London. In 1857 a windfall came to Mr Procter and to certain other poets. Mr John Kenyon, a wealthy West Indian gentleman, fond of literary society, and author of a Rhymed Plea for Tolerance, left more than £140,000 in legacies to individuals whom he loved or admired. Included in this number were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, £4000; her husband, £6500; and to Mr Procter also £6500.

Address to the Ocean.

O thou vast Ocean! ever-sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!

Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone.
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavily-laden breast
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife.

The earth hath nought of this: no chance or change
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go :
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow:
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their wonted home;
And come again, and vanish; the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.
Oh! wonderful thou art, great element':
And fearful in thy spleeny humours bent,
And lovely in repose; thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,
I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach-
Eternity Eternity-and Power.

Marcelia.

It was a dreary place. The shallow brook
That ran throughout the wood, there took a turn
And widened: all its music died away,
And in the place a silent eddy told

That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees
Funereal-cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,
And spicy cedar-clustered, and at night
Shook from their melancholy branches sounds

And sighs like death: 'twas strange, for through the day

They stood quite motionless, and looked, methought,
Like monumental things, which the sad earth
From its green bosom had cast out in pity,
To mark a young girl's grave. The very leaves
Disowned their natural green, and took black
And mournful hue; and the rough brier, stretching
His straggling arms across the rivulet,
Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching
With his tenacious leaf, straws, withered boughs,
Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which
Swam with the current, and with these it hid
The poor Marcelia's death-bed. Never may net
Of venturous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shortened breath
The brook, and panting flies the unholy place,

And the white heifer lows, and passes on ;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there: and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the evening mists,
And chequered as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen,
And fancy to myself that a sad voice,

Praying, comes moaning through the leaves, as 'twere
For some misdeed. The story goes that some
Neglected girl-an orphan whom the world
Frowned upon-once strayed thither, and 'twas
thought

Cast herself in the stream.

You may have heard

Of one Marcelia, poor Nolina's daughter, who Fell ill and came to want? No! Oh, she loved A wealthy man who marked her not. He wed, And then the girl grew sick, and pined away, And drowned herself for love.

An Invocation to Birds.

Come, all ye feathery people of mid air,
Who sleep 'midst rocks, or on the mountain summits
Lie down with the wild winds; and ye who build
Your homes amidst green leaves by grottoes cool;
And ye who on the flat sands hoard your eggs
For suns to ripen, come! O phoenix rare!
If death hath spared, or philosophic search
Permit thee still to own thy haunted nest,
Perfect Arabian-lonely nightingale !
Dusk creature, who art silent all day long,
But when pale eve unseals thy clear throat, loosest
Thy twilight music on the dreaming boughs
Until they waken. And thou, cuckoo bird,
Who art the ghost of sound, having no shape
Material, but dost wander far and near,
Like untouched echo whom the woods deny
Sight of her love-come all to my slow charm!
Come thou, sky-climbing bird, wakener of morn,
Who springest like a thought unto the sun,
And from his golden floods dost gather wealth-
Epithalamium and Pindarique song-
And with it enrich our ears; come all to me,
Beneath the chamber where my lady lies,
And, in your several musics, whisper-Love!

The following are from Mr Procter's collection of Songs:

King Death.

King Death was a rare old fellow,
He sat where no sun could shine,
And he lifted his hand so yellow,
And poured out his coal-black wine.
Hurrah for the coal-black wine!

There came to him many a maiden
Whose eyes had forgot to shine,
And widows with grief o'erladen,
For a draught of his coal-black wine.
Hurrah for the coal-black wine!

The scholar left all his learning,
The poet his fancied woes,
And the beauty her bloom returning,
Like life to the fading rose.

Hurrah for the coal-black wine!

All came to the rare old fellow,
Who laughed till his eyes dropped brine,
And he gave them his hand so yellow,
And pledged them in Death's black wine.
Hurrah for the coal-black wine!

The Nights.

Oh, the Summer night

Has a smile of light,

And she sits on a sapphire throne
Whilst the sweet winds load her
With garlands of odour,

From the bud to the rose o'er-blown!

But the Autumn night
Has a piercing sight,
And a step both strong and free;
And a voice for wonder,

Like the wrath of the thunder,

When he shouts to the stormy sea!

