ative strength, are suddenly
confronted with a common and dissimilar antagonist, and 'all strength,
all terror, single or in bands, that ever was put forth' opposed to that
novel, and, save in the Temptation, hitherto untested power, represented
by Christ, the author of the theory and master of the example.

"He is not supposed to appear among them 'grasping in his hand ten
thousand thunders,' but endued with an equal power, the result and
expression of perfect virtue and rightful authority. His triumph is
attributed neither to natural, nor to supernatural power; but to moral
superiority, evincing itself in His aspect, and exercising its
omnipotence upon the soul and conscience. That in the conception of a
great Christian poet, His appearance among the rebel angels in Heaven
was distinguished by the former attributes, is due, perhaps, to the
heroic prejudice of a mind thoroughly imbued with the spirit of pagan
writers, and of the Hebrew Scriptures."

The volume opens with this noble invocation, in which there is fit
recognition of Dante and Milton, whose lips aforetime for such song had
been touched by the divinest fire:

Thou of the darkness and the fire, and fame
Avenged by misery and the Orphic doom,
Bard of the tyrant-lay! whom dreadless wrongs,
Impatient, and pale thirst for justice drove,
A visionary exile, from the earth,
To seek it in its iron reign--O stern!
And not accepting sympathy, accept
A not presumptious offering, that joins
That region with a greater name: And thou,
Of my own native language, O dread bard!
Who, amid heaven's unshadowed light, by thee
Supremely sung, abidest--shouldst thou know
Who on earth with thoughts of thee erects
And purifies his mind, and, but by thee,
Awed by no fame, boldened by thee, and awed--
Not with thy breadth of wing, yet with the power
To breathe the region air--attempts the height
Where never Scio's singing eagle towered,
Nor that high-soaring Theban moulted plume,
Hear thou my song! hear, or be deaf, who may.

And if not rashly, or too soon, I heed
The impulse, but have waited on my heart
With patience, and its utterance stilled with awe
Oh what inspired it, till I felt it beat
True cadence to unconquerable strains;
Oh, then may she first wooed from heaven by prayer
From thy pure lips, and sympathy austere
With suffering, and the sight of sole