Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks—
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales,
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth,
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join, every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise

One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes

Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms!

Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,

A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound his stupendous praise,-whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him,-whose sun exalts,

Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend; ye harvests, wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,

Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,

From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands, all awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles;
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men to the deep organ join

The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heaven.

Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove,
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening east-
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.

Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song-where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis naught to me:
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital spreads, there must be joy.
When e'en at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression.-But I lose
Myself in Him, in Light ineffable!

Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise

FROM THE "CASTLE OF INDOLENCE."

O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great;

For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,

Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;

And there, a season atween June and May,

Half prank'd with spring, with summer half imbrown'd,

A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,

No living wight could work, ne cared e'en for play.

Was naught around but images of rest;

Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;
And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest,
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd,
And hurled everywhere their waters sheen;
That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves 'plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.

Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,
From all the roads of earth that pass thereby;
For, as they chanced to breathe on neighboring hill,
The freshness of this valley smote their eye,

And drew them ever and anon more nigh;

Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung,
Ymolten with his siren melody;

While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung,

And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung⚫

"Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold!
See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay:
See her bright robes the butterfly unfold,
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May!
What youthful bride can equal her array?

Who can with her for easy pleasure vie?
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray,
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly,
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

"Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,

The swarming songsters of the careless grove,
Ten thousand throats! that from the flowering thorn,
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love,
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove:
They neither plough, nor sow, ne, fit for flail,
E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove;
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale,
Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale.

"Come, ye who still the cumbrous load of life
Push hard up hill; but as the farthest steep
You trust to gain, and put an end to strife,
Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep,
And hurls your labors to the valley deep,
For ever vain; come, and, withouten fee,

I in oblivion will your sorrows steep,
Your cares, your toils, will steep you in a sea
Of full delight; oh come, ye weary wights, to me!

"With me you need not rise at early dawn,
To pass the joyous day in various stounds;
Or, louting low, on upstart fortune fawn,
And sell fair honor for some paltry pounds;
Or through the city take your dirty rounds,
To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay,
Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds:
Or prowl in courts of law for human prey,
In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway.

"No cocks, with me, to rustic labor call,
From village on to village sounding clear:
To tardy swain no shrill-voiced matrons squall;
No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear;
No hammers thump; no horrid blacksmith fear;
No noisy tradesman your sweet slumbers start,
With sounds that are a misery to hear:
But all is calm, as would delight the heart
Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art.

"What, what is virtue, but repose of mind,
A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm;
Above the reach of wild ambition's wind,
Above the passions that this world deform,
And torture man, a proud malignant worm?
But here, instead, soft gales of passion play,
And gently stir the heart, thereby to form
A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray
cross th' enliven'd skies, and make them still more gay

"The best of men have ever loved repose;
They hate to mingle in the filthy fray;

Where the soul sours, and gradual rancor grows,
Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day.
E'en those whom Fame has lent her fairest ray,
The most renown'd of worthy wights of yore,
From a base world at last have stolen away:
So Scipio, to the soft Cuman shore
Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before.

"Oh, grievous folly! to heap up estate,
Losing the days you see beneath the sun;
When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate,
And gives th' untasted portion you have won,
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone,
To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign,
There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun:
But sure it is of vanities most vain,

To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain."

ISAAC WATTS, whose reputation as a prose writer and as a poet is as wide as the world of letters, was born at Southampton on the 17th of July, 1674. At the age of but four years he began to study the Latin language; out as 1.6 was a "dissenter" from the "established" church, he could not look forward to an education in either of the great universities, and therefore, at the age of sixteen, he was placed under the care of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, who had charge of an academy in London. At the age of twenty he returned to his father's house, and spent two years in studying for the ministry. At the close of this period he accepted the invitation of Sir John Hartopp to reside with him as tutor to his son, and remained with him five years, devoting most of his time to a critical knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, and entering, during the last year, upon the duties of his profession.

In 1698 he was chosen as an assistant to Dr. Chauncey, pastor of an Independent church in Southampton, and on his death, 1702, was elected to suc ceed him. Soon after entering upon his office he was attacked by a dangerou: illness, from which he but very slowly recovered. In 1712 he was again seized with a fever so violent and of so long continuance, that it left him in a feeble state for the rest of his life. In this state he found in Sir Thomas Abney a friend such as is not often to be met with. This gentleman received him into his own house, where he remained an inmate of the family for thirty six years, that is, to the end of his life, where he was treated the whole time. with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the attention that respect could dictate. Here he devoted all the time that his health would allow to the composition of his various works, and to his official functions, and when increasing weakness compelled him to relinquish both, his congre.

1 "A coalition like this-a state in which the notions of patronage and dependence were over powered by the perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves a particular memorial.”—Dr. Johnson Accordingly the great biographer has given in his life of Watts a long extract from Dr. Gibbons' touching account of Watts's residence in this family, and then adds: "If this quotation has appeared long, let it be considered that it comprises an account of six-and-thirty years and those the years of Dr. Watts."