208 Mr. Robert Montgomery, and []Auo. 



caves, after they have already been fast sweeping over the sea ; and, 

 fourthly, of bubbles dancing on the glossy back of an ocean which seems- 

 to boil upon a bed of fire ! And this is sublimity ! This is the grandeur 

 of thought and expression that is to entitle its author to a tomb in West- 

 minster Abbey ! Well might Byron exclaim, " The present is the age 

 of cant." 



" Borne like a sun-beam on the writhing waves, 

 One mariner alone the tempest braves ; 

 Home, love, and life, and near imagined death, ' , . . 

 Nerve the stout limb, and lengthen out his breath." 



From these four lines, we learn just two things. First, that a wrecked 

 sailor looks like a sun-beam j secondly, that a man who thinks he is 

 going to die, always lives the longer for thinking so. 



" Aghast and quaking, see the murderer stand, ^ 



Shrink from himself, and clench his crimson hand ; 

 Unearthly terror gripes his coward frame, 

 While conscience writhes upon the rack of shame." 



The word " gripe " is introduced with consummate classical dig- 

 nity. Imagine terror griping a murderer ! A dose of calomel could do 

 no more ! 



" Not so comes darkness to the good man's breast, 

 When night brings on the holy hour of rest ; 

 Tired of the day, a pillow laps his fiead, 

 While heavenly vigils watch around the bed." 



" A pillow laps his head !" This forcibly aids the description, and what 

 is better still, helps out the rhyme. What a pity that, with his usual 

 attention to particulars, Mr. Montgomery did not also describe the good 

 mans bolster, counterpane, and bed-clothes. They would at least 

 have been as dignified as the pillow. 



" Now hapless hopeless from the city dome 

 She hies remorseless to her village home, 

 And wildly turns her deeply-pensive glance, 

 As down the hawthorn lane her steps advance, 

 Where from the distant hill the taper spire 

 Points to the past, and fans her brain on fire." 



A spire that possesses the ability to fan a woman's brain, must be a spire 

 of uncommon genius ! almost as much so as the poet himself and his 

 long-eared critic. 



" There on the turfy heap, with trembling knees, 

 Her lips convulsed, her ringlets in the breeze." 



" Her ringlets in the breeze !" From the clumsy, loose way in which 

 this is described, a fastidious critic would be apt to surmise that the lady" 

 wore a wig, and that the wind blew it off ! 



" Thou unimagined God ! though every hour, 

 And every day, speak thy tremendous power, 

 Upon the seventh creations work. was crowned, 

 When the full universe careered around." 



