have read; but still I cannot help wishing that they were in general satisfied with giving what they believe to be the real, or probable, meaning, without noticing any other interpretation, unless it has acquired such notoriety,' as that they think it really likely that their readers have been misled by it.

V. The next point I approach with reluctance, for no man is so tasteless as to wish to be thought so. I am afraid that but few readers will agree with me, yet I must speak the deliberate conviction of my mind, that poetry and painting have greatly contributed to render the revelation of God obscure; at least to prevent our receiving clear ideas of it. a

"Oh, but poetry! where is there such poetry as in the Bible?" To say the truth, I am much inclined to believe that the Bible will be found, one of these days, to contain much less poetry than is supposed, even by those who are not neologists, which is perhaps more than can be said of most who have written on the subject. I should like to say more of them in this place, (for I believe that they have done very much to prevent the Scriptures from being understood,) but that it would lead to a long, and, I fear, dry dissertation. I grant, however, that

the Bible contains some poetry, and there is none like it-it is God's fire on his altar, there is none like it; but I refer at present to that mixture of truth and fiction, which takes place when the subjects of revelation are treated of by poets.

It seems to me that the subjects of revelation demand from us sober and reverend investigation. That whenever we meddle with them, we should eagerly and singly desire and seek for all truth; and scrupulously reject, and cast to the greatest possible distance, all error. I cannot help thinking, that to make the truth of God the subject of fanciful embellishment, and to give a poetical colouring to revealed facts, is not only to desecrate the revelation of God, and to insult its Author, but is a course which inevitably leads to the formation of wrong ideas, impressions, and feelings. other matters this may be of less consequence. If the reader of Shakespeare's historical plays is led into misconceptions respecting facts or characters, it is of comparatively little conse quence; because little or nothing, perhaps, depends on his having a correct view of English history. But when the Revelation of God, imperfectly intelligible even to serious

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labour, is made the basis of poetical fiction, the chances are, that truth and falsehood will be so muddled together in the reader's mind, as seriously to affect his view of those things of which he is required to have a correct knowledge.

The truth is-one is sorry to acknowledge it, but the truth is, that poetry is not the language of reality. It is not the language of the world, as it now is, and of man, as he has now become; yet there is something within him of recollection and anticipation, which listens to this dead language with instinctive interest, and recognizes it as his mother tongue, long lost in the land of his captivity, but still sufficiently intelligible to rouse his spirit with the imagery of better times, and better things. The danger lies in this; that poetry is not the language of truth; and that man loves to escape from truth. He loves to frame and fancy things that are not, because he seeks in vain for satisfaction in things that are; and he tricks himself into a forgetfulness of hard truths, that he may revel in his ideal creation. What can be more beautiful than Milton's description of Adam's bower?

"It was a place,

"Chos'n by the Sovran Planter, when he framed "All things to man's delightful use; the roof

"Of thickest covert was inwoven shade,

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Laurel, and myrtle, and what higher grew

"Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side

Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub

"Fenc'd up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower,

"Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine,

"Reared high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought "Mosaic; underfoot the violet,

"Crocus and hyacinth with rich inlay

"Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone "Of costliest emblem."

Who does not see the beauty of this? and who is not grieved to think that, even while he wrote it, Milton could not escape from the recollection that all this beauty was inconsistent with present realities, and felt constrained to anticipate the suggestion of painful truth, by adding,

"Other creature here,

5. Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none; "Such was their awe of man."

A happy circumstance for him who was to sleep there without bolt or bar, bed or blanket. He who should make the experiment in our days, even where his nakedness might seem some security against murder or robbery, and where there were neither lions nor tigers to

eat him, must needs expect to have the foul reptiles of earth crawling over his body, and tracing their manifold paths in their own filthy slime, and in the dews of a blighted atmosphere. I have slept soundly, and sweetly, in loose straw, on the floor of a dirty apartment; and such I take to be fitter circumstances of repose for fallen humanity. Not that I have any objection to the sober realities of feather beds: but if I had slept in Adam's bower, instead of rising invigorated and refreshed, I should probably have risen (if able to rise at all) with rheumatism, or ague.

I trust the reader will not think that I mean to disparage Milton, or those who have followed his course as poets. I am not insensible to the beauties of Paradise Lost, or The World before the Flood; and though no poet, or pretender to poetry myself, I have dreamed as deeply as most persons; but since I awoke to the realities of life, I have felt convinced that the tendency of conversing with fiction is to unfit the mind for the reception of truth, to give false views of realities; and that, in particular, the mixture of fiction with revelation has been productive of most pernicious effects. I mention poetry, therefore, as having

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