And the Winter night

Is all cold and white, And she singeth a song of pain; Till the wild bee hummeth, And the warm Spring cometh, When she dies in a dream of rain!

Oh, the night brings sleep
To the greenwoods deep,

To the bird of the woods its nest;

To care soft hours,

To life new powers, To the sick and the weary-rest!

Song for Twilight.

Hide me, O twilight air!

Hide me from thought, from care,
From all things foul or fair,

Until to-morrow!
To-night I strive no more;
No more my soul shall soar :
Come, sleep, and shut the door
'Gainst pain and sorrow!

If I must see through dreams,
Be mine Elysian gleams,
Be mine by morning streams
To watch and wander;

So may my spirit cast
(Serpent-like) off the past,
And my free soul at last

Have leave to ponder.

And shouldst thou 'scape control,
Ponder on love, sweet soul;
On joy, the end and goal
Of all endeavour :

But if earth's pains will rise
(As damps will seek the skies),
Then, night, seal thou mine eyes,
In sleep for ever.

Amel. I have spoke

Nothing but cheerful words, thou idle girl.
Look, look, above! the canopy of the sky,
Spotted with stars, shines like a bridal-dress :
A queen might envy that so regal blue
Which wraps the world o' nights. Alas, alas!
I do remember in my follying days

What wild and wanton wishes once were mine,
Slaves-radiant gems-and beauty with no peer,
And friends (a ready host)--but I forget.

I shall be dreaming soon, as once I dreamt,
When I had hope to light me. Have you no song,
My gentle girl, for a sick woman's ear?
There's one I've heard you sing: 'They said his eye'—
No, that's not it: the words are hard to hit.
'His eye like the mid-day sun was bright '-

Mar. 'Tis so.

You've a good memory. Well, listen to me. I must not trip, I see.

Amel. I hearken. Now.

Song.

His eye like the mid-day sun was bright,
Hers had a proud but a milder light,
Clear and sweet like the cloudless moon:
Alas! and must it fade as soon?

His voice was like the breath of war,
But hers was fainter-softer far;
And yet, when he of his long love sighed,
She laughed in scorn-he fled and died.

Mar. There is another verse, of a different air, But indistinct-like the low moaning

Of summer winds in the evening: thus it runs

They said he died upon the wave,

And his bed was the wild and bounding billow; Her bed shall be a dry earth grave:

Prepare it quick, for she wants her pillow.

Amel. How slowly and how silently doth time Float on his starry journey. Still he goes, And goes, and goes, and doth not pass away. He rises with the golden morning, calmly, And with the moon at night. Methinks I see Him stretching wide abroad his mighty wings, Floating for ever o'er the crowds of men, Like a huge vulture with its prey beneath. Lo! I am here, and time seems passing on: To-morrow I shall be a breathless thingYet he will still be here; and the blue hours Will laugh as gaily on the busy world As though I were alive to welcome them. There's one will shed some tears. Poor Charles !

Ch. I am here.

Did you not call?

CHARLES enters.

Amel. You come in time. My thoughts

Were full of you, dear Charles. Your mother-now

I take that title-in her dying hour

Has privilege to speak unto your youth.

There's one thing pains me, and I would be calm.

My husband has been harsh unto me--yet

He is my husband; and you 'll think of this

If any sterner feeling move your heart?
Seek no revenge for me. You will not?-Nay,
Is it so hard to grant my last request?
He is my husband: he was father, too,

Of the blue-eyed boy you were so fond of once.
Do you remember how his eyelids closed
When the first summer rose was opening?
'Tis now two years ago-more, more and I-
I now am hastening to him. Pretty boy!
He was my only child. How fair he looked
In the white garment that encircled him-
'Twas like a marble slumber; and when we
Laid him beneath the green earth in his bed,
I thought my heart was breaking-yet I lived:
But I am weary now.

Mar. You must not talk,
Indeed, dear lady; nay-

Ch. Indeed you must not.

Amel. Well, then, I will be silent; yet not so.
For ere we journey, ever should we take

A sweet leave of our friends, and wish them well,
And tell them to take heed, and bear in mind
Our blessings. So, in your breast, dear Charles,
Wear the remembrance of Amelia.
She ever loved you-ever; so as might
Become a mother's tender love-no more.
Charles, I have lived in this too bitter world
Now almost thirty seasons: you have been
A child to me for one-third of that time.
I took you to my bosom, when a boy,
Who scarce had seen eight springs come forth and

vanish.

