And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world,
Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,
The loved, the good-that breath'st upon the lights
Of virtue set along the vale of life,
And they go out in darkness. I am come,
Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers,
Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear
From the beginning. I am come to speak
Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept
Thy conquests and may weep them yet again;
And thou from some I love wilt take a life
Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell
Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee
In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,
Meet is it that my voice should utter forth
Thy nobler triumphs: I will teach the world
To thank thee.-Who are thine accusers ?-Who?
The living!-they who never felt thy power,
And know thee not. The curses of the wretch
Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand
Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,
Are writ among thy praises. But the good-
Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace,
Upbraid the gentle violence that took off
His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell?
Raise then the Hymn to Death.
God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed
And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,
The conqueror of nations, walks the world,
And it is changed beneath his feet, and all
Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm-
Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart
Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand
Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp,
And the strong links of that tremendous chain
That bound mankind are crumbled: thou dost break
Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.
Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes
Gather within their ancient bounds again.
Else had the mighty of the olden time,
Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned
His birth from Lybian Ammon, smote even now
The nations with a rod of iron, and driven
Vol. I.
Their chariot o'er our necks.
In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know
No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose
Only to lay the sufferer asleep,
Where he who made him wretched troubles not
His rest-thou dost strike down his tyrant too.
Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge
Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold.
Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible
And old idolatries ;-from the proud fanes
Each to his grave their priests go out, till none
Is left to teach their worship; then the fires
Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss
O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images
Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns,
Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds
Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he
Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all
The laws that God or man has made, and round
Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,-
Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at heaven,
And celebrates his shame in open day,
Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off
The horrible example. Touched by thine,
The extortioner's hard hand forgoes the gold
Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer,
Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble
Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed
And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame
Blasted before his own foul calumnies,
Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold
His conscience to preserve a worthless life,
Even while he hugs himself on his escape,
Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,
Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time
For parley-nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.
Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long
Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,
Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,
And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life
Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,
And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,
And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand
Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,
And he is warned and fears to step aside.
Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime
Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand
Drops the drawn knife. But oh, most fearfully
Dost thou show forth heaven's justice, when thy shafts
Drink up the ebbing spirit-then the hard
Of heart and violent of hand restores
The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.
Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,
Are faultless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon's latest breath
Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;
The slanderer, horror smitten, and in tears,
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged
To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make
Thy penitent victim utter to the air
The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,
And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour
Is come, and the dead sign of murder given.
Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee,
Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth
Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile
For ages, while each passing year had brought
Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world
With their abominations; while its tribes,
Trodden to earth, embruted, and despoiled,
Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice
Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs
Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn :
But thou, the great reformer of the world,
Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud
In their green pupilage, their lore half learned-
Ere guilt has quite o'errun the simple heart
God gave them at their birth, and blotted out
His image. Thou dost mark them, flushed with hope,
As on the threshold of their vast designs
Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down.
Alas, I little thought that the stern power
Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus
Before the strain was ended. It must cease-
For he is in his grave who taught my youth
The art of verse, and in the bud of life
Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off
Untimely! when thy reason in its strength,
Ripened by years of toil and studious search
And watch of nature's silent lessons, taught
Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days,
And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth
Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes
And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill
Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale
When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou
Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have
To offer at thy grave-this-and the hope
To copy thy example, and to leave
A name of which the wretched shall not think
As of an enemy's, whom they forgive
As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou
Whose early guidance trained my infant steps-
Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep
Of death is over, and a happier life
Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.
Now thou art not-and yet the men whose guilt
Has wearied heaven for vengeance-he who bears
False witness-he who takes the orphans' bread,
And robs the widow-he who spreads abroad
Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,
Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look
On what is written, yet I blot not out
The desultory numbers-let them stand
The record of an idle reverie.
AUTHOR OF THE MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE."
THE present must certainly be regarded as being, in one important respect, at least, the golden age of our literature, as from the paucity of our authors, and our having yet to earn a name in letters, we are under the stern necessity of patronizing writers of real merit, wherever they appear among us; and are not permitted at this early stage of our career, to neglect genius, or exercise a capricious favour towards dulness-a privilege that belongs only to nations whose pre-eminence in literature is acknowledged by the world. We shall doubtless, however, in due time, enjoy the enviable prerogative of being able to deal with the tribe of authors as we list; to invest mediocrity with all the honours due to originality, to treat ge
Author of "The Miseries of Human Life."
nius with a "brave neglect," and "do all other acts and things, that may become a free, sovereign, and independent nation." Who knows but we may yet have it in our own power to overlook merit altogether; or at least, until it is no longer with us; when we may venture upon the cheap plan found to succeed so well in other countries, and erect a monument to its memory, with a few flourishes of panegyric
"and so quit at once
The debt immense, of endless gratitude."
A still better way, however, of settling these accounts, would be to eat an anniversary dinner to the honour of those unhappy sons of genius, who are left to struggle with degradation and poverty through life, and to die in want. In this manner we might make a pleasure of our duty, and unite the solid comfort of a good dinner with the sentimental luxury of having paid our tribute of respect to departed merit. This plan appears to have been adopted with great success and eclat in Scotland, in the case of the poet Burns, and it is hardly to be supposed that so economical an example will be lost upon the inhabitants of our country. It may be urged, it is true, that the buried author receives little advantage from these pompous proceedings; but to notice an objection of this trivial nature would imply a deficiency in the ordinary measure of that praiseworthy indulgence with which people view their own faults, and of that truly christian forbearance which they exercise towards their own delinquencies. There is also another objection to this way of requiting those who are entitled to the public gratitude, which it is hoped that the ingenuity of some future casuist will be able to remove. Genius needs no mausoleum, and no anniversary solemnities to preserve its fame. It erects its own monument, and the magic of its writings keeps alive the reverence for its memory in the hearts of men. If we do not render justice to living merit, we only pay honours to ourselves in the posthumous respect that we offer to it. Neglected talent must turn to other countries, to those who are not chargeable with having overlooked its claims, and depend, for such rewards as it can receive in its lifetime, upon the justice of strangers. To return to the object of this communication. As our literary ranks are somewhat thin, and cannot be too soon filled with recruits, it is certainly our policy to lay claim to every author of any note or merit, to whom we can make out a fair title. There are several who by mistake have been considered as foreigners, and whose reputation, hitherto counted a part of the literary property of other nations, we may with justice vindicate as our own. I will notice one distin
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