"This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from His face I shall be hid, deprived

His bless'd countenance; here I could frequent
With worship place by place where He vouchsafed
Presence divine, and to my sons relate,

On this mount He appear'd, under this tree
Stood visible, among these pines His voice
I heard, here with Him at this fountain talk'd:
So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon

Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footstep trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet, recall'd
To life prolong'd and promised race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore."

SECTION III.

SAMUEL BUTLER,
Author of Hudibras.

Strongly contrasted to Milton in every respect was his contemporary,. Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the son of a farmer in Worcestershire, and at all times a poor man, but possessed of a rich fancy and a singular power of witty and pointed expression. His chief work was Hudibras, published in 1663 and subsequent years, a comic poem in shortrhymed couplets, designed to burlesque the characters of the zealously religious and Republican party, which had recently held sway. Notwithstanding the service which he thus performed to the Royalist cause and to Charles II., he was suffered to die in such poverty that the expense of his funeral was defrayed by a friend. In Hudibras, a Republican officer, of the most grotesque figure and accoutrements, s represented as sallying out, like a knight-errant, for the reformation of the state; and his character is thus, in the first place, described :'

CHARACTER OF SIR HUDIBRAS.
He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic:
He could distinguish, and divide

A hair 'twixt south and southwest side;
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute;

What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than He
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."

Perhaps of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the descrip ion of the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom, "retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle," is the most perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity.

The character which a living poet has given of Spenser would be much more true of Milton:

"Yet not more sweet

Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise,
High Priest of all the Muses' mysteries."

Milton has finely shown the power of discrimination in respect to character in

EVE'S LAMENTATION

ON BEING DRIVEN FROM PARADISE.

"O unexpected stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hoped to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation and my last

At even, which I bred no

From the first

Who now sh

Your tribes

Thee, lastl
With wha
How shal
Into a lo

And wil

Less p

Adam's ref

a different st mission to tl

"This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from His face I shall be hid, deprived

His bless'd countenance; here I could frequent
With worship place by place where He vouchsafed
Presence divine, and to my sons relate,

On this mount He appear'd, under this tree
Stood visible, among these pines His voice
I heard, here with Him at this fountain talk'd:
So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon

Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footstep trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet, recall'd
To life prolong'd and promised race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore."

SECTION III.

SAMUEL BUTLER,

Author of Hudibras.

Strongly contrasted to Milton in every respect was his contemporary, Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the son of a farmer in Worcestershire, and at all times a poor man, but possessed of a rich fancy and a singular power of witty and pointed expression. His chief work was Hudibras, published in 1663 and subsequent years, a comic poem in shortrhymed couplets, designed to burlesque the characters of the zealously religious and Republican party, which had recently held sway. Notwithstanding the service which he thus performed

He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination:
All this by syllogism true,

In mood and figure he would do.
For rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope,
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;
Else when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk;
For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.
But when he pleased to show 't, his speech
In loftiness of sound was rich;

A Babylonish dialect,

Which learned pedants much affect;
It was a party-color'd dress

Of patch'd and py-bald languages;

"Twas English, cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian, heretofore, on satin.
In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater;
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve by signs and tangents straight,
If bread and butter wanted weight,
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike by algebra.
Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith;
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms could go;
All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion served, would quote;
No matter whether right or wrong,
They might be either said or sung.

SECTION IV.

YOUNG (1681-1765).

Night Thoughts.

The principal work of Edward Young is the Nigh Thoughts. This poem, by some critics, has been pronounced mournful, angry, gloomy, and represented as

springing from disappointed ambition rather than from superior sentiments. It is thought, however to exhibit a wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions-a wildness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odor. He was too fond of antithesis, and often too turgid in his style; yet he paints, with the most lively fancy, the feelings of the heart, the vanity of human things, its fleeting honors and enjoyments, and he presents some of the strongest arguments in support of the immortality of the soul.

The late Joseph Emerson speaks of this work as the dear companion of his early youth, most faithful counselor of his advancing days-a precious, invaluable friend-for more than thirty summers the balm of his sorrows, the pillow of his weary, throbbing head-the sweetener of his sweetest joys. "Dark and dismal, indeed, are many of his pictures; but I think not more so than their originals. If so, we should not blame the painter, but the subjects." But his pictures of redemption are most glorious. "To me, the Night Thoughts is a poem, on the whole, most animating and delightful-amazingly energetic-full of the richest instruction-improving to the mindmuch of it worthy of being committed to memory— some faults-some passages unfit to be read-obscure -extravagant-tinged occasionally with flattery."

The work is well adapted for exercising the mind in the process of analysis and criticism.

CONSCIENCE

"Conscience, what art thou? Thou tremendous power'
Who dost inhabit us without our leave;

And act within ourselves, another self,
A master-self, that loves to domineer,

And treat the monarch frankly as the slave:
How dost thou light a torch to distant deeds!
Make the past, present, and the future frown'
How, ever and anon, awake the soul,

As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors,
In this long restless dream, which idiots hug--
Nay, wise men flatter with the name of life ""