Ch. Is it then so? My soul is sick and faint. O mother, mother! I-I cannot weep. Oh for some blinding tears to dim my eyes, So I might not gaze on her! And has death Indeed, indeed struck her-so beautiful; So wronged, and never erring; so beloved By one-who now has nothing left to love? O thou bright heaven! if thou art calling now Thy brighter angels to thy bosom-rest; For lo! the brightest of thy host is goneDeparted-and the earth is dark below. And now-I'll wander far and far away,

Like one that hath no country. I shall find
A sullen pleasure in that life, and when
I say 'I have no friend in all the world,'
My heart will swell with pride, and make a show
Unto itself of happiness; and in truth
There is, in that same solitude, a taste
Of pleasure which the social never know.
From land to land I'll roam, in all a stranger,
And, as the body gains a braver look,
By staring in the face of all the winds,
So from the sad aspects of different things
My soul shall pluck a courage, and bear up
Against the past. And now-for Hindustan.

REV. HENRY HART MILMAN.

The REV. HENRY HART MILMAN, long the accomplished and venerated Dean of St Paul's, was a native of London, son of an eminent physician, Sir Francis Milman, and was born in the year 1791. He distinguished himself as a classical scholar, and in 1815 was made a fellow of Brazennose College, Oxford. He also held (1821) the office of professor of poetry in the university. In the church Mr Milman was some time vicar of Reading; then rector of St Margaret's, Westminster; and finally (1849) dean of St Paul's. He died September 24, 1868. Dean Milman first appeared as an author in 1817, when his tragedy of Fazio was published. It was afterwards acted with success at Drury Lane Theatre. In 1820 he published a dramatic poem, The Fall of Ferusalem, and to this succeeded three other dramas, Belshazzar (1822), The Martyr of Antioch (1822), and Anne Boleyn (1826); but none of these were designed for the stage. He also wrote a narrative poem, Samor, Lord of the Bright City (1818), and several smaller pieces. To our prose literature, Milman contributed a History of the Jews, a History of Early Christianity, a History of Latin Christianity, a History of St Paul's Cathedral, a volume of Literary Essays, &c. He edited an edition of Gibbon's Rome, with notes and corrections, and an excellent edition of Horace. These are valuable works. The taste and attainments of Dean Milman are seen in his poetical works; but he wants the dramatic spirit, and also that warmth of passion and imagination which is necessary to vivify his learning and his classical conceptions. His fame will ultimately rest on his histories.

Jerusalem before the Siege.

Titus. It must be

And yet it moves me, Romans! It confounds
The counsel of my firm philosophy,

That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er,
And barren salt be sown on yon proud city.

As on our olive-crowned hill we stand,
Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters
Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,
As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,
How boldly doth it front us! how majestically!
Like a luxurious vineyard, the hillside
Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line,
Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still, and nearer
To the blue heavens. There bright and sumptuous
palaces,

With cool and verdant gardens interspersed ;
There towers of war that frown in massy strength;
While over all hangs the rich purple eve,

As conscious of its being her last farewell

Of light and glory to that fated city.
And, as our clouds of battle, dust and smoke,

Summons of the Destroying Angel to the City of
Babylon.

The hour is come! the hour is come! With voice
Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee,
Cyrus, the Lord's anointed! And thou river,
That flowest exulting in thy proud approach
To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls,
And brazen gates, and gilded palaces,

And groves, that gleam with marble obelisks,
Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights

Fretted and chequered like the starry heavens:

I do arrest thee in thy stately course,

By him that poured thee from thine ancient fountain,
And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time,
One of his holy streams, to lave the mounts

Of Paradise. Thou hear'st me: thou dost check
Abrupt thy waters as the Arab chief

His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved,
Yet toiling Persian, breaks the ruining mound,
I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength;
And, through the deep and roaring Naharmalcha,
Roll on as proudly conscious of fulfilling
The omnipotent command! While, far away,
The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved,
Save by the rippling moonshine, heaves on high
Its foaming surface like a whirlpool-gulf,
And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide.
But silent as thy billows used to flow,
And terrible, the hosts of Elam move,
Winding their darksome way profound, where man
Ne'er trod, nor light e'er shone, nor air from heaven
Breathed. O ye secret and unfathomed depths,
How are ye now a smooth and royal way

