Was swimming now in tears; her slender neck,
And arms across, like polished marble shone
And glittered; graceful hung her snowy robe
Down to her knee, and there, uptied, unveiled
Her naked limbs, two ivory pillars, formed
With elegance; sweet nature void of art!
But now alarmed, imprisoned, up she sprung,
And saw to gain the land no passage left,
Save scrambling sidelong by the rock with care
On jutty crags, so rent and torn by time
As gave a scanty footing; but much care
Required to choose the step, or plump she fell
Into the lustful ocean, which beneath
Raged to receive her. This way danger urged
Her weak endeavour; and to grasp the rock
Fear gave her triple strength. (Ah, how unfit
Such task for limbs so tender!) Labouring on
Till faint and weary with excessive toil,
Her limbs and lovely bosom rent and bruised
By cruel flints, commixing blood and tears
Fast trickling fell. No longer to endure
The vast fatigue enabled, in midway
Of her uncouth and rugged path she rests,
Panting, her shattered beauties all inflamed
And smarting under pain. Amazed she heard,
Or thought she heard, a human voice; amazed
Her ear she turned to where she might perceive
Minutely most and while these moving sounds,
Well known, delighted her, she blessed the toil
And danger undergone, rewarded well
By accents sweeter far than shepherd's pipe
On summer eve, or harmony of birds.
Far sweeter to the love-bewildered ear
Of beauteous Flora was Pitfour's soft voice,
Thus from the hollow bosom of the rock
Rebounding: "Mighty is the debt which I
Must pay of weeping gratitude to thee,
My kind preserver; thee, the polished son
Of a barbarian sire! But ah how keen
The rending pangs I bear to see thee thus
Partaker of my woe, myself the cause!
Imprisoned, and a prey, for pitying me,
To thy insatiate foe! Do thou too, Death,
Thou closer of the living eye, do thou
Me pity and relieve; nor let me see
The sorrows of my friend, powerless of aid.
But quit the gripe of happy men who shake
At thy approach, and take a willing wretch!
Ye powers that weep on fallen virtue, grant
A peaceful grave; or make Macdonald free,
And I shall suffer slavery with smiles!”

• More

More close and close she listening turned her ear;
When, after silence short, Macdonald calm
Thus answered-" Noble stranger (for whate'er
Thou art in family, or chance descent,
Thy soul is noble) I repent me not

Of my endeavouring (what could I less?)
To rescue innocence; possessed of which,
The pledge of heaven's love, let none despair,
For death to them is joyful.-Nor think I
The penance or the price too high to gain
A friend (for what can be too high?) sincere,
Noble and generous; nor, thus low immured
In dungeon deep, and destitute of light,
Save that which faintly from above pervades
The dark descent, and makes our feeble sun,
Are we deserted by that Power who sees
Us, and our just complaints with pity hears.
But should we linger here our life-What's life!
The mortal life of man? But for the sun,
More dismal than our own. And he perhaps,
The brightly seeming sovereign of the sky,
(Smile, sa astronomers, for I have laughed
At your more frantic fancies,) he perhaps
Is but an orifice, through which the light
Of heaven appears, as day to us appears
Down yonder, darting on our prisoned heads
A feeble sun and every star the same.
But grateful were the sacrifice, and pure
As lively friendship owes, wouldst thou suppress
And smother up the vengeful flame that burns
Within thy breast against my sire, misled,
Deluded and betrayed; nor let me hear
My father's faults arraigned. Let it consume
The viper in his bosom, that arch fiend,
With counsel base who seeks to overturn
My father's house, my sister with his lust
To vitiate, and myself to die in bonds
Reduce. But see the traitor like a cloud
Descending black, portentous of death's storm!
O chain detested, I would tear his soul,
If unsubdued by thee! Upstart insidious!
Many a prince, and many a noble race
Are torn by flatterers whom they feed and foster;
For these are tigers that will never tame.
But let us meet his malice like to men,

And farewell! lest we die."-He ended thus,
And thus the stranger answered. "Oh that I
Could suffer all alone!" In which, though short,
His soul conspicuous shone, and wounded more
The bosom of fair Flora than a speech
Devoid of feeling lengthened out more long.

E 4

'But

But having by a cord himself let down
To this infernal mansion (fit abode
For such as he!) she heard with voice severe
And base, Kildare insult them, saying thus,
Or nearly thus, the interposing rock
Confounding much the hoarse and hated sound;
Or possibly her trembling fear confused
Her ear, and caught but indistinct the voice:

"I come to visit you, young men; enquire
About your health; and see if, chance, you like
This palace I've provided, bringing too
Such food as best may suit your palates nice,
And yet not surfeit.-Lo, this oaten cake,
Baked with peculiar care, I thus divide
And give you liberal; though yet methinks
You thank me not enough. This vessel too
Brim full of water I distribute glad.
As after food I, not forgetful, thought
Some exercise salubrious, lo here

An instrument, which with good will applied,
And vigour, on your backs perhaps may raise
A perspiration, and with smartness warm.
This office I myself will undertake;
And if I raise not heat enough, complain,
And I shall be more active." Jeering thus
She heard him, and she felt the bloody strokes
Which after this he gave them with a whip
Of knotted cruelty, but heard no groan.

