one labor, however, he signally failed: it was in his edition of the "Paradise Lost." Assuming that, from the blindness of Milton, and, consequently, from the necessity of his dictating his thoughts to others, many verbal errors must have been made in transcribing, he undertook to make "emendations" without number, in that immortal work. It proved a most signal failure, and showed that, however learned he was in classic lore, he was destitute of true poetic taste and feeling, and could not enter into the lofty conceptions and sublime flights of the great English bard. One of his "emendations" will suffice here. The sublime line,

Bentley renders,

"No light, but rather darkness visible,"

"No light, but rather a transpicuous gloom;"

thus verifying his favorite maxim, that no man was ever written out of his reputation except by himself.

After a life of great literary labor, and enjoying some of the highest honors in the church, this distinguished scholar died on the 14th of July, 1742.

AUTHORITY OF REASON IN RELIGION.

We profess ourselves as much concerned, and as truly as [the deists] themselves are, for the use and authority of reason in controversies of faith. We look upon right reason as the native lamp of the soul, placed and kindled there by our Creator, to conduct us in the whole course of our judgments and actions. True reason, like its divine Author, never is itself deceived, nor ever deceives any man. Even revelation itself is not shy nor unwilling to ascribe its own first credit and fundamental authority to the test and testimony of reason. Sound reason is the touchstone to distinguish that pure and genuine gold from baser metals; revelation truly divine, from imposture and enthusiasm: so that the Christian religion is so far from declining or fearing the strictest trials of reason, that it everywhere appeals to it; is defended and supported by it; and, indeed, cannot continue, in the apostle's description, "pure and undefiled" without it. It is the benefit of reason alone, under the Providence and Spirit of God, that we ourselves are at this day a reformed orthodox church: that we departed from the errors of popery, and that we knew, too, where to stop; neither running into the extravagances of fanaticism, nor sliding into the indifferency of libertinism. Whatsoever, therefore, is inconsistent with natural reason, can never be justly imposed as an article of faith. That the same body is in many places at once; that plain bread is not bread; such things, though they be said with never so much pomp and claim to infallibility, we have still greater authority to reject them, as being contrary to common sense and our natural faculties; as subverting the foundations of all faith, even the grounds of their own credit, and ali the principles of civil life.

So far are we from contending with our adversaries about the dignity and authority of reason; but then we differ with them

about the exercise of it, and the extent of its province. For the deists there stop, and set bounds to their faith, where reason, their only guide, does not lead the way further, and walk along before them. We, on the contrary, as Moses was shown by divine power a true sight of the promised land, though himself could not pass over to it, so we think reason may receive from revelation some further discoveries and new prospects of things, and be fully convinced of the reality of them; though itself cannot pass on, noi travel those regions; cannot penetrate the fund of those truths, nor advance to the utmost bounds of them. For there is certainly a wide difference between what is contrary to reason, and what is superior to it and out of its reach.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE. 1692-1742.

THIS ardent lover and eulogist of field-sports, was born in 1692, and was educated at Oxford. After leaving the university, he settled upon his patrimonial estate in Warwickshire, and occupied his time partly with the duties of a justice of the peace, partly with the active pleasures of the sportsman, and partly with the cultivation of his poetical talents. Hospitable, convivial, and careless of economy, he became involved in debt, and in the latter part of his life, according to the account of his friend Shenstone, the poet, " drank himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind." Thus, most lamentably, was his misery completed, and his end accelerated; and he died in 1742, in the fiftieth year of his age.

Somerville is best known by his poem, entitled the "Chase," which still has considerable popularity. It is written in blank verse, tolerably harmoni ous, and his descriptions, always accurate, from his own practical knowledge of his subject, are frequently vivid and beautiful. He has also written an. other rural poem, called " Field-Sports," which describes the amusement of hawking; "Hobinol, or Rural Games," a mock heroic; and many pieces of a miscellaneous character. Of the latter, the lines to Addison show much good feeling, and just appreciation of the character of that great and good man

66

BEGINNING OF A FOX-HUNT.