For the army of God's vengeance! Fellow-slaves
And ministers of the Eternal purpose,

Not guided by the treacherous, injured sons

Of Babylon, but by my mightier arm,

Ye come, and spread your banners, and display
Your glittering arms as ye advance, all white

Beneath the admiring moon. Come on! the gates
Are open-not for banqueters in blood
Like you! I see on either side o'erflow
The living deluge of armed men, and cry,
'Begin, begin! with fire and sword begin

The work of wrath.' Upon my shadowy wings

I pause, and float a little while, to see
Mine human instruments fulfil my task
Of final ruin. Then I mount, I fly,
And sing my proud song, as I ride the clouds,

That stars may hear, and all the hosts of worlds,
That live along the interminable space,
Take up Jehovah's everlasting triumph!

Like a forgotten lute, played on alone
By chance-caressing airs, amid the wild
Beauteously pale and sadly playful grew,
A lonely child, by not one human heart
Beloved, and loving none: nor strange if learned
Her native fond affections to embrace
Things senseless and inanimate; she loved
All flow'rets that with rich embroidery fair
Enamel the green earth-the odorous thyme,
Wild rose, and roving eglantine; nor spared
To mourn their fading forms with childish tears.
Gray birch and aspen light she loved, that droop
Fringing the crystal stream; the sportive breeze
That wantoned with her brown and glossy locks;
The sunbeam chequering the fresh bank; ere dawn
Wandering, and wandering still at dewy eve,
By Glenderamakin's flower-empurpled marge,
Derwent's blue lake, or Greta's wildering glen.

Rare sound to her was human voice, scarce heard,
Save of her aged nurse or shepherd maid
Soothing the child with simple tale or song.
Hence all she knew of earthly hopes and fears,
Life's sins and sorrows: better known the voice
Beloved of lark from misty morning cloud
Blithe carolling, and wild melodious notes
Heard mingling in the summer wood, or plaint
By moonlight, of the lone night-warbling bird.
Nor they of love unconscious, all around
Fearless, familiar they their descants sweet
Tuned emulous; her knew all living shapes
That tenant wood or rock, dun roe or deer,
Sunning his dappled side, at noontide crouched,
Courting her fond caress; nor fled her gaze
The brooding dove, but murmured sounds of joy.

The Day of Judgment.

Even thus amid thy pride and luxury,

O earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
That secret coming of the Son of Man,
When all the cherub-thronging clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan, Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away; Still to the noontide of that nightless day

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain. Along the busy mart and crowded street, The buyer and the seller still shall meet,

And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain:

Still to the pouring out the cup of woe;

Till earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,

And mountains molten by his burning feet,

And heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat.

The hundred-gated cities then,

The towers and temples, named of men
Eternal, and the thrones of kings;

The gilded summer palaces,

The courtly bowers of love and ease,
Where still the bird of pleasure sings:
Ask ye the destiny of them?

Go, gaze on fallen Jerusalem!

Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll,

'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled; The skies are shrivelled like a burning scroll,

And one vast common doom ensepulchres the world.

Oh, who shall then survive?

Oh, who shall stand and live?

When all that hath been is no more;

When for the round earth hung in air,

With all its constellations fair

In the sky's azure canopy;

When for the breathing earth, and sparkling sea,

Is but a fiery deluge without shore,

Heaving along the abyss profound and dark-
A fiery deluge, and without an ark?

171

Lord of all power, when thou art there alone

On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne,

That in its high meridian noon

Needs not the perished sun nor moon:

When thou art there in thy presiding state,
Wide-sceptred monarch o'er the realm of doom:
When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb,
The dead of all the ages round thee wait :
And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn
Like forest-leaves in the autumn of thine ire:
Faithful and true! thou still wilt save thine own!
The saints shall dwell within the unharming fire,
Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm.
Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side,
So shall the church, thy bright and mystic bride,
Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm.
Yes, 'mid yon angry and destroying signs,
O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines;
We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam,
Almighty to avenge, almightiest to redeem !

REV. GEORGE CROLY.

