The goatherd-he who snatched him from the flood, On one bold purpose, went where'cr he went; Though shrunk his cheek, his temples deeply ploughed, His beard dishevelled o'er his bosom lay: All gazed with horror :-deep unuttered thought In every muscle of his visage wrought; His eye as if his eye could see the air, Was fixed; up-writhing rose his horrent hair; His limbs grew dislocate, convulsed his frame; Deep from his chest mysterious noises came, Now purring, hissing, barking, then they swelled To hideous dissonance; he shrieked, he yelled, As if the legion-fiend his soul possessed, And a whole hell were worrying in his breast, Then down he dashed himself on earth, and rolled In agony, till powerless, stiff, and cold, With face upturned to heaven, and arms outspread, The living too stood round, like forms of death, Meanwhile the wind arose, the clouds were driven In watery masses through the waste of heaven, The groaning woods foretold a tempest nigh, And silent lightnings skirmished in the sky. Ere long the wizard started from the ground, -"Hail! king and conqueror of the peopled earth, And more than king and conqueror! know thy birth; Thou art a ray of uncreated fire, The Sun himself is thy celestial sire; The Moon thy mother, who to me consigned, These eyes have watched thee rising, year by year, Till to the fountain of meridian day, Now milway meet him; form yon flaming height, The stars, thy brethren, in their spheres shall stand The sun behold his image in thy face, And call thee, as his offspring and his heir, Rising and turning his terrific head, That chilled beholders, thus the enchanter said; power that rules on earth shall rule the skies: Hither, O chiefs! the captive patriarchs bring, And pour their blood an offering to your king; He, like his sire the sun, in transient clouds, And give the victims living to the fires; To him let every knee in nature bow, For HE is GOD”—at that most awful name, A spasm of horror withered up his frame; Even as he stood and looked,-he looks, he stands, A frost was on his nerves, and in his veins In silent expectation, sore amazed, The king and chieftains on the sorcerer gazed; Through every joint the giant-monarch shook; CANTO TENTH. The prophecy of Enoch concerning the sorcerer, the king, and the flood. His translation to heaven. The conclusion. "THE Lord is jealous :-He, who reigns on high, "The proud shall perish :-mark how wild his air The wizard heard his sentence; nor renained, He plunged into the woods;-the prophet then Turned, and took up his parable again. "The proud shall perish :-Monarch! know thy doom; Here lie, the deathless worm's unwasting prey, "Thus while the dead thy fearful welcome sing, "That race shall perish :-men and giants, all "The vision opens :-sunk beneath the wave, The guilty share a universal grave; One wilderness of waters rolls in view, A lurid twilight glares athwart the scene, A lonely object on the shoreless tide; "Eastward I turn ;-o'er all the deluged lands, Unshaken yet, a mighty mountain stands, Where Seth, of old, his flock to pasture led, Ard watched the stars at midnight. from its head; AL island now, its dark majestic form Scowls through the thickest ravage of the storm; While on its top, the monument of fame, Built by thy murderers to adorn thy name, Defies the shock;-a thousand cubits high, The sloping pyramid ascends the sky. Thither, their latest refuge in distress, Like hunted wolves, the rallying giants press; Round the broad base of that stupendous tower. The shuddering fugitives collect their power, Cling to the dizzy cliff, o'er ocean bend, And howl with terror as the deeps ascend. The mountain's strong foundations still endure, The heights repel the surge.-Awhile secure And cheered with frantic hope, thy votaries climb The fabric, rising step by step sublime. Beyond the clouds they see the summit glow In heaven's pure daylight o'er the gloom below; There too thy worshipped image shines like fire, In the full glory of thy fabled sire. They hail the omen, and with heart and voice, Call on thy name, and in thy smile rejoice; False omen! on thy name in vain they call; Fools in their joy ;-a moment and they fall. Rent by an earthquake of the buried plain, And shaken by the whole disrupted main, The mountain trembles on its failing base, It slides, it stoops, it rushes from its place: From all the giants burst one drowning cry; Hark! 