10 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Haddington. The leisure of a country incumbency permitted liis 
entering the list of competitors for University honours of a literary 
kind. In 1816 he obtained the Seatonian Prize for a poem on 
the Destruction of Sennacherib’s Army before Jerusalem. 
To have been the author of a successful prize poem in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge is not a little honourable, though it must 
be confessed that secular themes have enlisted a higher display of 
genius on their side than sacred. Witness such names as William 
Whewell, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and Alfred Tennyson. 
Still Terrot’s poem is very far from being an ordinary production. 
Portions of it indeed are deserving of a high rank, and as a whole 
it is striking and effective. The finest part is the night scene, in 
which is depicted the Assyrian army encamped before the walls 
of Jerusalem, waiting with feverish anxiety the first streak of 
dawn to commence the assault. The author introduces the reader 
to a humble tent, in which lie two soldiers, restless and tossing 
through the whole night. Each dreams his dream. The one, 
eager for battle, 
“ Dreams that with Jewish blood his spear is red.” 
He has cleared the ramparts, and with his comrades is rushing 
wildly on the devoted city. The other, “ of softer mind,” is 
carried away to the home of his affections on the banks of the 
Tigris, 
“ To the rude cot where dwelt his infancy.” 
He is welcomed back by his friends “ with a smiling tear,” 
“ And she whom best he loves, who loves him best, 
Hangs round his neck, and weeps upon his breast.” 
The pleasant dream is broken by the frantic struggles of his 
comrade. He awakes, 
“ And fear comes over him, — he knows not why.” 
The curtains of the tent are shaken ; 
“ a blast 
From heaven moaned low and sadly as it passed.” 
It is the “icy wind of death.” On that blast rides the avenging 
angel, carrying “the last long sleep” to all that slept that night 
in the Assyrian host. 
