and the curiosity which he produces. "From what depths, mysterious stranger, hast thou come? what are the tidings of thy shadowed yet fiery beams? and whither art thou bound?" are inevitable questions to ask at him, although the answers have not yet fully arrived. He is a treasury of gold and gems, but triplebarred, and guarded by watching seraphim.

The comet, then, is but a fiery sword protecting a system behind it. To burst beyond a boundary so sternly fixed, and expound the heights and depths of his meaning, is not our purpose. We shall be satisfied if we can catch the outline of the guardian shape.

Mark, first, the lofty and visionary groundwork of his prophecy. It is the record of a succession of trances. The prophet usually hangs high between earth and the regions of the ethereal. A scenery gigantic as that of dreams, select as that of pictures, rich as that of fancy and distinct as that of nature surrounds his motions and swims before his eye. The shapes which he had seen in the temple come back upon his captive vision, but come back altered in form, enlarged in size and shining in the radiance of the divine glory. How terrific the composite of the four living creatures, with their four faces and wings, seen amid a confusion of light and darkness, of still fire and leaping lightnings, of burnished brass and burning coals, coupled with the high rings of the eyed wheels, unified by the spirit moving in them all, overhung by the terrible crystal of a firmament, and that again by the sapphire throne, and that again by the similitude of a man seated upon it, surrounded, as they pursue their strait, stern path, by the girdle of a rainbow, which softens the fiery storm, and moving to the music of a multitude of waters, "as the noise of a host," which is commanded from above by a mightier, solitary voice the voice of the Eternal! What pencil can represent to us the glory of this apparition? or who but one whose brow had been made adamant and whose eye had been cleansed with lightning could have faced it as it passed? Or shall we look at the

prophet again, seized by the form of a man's hand, lifted up by a lock of his hair between earth and heaven, and brought from Chebar to Jerusalem? or shall we follow him as he passes down the deepening abominations of his country? or shall we witness with him the man clothed with linen baptizing Jerusalem with fire? or shall we descend after him into that nameless valley, full of dry bones? or shall we take our stand beside him on that high hill, higher far than that of Mirza's vision, or than any peak in the Delectable Mountains, and see the great city on the south, or hear the rush of the holy waters, encompassing the earth?— visions these, for which the term "sublime" is lowly, and the term "poetic" poor. From heaven, in some clear future day, might be expected to fall down at once the epithets which can express their glory and the light which can explain their meaning.

We mark, next, besides his visions, a singular abundance and variety of typical acts and attitudes. Now he eats a roll of a deadly sweetness. Now he enacts a mimic siege against a tile representing Jerusalem. Now he shaves his beard and hair, burns a third part in the fire, smites a third part with a knife, scatters a third part to the winds, reserving only a few hairs as a remnant. Now he makes and shows a chain, as the worthy recompense of an evil and an insane generation. Now he prepares stuff for removing, and brings it out day after day in the sight of all. Now he stands with bread and water in his hands, but with bread, water, hands, body and head trembling, as if in some unheard storm, as a sign of coming tremors and tempests among his people. And now-sad necessity!-the desire of his eyes his wife is taken away by a stroke; yet God's seal is set upon his lips, forbidding him to mourn. It was the sole link binding him to earth, and, once broken, he becomes loosened and free as a column of smoke separated from the sacrifice and gilded into flame by the setting sun.

Such types suited the ardent temperament of the East. They