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bear the magic globe into the cave of Lorinite, will also remind you of the hand which brought the roll of a book to the prophet, and of the hands which he discerned beneath the wings of the cherubims.

The mantles

"White

As the swan's breast, and bright as mountain snow,"

in which Kailyal and Ladurlad are arrayed, as alone enabling them to pass the fiery flood which interposes between them and the throne of Yamen, will suggest to you the scripture metaphors of "the wedding-garment," and the "fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints." In one of the prose passages of this fervent, and golden-hearted historian, as well as poet, the crowning charm lies in a descriptive phrase which frequently occurs in the bible. "As the soldiers were carrying him (Sir John Moore) slowly along, he made them frequently turn round, that he might see the field of battle, and listen to the firing, and he was well pleased when the sound grew

fainter. A spring waggon came up, bearing Colonel Wynch, who was wounded: the Colonel asked who was in the blanket, and being told it was Sir John Moore, wished him to be placed in the waggon. Sir John asked one of the Highlanders whether he thought the waggon or the blanket was the best? and the man said, the blanket would not shake him so much, as he and the other soldiers would keep the step, and carry him easy. So they proceeded with him to his quarters, at Corunna, weeping as they went."* Campbell's expression

"Her march is on the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep,"

will remind you of the Psalmist's-" Thy path is in the sea, and thy footsteps in the great deep." When a poet said that the Apollo Belvidere appears to have shot the arrow "less by an effort than a command," he expressed a noble idea, worthy the deity in stone. But when Habakkuk says of the

* 2 Samuel xv. 30.

Holy one, "He stood-and measured the earth; he beheld-and drave asunder the nations," the sublime conception of power exercised by the mere volition of will, is carried to a height worthy the true and living God-the God of heaven! Young well expresses the same style of sentiment:

"Whose word was Nature's birth,

The shadow of whose hand is Nature's shield,
Her dissolution, his suspended smile."

But the grand treasure-house for thoughts of this order, is the Old Testament: "Thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good; thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust; thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever; the Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills, and they smoke."*

Washington Irving says of the oak, that it

*Psalm civ.

"assimilates in the grandeur of its attributes to heroic and intellectual man; and is an emblem of what a nobleman should be-a refuge for the weak, a shelter for the oppressed, and a defence for the defenceless; warding off from them the peltings of the storm, or the scorching rays of arbitrary power."-A fine similitude, but not, surely, finer than the prophet's: "The tree that thou sawest, which grew and was strong; whose height reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation. It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong.'

You will find the same metaphor in the thirty-first of Ezekiel, only there, it is carried through the chapter, and forms a sustained and splendid allegory.

Lord Byron's "Darkness," and Campbell's" Last Man," striking as they are; even Shakspeare's description of the "cloud-capt

*Daniel iv. 21, 22.

towers, and gorgeous palaces," passing away "like the baseless fabric of a vision," may bring to mind, but cannot for one moment compare with the following passages, for lonely, desolate grandeur: "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo, there was no man; and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness; and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger."* "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heavens departed as a scrowl when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the

* Jeremiah iv. 23-27.

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