highly animated; and there is something particularly striking and original in the figure of Death exulting on the embattled plain, and clapping his raven wings. This is in the true spirit of poesy. From the carnage of war, the transition to Luxury is well managed, and seasonable. The allegory of Youth sailing down the smooth stream of Life is finely drawn, and has many of the beauties without the obscurity of Horace's famed allegory:

O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus, &c.

There is great strength of reasoning in the remonstrance against Suicide; and the address to the unhappy Man meditating his own destruction, is very tender, solemn and affecting.

Milton has represented the varying power of Death in a remarkable manner when opposed to Satan :

So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,

So speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold

More dreadful and deform.

Our author, in the Poem before us, has successfully adopted the same idea to express the extraordinary devastations of the king of terrors :

In no common form

Death then appears, but starting into size
Enormous, measures with gigantic stride

Th' astonish'd earth, and from his looks throws round
Unutterable terror and dismay.

The

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The prosopopoeia of the astonish'd earth, is very happy and characteristic of that general dismay occasioned by uncommon instances of mortality.

In the description of the effects produced by the dreadful looks of Death, we are again reminded of Milton, who describes Satan as a Comet portentous of public calamities, according to the old opinion:

On th' other side

Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrify'd; and like a comet burn'd
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge,
In th' Arctic sky, and from his horrid air
Shakes pestilence and war.

But the finest instance of the prosopopoeia in the present Poem, unquestionably is that of the Pestilence; and it is wrought up with uncommon accuracy and beauty.

At dead of night

In sullen silence stalks forth Pestilence;
Contagion close behind taints all her steps
With pois'nous dew; no smiting hand is seen,
No sound is heard, but soon her secret path
Is marked with desolation: heaps on heaps
Promiscuous drop. No friend, no refuge near;
All, all is false and treach'rous around;

All that they touch, or taste, or breathe, is Death.

The idea of contagion tainting the steps of the destroyer, is exquisitely beautiful; and the whole picture is a perfect description of the physical ravages made by this awful judgement of Heaven.

Nor

Nor is the description which follows, of an earthquake, drawn with less judgement, or wrought up with less force of colouring.

The prayer to the Deity is affecting, and most judiciously closes the piece:

At thy good time

Let Death approach; I reck not-let him but come
In genuine form, not with thy vengeance arm'd,

Too much for man to bear.

There is a charming application of scripture language in the address to the Redeemer, as being led from Heaven by soft-eyed Pity. And the prayer to him for faith in the dying hourr, is expressed with great energy and poetic beauty.

DEATH;

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SEATONIAN PRIZE POEM.

RIEND to the wretch whom every friend forsakes, woo thee, Death! In fancy's fairy paths et the gay songster rove, and gently trill

he strain of empty joy. Life and its joys

leave to those that prize them. At this hour, 5 his solemn hour, when silence rules the world, nd wearied nature makes a gen'ral pause; Trapt in night's sable robe, through cloysters drear

And

And charnels pale, tenanted by a throng
Of meagre phantoms shooting cross my path
With silent glance, I seek the shadowy vale
Of Death. Deep in a murky cave's recess,
Lav'd by Oblivion's listless stream, and fenc'd
By shelving rocks, and intermingled horrors
Of yew and cypress shade, from all intrusion
Of busy noontide beam, the Monarch sits
In unsubstantial majesty enthron'd *.
At his right hand, nearest himself in place
And frightfulness of form, his parent Sin
With fatal industry and cruel care
Busies herself in pointing all his stings,
And tipping every shaft with venom drawn
From her infernal store: around him, rang'd
In terrible array, and mixture strange

Of uncouth shapes, stand his dread Ministers.
Foremost Old Age, his natural ally

And firmest friend: next him Diseases thick,
A motley train; Fever, with cheek of fire;
Consumption wan; Palsy, half warm with life,

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*Milton's Paradise Lost, Book II. 673.