dying, in their Alpine solitudes: for persecution, like the sun, enters into every nook. I thought of the early struggle of Protestantism in this country, of Latimer, of Cranmer, and of Ridley; I thought of these honest and right-noble beings given, by a barbarous bigotry, to a death of infamy; delivered over to the fires of Smithfield; perishing amidst vulgar yells; not only abandoned, but condemned, by episcopal domination. I remembered having read, in the Life of Saint Francis Xavier, precisely similar objections made against him by the bonzas of Japan. I also considered how many societies at present send missionaries to the Heathen. I considered that, amidst the populousness of India, the Brahmins might make a similar ohjection with much greater force. Our fathers, they might say, never heard these things; our people repudiate them."- pp. 21, 22.

ART. III. THE WRITINGS OF HENRY MORE, D. D.

It is the design of this paper to give some account of the most remarkable English writings of this scholar. Only a few of the most prominent features, however, of each work, can be noticed in our narrow limits. It may be remarked, in general, that most of his writings grew out of the occasions of the age, but this value does not pass away with the occasions which gave rise to them. Succeeding scholars, like Coleridge, have drunk deeply at this spring. The works of Dr. More partake largely of the errors of his day. He delighted to dwell in that twilight land, which lies beyond the region of man's observation, where no eye can see clearly. Here he built castles, on the airiest hypotheses. Here he sometimes mistook a cloud for a goddess; and often stumbled and fell in the dark. But he was not without catching occasional glimpses of most celestial truths.

The first work he published was a collection of philosophical poems, containing a sort of biography of the soul. We had sought for this work in the libraries of our public institutions, the collections of amateurs, and the shops of "the curious in such matters," but without success. But recently a copy of it

has fallen into our hands.* It is dedicated "to his dear father, Alexander More, Esq.," to whom he says, "I could wish myself a stranger to your blood, that I might with the better decorum set out the noblenesse of your spirit. You deserve the patronage of better poems than these, though you may lay a more proper claim to these than to any. You having, from my childhood, tuned mine ear to Spenser's rhymes, entertaining us, on winter's nights, with that incomparable piece of his, the Faery Queen, a poem as richly fraught with divine morality as phansy. Your early encomiums also of learning and philosophy did so fire my credulous youth with the desire of the knowledge of things, that your after advertisements, how contemptible learning would appear without riches, and what a piece of unmanlinesse and incivility it would be held to seem wiser than them that are more wealthy and powerfull, could never yet restrain my mind from her first pursuit."

The preface to the second edition of these poems is a curious production. He says "I have taken pains to peruse these Poems of the Soul, and to lick them into some more tolerable form and smoothnesse, for I must confesse such was the present haste and heat that I was then hurried in, that it could not but send them out in so uneven and rude a dress. Nor yet can I ever hope to find leisure or patience so exquisitely to polish them as fully to answer my own curiosity." He congratulates himself, however, for having added a canto on the infinity of worlds, and another on the preexistency of the soul, where he has set out the nature of spirits, and given an account of apparitions and witchcraft, very answerable to experience and story. He was led to this by the frequent discoveries of the age. He added curious notes to these poems, but says of them, "contemplations concerning the dry essence of the Deity are very consuming and unsatisfactory. 'Tis better to drink of the blood of the grape, than bite the root of the vine; to smell of the rose, than chew the stalk."

It has several title pages. The first is inscribed "Philosophical Poems, by Henry More, Master of Arts, and Fellow of Christ's Colledge, in Cambridge;" the next, "A Platonick Song of the Soul, treating of the Life of the Soul; her Immortalitie; the Sleep of the Soul; the Unitie of Souls; and Memorie after Death. Cambridge, 1647." Each of these subjects, also has a separate title page. The book is 12mo., and contains 436 pages. This is the second edition.

VOL. XXVII. - 3D S. VOL. IX. NO. I.

7

We shall not attempt an analysis of these poems, but only give a few of the most favorable specimens.

"Often disease, or some hard casualty

Doth hurt the Spirit, that a man doth lose
The use of sense, wit, phansie, memory;
That hence rash men our souls mortal suppose,
Through their rude ignorance; but to disclose
The very truth, our soul's in safety
In that distemper, that doth ill dispose
Her under-spright. But her sad misery
Is that so close she 's tied in a pure unity,

"Leans on the bodie's false security,

Seeks for things there, not in herself, nor higher,
Extremely loves this body's company,

Trusts in its life, thither bends her desire;
But when it 'gins to fail, she's left i' the mire.
Yet hard upon us hangs th' Eternal Light
The ever live Idees, the lamping fire

Of lasting intellect, whose meanness might

Illumine, were our minds not lost in that frail spright.