Ere yet the morning peep,

Or stars retire from the first blush of day,
With thy far-echoing voice alarm thy pack,
And rouse thy bold compeers. Then to the copse
Thick with entangling grass, or prickly furze,
With silence lead thy many-color'd hounds,

In all their beauty's pride. See! how they range
Dispersed, how busily this way, and that,
They cross, examining with curious nose
Each likely haunt. Hark! on the drag I hear
Their doubtful notes, preluding to a cry
More nobly full, and swell'd with every mouth.
As straggling armies, at the trumpet's voice.

Press to their standard, hither all repair,

And hurry through the woods; with hasty step
Rustling, and full of hope; now driven on heaps
They push, they strive; while from his kennel sneaks
The conscious villain. See! he skulks along,

Sleek at the shepherd's cost, and plump with meals
Purloin'd. So thrive the wicked here below.
Though high his brush he bear, though tipt with white

It gayly shine; yet ere the sun declined

Recall the shades of night, the pamper'd rogue
Shall rue his fate reversed; and at his heels
Behold the just avenger, swift to seize

His forfeit head, and thirsting for his blood.

And now

In vain each earth he tries, the doors are barr'd
Impregnable, nor is the covert safe;

He pants for purer air. Hark! what loud shouts
Re-echo through the groves! he breaks away.

Shrill horns proclaim his flight. Each straggling hound
Strains o'er the lawn to reach the distant pack.
'Tis triumph all and joy. Now, my brave youths,
Now give a loose to the clean generous steed;
Flourish the whip, nor spare the galling spur;
But in the madness of delight, forget

Your fears. Far o'er the rocky hills we range,
And dangerous our course: but in the brave
True courage never fails. In vain the streain
In foaming eddies whirls; in vain the ditch
Wide-gaping threatens death. The craggy steep,
Where the poor dizzy shepherd crawls with care,
And clings to every twig, gives us no pain:
But down we sweep, as stoops the falcon bold
To pounce his prey. Then up the opponent hill,
By the swift motion slung, we mount aloft:
So ships in winter-seas now sliding sink
Adown the steepy wave, then toss'd on high
Ride on the billows, and defy the storm.

LINES ADDRESSED TO ADDISON.

Great bard! how shall my worthless Muse aspire
To reach your praise, without your sacred fire?
When panting virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio' to the virgin's aid;
Presumptuous Folly blush'd, and Vice withdrew
To vengeance yielding her abandon'd crew.
'Tis true, confederate wits their forces join;
Parnassus labors in the work divine:
Yet these we read with too impatient eyes,
And hunt for you through every dark disguise;
In vain your modesty that name conceals,
Which every thought, which every word, reveals;
With like success bright Beauty's Goddess tries
To veil immortal charms from mortal eyes;

1 Alluding to the initials, c & Io, with which Addison signed all his papers in tue Spectator.

Her graceful port, and her celestial mien,
To her brave son betray the Cyprian queen,
Odors divine perfume her rosy breast,

She glides along the plain in majesty confess'd.
Hard was the task, and worthy your great mind,
To please at once, and to reform mankind:

Yet, when you write, Truth charms with such address,
Pleads Virtue's cause with such becoming grace,

His own fond heart the guilty wretch betrays,

He yields delighted, and convinced obeys:
You touch our follies with so nice a skill,
Nature and habit prompt in vain to ill.
Nor can it lessen the Spectator's praise,
That from your friendly hand he wears the bays;
His great design all ages shall commend,
But more his happy choice in such a friend.
So the fair queen of night the world relieves,
Nor at the sun's superior honor grieves,
Proud to reflect the glories she receives.

Contending nations ancient Homer claim,
And Mantua glories in her Maro's name;
Our happier soil the prize shall yield to none,
Ardenna's groves shall boast an Addison.

