ADVERTISEMENT.

Or these Miscellanies the reader will be pleased to remember, that very few were revised by the author; that not one received his last emendations; and that far the greater part were composed in his seventeenth or eighteenth year, and some at a still earlier period. All the notes marked J. H. B. are by the author; the other notes by the editor.

MISCELLANIES,

BY

JAMES HAY BEATTIE, A. M.

FRAGMENTS OF A POEM ON THE EXCELLENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.*

O THOU, whate'er thy nature, cause, or name,
Pure emanation of celestial flame!

From Shakspeare's magic page whose glories roll,
To melt, alarm, o'erwhelm, the enraptured soul;

* Virtue does not consist in the repression of hope and desire, or in surly abstinence from pleasure and insensibility to pain: it does, on the contrary, afford the only suitable gratification to desire, and confidence to hope; and produces the only pure and lasting enjoyment.-These happy ends will be attained, if our hopes and desires are fixed upon the improvement of the soul, and extended to the interests of eternity.

The christian religion alone affords the means of this happiness; for it alone teaches how we may improve the best faculties of the soul; and it can alone compose and gratify our hopes and desires, by assuring us of future felicity, and by removing that uncertainty and fear which the thought of eternal duration must raise in every mind unsupported by the comforts of the gospel, and sensible of its own guilt and infirmity.

Illumine Pope's keen verse, and moral lay;
Beam in full radiance on the lyre of Gray;
And, with th' omnipotence of lightning driven,
Make Milton blaze in all the pomp of heaven!
If still, bright offspring of ethereal birth,
Thou lingering deign to cheer the gloom of earth;
Inspire thy feeble votary's design,

Exalt the thought, invigorate the line,

And bid in harmony the numbers flow,

To check gay pride and comfort anxious wo;
From folly's lure the wanderer to entice,
Who heedless roams the wildering maze of vice;
And guide his footstep to that silent cell,
Where love, tranquillity, and virtue dwell;
Whence contemplation, listening, hears afar
Ambition, interest, pleasure, passion jar ;
And sees in doubt, in fear, in danger, hurled
The dim confusion of a distant world.

Vain crowd, whom fashion's meteor forms decoy, And plunge in sorrow while ye grope for joy;

Though no future life were to be expected, happiness, even upon earth, could not be obtained, except from the mind. So that even a desire of present happiness should make us obey the precepts of christianity; as directly tending to improve and harmonize the soul, and to procure for us in this life all the felicity whereof our nature is capable.

These particulars I would attempt to explain, partly by argu ment, and partly by examples; I do not wish to follow that strict arrangement, which might be necessary in a philosophical discourse; but rather to dispose the subject in such a manner as may be most suitable to the natural course of human thought, may relieve the mind by variety in the style, and may afford the best opportunities for poetical illustration

Who tear from present thought the troubled mind,
Scared by the past, and to the future blind,
Still in one round of dull amusement stray,
And trifle all your empty lives away!
Say, if for once to think ye greatly dare,

What prospects feed your hope, and rouse your care:
What goads you on to hurry, at the call
Of courtly pride; gasp in the stifling ball;
On couch of down to languish for repose,
Or rush into the field where tumult glows;
Or eye, with grinning scorn, expensive state,
Through the snug opening of an iron grate,
And peace, health, freedom, happiness resign,
To watch a dirty bag of useless coin?

King, peasant, statesman, soldier, rich and poor,
The old, the young, the courtier and the boor,
All, of whatever garb, whatever name,
Or power, or pleasure seek, or wealth, or fame.

And rightly seek; for so, by heaven inclined,
These rule, and ought to rule, the human mind,
Hopes, that rouse virtue, or from sloth protect,
The muse would not extinguish, but direct.
Man's final mansion is not here below;

His glory springs from goodness, not from show.
Wish ye for power, wealth, pleasure, fame? 'Tis well.
That in your breast the seeds of virtue dwell.
But not on earth can fruit from these be given;
These seeds must ripen in the climes of heaven.
He, who bids nature flourish or decay,

In mercy gives, in mercy takes away,