A thousand ills beset us as we go.

-"Still, could I shun the fatal gulf”—Ah, no, 'Tis all in vain-the inexorable Law!

Nearer and nearer to the brink we draw.

Verdure springs up; and fruits and flowers invite,
And groves and fountains-all things that delight.
"Oh, I would stop, and linger if I might!"—
We fly; no resting for the foot we find;
All dark before, all desolate behind!

At length the brink appears-but one step more!
We faint-On, on!—we falter—and 'tis o'er!
Yet here high passions, high desires unfold,
Prompting to noblest deeds; here links of gold
Bind soul to soul; and thoughts divine inspire
A thirst unquenchable, a holy fire

That will not, cannot but with life expire!
Now, seraph-winged, among the stars we soar;
Now distant ages, like a day, explore,
And judge the act, the actor now no more;
Or, in a thankless hour condemned to live,
From others claim what these refuse to give,
And dart, like MILTON, an unerring eye
Through the dim curtains of Futurity.

Wealth, Pleasure, Ease, all thought of self resigned, What will not Man encounter for Mankind ?

that revealed to us in the Gospel, has the happiest influence on our lives. The latter excites us to gain the favour of GOD, the former to gain the love and esteem of wise and good men; and both lead to the same end; for, in framing our conceptions of the DEITY, we only ascribe to Him exalted degrees of Wisdom and Good

ness.

Page 32, line 7.

Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!

The astronomer chalking his figures on the wall, in Hogarth's view of Bedlam, is an admirable exemplification of this idea.-See the RAKE'S PROGRESS, plate 8.

Page 33, line 2.

Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!

The following stanzas are said to have been writter on a blank leaf of this Poem. They present so affecting a reverse of the picture, that I cannot resist the oppor tunity of introducing them here.

Pleasures of Memory !-oh! supremely blest,
And justly proud beyond a Poet's praise;
If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast
Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays!
By me how envied !—for to me,
The herald still of misery,

Memory makes her influence known

By sighs, and tears, and grief alone :

I greet her as the fiend, to whom belong

The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song.

She tells of time mispent, of comfort lost,
Of fair occasions gone for ever by ;

Of hopes too fondly nursed, too rudely crossed,
Of many a cause to wish, yet fear to die ;
For what, except the instinctive fear
Lest she survive, detains me here,
When "all the life of life" is fled '-

What, but the deep inherent dread,

Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign,
And realize the hell that priests and beldams feign?

Page 34, line 17.

Hast thou thro' Eden's wild-wood vales pursued

On the road-side between Penrith and Appleby there stands a small pillar with this inscription:

66

This pillar was erected in the year 1656, by Ann, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, &c. for a memorial of her last parting, in this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2d of April, 1616; in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of 47. to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham, every 2d day of April for ever, upon the stone-table placed hard by. Laus Deo!"

The Eden is the principal river of Cumberland, and rises in the wildest part of Westmoreland.

Page 35, line 4.

O'er his dead son the gallant ORMOND sighed.

"I would not exchange my dead son," said he, "for any living son in Christendom."-Hume.

The same sentiment is inscribed on an urn at the Leasowes. "Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse !"

Page 41, line 4.

Down by St. Herbert's consecrated grove ;

A small island covered with trees, among which were formerly the ruins of a religious house.

Page 41, line 21.

When lo! a sudden blast the vessel blew,

In a mountain-lake the agitations are often violent and momentary. The winds blow in gusts and eddies and the water no sooner swells, than it subsides.-See BOURN'S Hist. of Westmoreland.

Page 43, line 7.

To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere,

The several degrees of angels may probably have larger views, and some of them be endowed with capacities able to retain together, and constantly set before them, as in one picture, all their past knowledge at once.-LOCKe.

HUMAN LIFE.