e little song of
itself:

Bless the Lord. His praise be sung
While an ear can hear a tongue.
He our feet establisheth;
He our souls redeems from death.
Lord, as silver purified,
Thou hast with affliction tried,
Thou hast driven into the net,
Burdens on our shoulders set.
Trod on by their horses' hooves,
Theirs whom pity never moves,
We through fire, with flames embraced,
We through raging floods have passed,
Yet by thy conducting hand,
Brought into a wealthy land.

CHAPTER IX.

A FEW OF THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS.

From the nature of their adopted mode, we cannot look for much poetry of
a devotional kind from the dramatists. That mode admitting of no
utterance personal to the author, and requiring the scope of a play to
bring out the intended truth, it is no wonder that, even in the dramas of
Shakspere, profound as is the teaching they contain, we should find
nothing immediately suitable to our purpose; while neither has he left
anything in other form approaching in kind what we seek. Ben Jonson,
however, born in 1574, who may be regarded as the sole representative of
learning in the class, has left, amongst a large number of small pieces,
three _Poems of Devotion_, whose merit may not indeed be great, but whose
feeling is, I think, genuine. Whatever were his faults, and they were not
few, hypocrisy was not one of them. His nature was fierce and honest. He
might boast, but he could not pretend. His oscillation between the
reformed and the Romish church can hardly have had other cause than a
vacillating conviction. It could not have served any prudential end that
we can see, to turn catholic in the reign of Elizabeth, while in prison
for killing in a duel a player who had challenged him.

THE SINNER'S SACRIFICE.

1.--TO THE HOLY TRINITY.

O holy, blessed, glorious Trinity
Of persons, still one God in Unity,
The faithful man's believed mystery,
Help, help to lift

Myself up to thee, harrowed, torn, and bruised
By sin and Satan, and my flesh misused.
As my heart lies--in pieces, all confused--
O take my gift.

All-gracious God, the sinner's sacrifice,
A broken heart, thou wert not wont despise,
But, 'bove the fat of rams or bulls, to prize
An offering meet

For thy acceptance: Oh, behold me right,
And take compassion on my grievous plight!
What odour can be,