sister, Eloisa starts in a kind of religious rapture, and feems eagerly to haften towards this fcene of pure and everlafting blifs, which is fo poetically pictured.

"I come, I come! prepare your rofeate bow'rs, "Celeftial palms, and ever-blooming flow'rs. Thither, where finners may have reft, I go, "Where flames refin'd in breafts feraphic "glow."

She then calls on Abelard, to perform the laft offices, and smooth her paffage to thefe bright abodes. There is fomething inexpreffibly mov

*The two laft lines afford a ftriking inftance, that a man of ftrong fenfe and found judgment, cannot be a bigot in any religion: not even in that which has bigotry for its principle.

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ing in the last marks of her expiring fondnefs

"See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,

Suck my last breath, and catch my flying foul!"

But fuddenly recollecting herself, the wifhes him to attend her in a character less paffionate, and rather to perform the duties of his holy function, in her dying moments.

"Ah no---in facred veftments may'st thou
"stand,

"The hallow'd taper trembling in thy hand,
"Present the Crofs before my lifted eye,
"Teach me at once, and learn of me to die.'

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Then in a fudden and most pathetick tranfition, the calls on Abelard to take the laft parting look of her, even in the agonies of death.

"Ah then, thy once-lov'd Eloïfa fee!
"It will be then no crime to gaze on me.
"See from my cheek the tranfient roses fly!
"See the laft Sparkle languish in my eye

יי!

I will venture to say that a man who can read thefe lines with unshaken nerves, has not a grain of fenfibility in his compofition.

She does not yet, however, relinquish the idea of Abelard; her fondnefs for him extends itself beyond the grave, and is expreffed in the most affecting and poetical strain.

"In trance extatic may thy pangs be drown'd, Bright clouds defcend, and Angels watch thee "round,

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"From op'ning fkies may ftreaming glories " shine,

"And Saints embrace thee with a love like "mine. ""

*

She lastly wishes that they may be buried in one grave; and prefuming that two wandering lovers may, ages hence, chance to gaze on their tomb in the Paraclete; fhe fuppofes, that, touched with mutual pity, they may make the following tender exclamation:

"Oh may we never love as these have lov'd!"

To carry the circumftance of commiferation ftill higher, the imagines, that even a casual glance at their tomb, will affect the beholders with fuch involuntary pity, as even to check their fervour in the act of devotion.

"From the full choir when loud Hofannas "rife,

"And fwell the pomp of dreadful facrifice, "Amid that scene if fome relenting eye

"Glance on the stone where our cold relicks

“lie,

This with was fulfilled. The body of Abelard, who died twenty years before Eloifa, was fent to her, and interred in the Monaftery of the Paraclete,

"Devotion's felf fhall fteal a thought from "heav'n,

"One human tear fhall drop, and be forgiv'n*."

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Nothing can be more finely imagined than thefe lines, nor more expreffive of the tender fympathy which must be excited in every feeling breaft on recollecting the deplorable fate of this unhappy pair †.

Upon the whole, it is not, perhaps, too much to fay, that it is not in the power of language to defcribe the various tumults of conflicting paffions with greater energy and pathos; the oppofite fentiments, which agitate the foul of Eloifa, are marked by such natural and masterly tranfitions, that the mind of the reader is irrefiflibly attracted, and fympathizes with her in every alternate change of paffion. It may be truly faid,

-Pectus inaniter angit, "Irritat, mulcet, falfis terroribus implet, "Ut magus

Here again the effayift feems to have mifunderstood the poet's meaning. For he apprehends the lines above quoted to be defcriptive of the behaviour of the two lovers; whereas they seem to point out the more ftriking effect, which the accidental view of their tomb would have even on the congregation, during the time of divine fervice.

+ I agree, however, with the effayift, that with thefe eight lines the poem should have ended; for the eight additional verfes are comparatively languid and flat, and diminish the pathos of the foregoing fentiments.

The

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