poetical measures is immense, and to each species he imports its peculiar grace and harmony. The style of his prose exhibits correspondent beauties; nor is it chequered by phraseologies, unsuitable in that mode of composition. His diction, whether in prose or verse, is not a tissue of centos; he imitates the ancients as the ancients imitated each other. No Latin poet of modern times has united the same originality and elegance; no historian has so completely imbibed the genius of antiquity, without being betrayed into servile and pedantic imitation. But his works may legitimately claim a higher order of merit, they have added no inconsiderable influx to the general stream of human knowledge. The wit, the pungency, the vehemence of his ecclesiastical satires, must have tended to
As light leaves in the greenwoods dance,
When western breezes stir them first;
My heart, forth from my breast to go,
And mix with hers, already wanting,
Now beat, now trembled to and fro,
With eager fondness leaping, panting.
Just as a boy, whose nourice woos him,
Folding his young limbs in her bosom,
Heeds not caresses from another,
But turns his eyes still to his mother,
When she may once regard him watches,
And forth his little fond arms stretches:
Just as a bird within the nest
That cannot fly, yet constant trying.
Its weak wings on its tender breast
Beats with the vain desire of flying.
Thou weary mind, thyself preparing
To live at peace from all ensnaring,
That thou might'st never mischief catch,
Placed'st you, unhappy eyes, to watch,
With vigilance that knew no rest,
Beside the gate-ways of the breast;
But you, induced by dalliance deep,
Or guile, or overcome by sleep;
Or else have of your own accord
Consented to betray your lord;
Both heart and soul, then fled and left
Me spiritless, of mind bereft.
A MORNING HYMN TO CHRIST.
Son of the highest Father thou,
And equal of the Father too;
Pure heavenly light of light divine,
Thy Father's might and powers are thine.
Lo, while retire the shades of night,
Aurora, with her purple light,
Illumines earth, and sea, and sky,
Disclosing what in darkness lie:
But shades of ignorance impure
My soul and all its powers obscure,
And fearful clouds of error blind
And almost overwhelm my mind:
Arise, O Sun! most pure, most bright!
The world irradiate with thy light;
Shine on my darkness, and dispel
The mists of sin that round me dwell:
Remove this fearful cold; impart
Unto the waste field of my heart,
From thine own lamp a warning ray
To purge each noxious damp away;
That so, by reason of thy love,
Watered with moisture from above,
The seed increase in grateful mould
An hundred and an hundred fold.