Again.

p. 151.

"Like to a light fast locked in lanthorn dark,
Whereby, by night, our wary steps we guide
In slabby streets, and dirty channels mark;
Some weaker rays from the black top do glide,
And flusher streams, perhaps, through the horny side;
But when we've past the peril of the way,
Arrived at home, and laid that case aside,
The naked light, how clearly doth it ray,

And spread its joyful beams as bright as summer day.

"Even so the soul, in this contracted state,

Confined to these straight instruments of sense,
More dull and narrowly doth operate;

At this hole hears; the sight must ray from thence;
Here tastes; there smells. But when she's gone from

hence,

Like naked lamp, she is one shining sphere,

And round about has perfect cognoscence,
Whate'er in her horizon doth appear;

She is all sense, all eye, all aiery ear."

Antidote against Atheism, Book III.

Some of his friends, however, admired this "happy veine of poesye," and thought "fewe could sing such sweete straines, or take soe loftye flights." John Norris celebrates his friend in an ode, and with better praise than poetry, says;

"Some lesser Synods of the wise, The Muses kept in Universities; But never, till in thy soul

Had they a council œcumenical.

An abstract they 'd a mind to see

Of all their scattered gifts, and summed them up in thee."

Miscellanies, p. 90. Lond. 1692.

In the preface to one of the cantos of this poem, he thus, with quaint beauty, shows why men fail to perceive the brightness of the soul;

"The stars shine and fill the air with their species by day, but are to be seen only in a deep pit, which may fence the sun's light from striking our sight so strongly. Every contemptible candle conquers the beams of the moon, by the same advantage that the sun's doth the stars, viz., propinquity. But put out the candle, and you will presently find the moonlight in the room; exclude the moon, and then the feeblest of all species will step out into energy, we shall behold the night."

Among his minor poems, at the end of this volume, are three short pieces, of considerable beauty. One is called the Philosopher's Devotion. We will give a few lines of it, though he professes to "write as hobblingly as Lucretius himself."

"Sing aloud, his praise rehearse,

Who hath made the universe.

He the boundless Heavens has spread,

All the vital orbs has kned.

Summer, winter, autumn, spring,
Their inclined axes bring;
Never slack they, none respires,
Dancing round their central fires.
In due order as they move,
Echoes sweet be gently drove
Thorough heaven's vast hollowness,
Which unto all corners press.

God is good, is wise, is strong,
Witness all the creature throng;
Is confessed by every tongue

All things, back from whence they sprung,
As the thankful rivers pay

What they borrowed of the sea.
Now myself I do resign,

Take me whole, I all am thine.
Save me, God, from self-desire,
Envy, hatred, vengeance, ire,
Let not lust my soul bemire.'

p. 330.

The other is entitled "Charity and Humility," and concludes with this beautiful couplet.

"Lord, thrust me deeper into dust,

That thou may'st raise me to the just.'

p. 332. We shall next examine several of his philosophical works. They are contained in a folio volume, printed a few years before his death, which had already passed through several editions.* His celebrated Antidote against Atheism stands at the head of this volume. In this his design is to prove the existence and providence of a God. He does not, like one of the English divines of a later day, think the existence of God and his goodness are satisfactorily proved by the fact that great rivers run near great cities. His reason for attempting this high argument, "which so many noble spirits had essayed before him," was to do a service" to minds of a like cast with his own," thinking that if many arrows were aimed at the mark, some would fix themselves in it. He saw that his own age was prone to wind itself from under the awe of superstition," and fearing that the fabric of religion would fall with it, he attempts to lay a tried foundation for man's support.

He thus speaks of the occasion of writing his " Antidote:" "For I saw that other abhorred monster, Atheism, proudly strutting with a lofty gait, and impudent forehead, boasting himself the only genuine offspring of true wisdom and philosophy, namely, of that which makes matter alone the substance of all things in the world. This misshapen creature was first nourished up in the stie of Epicurus, and fancied itself afterwards grown more tall and stout by further strength it seemed to have receiv

* A collection of several philosophical writings of Dr. Henry More, D. D., fourth edition, corrected and much enlarged. London. 17711773. pp. 600.