'tis thy name-they curse it as they die; Sheer to the lowest gulf the pile is hurled, The last sad wreck of a devoted world. "So fall transgressors :-Tyrant! now fulfil Thy secret purposes, thine utmost will; Here crown thy triumphs :-life or death decree, The weakest here disdains thy power and thee." Thus when the patriarch ceased, and every ear Beamed in his meek and venerable face; The giants rushed upon the prophet-" Die!" The foe was fied, and, self 'erwhelmed, h strength Yet where the captives stood, in holy awe, Rapt on the wings of cherubim, they saw Their sainted sire ascending through the night; He turned his face to bless them in his flight, Then vanished :-Javan caught the prophet's eye, Thus from the wolves this little flock was torn, The giants' phrensy, when they lost their prey, No tongue of man or angel might portray; First on their idol gods their vengeance turned, Those gods on their own altar-piles they burned; Then, at their sovereign's mandate, sallied forth To rouse their host to combat, from the north; Eager to risk their uttermost emprise, Perish ere morn, or reign in paradise. Now the slow tempest, that so long had lowered, Keen in their faces sleet and hailstones showered, The winds blew loud, the waters roared around, An earthquake rocked the agonizing ground; Red in the west the burning mount, arrayed With tenfold terror by incumbent shade, (For moon and stars were rapt in dunnest gloom,) Glared like a torch amidst creation's tomb: So Sinai's rocks were kindled when they felt Their Maker's footstep, and began to melt; Darkness was his pavilion, whence he came, High in the brightness of descending flame, While storm, and whirlwind, and the trumpet's blast, Proclaimed his law in thunder, as he passed. 1 The giants reached their camp :-the night's alarms And coursers, winged with lightning, swept the sky; Powers, such as dwell in heaven's serenest light, On such a host Elisha's servant gazed, When all the mountain round the prophet blazed; † "And he (Elisha) took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him And smote the waters (of Jordan) and said.-Where is the Lord God of Elijah ?-and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hitner and thither; and Elisha went over."-2 Kings ii. 14. + 1 kings iv. 17 Roused by the trumpet, that shall wake the dead, The torpid foe in consternation fled: The giants headlong in the uproar ran, The king himself the foremost of the van, Nor e'er his rushing squadron led to fight With swifter onset than he led that flight. Homeward the panic-stricken legions flew ; Their arms, their vestments, from their limbs they threw, At morn his chieftains sought their lord in vain, In which their king had hailed his realm complete, As when the waters of the flood declined, Early, and joyful, o'er the dewy grass, Meanwhile the scattered tribes of Eden's plain And joined their brethren, captives once in fight, But left to freedom in that dreadful flight: Thenceforth redeemed from war's unnumbered woes, Rich with the spoils of their retreated foes, By giant tyranny no more opprest, The people flourished, and the land had rest. MR. JAMES MONTGOMERY is by birth a Scotchman, and ras born on the 4th of November, 1771, at Irvine, a small seaport town in Ayrshire, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a Mo ravian minister, by whom he was removed to Gracehill, in the county of Antrim, Ireland, in the year 1776; and afterward placed at the early age of six years in the seminary of the united Moravian brethren, at Fulneck, near Leeds, in York. shire. It may be almost said, that at this early period of Mr. Montgomery's life he was for ever separated from his parents. since, previous to their departure as missionaries for the West Indies, where his mother died in 1789, and his father in 1790, he resided with them but for three months in the year 1784. How happy the parents of Mr. Montgomery had been in placing their son, circumstanced as they were, under the guidance and tuition of the pious and learned Moravian brethren, can now be easily perceived from the result it has produced. Fer, notwithstanding that every reader of Mr. Montgomery's works may trace in them the effects of a mind naturally Virtuous and religious, we can not withhold fron believing that he is in a great measure indebted to the education he has received for his well-earned fame as a moral poet. He began to write sacred poetry when he was no older than ten years, and report even goes so far as to say, that he had composed at this tender age, two volumes of such poetry. On finishing his studies in the seminary of the Moravian brethren, which occupied ten years, he was placed by his friends as an apprentice with a very worthy man of his own persuasion, who kept a retail shop at Mirfield, near Wakefield. This was a calling in no manner calculated to suit the genius of Montgomery; and not being under the articles of apprenticeship, he left his master at the end of a year and a half, with only three shillings and sixpence in his pocket, but big with the expectation of reaching London, which now his youthful imagiration portrayed as the patron city of learning and talent. His humble means, however, did not allow him to proceed as far as he expected, and he found himself constrained on the fifth day, to enter into an employment at Wath, near Rotherham, which was not dissimilar to that he had left behind him at Mirfield. Previous to his departure from this latter place, he had left a letter with his employer, in which, besides testifying his uneasiness of mind, he promised to be heard from again in a few days. He now fulfilled