"As soon as Lord Clifford saw he must lose the white staff, he went to the Duke of Buckingham, who had contributed much to the procuring it to him; and told him, he brought him the first notice that he was to lose that place to which he had helped him, and that he would assist him to procure it to some of his friends. After they had talked round all that were in any sort capable of it, and had found great objections to every one of them, they at last pitched on Sir Thomas Osborn, a gentleman of Yorkshire, whose estate was much sunk. He was a very plausible speaker, but too copious, and could not easily make an end of his discourse. He had been always among the high cavaliers; and, missing preferment, he had opposed the court much, and was one of Lord Clarendon's bitterest enemies. He..... had a peculiar way to make his friends depend on him, and to believe he was true to them. He was a positive, and undertaking man; so he gave the king great ease, by assuring him all things would go according to his mind in the next session of parliament: and, when his hopes failed him, he had always some excuse ready to put the miscarriage upon; and by this means he got into the highest degree of confidence with the king, and maintained it the longest of all that ever served him.

"The king now went into new measures. He called for the declaration, and ordered the seal put to it to be broken. So the act for the taking the sacrament, and the test against transubstantiation, went on; and together with it an act of grace passed, which was desired chiefly to cover the ministry, who were all very obnoxious by their late actings.....

"Thus this memorable session ended. It was indeed much the best session of that long parliament. The church party shewed a noble zeal for their religion; and the dissenters got great reputation by their silent deportment. After the session was over, the duke carried all his commissions to the king...... Lord Clifford left the treasury, and was succeeded by Osborn, who was soon after made Earl of Danby. The Earl of Shaftsbury had lost the king's favour quite; but it was not thought fit to lay him aside, till it should appear what service he could do them in another session of parliament. Lord Arlington had lost the duke more than any other. He looked on him as a pitiful coward, who would forsake and betray anything, rather than run any danger himself."

SACRED POETRY.

AN ODE ON SACRED POETRY.
(Translated from the French of M. de Lamartine.)
HER palmed brow with circling stars is bright;
Her glance immortal, of unsullied light,
Through the dim veil of time and distance cast,
Pierces the future, and rewakes the past!
Beneath her eyes, a torrent wildly hurl'd,
Flow the vain pomps and ages of the world;
Powerful to grasp things past as things to be,
She tells the hour of human destiny;
Or sings upon her virgin lyre to Earth
The Day that first to infant Time gave birth.

Ibid. pp. 384-393.

VOL. XV.-June, 1839.

4 N

Hear from the womb
Of his eternity Jehovah come!
Chaos, hush'd in long repose!
Waken'd at his presence, rose;

While brooded o'er the void immense
The quickening Spirit of Omnipotence.
God spake and there was light!
God spake-and, numberless and bright,
The stars burst forth along the boundless vault of night!
The various elements divide,

Obedient to his will;

The waters from each rill
To ocean's hollow bosom glide;

The mountains lift their heads on high,
And through the fields of air the rapid breezes fly.
Seven times Jehovah spake;

And chaos heard

Seven times, obedient to his word:
Come, let us man in our own image make;
E'en as he said, the Word Creative stood
O'er his last work, and saw that it was good.

But ah! no more a God-'tis man that sighs;
Eden is lost alas! he toils, and dies;

His words in tears expire ;

The chord of joy hangs broken on the shell,
While Job awakes the lyre,

Sad as his destiny his tale to tell :-
Perish the day that saw my birth,

The night that stamp'd my form on earth,
The breasts that nurs'd me to my doom,
And knees that bore me from the womb!
O! would that God for ever might efface
That day, still tarnish'd by the stain of sin!
Would in the book of life it had no place;

O would it were as it had never been!

Then had I in oblivion still and deep
For ever slept my sleep

In that eternal night without a morn,

With conquerors, of their fleeting honours shorn,

And babes, untimely perishing ere born.

Dull and slow, as shadows slumber

On the earth, my days decline;

O my God, curtail their number!

Would, O would, that death were mine!

The aspect of my tedious grief

Repels the hand that brings relief;
In vain I call the friendly band;
My brothers, wearied with my woe,
Apart in mute amazement stand,

As waves from hilly shores that flow.