Long thus the tyrant laboured; till at length
With toil fatigued, more than with pity moved
Or satiated with rancor : "I have done,"
In taunting mood, he said; "now I have done
With this day's labour: but be not afraid,
Dejected, sad, forlorn; for each day

Shall bring a banquet such; and I shall see
Myself that it be rightly served. Adieu!'

Our readers will observe that the versification, like that of Cowper, is often affectedly stately, studiously inverted, and habitually inharmonious. Many of the lines are not even verses the English heroic requires the fourth syllable to be emphatic, and the two concluding feet to be perfect iambics; elsewhere, long and short syllables may be arranged at pleasure.

So p. 85. Of cruel joy and triumphant revenge
Even to her utmost bounds having subdued;'

and many others bear no resemblance to metre: but such inaccuracies are of little consequence where are found the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn."

ART.

ART. XIV. Sermons preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, in the Year 1795, at the Lecture established by the Provost and Senior Fellows, under the Will of Mrs. Anne Donnellan. To which is added, an Act Sermon, preached November 15, for the Degree of Doctor in Divinity. By Thomas Elrington, D.D. M.R.I.A. Senior Fellow and Professor of Mathematics, in Trinity College, Dublin. 8vo. pp. 305. 6s. Boards. Robinsons, London. 1796.

FOR this volume of sermons the public is indebted to the pious

zeal of a lady of Ireland, Mrs. Anne Donnellan, who has bequeathed to the College of Dublin a legacy of 12431, "for the encouragement of religion, learning, and good manners," entrusting the particular mode of application to the Provost and Senior Fellows of the College. Whether the Trustees, in determining that the interest of twelve hundred pounds shall be paid, as an annual salary, for composing and preaching six sermons, which shall be called a Divinity Lecture, have made the most judicious and profitable use of the legacy that could have been devised, we shall not decide. The first fruits of this bequest are a series of discourses on the miracles of Christ; a subject, which has been so frequently and largely discussed by many of our most celebrated philosophers and divines, that it cannot now be expected to afford much novelty of argument, After all that has been written by Farmer, Douglas, Adams, Campbell, and Price, not to mention the numerous list of able and respectable respondents to the body of deistical writers who appeared at the beginning of the present century, we cannot hope to receive much new light on this subject from a preacher whose exertions are shut up within the narrow enclosure of six sermons. In fact, the author of these lectures,-though he appears, from the notes which he has annexed, to have bestowed some reading on the question before him, and though his discourses shew him to be possessed of considerable powers of argumentation,-has done little more than exhibit a general and cursory view of a portion of the controversy concerning miracles. His reasonings are neither completely illus trated by particular details, nor his assertions sufficiently supported by authorities to afford the cautious inquirer much satisfaction. The notes very imperfectly supply this defect. This is not, indeed, a fault peculiar to the present volume. The prevalent fashion of detaching the proofs or illustrations of the preacher's arguments from the body of the sermon, and throwing them into notes, leaves the hearer wholly uninformed in regard to the main points on which the question turns, and is attended with much trouble and confusion to the reader. discourses professedly preached and published to establish tru

or to refute error, the practice of withholding details essential to the argument, merely to save the delicate ears of a polite audit ory the pain of hearing hard names, or to keep the discourse within the fashionable length, is a manifest absurdity: it is to try a cause, without calling the witnesses.

The learned author of these sermons not having condescended to introduce himself to the public by a preface, to give his readers any summary of his arguments, to prefix any titles to his discourses, or even to announce the general subject of the volume in the title-page, we are left to infer his plan from a perusal of the whole. It seems to have been his design to meet the objections which have been made, by infidel writers, to the evidence of miracles in proof of a divine revelation, and to the general nature and leading characters of the Christian miracles, without entering into any minute examination of particular events of that description. That the accounts of our Saviour's miracles are literal narratives of facts, and not allegorical prophecies; that they were not mere acts of beneficence, but designed as proofs of a divine mission; that miracles are possible to the Deity; that, being once performed, it is not necessary that they should be perpetually repeated; that the extraordinary events recorded in the gospels cannot be explained without having recourse to the interference of supernatural power; that miracles admit of evidence sufficient to command belief; that the actual fulfilment of prophecies affords present proofs of a miraculous interference of the Deity; and that there is in the gospel-history satisfactory evidence of the reality of the miracles of Christ; are the points asserted and maintained in the six divinity lectures here published. The question discussed in the act sermon is, whether supernatural powers have ever been exercised by the votaries of false religions: the miraculous tales, placed by Mr. Hume in competition with the scripturenarrative of the miracles of Christ, are distinctly investigated, and clearly shewn not to be entitled to credit. The stories examined are those of Vespasian's curing a blind and a lame man, and of the miracles of the Abbé Paris.-From the ridiculous nicety of avoiding the mention of proper names and other particulars in a sermon, the observations of this discourse, which are very judicious, are inveloped in some obscurity, and lose a great part of their effect.

On the whole, we close this volume of sermons with a favourable opinion of the talents and ingenuity of the writer, but without being persuaded that he has rendered any very essential service to the Christian cause.

ART.