there was no real confusion in the poet's mind between nature and the Creator, before Whose unseen presence he reverently adored. That feeling of the presence of God in all His works had with him a life and reality which contrasted very strongly with the dry unsubstantial abstractions of the Deists. He could not think of God without thinking also of His works; he could not muse with delight upon the beauty and the wonders he saw around him without meditating as well, not upon the power only, but on the love of their Creator. Universal nature was as rich, to his eyes, in hope, as it was in full and varied life. He looked upon it as a progressive scale-‘life rising still on life in higher tone'a Jacob's ladder, mounting

up from unfeeling mould

To seraphs burning round the Almighty's throne.1 This thought was continually present in Thomson's profounder reflections, and evidently suggested to his mind a solution of many difficulties, enabling him to look forward to a divine future, to which only the faint approaches were at present visible. Like most of the writers of his time, he had been much influenced by Pope. He has adopted Pope's optimism almost in his words, but in a far less crude and more imaginative form. A candid and close observer, he did not attempt to shut his eyes to, nor to gloss over, the manifold imperfections of the present state of existence. But when he considered

The mighty chain of beings, lessening down
From Infinite Perfection to the brink

Of dreary nothing,2

it seemed to him that, though we cannot penetrate the cloud which veils the will of Providence, it may be well concluded that this 'infancy of being'

cannot prove

The final issue of the works of God
By boundless love and perfect wisdom form'd
And ever rising with the rising mind.3

1 Castle of Indolence, canto ii.

2 Summer.

3 Id.

Keble himself had not an intenser feeling that it was

no mere poet's dream—

Which bids us see in heaven and earth,

In all fair things around,

Strong yearnings for a blest new birth
With sinless glories crown'd;

Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause
From care, and want, and toil,
When dewy eve her curtain draws
Over the day's turmoil,

In the low chant of wakeful birds,
In the deep weltering flood,

In whispering leaves, these solemn words,
'God made us all for good."1

To Thomson's thought nature was full of promise, ' awaiting renovation,' 2-a 'second birth,' when awakening nature should

hear

The new creating word, and start to life

In every heightened form, from pain and death
For ever free.3

The Great Shepherd reigns,

And His unsuffering Kingdom yet shall come.1 Man and nature, glorified spirits and spirits of men who 'through stormy life toil tempest-beaten,' were all, in his mind, component elements of the one vast order, one progressive scheme. Mankind may thwart their own great destiny. To them, therefore, in his allegorical poem, he cries

Heavens! can you then thus waste, in shameful wise,
Your few important days of trial here?

Heirs of Eternity! y-born to rise

Through endless states of being, still more near

To bliss approaching, and perfection clear,

Can you renounce a fortune so sublime,

Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer,
And roll, with vilest brutes, through mud and slime?

No! no! your heaven-touch'd heart disdains the sordid
crime ! 6

1 Christian Year, Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

2 Autumn.

4 Hymn of the Seasons.

6 Castle of Indolence, canto ii.

3 Winter.

5 Summer.

But God's order, in man or nature, now or hereafter, he perfectly trusted in, as ever and wholly good :

Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste, as in the city full ;

And where He vital breathes, there must be joy.
When ev'n at last the solemn hour should 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.1

The works of Edward Young (1681-1765) are about as strong a contrast to those of Thomson as can be imagined. Transition from one to the other is almost like passing from a bright morning on a breezy down to the seclusion of a churchyard at midnight, or to the heavy air and hushed stillness of a shaded sick-room. The Seasons beam with day; the Night Thoughts do indeed sparkle, but it is with the lustre of jewels upon black drapery flashing back the lamplight. The general merit and defects of Night Thoughts are well known. It obtained a very wide circulation, and was one of the few English books that won fame and appreciation in France. Nor was its popularity undeserved. Every page bears the stamp of originality, talent, and thought. Even its most glaring faults are many of them such as none but a clever man would fall into. It is no ordinary writer that could overload a poem with such surplusage of varied argument, such a surfeit of epigram and antithesis, such superabundance of skilful rhetoric. He is sometimes extravagant, sometimes enigmatical, sometimes affected; he is often tedious, oftener laboured; he is uneven in the extreme: passages which rise into sublimity are followed by others which sink into utter

For, from the birth

Of mortal man, the Sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,

Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowing cup,
The soul should find enjoyment; but, from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,

Though all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.

Call now to mind what high capacious powers
Lie folded up in man; how far beyond
The praise of mortals may the eternal growth
Of nature to perfection half divine

Expand the blooming soul! what pity then,
Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to earth
The tender blossom, choke the streams of life,
And blast her spring!1

William Hamilton (1704-1754) was an ardent Jacobite, who joined the Pretender in the movement of 1745. His Contemplation, which was published two or three years previous to that date, contains some pleasing lines. In 1746, after the defeat of Prestonpans, when he was wandering among the hills and moors in constant and imminent peril, he wrote some touching verses, of which the following is a part. It is a soliloquy with him

self:

Now in this sad and dismal hour
Of multiplied distress,

Has any former thought the power
To make thy sorrows less?

When all around thee cruel snares
Threaten thy destined breath,
And every sharp reflection bears
Want, exile, chains or death,

Can ought that's past in youth's fond reign
Thy pleasing vein restore?

Lives beauty's gay and festive train

In memory's soft store?

1 Pleasures of Imagination, i. 212-31.

Or does the muse? 'Tis said her art
Can fiercest pangs appease—
Can she to thy poor trembling heart
Now speak the words of peace?
Yet she was wont at early dawn
To whisper thee repose,

Nor was her friendly aid withdrawn
At grateful evening's close.

Friendship, 'tis true, its sacred might
May mitigate thy doom;

As lightning shot across the night
A moment gilds the gloom.

O God! Thy providence alone
Can work a wonder here,
Can change to gladness every moan
And banish all my fear.

Thy arm, all powerful to save,

May every doubt destroy;

And from the horrors of the grave

New raise to life and joy.

From this, as from a copious spring,

Pure consolation flows;

Makes the faint heart 'mid sufferings sing,
And midst despair repose.

Yet from its creature gracious Heaven,
Most merciful and just,

Asks but, for life and safety given,
Our faith and humble trust.1

Walter Harte (1700-1773), Vice-Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, afterwards tutor to Lord Chesterfield's son, and finally Canon of Windsor, was the writer of some devotional poetry which has little in common with the general character of his age. He had been brought up among the best traditions of the Nonjurors. His father, whose memory he affectionately celebrates in a poem entitled Macarius, or the Christian Confessor, was a man who had been held in most deserved honour for his piety, his learning, and the self-denying simplicity of his life. He had energetically remonstrated with Judge Jeffreys in behalf of the victims of Monmouth's rebellion;

1 A Soliloquy, 1746.