lock is very descriptive in many parts of his poems; but 'tis easy to be observed, that, where his descriptions are of any length, they are generally not descriptions of things, but of passions.'
His idea of brightness and glory, seems to be that of something which gives pleasure to the eye, as smoothness to the touch, and he endeavoured to explain it thus. He took out his glass, and carrying his hand gently backward and forward on the case of it, he said that it gave him an idea of smoothness; then doing the same on the glass, he said that it gave him an idea of much greater smoothness. Now this, says he, we may carry higher and higher in the mind; and the highest idea of smoothness, is my idea of Glory.'-This might puzzle a metaphysician, or provoke his pride to a smile; but few metaphysicians have written so well as this poor blind man. He also said, that a brisk tune was much more like the rays of the sun, than a melancholy one.'
Much of the correctness of his images and epithets, is to be attributed, of course, to imitation of the works of others, though his imitation is not of the commonplace sort; but such as his memory and cultivated mind furnished him with the means of employing. Once he speaks of a sun-beam as something pointed, and the designation of wine in the Epigram is very curious.
FROM A HYMN TO FORTITUDE.
NIGHT, brooding o'er her mute domain,
In awful silence wraps her reign;
Clouds press on clouds, and, as they rise,
Condense to solid gloom the skies.
Portentous, through the foggy air,
To wake the Demon of despair,
The raven hoarse, and boding owl,
To Hecate! curst anthems howl.
Intent with execrable art,
To burn the veins, and tear the heart,
The witch, unhallow'd bones to raise,
Through funeral vaults and channels strays;
Calls the damn'd shade from every cell,
And adds new labours to their hell.
And, shield me heaven! what hollow sound,
Like fate's dread knell, runs echoing round?
The bell strikes one, that magic hour,
When rising fiends exert their
And now, sure now, some cause unblest
Breathes more than horrour thro' my breast:
How deep the breeze! how dim the light!
What spectres swim before my sight!
My frozen limbs pale terrour chains,
And in wild eddies wheels my. brains:
My icy blood forgets to roll,
And death even seems to seize my soul.
What sacred power, what healing art,
Shall bid my soul herself assert;
Shall rouze the immortal active flame,
And search her whence her being came
O Fortitude! divinely bright,
O Virtue's child, and man's delight!
Descend, propitious to my lays,
And, while my lyre resounds thy praise,
With energy divinely strong,
Exalt my soul, and warm my song.
When raving in eternal pains,
And loaded with ten thousand chains.
Vice deep in Phlegethon, yet lay,
Nor with her vissage blasted day;
No fear to guiltless man was known,
For God and Virtue reign'd alone.
But, when from native flames, and night,
The cursed monster wing'd her flight,
Pale Fear, among her hideous train,
Chashed sweet contentment from her reign;
Placed death and hell before each eye,
And wrapt in mist the golden sky;
Banish'd from day each dear delight,
And shook with conscious starts the night."
BUT in these dregs of human kind,
These days to guilt and fear resign'd,
How rare such views the heart elate!
To brave the last extremes of Fate;
Like heaven's Almighty power, serene,
With fix'd regard to view the scene,
When nature quakes beneath the storm,
And horrour wears its direst form.
Though future worlds are now descried,
Though Paul has writ, and Jesus died,
Dispell'd the dark infernal shade,
And all the heaven of heavens displayed;
Cursed with unnumber'd groundless fears,
How pale yon shivering wretch appears!
For him the day-light shines in vain,
or him the fields no joys contain;
Nature's whole charms to him are lost,
No more the woods their musick boast;
No more the meads their vernal bloom,
No more the gales their rich perfume.
Impending mists deform the sky,
And beauty withers in his eye.
In hopes his terrour to elude,
By day he mingles with the croud;
Yet finds his soul to fears a prey,
In busy crouds, and open day.
If night his lonely walk surprise,
What horrid visions round him rise!
That blasted oak, which meets his way,
Shown by the meteor's sudden ray,
The midnight murderer's known retreat
Felt heaven's avengeful bolt of late;
The clashing chain, the groan profound,
Loud from yon ruin'd tower resound:
And now the spot he seems to tread,
Where some self-slaughter'd corse was laid :
He feels fixt earth beneath him bend,
Deep murmurs from her caves ascend;
Till all his soul, by fancy sway'd,
Sees lurid phantoms croud the shade;
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