his promise, and requested at the same time a character to recommend him to the trust of his new master. His upright conduct and virtuous habits not only gained him this from his late employer and the rest of the Moravian brethren, but also the promise of an establishment more congenial to his wishes, if he would return. This, however, he declined, candidly confessing the cause of his melancholy, but concealing the ambitious motives which prompted him to withdraw from their benevolent protection. It was his present master, with whom he remained only twelve months, that many years afterward, in the most calamitous period of Montgomery's life, sought him out amidst his misfortunes, not for the purpose of offering consolation only, but to serve him substantially by every means in his power. The interview which took place between the old man and his former servant, the evening previous to his trial at Doncaster, will ever live in the memory of him who can forget an injury but not a kindness. No father could have evinced a greater affection for a darling son; the tears he shed were honorable to his feelings, and were the best testimony to the conduct and integrity of James Montgomery. On leaving Wath, he found means to introduce himself to Mr. Harrison, a bookseller, in London, in consequence of naving sent him, previous to his departure, a volume of manuscript poems. This gentleman gave Mr. Montgomery employment in his shop, but not undertaking the publication of his poems, he recommended the poet to the study of prose, as likely to be more profitable than poetry. Mr. Montgomery began now to perceive that London was not so much the land of promotion as he fancied it to be; and having had at the end of eight months a misunderstanding with Mr. Harrison, which was accompanied with the misfortune of not being able to dispose of an eastern tale in prose, he returned to his former employment in Yorkshire. He removed in 1792 to Sheffield, and engaged himself with Mr. Gales, the publisher of a very popular newspaper, at that time known by the title of the Sheffield Register. Mr. Montgomery became a useful correspondent to this paper, and gained so far the good opinion and affection of Mr. Gales and his family, that they vied with each other in demonstrating their respect and regard for him. In 1794, when Mr. Gales left England to avoid a political prosecution, Montgomery, with the assistance of a literary gentleman, with whom he had not been even personally acquainted, became the publisher of the Register, which title he changed for that of the Iris. He was not, however, long in his new profession before he fell twice into the hands of Justice, and underwent each time the penalty of fine and imprisonment. His first crime was to have printed a song, composed by an Irish clergyman, at the entreaty of a man whom he had never seen before. He was tried for this at the Quarter Sessions of 1795, and found guilty of publishing; but this verdict being tantamount to an acquittal, it was refused by the court, and the jury were sent to reconsider for another hour, when they gave in a general verdict of guilty. The sentence, which was a fine of twenty pounds and three months imprisonment in York Castle. Our readers nay think that we are forgetting ourselves in this part of Mr. Montgomery's biography, and are leading them back to some remote and barbarous age; but such a trial did take place at no earlier a period than thirty or forty years ago. During his confinement, an active friend superintended his business, and on resuming his editorial duties he commenced a series of essays, entitled the Whisperer, which, notwithstanding that they were written in haste for his paper, contained a very considerable share of genuine humor. Though he was very anxious not to leave it in the power of the law to find him guilty of an offence a second time. it was not however long after undergoing his first penalty, that he had to experience the severity of another. He gave in bis paper, as he thought, in a correct manner, the particulars of a riot that took place in the streets of Sheffield, and in which two men were shot by the military. His statement of the cir cumstances, however, gave offence to a magistrate in the neighborhood, who preferred a bill of indictment against Mr Montgomery; and notwithstanding that the latter had a great many witnesses who verified his account of the transaction à the Iris, he was found guilty at Doncaster Sessions, in Janoary, 1796, and sentenced to pay a fine of thirty pounds, and suffer another imprisonment in York Castle, for the space of six months. He found his constitution greatly impaired in consequence of these two imprisonments, and immediately after his last liberation, he repaired to Scarborough for the benefit of his health. It may be said that this was the first time for him to behold the sea as a poet, and the delight which the sight of it afforded his mind was not greater than the health restored to his body. His visite thither were