Ye sylvan powers, and all ye rural gods,

That guard these peaceful shades and blest abodes,
For your new guest your choicest gifts prepare,
Exceed his wishes, and prevent his prayer;
Grant him, propitious, freedom, health, and peace,
And as his virtues, let his stores increase.
His lavish hand no deity shall mourn,
The pious bard shall make a just return;
In lasting verse eternal altars raise,
And over-pay your bounty with his praise.

JONATHAN SWIFT. 1667-1745.

Of the varied life of this eccentric divine, so numerous and able have been he details, that had we room to enter into the consideration of it at length, It would be quite an unnecessary work. We will therefore give but a mere sketch of it, referring the reader for more full biographies to the works mendoned below.!

He was born in Dublin, in 1667, and was educated at Dublin University. At the age of twenty-one he obtained the patronage of Sir William Temple, under whose roof, at Moor Park, in Surrey, he resided as an amanuensis and a companion until the death of his patron in 1698. Here he wrote his celebrated treatise, entitled "The Battle of the Books," against Bentley; and while here he took orders in the church." Upon the death of Temple, he was in.

1 Hawkesworth, Sheridan, and Nichols have all prefixed a life of Swift to their edition of his works. But the best edition is that of Sir Walter Scott, with life, 19 vols. 8vo, of which a second edition has been published. Read also, a life of the same, in the 3d vol. of "Drake's Essays" ansther in "Johnson's Lives," and a very able article in the 27th vol. of the Edinburgh Review

vited by the Earl of Berkeley to Ireland, and after many disappointments he obtained the living of Laracor,' where, in 1704, he published, anonymously, that remarkable work, "The Tale of a Tub." It was designed as a burlesque and satire upon the disputes among the Papists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and for keenness and humor it has, perhaps, never been equalled. In 1713 he was rewarded with the deanery of St. Patrick's, in Dublin; but the return of the Whig party into power, on the accession of the House of Hanover, destroyed all his hopes of further preferment. For some years after, he was employed almost entirely in political and occasional writings, full of virulence and bitterness against many of the men and things of his age, and which are now but little read. In 1724 he became almost an object of idola try to the Irish by publishing a series of letters under the feigned name of M. B. Drapier, against one William Wood. This Wood had obtained a patent for coining half-pence for the use of Ireland, to the enormous amount of £180,000, and Swift, in his "Drapier's Letters," exposed the fraud, and the ruinous consequences to the nation, with such power of reason, and sarcasm, and invective, that the patent was annulled, and the half-pence withdrawn by the governinent. The following short extract will give an idea of tl.e style and humor of these "Letters:"

WOOD'S HALF-pence.

I am very sensible that such a work as I have undertaken might have worthily employed a much better pen: but when a house is attempted to be robbed, it often happens that the weakest in the family runs first to stop the door. All the assistance I had were some informations from an eminent person, whereof I am afraid I have spoiled a few, by endeavoring to make them of a piece with my own productions; and the rest I was not able to manage. I was in the case of David, who could not move in the armor of Saul, and therefore I rather chose to attack this uncircumcised Philistine (Wood I mean) with a sling and a stone. And I may say for Wood's honor, as well as my own, that he resembles Goliath in many circumstances very applicable to the present purpose: for Goliath had a helmet of BRASS upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat wus five thousand shekels of BRASS; and he had greaves of BRASS upon his legs, and a target of BRASS between his shoulders. In short he was, like Mr. Wood, all over BRASS, and he defied the armies of the living God.-Goliath's conditions of combat were likewise the same with these of Wood: if he prevail against us, then shall we be his servants. But if it happens that I prevail over him, I renounce the other part of the condition; he shal never be a servant of mine; for I do not think him fit to be trusted in any honest man's shop.

1 In the county of Meath, north-west of Dublin. While here, he appointed the reading of prayers every Wednesday and Friday. Upon the first Wednesday, after the bell had ceased ringing for some time, finding that the congregation consisted only of himself and his clerk, Roger, he began: "Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me in sundry places," &c, and then pro red regularly through the whole service.