Where faith and hope in full possession cease In one eternal Now* of charity and peace.

III.

"A little while, and to the last long home,
My weary journey ended, I retire

From the kind friend, the hospitable dome;
And feel my ashes kindle with the fire
Of immortality, and hear the quire
Hierarchal, and unhurt amid the roar
Of shipwreck, look on the commotion dire
In idle fury tempesting the shore,
And everlastingly the God of Gods adore.

IV.

"O Thou, whose lonely contemplation trod
Gethsemane and Tabor, there to pray,
And in communion see the face of God;
Let me not linger in this house of clay
Without thy visitation, and the ray
That from between the cherubim of light
Illumes the path from darkness into day;

Nor only guides, but strengthens for the flight, The spirit that aspires where Thou and Heaven invite.

V.

"Age, want, infirmity, have yet a calm

That brings the servant nearer to the feet
Of Him who shall award the crown and palm,
When with his angels to the judgment-seat
He comes, and all earth's generations meet
Messiah, generations of the dead;
While worlds to worlds the jubilee repeat
Of saints in triumph to their kingdom led,
Jehovah their defence, Immanuel their head.

* An expression often used by Ken, from Cowley.

VI.

"Rejoice, disciple of the Lord, in loss,
In pain, in age, in tribulation blest;
More closely to thy bosom press the cross,
And thankfully acknowledge all is best
As Providence hath ordered, whose behest,
Then most benign when seeming most severe,
Protects us from ourselves, nor offers rest
Till time, dissolving in th' eternal year,
Proclaims our full repose from sorrow, sin, and fear.

VII.

"Our days are register'd, and every hour
Gives warning; nor a moment ever roll❜d
Without a testimonial to the Power

That spread abroad the firmament of old,
Appointed summer's heat and winter's cold,
The fruits of autumn, and the bloom of spring;
Call'd forth the sun, the stars by number told,
And bade all ages, all creation sing

The constellations' birth, the glory of their King.

VIII.

"Behold, how Nature's volume is to all

Laid

open,

there the record to peruse

Of Him by whom earth's kingdoms rise or fall,
The seasons change, the clouds distil their dews,
The garden and the mead display their hues;
The sky's illimitable circuit feels

His guidance, and the destined course pursues,

And day to day, and night to night reveals

What hand each insect feeds, each star and planet wheels.

IX.

"Then turn not from the melodies of morn

In cold abstraction, nor refuse to hear

The early echoes of the hound or horn

Blend with the song of lark and chanticleer.
No; let them wake devotion to revere

The Giver of all good, and pay her vow,
When first day's eyelid opens on the sphere
Terrestrial, and transfigures all below,

Till, fair as Paradise, earth, ocean, ether glow.

"Nor

X.

may we pass the mystery of noon Unsolemnized: then was the ransom paid

That purchased for the world salvation's boon;
Then trembled earth, the sun went back dismay'd,
The firmamental vault was wrapt in shade,
And height and depth convulsed the signal gave
By what a Victim was atonement made:

By Him who quell'd the whirlwind and the wave, Death, and the sting of death, the serpent, and the grave.

XI.

"But morning and the noon of life are fled,

And glooms of eve to sadder musing call,
Ere night prepare the pillow for my head
On that sepulchral couch ordain'd for all
Earth's progeny, that soon or later fall
Like wither'd leaf; yet though we seem to die,
Though dissolution and decay enthral

Our mortal frame, the soul shall upward fly,

Ever from strength to strength, to meet its God on high."

282

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Poem on Ken, before he left Winchester to take possession of his Bishopric.

In a forgotten volume of poems, by Thomas Fletcher, of New College, there is a poem, apparently written by Fletcher, when at school, entitled, "To Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, staying at Winton, after his promotion to the See, 1685." The following is most characteristic:

"Yet you vouchsafe to bless us with your stay,

And slowly hence, even to glory, fly;

But smiling through these peaceful glades you glide,

Like SOME CALM GHOST."

The last image is very striking and beautiful. I cannot part with these obscure and forgotten poems, without remarking one expression, in this poem, which Pope conveyed to his exquisite Eloisa :

"To thee, the Fates, severely kind," &c.

Pope.

"And blame the Fates for being too severely kind."

"*

The following extract relates to one of the cities of which Ken was Bishop:

"Thrice-happy Bath, to you with joy does bow;

Much to great Charles she owes, and much to you;

Nor does she more to her own Bladed owe.

She now shall feel those strong meridian rays

Of that bright Sun which in our East† did rise;

*Fletcher's poem was published in 1692.

+ Doubtless alluding to Ken's education and settlement at Winchester.

But though he shone with greater lustre there,

Yet were his beams more close and tender here."

It may be here mentioned, that in his rooms, over the third chamber in the college, Ken had an organ, which he left there, and which was often used in the several musical assemblies in the city. One circumstance connected with it I would not omit; the learned Dr. Philip Barton, afterwards Canon of Christchurch, was Fellow, inhabiting Ken's rooms, where his organ remained. In the Fellow's absence, one of the boys got into the room, from enthusiastic feelings, to touch Ken's own organ. Dr. Barton, on discovering the culprit, set him an imposition. The boy was DOCTOR JOSEPH WARTON!-From the Bishop of Hereford.

"God save the King," a Jacobite song.

We have mentioned, in the review of Jacobitism, that "GOD SAVE THE KING" was an original Jacobite song. It is now generally admitted that this most popular song was, as originally written, applied to James, "GOD SAVE GREAT JAMES OUR KING."

The authority of Smith (Handel's musical amanuensis), Dr. Burney, and Dr. Harrington, is decisive on this point; and further, that it was written and composed by Henry Carey.

A late publication (Clerk on GOD SAVE THE KING) denies all this, and with arguments which will weigh with no judicious person, attributes the words to Ben Jonson, and the AIR to DR. BULL!!

I shall not waste a word on such opinions, so vaguely supported. Mr. Ashley, an ingenious musician of Bath, with genius allied to poor Carey's, has exposed the absurdities of such a supposition. All the different opinions on this subject it is very easy, I think, to reconcile, and I shall here devote a few words to this not uninteresting subject, which I hope may set the question at rest.