"Hence, in one peal of loud, eternal praise,
The charmed spectators thunder their applause."
In the same taste he sings:
"Eternity, the various sentence past,
Assigns the sever'd throng distinct abodes,
Sulphureous or ambrosial."
Exquisite delicacy of indication! He is too nice to be specific as to the interior of the "sulphureous" abode; but when once half the human race are shut up there, hear how he enjoys turning the key on them!
"What ensues?
The deed predominant, the deed of deeds!
Which makes a hell of hell, a heaven of heaven!
The goddess, with determin'd aspect turns
Her adamantine key's enormous size
Through Destiny's inextricable wards,
Deep driving every bolt on both their fates.
Then, from the crystal battlements of heaven,
Down, down she hurls it through the dark profound,
Ten thousand, thousand fathom; there to rust
And ne'er unlock her resolution more.
The deep resounds; and Hell, through all her glooms,
Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar."
This is one of the blessings for which Dr. Young thanks God "most:"
"For all I bless thee, most, for the severe;
Her death—my own at hand—the fiery gulf,
That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent!
It thunders;—but it thunders to preserve;
…… its wholesome dread
Averts the dreaded pain; its hideous groans
Join Heaven's sweet Hallelujahs in Thy praise,
Great Source of good alone! How kind in all!
In vengeance kind! Pain, Death, Gehenna, save"…
i.e., save me, Dr. Young, who, in return for that favor, promise to give my divine patron the monopoly of that exuberance in laudatory epithet, of which specimens may be seen at any moment in a large number of dedications and odes to kings, queens, prime ministers, and other persons of distinction. That, in Young's conception, is what God delights in. His crowning aim in the "drama" of the ages, is to vindicate his own renown. The God of the "Night Thoughts"
