88 NETHER LOCHABER. 



But if we have no comets to boast of in 1870, let not the reader 

 forget that the 14th November is nigh at hand, and that he who 

 gets up betimes on the morning of that day, and watches till the 

 daybreak, will assuredly witness a sight more startling, and grand 

 and " glaring " than Dry den's comets, wonderful and startling as 

 they doubtless were. We must be permitted one other extract 

 from this extraordinary poem. It describes the state of the con- 

 tending fleets and the feelings of their respective crews on their 

 withdrawing for a time from an engagement that resulted in some- 

 thing like what at the present day we should call a drawn battle : 



" The night comes on, we eager to pursue 



The combat still, and they ashamed to leave 

 Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew, 

 And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive. 



" In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy, 



And loud applause of their great leader's fame ; 

 In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy, 

 And, slumbering, smile at the imagin'd flame. 



" Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done, 



Stretch'd on their decks, like weary oxen lie ; 



Faint sweats all down their mighty members run 



(Vast hulks which little souls but ill supply). 



" In dreams they fearful precipices tread, 



Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore ; 

 Or in dark churches walk among the dead ; 

 They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more." 



We do not know whether the reader will agree with us, but we 

 look upon these verses as wonderfully fine, and upon the Annus 

 Mirabilis as, of its class, amongst the finest, if not the very finest, 

 poem in the language. 



Even from a meteorological point of view, this year, in our part 

 of the country at least, has had not a little of the mirabilis about 

 it. Byron, we know, awoke one morning and found himself 

 famous, and we awoke one morning last week and found ourselves 



