turning upon insanity, he alluded to Smart, who showed, he said "the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place." Boswell has recorded a dialogue between Johnson and Dr. Burney, respecting the same individual. "Burney. How does poor Smart do, sir? is he likely to recover? Johnson. It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease, for he grows fat upon it. Burney. Perhaps, sir, that may be from want of exercise. Johnson. No, sir; he has as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used to walk to the alehouse; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it."

Smart undoubtedly possessed considerable genius; as a satirist, he anticipated the poignant vein of Churchill ; and his Fables often recall the graceful facility of Fontaine. His Sacred Poetry is recommended by an air of sincerity and enthusiasm. His Seatonian Poems are not destitute of passages conceived in a lofty and poetical spirit, but the structure of his verse is usually negligent and inharmonious:

VOL. II.

Arise, divine Urania, with new strains

To hymn thy God, and thou immortal Fame,
Arise, and blow thy everlasting trump.
All glory to the Omniscient, and praise,
And power, and domination in the height.
And thou, cherubic Gratitude, whose voice
To pious ears sounds silvery so sweet,
Come with thy precious incense, bring thy gifts,

P

And with thy choicest stores the altar crown.
Thou, too, my heart, whom He, and He alone,
Who all things knows, can know, with love replete,
Regenerate, and pure, pour all thyself

A living sacrifice before His throne:

And may the eternal high mysterious tree,
That in the centre of the arched heavens

Bears the rich fruit of knowledge, with some branch,

Stoop to my humble reach, and bless my toil!

On the Omniscience of the Supreme Being.

He comes! He comes! the awful trump I hear!
The flaming sword's intolerable blaze

I see; He comes! the archangel from above,
Arise, ye tenants of the silent grave,

Awake, ye incorruptible―arise;

From east to west, from the antarctic pole
To regions hyperborean, all ye sons,

Ye sons of Adam, and ye heirs of Heaven,
Arise, ye tenants of the silent grave,
Awake, ye incorruptible-arise.

'Tis then, nor sooner, that the restless mind
Shall find itself at home; and like the ark
Fixed on the mountain's top, shall look aloft
O'er the vague passage of precarious life.

Eternity of the Supreme Being.

Southey has reprinted his Hymn upon recovering from a dangerous illness; a distinction merited by the grandeur of some of the thoughts, and the general harmony of the composition. I can only quote three stanzas:

When Israel's ruler on the royal bed

In anguish and in perturbation lay,
The down relieved not his anointed head,

And rest gave place to horror and dismay:

Fast flowed the tears, high heaved each gasping sigh,

When God's own prophet thundered-Monarch, thou must die!

But, O immortals! what had I to plead,

When Death stood o'er me with his threatening lance;
When reason left me in the time of need,

And sense was lost in terror, or in trance;

My sinking soul was with my blood inflamed,
And the celestial image sunk, defaced, and maimed!

The virtuous partner of my nuptial bands
Appeared a widow to my frantic sight;
My little prattlers, lifting up their hands,

Beckon me back to them, to life, to light.

I come, ye spotless sweets! I come again,

Nor have your tears been shed, nor have ye knelt in vain.

Of his version of the Psalms, the 148th offers a very favourable specimen*:

.

Hallelujah! kneel and sing
Praises to the heavenly King;
To the God supremely great,
Hallelujah in the height!

Praise Him, arch-angelic band,
Ye that in his presence stand;
Praise Him, ye that watch and pray,
Michael's myriads in array.

Praise Him, sun, at each extreme
Orient streak, and western beam;
Moon and stars of mystic dance,
Silvering in the blue expanse.

Praise Him, O ye heights, that soar,
Heaven and heaven for ever more;
And ye streams of living rill,

Higher yet, and purer still.

Let them praise his glorious name,
From whose fruitful word they came

And they first began to be

As He gave the great decree.

This Psalm is copied from the quarto edition of 1765. Mr. Chalmers has injured the sense in his transcript by departing from the author's punctuation.

Their constituent parts He founds
For duration without bounds,
And their covenant has sealed
Which shall never be repealed.

Praise the Lord in earth's domains;
And the mutes that sea contains,
Ye that on the surface leap,
And ye dragons of the deep.

Battering hail, and fires that glow,
Steaming vapours, plumy snow,
Wind and storm his wrath incurred,
Winged and pointed at his word.

Mountains of enormous scale,
Every hill, and every vale;
Fruit-trees of a thousand dyes,
Cedars that perfume the skies.

Beasts that haunt the woodland maze,

Nibbling flocks, and droves that graze;
Reptiles of amphibious breed;

Feathered millions formed for speed;

Kings, with Jesus for their guide,
Peopled regions far and wide;
Heroes of their country's cause,
Princes, judges of the laws;

Age and childhood, youth and maid,
To his name your praise be paid;
For his word is worth alone,

Far above his crown and throne.

He shall dignify the crest

Of his people raised and blest,

While we serve with praise and prayers,
All, in Christ, his saints and heirs.

But in none of his poems has he poured out his thoughts with the vehement passion and energy that characterize the Song to David, a composition, under all the circumstances, without a parallel in our language:

Sublime invention, ever young,
Of vast conception, towering tongue
To God th' eternal theme;
Notes from your exaltations caught,
Unrivalled royalty of thought,

O'er meaner strains supreme:

His muse, bright angel of his verse,
Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce,
For all the pangs that rage:

Blest light still gaining on the gloom,
The more than Michael of his bloom,
The Abishag of his age.

He sang of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force,
On which all things depends;

From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
All periods, power, and enterprise
Commences, reigns, and ends.

The world, the clustering spheres He made, The glorious light, the soothing shade,

Dale, champaign, grove, and hill;

The multitudinous abyss,

Where secresy remains in bliss,

And Wisdom hides her skill.

“Tell them, I AM," Jehovah said
To Moses: while Earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,

Replied, "O Lord, THOU ART."