consequently repeated, and it was one of these which gave birth to his poem on the Ocean, written in the summer of 1805. la 1797, he published lis Prison "Amusements," and in 1806, produced the volume containing the "Wanderer of Switzerland." His time was now chiefly occupied in editing his paper, and no work of considerable magnitude appeared from his pen until the year 1809, when his West Indies was published in quarto, with superb embellishments. Three years after the appearance of this last-mentioned poem, he produced "The World before the Flood," which is to stamp his fame for ever as a superior poet. It has been frequently, and perhaps justly, observed, that the delight which beautiful poetry affords, is obtained to often to the prejudice of moral feelings and precepts, which are better calculated to ennoble the human mind. But had we not Milton, Fenelon, Klopstock, and even the divine writers themselves, to show the fallacy of this bold accusation, brought against the most powerful language and effort d man, the poems of Montgomery alone would form a compilation of proofs so able and so manifest in themselves, as tele fully sufficient for composing a refutation at once unanswer ble and undoubted. Every line of his poetry invites to a love of virtue and all that is amiable in our nature; while it filis the soul at the same time with the sweet luxury of pure, yet delightful enjoyment, and creates within us an admiration and esteem for that art under which so many great and happy powers have been put forth. The "World before the Flood," is by far Mr. Montgomery's best poem. It is divided into ten cantos, written in the he roic couplet, and has for the foundation of its story, the inve sion of Eden by the descendants of Cain. The author's introductory note says: No place having been found, in Asia, to correspond exactly with the Mosaic description of the site of Paradise, the Auther of the following Poem has disregarded both the learned and the absurd hypotheses on the subject, and at once imagining an inaccessible tract of land, at the confluence of four rivers, which after their junction take the name of the largest, and become the Euphrates of the ancient world, he has placed "the happy garden" there. Milton's noble fiction of the Mount of Paradise being removed by the deluge, and pushed "Down the great river to the opening gulf," and there converted into a barren isle, implies such a change in the water-courses as will, poetically at least, account for the difference between the scene of this story and the preser-t face of the country, at the point where the Tigris and the E phrates meet. On the eastern side of these waters, the Author supposes the descendants of the younger children of Adam to dwell, possessing the land of Eden: the rest of the world having been gradually colonized by emigrants from these, r peopled by the posterity of Cain. In process of time, aft the sons of God had formed connexions with the daughters of men, and there were giants in the earth, the latter assumed to be lords and rulers over mankind, till among themselves arose one, excelling all his brethren in knowledge and power, who became their king, and by their aid, in the course of a long life, subdued all the inhabited earth, except the land of Eden. This land, at the head of a mighty army, principally composed of the descendants of Cain, he has invaded and conquered, even to the banks of Euphrates, at the opening of the action of the poem. It is only necessary to add, that for the sake of distinction, the invaders are frequently denominated from Cain, as "the host of Cain," the force of Cain," "the camp of Cain," and the remnant of the defenders of Eden are, in like manner, denominated from Eden.-The Jews have an ancient tradition, that some of the giants, at the deluge, fled to the top of a high mountain, and escaped the ruin that involved the rest of their kindred. In the tenth Canto of the preceding poem a hint is borrowed from this tra dition, but is made to yield to the superior authority of Scrip ture testimony. AN EXCELLENT POEM UPON THF LONGING OF A BLESSED HEART, WHICH, LOATHING THE WORLD, DOTH LONG TO BE WITH CHRIST. BY NICHOLAS BRETON, GENTLEMAN. Printed at London, A. D. 1601. WHAT life hath he that never thinks of love? But while fond thoughts in Folly's pack are peeking, The truest wealth that may enrich the mind. To make but footstools of their fairest towns; But yet forgets that God should have the glory. The worldly counsellor doth beat his brains, The worldly scholar loves a world of books, The worldly lawyer studieth right and wrong; He neither longs the right or wrong to see, The cosmographer doth the world survey, And with his needle makes his measure even; A world of wonder, coming from afar; The worldly merchant ventureth far and near; The worldly courtier learns to crouch and creep, The worldly farmer fills his barns with corn, And ploughs, and sows, and digs, and delves, and hedges And dearly sells that he good cheap hath bought; |