that poetry is not inspiration alone, but art no less. There are passages which seem almost like echoes of the sweet modulations of Shakspeare's sentences-combinations of words which we should say Shakspeare's, could we forget they are Milton's, as when the bewildered lady speaks:

"A thousand phantasies

Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues, that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound,
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.

Oh! welcome pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings,
And thou, unblemished form of Chastity;

I see ye visibly, and now believe,

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,

Would send a glistening guardian, if need were,

To keep my life and honour unassailed."

were

Again, there are passages which blend with a music of their own the melody of both Spenser and Shakspeare-the music of their words and of their thoughts- as when the brother speaks:

"I do not think my sister so to seek

Or so unprincipled in Virtue's book,

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,

As that the single want of light and noise

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,

And put them into misbecoming plight.

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would,

By her own radiant light, tho' sun and moon,
Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet, retired solitude,

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day."

When the lady is at last rescued from the wicked magic that encircled her, the good attendant spirit, his guardianship achieved, speeds away like Ariel, set free to the elements, and leaves in poetry words of encouragement and promise to humanity:

"Now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly or I can run

Quickly to the green earth's end

Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend,

And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime,
Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.'

One cannot part with this poem, radiant as it is with what is bright and pure and lofty in poetry and philosophy, without thinking how little that high-born woman, when her heart was throbbing in the loneliness of Haywood Forest-how little could she have thought that a young poet's words were to win for her more enduring honour than wealth or heraldry could bestow.

The most distinct foreshadowing of Milton's great epic poem, and of his own independent genius, is an earlier poem-"The Hymn on the Nativity"—which gives the poet the fame of having composed almost in his youth the earliest of the great English odes, the like of which had not, I believe, been heard, since Pindar, two thousand years before, had struck the lyre for assembled Greece. It is a lyric that might have burst from that religious bard of paganism, could he have had prophetic vision of the Advent. It is a poem that revealed a new mastery of English versification, disciplined afterward to such power in the blank verse of Paradise Lost. Nothing in the way of metre can be grander than some of the transitions from the gentle music of the quiet passages to the passionate parts, and their deep reverberating lines that seem to gɔ echoing on, spiritually sounding, long after they are heard no more. The universal peace at the time of the Nativity is told with the very music of peace:

"No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around;

The idle spear and shield were high up-hung:
The hooked chariot stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng:
And kings sat stil: with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed ways.”

The stanzas that teil of hopes of a golden age again are followed by that solemn one:

"But wisest Fate says no,

This must not yet be so;

The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss,

So both himself and us to glorify:

Yet first to those ychained in sleep

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep."

The grandest portion of this poem is that which tells of the flight of the false deities of heathendom, the panic of the priests, the silencing of the oracles, and the cessation of the services of superstition, when the star was seen over the infant Saviour. The profusion of mysterious epithets and the dim imagery seem to blend the magic of the dark incantations of Shakspeare's witchcraft with the splendours of Greek mythology. Paganism and superstition-Europe's, Asia's, Africa's-all, with all the host of their ministry, are vanishing like witches at the touch of music-a babe's cry heard from the manger at Bethlehem throughout the spiritual universe

"The oracles are dumb;

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving
Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely, mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament

From haunted spring and dale,

Edged with poplar pale

The parting Genius is with sighing sent:

With power-inwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets nouro.

Nor is Osiris seen,

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest ;

Nought but profoundest hill can be his shroud:
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

Of Milton's various prose-writings, and of his epic poems, it would hardly be possible to say much in a general lecture on the literature of the century. What I have to say respecting the Paradise Lost, I propose to put in this course in another connection.

I have ventured to include, in the subject of this evening's lecture, some suggestions on Sunday reading; and, in turning aside to this topic, let me first explain why I have connected it with this portion of my @ourse. The literature of the seventeenth century includes that which is most generally regarded as the great sacred poem of our languageI mean, of course, the Paradise Lost; and, again, it is the most illustrious age of English pulpit-oratory and of theological literature. Let me, in the next place, say, that I trust it will not be thought presumptuous or impertinent in me to introduce, even somewhat casually, into a course like this, the subject of Sunday reading. I am truly solicitous, on the one side, not to put my hand unduly upon sacred subjects, which are appropriate to another profession of public teachers; and, on the other, not to treat those sacred subjects, so far as I may have occasion to touch them, as ordinary topics of literature and taste. The literature which is associated with holy things must be approached with the

reverential feeling with which the picture of a sacred subject should be looked on, remembering that there is due to it something deeper than unloving, technical criticism of art.

I have been attracted to this subject by the conviction that every Sunday has its unappropriated portions of time, and also that there is an abundant literature, in English words, to be used appropriately to the day, and beneficially. The week-day opportunities for reading vary very much with the business and duties of our lives; but our Sundays, with the rest they bring, put us all more on an equality. The most punctual attendance on public worship does not absorb the day; and, the day's duties discharged, the evening can have no better employment than that which is in-door and domestic. There are the contingencies, too, that compel the spending of the whole day at home; and I believe that is a sore trial to those who have no resources for the employment of it. This is a great pity, considering how large those resources are. I do not propose to speak of the study of the Bible, because I am not willing to treat that as a literary occupation. It stands on higher ground, and ground of its own.

With regard to modes of Christian faith and systems of churchgovernment, it surely is becoming for every one, both man and woman, to have an intelligent knowledge of their belief and membership. It is right to hold, with confidence and charity combined, to well-formed and precise principles, in all that we profess to give our spiritual allegiance to; to understand our own position and to feel the strength of it, instead of that careless ignorance, that latitudinarian indifference, which is seen and heard so much of a mock liberalism, which I speak of as unreal, because, often when it is put to the test, it is found to cover either a hollow scepticism or a bitter intolerance, instead of genuine Christian charity.

In the discipline of habits of reading, it is on many accounts important to draw a line of distinction between week-day reading and Sunday reading. Independently of the propriety of making the reading subservient to the uses of the day, such appropriation is desirable as a means of securing acquaintance with a large and very valuable portion of English literature-the department of its sacred literature being very extensive both in prose and poetry; so extensive, indeed, that when this habit is well formed and cultivated, it will be found that the Sunday reading is more apt to encroach on the week-day reading than the

reverse.

The choice of books must be not only reverently suited to the day, but also large in their influences. It should be no narrow choice, for such