E'en as a cloud that flits apace
The spring-time of my life is flown;

My eyes no longer see a trace

Of all the joys I deem'd mine own.

Smit by the fury of his blast,

My wither'd bough from earth is cast!
I go,-O never to return!

Ye vales, my heritage and home,
And eyes, that for a while may mourn,
Ye ne'er again shall see me come.

Man lives on earth his little hour,
The heir of sorrow and decay,

Till, filled with misery day by day,
He falls!-e'en as an evening flow'r
He falls! but soon with kindly dew
That flower the morrow shall renew,
And bid it bloom again.

But man!-O let the blast of death
Once parch the well that feeds his breath,
And dewy morn is vain.

Like snow before the morning ray,

I fade beneath thy stern command;
E'en hope, that could my fears allay,
Escapes as water through my hand.
The last asylum for the dead
Prepare me my sepulchral bed
With peaceful boughs o'ershadowed!
I greet thee as my sire, O Tomb!
Earth, I reseek a mother's womb!
Ye worms, behold a brother come!

But on the prosperous soul of sin
The gloom of sadness ne'er is flung,
For still the flame is fed within

With blood from helpless orphans wrung.
His branches stretching far and wide,
Like herds upon the mountain's side,
O'er Segor spread his numerous race;
Then, in a princely tomb raised high,
His corpse in yonder vale they place,

And deem his memory cannot die !

'Tis hid with God,-I worship, and am still;-
He marks the path of morning by his will!
He weighs the ocean, and unfolds the sky,
While hell unveiled lies open to his eye!
He sows the stars in fields of heavenly light,

And builds the earth-and I-what am I in his sight?

But hark! Isaiah strikes the trembling shell;
From his full soul the strains of vengeance swell.
Jehovah calls-forth springs the ready seer.

O heaven and earth, be still!-the son of Amos hear!
I saw, what time Uzziah died,

The Lord in awful state arrayed;

His robes of glory floating wide,

Illumed the temple's utmost shade.

The seraphim, to shield them from the sight,

Closed round their forms their six-fold wings of light,

To death I give them as a prey:
The sword shall sweep their tribes away
Like grass beneath the scythe!
My God! in mercy-nay, no more;
Whelm'd 'neath my hands in floods of gore
Their warrior hosts shall writhe!

Their streams are parch'd beneath my blast,
And low in desolation cast

Their palaces and walls;
They fade in my consuming fire
As stubble.-Throne and State expire,
And Silence o'er them falls.

Where stood those walls in briery dell,
Th' hyena and the snake shall dwell;
Vultures and owls by night

With answering screams shall rend the air,
As homeward for their young they bear
The prey to yonder height.

Isaiah ceas'd the doom of heaven to tell :
And, wrapt in visions drear, Ezekiel

Seems o'er his country's wither'd form to bend,
And bids in turn the Word of Life descend.

Th' Eternal One my trembling spirit led,
And plac'd me in the valley of the dead;
The bones lay dry and scatter'd on the plain.
Shuddering I gaz’d—and “Can they live again?”
"Eternal Father, thou alone canst say."
"Then, hear my words; and, son of man, obey!
Bid those dry bones, that senseless dust, arise,
Heirs of new life, and children of the skies.
Yon scattered limbs, assembling at my voice,
Again shall with rekindled warmth rejoice;
My hands their fleshly garments shall replace,
The blood recircle, and the nerves relace.
Bid them arise, and own me as their Lord!"
I heard th' Almighty, and proclaimed his word.
"Oh breath of life! from distant eve and morn,
From the far poles, O breath of life, return!"

Lo! by my cry awakened from their sleep,
Those wither'd bones a new creation leap;
New eye-lids opening drink the sunny ray,
New flesh reclothes the relics of decay.
Behold, the field of death to life restor❜d,
A mighty host, and living to the Lord!

But o'er their memory is oblivion cast,
And Zion's daughter weeps o'er years of pain;
Weeping she sits, and, reft of glory past,

Hears Jeremiah mourn, and mourns herself again.