sprang from the human intellect. And we are fully persuaded, that, had not the author been surrounded by the hollow darkness which he here describes; and wholly shut in with self and thought, while everduring night kept sentinel without, this scene could never have been rendered so complete. The view presented to Satan, sin and death, on the opening of the infernal gates, set forth in the following, in point of sublimity is certainly without a parallel: Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary deep; a dark Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand: For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Their embryon atoms; they around the flag Of each his faction, in their several clans, Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil, Levied to side with warring winds, and poise And by decision more embroils the fray, By which he reigns: Chance governs all. next him, high arbiter, Into this wild abyss, (The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave,) His dark materials to create more worlds ;) Stood on the brink of hell, and look'd a while Pondering his voyage. After much difficulty this divine poem was licensed for the press, and published first at London, in 1667. To show how little the age in which Milton lived was worthy of so great a genius, we need only mention that on the completion of this great work, the poet could sell the copy for no more than fifteen pounds, the payment of which depended upon the sale of three Large editions; and his widow afterwards sold her iaims for eight pounds. Three years after the publication of "Paradise Lost," he published "Samson Agonistes," a tragedy in the purest style of the Greek Drama; and "Paradise Regained," the subject of which is said to have been suggested by the following circumstance: Elwood, a Quaker, who had read "Paradise Lost," in manuscript, on returning it, put this quaint interrogation: "What hast thou to say to Paradise Found?" We have only farther to mention that, worn out by the gout, our poet paid the debt of nature in 1674, in his sixty-sixth year. The following sublime and affecting production was but lately discovered among the remains of our great epic poet, and is published in the recent Oxford edition of Milton's Works: I am old and blind! Men point at me as smitten by God's frown; Yet I am not cast down. I am weak, yet strong; I murmur not that I no longer see; Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, O, merciful one! When men are farthest then thou art most near; Thy glorious face Is leaning towards me; and its holy light On my bended knee I recognize thy purpose clearly shown: I have nought to fear; This darkness is the shadow of thy wing; Can come no evil thing. O! I seem to stand Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, Visions come and go: Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng; From angel lips I seem to hear the flow Of soft and holy song. Is it nothing now, When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes?— In a purer clime My being fills with rapture-waves of thought Give me now my lyre! I feel the stirrings of a gift divine: REV RICHARD LUCAS, D. D. THERE is no other period in the history of Engla. 1 that produced as many able polemic writers, as the seventeenth century. The enthusiasm and cruel persecutions that attended the first outbreak of the reformation in that country, had then much subsided, and both the great leading powers (Protestant and Papal) were made willing to consecrate their faith and creeds at the shrine of reason and revelation. This concession, so long sought for by the reformers, inspired and brought into the field many of the most, learned and distinguished men of those spirit-stirring times. Their fervent discussions of holy writ, tempered with that moderation and zeal which an earnest inquiry after the truth always inspires, resulted in the discovery and establishment of those vital doctrines, in the propagation of which the Christian church has since been so eminently successful. In this arena of giant intellects, was spent the life of our author, a bright luminary, lighting up the path of the inquirer after truth, and by his profound learning vanquishing the advocates of error on every side. This eminent divine was of Welsh origin, the son of Mr. Richard Lucas, of Resteign, in Radnorshire, England, and was born in that county in the year |