1

MONTGOMERY'S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD.

THE muse of the pious Montgomery, in selecting the subject of his poem from the dreamy world which we discover so dimly beyond the prismatic waters of the deluge, opened a wide field for the display of his fancy and for the creations of his genius.-Antediluvian history is but a narrow genealogical line drawn from Eden to Arrarat. On each line of this line of descent, nations rose, and vast transactions came into being. The poet may people this waste with such an order of intellect, and such classes of events as shall please him, if he do not contradict the record of the Scriptures.

Montgomery, in his World before the Flood,' describes only the transactions of a few days and nights— but, by way of minstrel and episode, brings into view the remoter scenes of Abel's death and the dying hour of Adam and Eve, the first of mankind.-The time of the poem is laid in the two last days of Enoch's walk on earth, when the progeny of Cain, headed by a giant king, and directed by a sorcerer of tremendous power, invaded the glen of the patriarchs, where they, remote from pride and lust, worshipped in primeval simplicity. As the host of Cain approaches, Javan, who has, for years, been a wanderer from the glen, deserts from the invading army and hastens to inform the patriarchs of their impending ruin. He treads once more the scenes of his childhood-and, in a bower not unkn wn to him, discovers Zillah, the idol of his earliest affections, asleep. He leans over her, and hears her in an unquiet dream

pronounce his name; he retires. With a melodious instrument of his own invention he fills the grove with unwonted music, and Zillah is awakened by strains that seem to her nothing less than angelic.

The incidents which rapidly crowd themselves into the poem at this point of time are highly exciting. After Javan's happy reception by the patriarchs, and the celebration of the great anniversary of Sacrifice, instituted by Adam, the destroyer came like a flood upon the quiet dwellers in the glen. They were taken captive and carried into the camp of the giant. Here Enoch prophesied of the destruction of the idolatrous host, and when the rage of the monarch and his captains could be restrained no longer, and they rushed like bloody tigers upon the prophet who was unrolling before them the awful scroll of prophecy, he was not, for God took him. His mantle descended on Javan, who led the patriarchal captives unharmed through the host of amazed enemies. The mount of Paradise was in sight in the distant western horizon. The flame of the cherubim sword played upon its lofty summit. The giant king and the host of the idolaters were filled with rage against heaven, and an unconquerable desire to storm the site of Eden and possess again the garden of God. But now

'Red in the west the burning Mount, arrayed

With tenfold terror by incumbent shade,

(For moon and stars were wrapt in dunnest gloom)
Glared like a torch amidst creation's tomb.'

Supernatural horror, amazement, omens of unex

plained import, conspired to distract and paralize the impious invaders—and they miserably perished by their own hands.

The World before the Flood is in ten cantos, and is brief enough not to tire, even if its high poetic merit did not delight, the tasteful reader.

THE AUTUMAL EVENING.

The moon

Is up, and all the jewelled stars are set

Deep in the mild cerulean. No change
Is on the face of heaven. The fields of air,
Like silver-spangled lawns spread out,
No wild winds sweep or clouds obscure.—
All, all is holy-as if boundless love
From Eden had baptised the element
In its sweet waves of blessedness.
But earth--oh earth, thou faded one!

Thy melancholy tresses lowly hang

Like willow branches o'er the ancient graves-

Thy summer robes are old and gray-
Thy voice is mournful, like the distant sound

Of lonely waterfalls heard solemnly

At midnight hour when other voices sleep.

Hail autumn evening!

Best time to muse along the weeping streams
Where vegetation hastens to decay
Piled in exuberance of fragrant death-
For here a lonely whisper speaks to man

Of winter clothed in winding sheets of snow-
Of spring beyond-and thus a lesson gives
To him whose footsteps turn the falling leaf,
And tells him that the places where he treads
Shall know him not again; but on beyond
The dreary winter of the tomb the spring
Of virtue shines in its unchanging green.
How happy they who see the olive leaf;
The token of that rest! They hear at night
The singing of the turtle dove. They know
That Jesus lives-and that his Paradise
Hath many roses blooming fresh for them.-
And many crowns are there. And harps
Strung to immortal melodies of bliss.

Go, autumn, haste away,-let winter come,
That spring may sooner bathe my head

In its cool waters and its scented dews!

Time endeth: but the heaven of heavens shall hold
The peaceable, the just, the pure in heart,
Who dwell as pilgrims in the vale of earth.

LOCH LOMOND.

SCOTTISH Scenery is of the grandest and most picturesque descriptions, and yet it often has a moral association connected with it which lends additional sublimity to nature's boldest outlines. Many circumstances have united to give this double celebrity to Scotland. The clanship of the inhabitants,—the fearless, idomitable character of the soldiery, and every man was a soldier,

the frequent internal contests, as well as movements of foreign offence, or defence against foreign aggression,— have marked Scotland's lakes and mountains, her vales and castles, with the deep traces of battle, of deathless achievements,—while the songs of her minstrels, and, more than all, the unsurpassed genius of her literati have created a broad halo of glory all around her wildly classic territory. The eye of the traveller is not more attracted by the rugged peak that disparts the clouds in their passage than by the historical reminiscence that clings forever to the bleak rock like the moss which woos the moisture of heaven to its granite bed. Through these associations the gloomy cave becomes an object of interest, the sunless gorge, down deep at the base of the fearful Trosacs, is sought out because it has been embalmed in song as the jaws of fate to conflicting warriors; and every tranquil lake, or roaring linn, or broad estuary become mirrors in which the departed rise to view in the struggles, the triumphs, the last catastrophes of border and international warfare.

It is not within the limits of our intention to note the writers whose living productions have contributed to render Scottish scenery so redolent in the recollections of national virtue, bravery, crime, ambition, and glory. We are only to present Loch Lomond, a lovely lake that sleeps as calm as at its first creation amidst the cold hills and thunder-crested mountains of Dumbarton and Stirlingshire.

Lake Lomond is situated in Dumbartonshire and partly in Stirlingshire; it is twenty-eight miles in length, and