His barns with plenteous sheaves, with joy his heart;
For thou, and none but thou, his harvest art.

The no less sweating and industrious lover
Lays not his panting heart to rest upon
Kind looks and gracious promises, which hover
On love's outside, and may as soon be gone
As easily they came; but strives to see
His hopes and nuptials ratified by thee.

The traveller suspecteth every way,
Though they thick trac'd and fairly beaten be;
Nor is secure but that his leader may

Step into some mistake as well as he;

Or that his strength may fail him; till he win
Possession of thee, his wished inn.

Nobly besmeared with Olympic dust,
The hardy runner prosecutes his race
With obstinate celerity, in trust

That thou wilt wipe and glorify his face :

His prize's soul art thou, whose precious sake

Makes him those mighty pains with pleasure take.

The mariner will trust no winds, although

Upon his sails they blow fair flattery;

No tides, which, with all fawning smoothness, flow,
Can charm his fears into security;

He credits none but thee, who art his bay,

To which, through calms and storms, he hunts his way.

And so have I, cheer'd up with hopes at last
To double thee, endur'd a tedious sea;
Through public foaming tempests have I past;
Through flattering calms of private suavity;

Through interrupting company's thick press;
And through the lake of mine own laziness;

Through many syrens' charms, which me invited
To dance to ease's tunes, the tunes in fashion;
Through many cross misgiving thoughts which frighted
My jealous pen; and through the conjuration

Of ignorant and envious censures, which
Implacably against all poems itch:

VOL. XII. PART II.

S

But chiefly those which venture in a way
That yet no Muse's feet have chose to trace ;
Which trust that Psyche and her Jesus may
Adorn a verse with as becoming grace

As Venus and her son; that truth may be
A nobler theme than lies and vanity.

Which broach no Aganippe's streams, but those
Where virgin souls without a blush may bathe;
Which dare the boist'rous multitude oppose
With gentle numbers; which despise the wrath
Of galled sin; which think not fit to trace
Or Greek or Roman song with slavish pace.

And seeing now I am in ken of thee,
The harbour which enflamed my desire,
And with this steady patience ballas'd me
In my uneven road; I am on fire,

Till into thy embrace myself I throw,

And on the shore hang up my finish'd vow."

We shall conclude by stringing together a few shorter extracts.

Jesus is described as mingling with the crowd which flocked to John's baptism.

first hid in his own humility,

Jesus himself had mixed with the crowd;
In which blind tumult's open torrent he
Unto that river undiscover'd flow'd:

So purest airs in a confused cry,

Though most melodious, breathe no melody."

Famine is described as

"That living death by which unhappy man

Is forc'd himself his funeral to begin;

Whilst, past hope's sphere, he wanders faint and wan,
Wrapp'd in the winding sheet of his pale skin,

And seeks his grave, through whose cool door he may
Into a milder death himself convey."

In the narrative of the miraculous conversion of water into wine, an old, and, we think, obvious conceit occurs:

"The cool and virgin nymph, drawn from the pot,
All over blushed, and grew sparkling hot."

Of a meteor :

"Thus when a dainty fume in summer air

To lambent fire, by nature's sporting, turns,
And lightly rides on men's attire or hair,
With harmless flames it plays, and never burns
Its habitation, but feeds upon

The delicates of its own beams alone."

Of the sudden restoration of sight to the blind:

66

his releas'd sparkling pupils show'd

Like sprightful lightning from the broken cloud."

Of hope:

"So strange a thing 's faint hope, if unawares
It be surpris'd by full fruition, that,

In fond ambiguous jealousy, it bars
Out what it does possess; and aiming at
Some proofs of what is absolutely clear,
Transfigureth itself from hope to fear."

We think we have seen the following elsewhere.

Of a miraculous renewal of memory.

"Hast thou not seen, when courteous Titan's beams
Pour his bright bounty through the summer air,
How, in the golden bosom of his streams,
Thick shoals of atoms swim? About this fair
Irradiation's scene thus scudding here,
Millions of memorative figures were.

And those not thin and starv'd, not blind, or lame;
Not crude and embryo notions; no shreds
Of half-lost things; no open-eyed dream;
No slow-pac'd topics, whose dull tedium leads
Poor recollection long long ways about,
And often seeks what needed not be sought:

But fair and full ideas, which were all
Muster'd in method's rational array,

Off'ring their ripe and perfect selves to fall
Into the gatherer's eye, without delay;

And telling brisk Anamnesis that she

And all her pains henceforth might spared be."

Of news:

idleness's business, tickling news."

The dispelling of a delusion is illustrated by the following simile:

"As when the sun's stout beams burst out upon
A waxen idol; straight its goodly face,

Too weak to bear that glorious dint, doth run
Away in droyling drops, and fouls the place
Which it adorn'd."

Of the effects of sudden joy:

"So when the unexpected virgin light

Broke from the glorious mouth of God upon
The rude disconsolate heap of first-born night;
That flashing morn with cheerful terror ran
About the universal deep, which was

Astonish'd at the dint of lustre's face."

Before we quit Psyche, we ought, perhaps, to take notice of the coincidence between some of its thoughts and expressions with those of Milton. As the two epic poems of the latter, in which the passages alluded to occur, appeared nearly twenty years later than the first publication of Psyche, and about thirty before the death of Dr. Beaumont, it is matter of curious speculation whether these coincidences were accidental, or, if not, which was the original. The passages are as follows. In Canto IV. where the Senses are represented as displaying their allurements, in succession, before Psyche, after a whimsical description of a feast, which bears considerable resemblance to that in the second book of Paradise Regained, Geusis, or Taste, the caterer of the feast, speaks as follows:

"These dainties, which are fairer far, I trow,

Than that poor green raw apple, which could win

A wiser far than Psyche is, to throw

All other bliss away.”

Thus Milton, in the passage referred to:

"Alas! how simple, to these cates compar'd,
Was that crude apple which perverted Eve."

Paradise Regained, II. 348.

In Canto VI., Eve is described as plucking the fatal fruit :

"Up went her desperate hand, and reach'd away
The whole world's bliss, whilst she the apple took.
When lo, with paroxisms of strange dismay,
Th' amazed heav'ns stood still, earth's basis shook,
The troubled ocean roar'd, the startled air,
In hollow groans, profoundly breath'd its fear.

The frighted trees through all their bodies shiver'd,
Their daunted faces down the flowers held;
Th' afflicted beasts with secret horror quiver'd ;
With sudden shrieks, the birds the Wolkin fill'd;
And deep-pain'd nature, though but fresh and new,
In this sad moment crack'd and crazy grew."

Thus Milton:

"So saying, her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she ate:
Earth felt the shock, and nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost."

Paradise Lost, IX. 780.

"Earth trembled from her entrails, as again

In pangs, and nature gave a second groan,

Sky lour'd, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin

Original."

7. 1000.

In Canto X., after relating the dispossession of the legion of devils, the poet proceeds:

"But O, that men, whom mystic obligation
Of mutual membership doth them invite
To careful tenderness, and free compassion;
With such confederate zeal, and stout delight,
Would help their brethren up the heavenly hill,
As these contrive to plunge them deep in hell!

"O shame to men! devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds; men only disagree