Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse;
Frequent in park with lady at his side,
Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes!
But rare at home, and never at his books,
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;
Constant at routs, familiar with a round
Of ladyships-a stranger to the poor;
Ambitious of preferment for its gold;
And well prepared, by ignorance and sloth,
By infidelity and love of world,
To make God's work a sinecure; a slave
To his own pleasures and his patron's pride:-
From such apostles, oh, ye mitred heads,
Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.
Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul,
Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own,
Paul should himself direct me. I would trace
His master-strokes, and draw from his design.
I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impressed
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds
May feel it too; affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty man.
Behold the picture !-Is it like ?-Like whom?
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,
And then, skip down again; pronounce a text;
Cry-hem; and reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
What!-will a man play tricks, will he indulge
A silly, fond conceit of his fair form,
And just proportion, fashionable mien,
And pretty face, in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand;
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!
Therefore, avaunt all attitude, and stare,
And start theatric, practised at the glass!
I seek divine simplicity in him
Who handles things divine; and all besides,
Though learn'd with labour, and though much admired
By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,
To me is odious-as the nasal twang
Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the pressed nostril spectacle bestrid.
Some, decent in demeanour while they preach,
That task performed, relapse into themselves;
And, having spoken wisely, at the close
Grow wanton, giving proof to every eye,
Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not!
Forth comes the pocket mirror. First, we stroke
An eyebrow; next, compose a straggling lock;
Then, with an air most gracefully performed,
Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,
And lay it at its ease,
With handkerchief in hand depending low:
The better hand, more busy, gives the nose
Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye
With opera-glass, to watch the moving scene,
And recognise the slow-retiring fair.-
Now this is fulsome; and offends me more
Than in a churchman slovenly neglect
And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind
May be indifferent to her house of clay,
And slight the hovel as beneath her care;
But how a body so fantastic, trim,
And quaint, in its deportment and attire,
Can lodge a heavenly mind-demands a doubt.
LVII.-ODE IN IMITATION OF ALCEUS.-Sir W. Jones.
WHAT constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement, or laboured mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays, and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride:-
No:-Men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude :
Men, who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain ;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.
These constitute a state;
And sovereign Law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate
Sits empress, crowning Good, repressing Ill;
Smit by her sacred frown
The fiend, Dissension, like a vapour, sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling Crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.-
Such was this heaven-loved Isle,
Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore :
No more shall Freedom smile?
Shall we now languish, and be men no more?
Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave
'Tis folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
LVIII. .—ON SACRED READING.*-Professor Bell.
THE sacred services in which the soul
Adores with awe the Power whence she sprung,
May well the culture of the tongue demand.
Alas! our solemn pulpits often show,
In the recital of the Book of Life,
From "The Tongue," a poem in two parts. By Alexander Bell, Professor of Elocution. London, 1846.
How coldly even cordial subjects fall
From crude outpourings of untutored lips.
The lifeless page contains the word of God;
But power to call the holy influence forth
Within the human voice alone resides.
In sounds confused, and heartless utterance,
The Scriptures lose their character divine;
The heavenly rays reach not the darkened soul,
So thick the density of clouded speech;
Deaf is the cheated and offended ear,
And closed is every entrance to the soul:
The promises, the pains, the hopes, the fears,
Are lost in chaos of discordant noise.
Oh, you who at God's holy altar tend,
Who are removed from the grovelling herd
Of wrangling, trafficking, and sordid men,
To preach good tidings to the meek in soul-
To heal the contrite and the broken heart-
To set at liberty the slaves of sin—
To ope the prison doors-to wipe the tears
From sorrow's face, and comfort all that mourn ;-
Know you, ye men of God, your sacred charge?
Your feeble ministrations answer this.
The public execution of this trust
Can reach the heart-if there it find the way-
But through the porches of the outward ear:
This
organ is the minister of sound,
And trieth words as doth the mouth its food.
The vulgar speech performeth not aright
The soul's commands. To give her dictates breath,
To set them in the happy form of words,
Requires the laggard vocal parts well trained,-
Each pliant organ working in accord;
That she to rich expression may attune
The wonderful, complex machine, and make
The voice delightful to the charmed sense.
Are, then, religion's cause, the hopes, the fears,
The destiny of man, the call of heaven,
Not worthy of man's highest, noblest powers?
Are vulgar accents, uttered with grimace,
Or mumbling, stuttering, and ill-formed sounds,
Deemed good enough to do God's holy work?
Or are mankind so hungry for the truth,
So very thirsty after righteousness,
That, with the eagerness of appetite,
Though coarsely may be spread the sacred food,
Their famished souls will instantly devour?
Alas! their hunger craves forbidden fruit—
Their thirst indulges in unhallowed streams.
The man of God must knock at stony hearts,
And bend the stubborn will, and make the soul
Awe-struck with deep conviction of its guilt.
For this the thunder of his eloquence
Will roll its threatenings in the sinner's ear;
Till the reverberating peals arouse
The trembling fear which bends the feeble knees,
And melts the conscious rebel into prayer:-
"Oh, thou who rul'st the tempest, hear and save!" Then will the tones of sweetest melody
Allay the terrors of the startled mind;
And, mild as angels to the shepherds sung,
The messenger of God will whisper peace!
"Room for the leper! room!"-And, as he came
The cry passed on- "Room for the leper! room!".
Sunrise was slanting on the city's gates,
Rosy and beautiful; and from the hills
The early-risen poor were coming in,
Duly and cheerfully to their toil; and up
Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels, and multitudes a-stir,
And all that in a city-murmur swells,-
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence; or the sick,
Hailing the welcome light and sounds that chase
The death-like images of the dark away.
"Room for the leper!" And aside they stood-
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood,—all
Who met him on his way,-and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A Leper with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering,-stepping painfully and slow;
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!"
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