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"Perhaps," says Dobson," so it might, "But latterly I've lost my sight!" "This is a shocking tale, 'tis true, "But still there's comfort left for you; "Each strives your sadness to amuse, "I warrant you hear all the news." "There's none," cries he, "and if there were, "I'm grown so deaf, I could not hear.” "Nay, then," the spectre stern rejoined, "These are unjustifiable yearnings ;" "If you are lame, and deaf, and blind, "You've had your three sufficient warnings; "So come along! aq more we'll part," He said; and touched him with his dart : And now old Dobson, turning pale,

Yields to his fate!So ends

my

tale.

EXTRACTS

FROM SOME OF

OUR MOST ADMIRED POETS.

SPENSER.

FROM AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY LOVE.

O THOU most blessed Spirit, pure lampe of light,
Eternal spring of grace and wisdome true,
Vouchsafe to shed into my barren spright
Some little drop of thy celestial dew,
That may my rimes with sweet infuse embrew,
And give me words equall unto my thought,
To tell the marveiles by thy mercy wrought.

Rouze, lift thyself, O earth, out of thy soyle,

In which thou wallow'st like to filthy swine,
And doost thy mind in durty pleasures moyle,
Unmindful of that dearest LORD of thine;
Lift up to Him thy heavy clouded eyne,

That thou His soveraigne bounty maist behold,
And read through love His mercies manifold.

Begin from first where He encradled was

In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay, Between the toylefull oxe and humble asse, And in what rags, and in how base array The glory of our heavenly riches lay,

When Him the silly shepheards came to see, Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee. From thence read on the story of His life,

His humble carriage, His unfaulty waies, His cancred foes, His fights, His toyle, His strife, His pains, His poverty, His sharp assays, Through which he past His miserable dayes, Offending none, and doing good to all, Yet being malic'd both of great and small.

And look at last, how of most wretched wights He taken was, betray'd, and false accused, How with most scornful taunts, and fell despights He was revil'd, disgrac'd, and foul abused, How scourg'd, how crown'd, how buffeted, how brused;

And, lastly, how 'twixt robbers crucifide,
With bitter wounds through hands, through
feet, through side.

Then let thy flinty heart, that feels no pain,
Empierced be with pitiful remorse,

And let thy bosom bleed in ev'ry vein

At sight of His most sacred heav'nly corse
So torn and mangled with malicious force;
And let thy soul, whose sins His sorrows
wrought,

Melt into tears, and grone in grieved thought.

With sense whereof, whilst so thy softned spirit
Is inly touch'd, and humbled with meek zeal
Through meditation of His endless merit,

Lift up thy mind to the Author of thy weal,
And to His soveraign mercy do appeal;

Learn Him to love that loved thee so dear,
And in thy breast His blessed image bear.

FROM AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY BEAUTY.

HUMBLED with fear and awful reverence,
Before the footstool of His majesty
Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence,
Nor dare look up with corruptible eye
On the drad face of that great DEITIE;

For fear lest, if He chance to look on thee,
Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be.

But lowly fall before His Mercy-seat,
Close cover'd with the LAMB's integrity
From the just wrath of His avengeful threat,
That sits upon the righteous throne on high;
His throne is built upon eternity,

More firm and durable than steel or brass,
Or the hard diamond, which them both doth

pass.

His sceptre is the rod of righteousness,

With which he bruseth all his foes to dust, And the great dragon strongly doth repress, Under the rigour of his judgment just;

His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust, From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright,

That all about Him sheddeth glorious light.

With the great glory of that wond'rous light
His throne is all encompassed around,
And hid in his own brightness from the sight
Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound;
And underneath His feet are to be found

Thunder, and lightning, and tempestuous fire,
The instruments of His avenging ire.

But unto all He daily doth display,

And shew himself in th' image of His grace,
As in a looking glasse, through which He may
Be seene of all His creatures vile and base,
That are unable else to see His face;

His glorious face, which glistereth else so bright
That th' angels selves cannot endure His sight.

Ah, then, my hungry soul! which long hast fed
On idle fancies of my foolish thought,
And with false beauty's flattering bait misled,
Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought,
Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought
But late repentance through thy folly's prief,
Ah! cease to gaze on matter of thy grief,

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