No bribe could buy thy favour for an hour,
Or mitigate thy ever-cruel rage

For human prey; gold, beauty, virtue, youth,
Even helpless, swaddled innocency, failed

To soften thy heart of stone: the infant's blood
Pleased well thy taste, and, while the mother wept,
Bereaved by thee, lonely and waste in woe,
Thy ever-grinding jaws devoured her too!
Each son of Adam's family beheld,

Where'er he turned, whatever path of life
He trode, thy goblin form before him stand,
Like trusty old assassin, in his aim

Steady and sure as eye of destiny,

With scythe, and dart, and strength invincible
Equipped, and ever menacing his life.

He turned aside, he drowned himself in sleep,
In wine, in pleasure; travelled, voyaged, sought
Receipts for health from all he met; betook
To business, speculate, retired; returned
Again to active life, again retired :

Returned, retired again: prepared to die,

Talked of thy nothingness, conversed of life

To come, laughed at his fears, filled up the cup,

Drank deep, refrained; filled up, refrained again; Planned, built him round with splendour, won applause

Made large alliances with men and things;

Read deep in science and philosophy,

To fortify his soul; heard lectures prove
The present ill, and future good; observed

His pulse beat regular; extended hope;

Thought, dissipated thought, and thought again,
Indulged, abstained, and tried a thousand schemes,
To ward thy blow, or hide thee from his eye;
But still thy gloomy terrors, dipped in sin,

Before him frowned, and withered all his joy.
Still, feared and hated thing! thy ghostly shape
Stood in his avenues of fairest hope;
Unmannerly and uninvited, crept
Into his haunts of most select delight.
Still, on his halls of mirth, and banqueting,
And revelry, thy shadowy hand was seen

Writing thy name of-Death! Vile worm! that gnawed
The root of all his happiness terrene, the gall
Of all his sweet, the thorn of every rose
Of earthly bloom, cloud of his noonday sky,
Frost of his spring, sigh of his loudest laugh,
Dark spot on every form of loveliness,
Rank smell among his rarest spiceries,
Harsh dissonance of all his harmony,
Reserve of every promise, and the If
Of all to-morrows!-now, beyond thy vale,
Stood all the ransomed multitude of men,
Immortal all; and in their vision saw
Thy visage grim no more. Great payment day!
Of all thou ever conquered, none was left
In thy unpeopled realms, so populous once.

*

*

*

*

*

Vain was resistance, and to follow vain.
In thy unveilèd caves and solitudes
Of dark and dismal emptiness, thou satst,
Rolling thy hollow eyes, disabled thing!
Helpless, despised, unpitied, and unfeared,
Like some fallen tyrant, chained in sight of all
Thy people; from thee dropped thy pointless dart;
Thy terrors withered all; thy ministers,

Annihilated, fell before thy face!

And on thy maw eternal hunger seized,

John Henry Newman.

1801-1890.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN was born in London on the 21st of February, 1801. He was the eldest of a family of six children, of whom Francis William, afterwards Professor of Latin at University College, London, was the youngest son. John was educated at a private school, conducted by Dr. Nicholas, at Ealing, and was entered at Trinity College, Oxford, on the 14th of December, 1816. In 1818 he gained a Trinity scholarship, and in 1820 graduated B.A. He was elected fellow of Oriel in 1822, and ordained deacon in 1824, after which he became curate of St. Clement's Church, Oxford. In 1825 he was appointed by Dr. Whately viceprincipal of Alban Hall, an appointment which he resigned on becoming tutor of Oriel in 1826. In 1827 he was appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall, and public examiner in the final examination for honours. In 1828 he became vicar of St. Mary's, the University church; in 1830 he served as pro-proctor, and in 1831-2 as one of the select preachers of the University. In 1832 he visited the south of Europe with Archdeacon and Hurrell Froude, making the acquaintance of Dr., afterwards Cardinal, Wiseman, at Rome, where, in conjunction with Hurrell Froude, Newman began the “Lyra Apostolica." In 1833 the party broke

up, the Froudes visiting France, and Newman returning to Sicily, where he suffered a dangerous illness at Leonforte. En route from Palermo to Marseilles, the vessel in which he travelled became becalmed for six or seven days, during which Newman wrote the most popular of all his poems, "Lead, kindly Light," at a time, it has been said, when the ship lay motionless "amid the encircling gloom " of sea mist. In July 1833 he arrived in England, a few days before his friend Keble preached his famous Assize sermon on National Apostacy. Then followed the Oxford tractarian movement, Keble, Newman, and Pusey taking the lead. Theological study and polemical discussion now occupied his mind, which underwent great changes during the following years. In September 1843 he resigned the vicarage of St. Mary's, and on the 9th of October, 1845, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. After visiting Rome, he resided successively at Maryvale, Old Oscott; St. Wilfred's College, Cheadle; and Alcester Street, Birmingham, where he established the Oratory, afterwards removed to Edgbaston. In 1850 he founded the London Oratory, of which Faber afterwards became the head. In 1854 Newman became Rector of the new Catholic college, which had been recently founded at Dublin, where he resided for four years. In 1877 he was elected an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and on the 12th of May, 1879, he was created Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He died at Edgbaston on the 11th of August, 1890.

Newman's poetry is chiefly preserved in his "Verses on Various Occasions," first published in

1834, and frequently reprinted with additional poems from time to time. The "Lyra Apostolica

con

sisted of poems contributed to the British Magazine (1832-4) by Newman, Keble, and others, and afterwards published separately under the same title. Beyond this Newman translated a number of Latin hymns, of which his "Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus" ("Come, Holy Ghost, Who ever One), has been, perhaps, the most often used. "The Dream of Gerontius," his longest poem, is chiefly known by the fine hymn "Praise to the Holiest in the Height," which is taken from it, and which with "Lead, Kindly Light," represents the poet in most modern hymn books. "The Dream of Gerontius describes the vision of a dying Christian, and is the most powerful and imaginative of his poems, though, curiously enough, it was not composed until late in life. The selected passages given in the following pages are sufficient to show its beauty and power, and the poem, as a whole, is enough to make one wish that Newman had taken himself more seriously as a poet. He had an easy command of verse forms, and a true sense of the sublime; and the lover of poetry may well regret that so much of his time and thought were absorbed by polemical discussions. As it is, his poetic work is correctly described by the title of his volume "Verses on Various Occasions," to which might have been added "and in various moods," of the outcome of the lighter of which, we may quote here the trifle 'Opusculum" written at Brighton in April 1829 "for a very small album ”

Fair Cousin, thy page

is small to encage