The REV. GEORGE CROLY (1780-1860), rector of St Stephen's, Walbrook, London, was a voluminous writer in various departments-poetry, history, prose fiction, polemics, politics, &c. He was a native of Dublin, and educated at Trinity College. His principal poetical works are-Paris in 1815, a description of the works of art in the Louvre; The Angel of the World, 1820; Verse Illustrations to Gems from the Antique; Pride shall have a Fall, a comedy; Catiline, a tragedy; Poetical Works, 2 vols., 1830; The Modern Orlando, a satirical poem, 1846 and 1855, &c. His romances of Salathiel, Tales of the Great St Bernard, and Marston, have many powerful and eloquent passages. The most important of his theological works is The Apocalypse of St John, a new Interpretation, 1827. Dr Croly's historical writings consist of a series of Sketches, a Character of Curran, Political Life of Burke, The Personal History of King George the Fourth, &c. A brief memoir of Dr Croly was published by his son in 1863.

Pericles and Aspasia.

This was the ruler of the land,

When Athens was the land of fame; This was the light that led the band, When each was like a living flame; The centre of earth's noblest ring, Of more than men, the more than king.

Yet not by fetter, nor by spear,

His sovereignty was held or won: Feared-but alone as freemen fear;

Loved-but as freemen love alone; He waved the sceptre o'er his kind By nature's first great title—mind!

Resistless words were on his tongue,

Then Eloquence first flashed below; Full armed to life the portent sprung, Minerva from the Thunderer's brow! And his the sole, the sacred hand, That shook her ægis o'er the land. And throned immortal by his side, A woman sits with eye sublime, Aspasia, all his spirit's bride;

But, if their solemn love were crime, Pity the beauty and the sage, Their crime was in their darkened age.

He perished, but his wreath was won ; He perished in his height of fame : Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun,

Yet still she conquered in his name. Filled with his soul, she could not die ; Her conquest was Posterity!

The French Army in Russia.—From ' Paris in 1815.'
Magnificence of ruin! what has time
In all it ever gazed upon of war,

Of the wild rage of storm, or deadly clime,
Seen, with that battle's vengeance to compare?
How glorious shone the invaders' pomp afar!
Like pampered lions from the spoil they came;
The land before them silence and despair,
The land behind them massacre and flame;
Blood will have tenfold blood. What are they now?
A name.

Homeward by hundred thousands, column-deep,
Broad square, loose squadron, rolling like the flood
When mighty torrents from their channels leap,
Rushed through the land the haughty multitude,
Billow on endless billow; on through wood,
O'er rugged hill, down sunless, marshy vale,
The death-devoted moved, to clangour rude
Of drum and horn, and dissonant clash of mail,

Glancing disastrous light before that sunbeam pale.
Again they reached thee, Borodino ! still
Upon the loaded soil the carnage lay,
The human harvest, now stark, stiff, and chill,
Friend, foe, stretched thick together, clay to clay;
In vain the startled legions burst away;
The land was all one naked sepulchre ;
The shrinking eye still glanced on grim decay,
Still did the hoof and wheel their passage tear,
Through cloven helms and arms, and corpses moulder-
ing drear.

The field was as they left it; fosse and fort
Steaming with slaughter still, but desolate;
The cannon flung dismantled by its port;

Each knew the mound, the black ravine whose strait
Was won and lost, and thronged with dead, till fate
Had fixed upon the victor-half undone.
There was the hill, from which their eyes elate
Had seen the burst of Moscow's golden zone;

But death was at their heels; they shuddered and rushed on.

The hour of vengeance strikes. Hark to the gale!
As it bursts hollow through the rolling clouds,
That from the north in sullen grandeur sail
Like floating Alps. Advancing darkness broods
Upon the wild horizon, and the woods,
Now sinking into brambles, echo shrill,

As the gusts sweeps them, and those upper floods Shoot on their leafless boughs the sleet-drops chill, That on the hurrying crowds in freezing showers distil.

They reach the wilderness! The majesty Of solitude is spread before their gaze, Stern nakedness-dark earth and wrathful sky. If ruins were there, they long had ceased to blaze; If blood was shed, the ground no more betrays, Even by a skeleton, the crime of man; Behind them rolls the deep and drenching haze, Wrapping their rear in night; before their van The struggling daylight shews the unmeasured desert

wan.

Still on they sweep, as if their hurrying march
Could bear them from the rushing of His wheel
Whose chariot is the whirlwind. Heaven's clear arch
At once is covered with a livid veil ;