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the limits prescribed by his education and the laws. He distinctly avows that, with him, reason is subordinate to the teachings of the Church, as the Church is subordinate to the Jewish Scriptures. Of a temper naturally visionary, (though we find it impossible to discover any appropriateness in Coleridge's designation of "affectionate enthusiast,") had his mind but swung aloof from these moorings, we might have looked for extravagances, less wild and antic, perhaps, than we are doomed to witness among our transcendental savans, yet, from the superiority of his intellect, of sufficient consequence to save him from contempt.

Sir Thomas Browne, then, did not waste his energies in a vain and endless chase after absolute truth. Clearly recognizing that man is but relative in his nature, and encompassed by no calculable course of events, nor influenced by the same unvaried causes, nor able, at all times and in all positions, to get a complete and reliable view of the elements on which his reason is exercised, he wisely abstained from a search he saw must be fruitless, and contented himself to attempt a discovery of his immediate relations, and of the wants arising therefrom. He thrust off every approach of skepticism, therefore, by a suppression of all doubts that arose to disturb a belief which he had once deliberately settled, knowing that in this state of imperfect vision, many uncertainties and apparent contradictions will attach themselves to all the weightier conclusions of our reason. The great subjects on which his contemplations most delighted to dwell, as already intimated, were of a nature far removed from the ordinary affairs of life, constituting a spiritual world in which few, in the present state of being, have leisure habitually to dwell. To lose himself in meditations upon an incomprehensible Deity, was his constant delight, and all the loftier themes of human life, and death, and destiny, were forever returning to his thoughts. In these was his existence; and none to whom such matters have any interest can lightly esteem the manifold and various lucubrations, of which his works are the elaborate record.

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That Browne had something of austerity, has already been seen. Intellect with him was supreme. Affection was rigidly governed, and passion was suppressed. His enthusiasm, even, had a stateliness of march and a severity of demeanor, that amounted almost to a perfect disguise. His was not a heart that could love. At thirty, he tells us that he "never yet cast a true affection upon a woman. And though his marriage, some years after, puts a face of inconsistency upon the contempt at this period expressed for the other sex, yet it is easy to believe that no material change, in this particular, ever passed upon his mind. Such a cold, heroic pursuit of wisdom and virtue will always command respect and even high admiration, but there is nothing in it to love and we should greatly belie our own judgment and feelings, did we avow any ardent affection for his writings, or any impulse to seek for consolation and sympathy in his bosom, amidst the ills and perplexities of our life. While it makes us more proud of humanity to know that such a man has lived, we never feel our pulse beat warmer at the mention of his name-no sweet words of beauty and hope, from his pen, ever gush upon our spirit in moments of dejection and sorrow. Thomas Browne cared very little for the beautiful or the tender. He could weep at the idle parade of a Romish procession, but for a heart overwhelmed and broken. with grief, he had no kind word of comfort. He could name, doubtless, many hundreds of flowers, but their delicate loveliness never touched his heart. He talks much and frequently of nature, yet he could. never have cordially sympathized with the beautiful child of affection who should say in simplicity: "I have ever loved the flowers, and even from my earliest years, the greatest happiness that I could know was a solitary ramble among them, and an hour's silent communion with nature." Beauty, in his eye, was nothing—wisdom was all. We open his pages with reverence,―we read with admiration,-we close them and go forth into the world, to find a darker hue and a sterner aspect on the face of destiny, and a more sombre shadow upon all things.

J. H. B.

Sir

HYMN OF CREATION.

(IN THE INDUS.)

Creation, as it is described by MENU, was a work of Brahma, who is the principal person of the three that emanated from Brehm, the VAST, the ineffable, ONE. Brahma, the first of created gods, gave origin to the world by conceiving it in his thought.

See Article" The Laws of Menu," by J. D. Whelpley, American Review, Vol. I. 1845.

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The moon came up with dewy wreath,
And in the sunset's golden street,
The evening paled and died beneath
The tramplings of her silver feet.
Silent the priest of nature stood-
His hands upon his harp-his eyes
Bent raptly on the purple flood
That filled the hollows of the skies.
But when the planet, calm and queenly,

In mid heaven sat serenely,

Gazing with extatic looks,

On the old heroic books

That Brehm hath written on the folded stars,—

He struck the strings; the wakened lyre

Leaped to an answer for his soul on fire

The holy hymn rolled out and rang the willing wire.

I.

Mountains and seas, and suns, and stars, and spheres,

That fill the deep caves of the dark Abyss

With sounding Meres

Of splendor, giving and receiving bliss!

Oh, steadfast marks by whose keen glow

*The Hindoo name for God.

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TO CHREESHNA* will I lift the strain,
The born of BREHM in ages long ago;
Chreeshna! who saw, and not in vain,
Cycle on cycle round the Father flow.
'Twas He, the tall Archangel, who beheld,
When leaning from the gallery of His home,
With diamond column dight and crystal dome,
The rough stupendous sea of matter swelled.
In scowling discord far below.

"Why glooms the desert tentless ?" thus he cried : "Be mine! be mine

The task to bend it to the Will Divine!

A harmony may wed its cloudy tide-

A melody within its discord may be wrought;
So with a Time may it forever shine,

And under sweet compulsion brought,

No longer wail, but clothe an angel's thought."

III.

He said, and from his shoulders swift unfurled
Their wings, like snowy clouds, and bore away
Into the Inner World,

Which owns the SIRE's immediate sway.
He stood upon the margin of the Sphere,
Waiting until the essence trembling out
Should wrap his charmed soul about

With sympathy, and draw the angelic near

Its awful but resplendent source: nor waited long,Soon shone he there with that selectest throng

Who feel, in dread delight,

The Father-Brehm's melodious love

Strike through their frames a wondrous might
That lifts them swooning to the heaven above.

An incarnation of BREHM.

IV.

He heard the thunders of Almighty Will
Go crashing down the throned steeps--

He heard the echoes answering, answering still
From all the distant deeps-

A high song pouring from the choirs

Of giant seraphs ranked around,

Like pyramidal fires with skies of azure crowned.
Wrapt in his scheme, he only pondered mute,

But when the anthem died he made his mighty suit.
All Heaven was hushed at his bold word,
While through the awe-struck space

His fervent voice was heard

Ascending to the Secret Place.

He paused a wave of smiles came floating down,
And curled around his forehead in a crown
Of calm magnificence: then swelled again
An ancient song from that angelic train,--
'Holy! Most Holy! unto Thee we bow!
Glorious! Most Glorious! only unto thee,
With veiled brow and bending knee,

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Who WAST and ART and ever more shalt BE!"

Again his wings unfurled

V.

Like snowy clouds around a star,
And bore afar

Beyond the Inner World.

At last he checked his eager flight

Close by the realm of Night:

There lighting on a promontory,
His countenance took its grandest glory,
And over the cloudy Deep

He stretched his shining hands:

Slowly it felt their awful power sweep

Along its wailing waves and solemn sands.
And still the INFLUENCE grew in might,

And gathering to a rounded light,
Now quick, now slow,

Went smiting all the Chaos to and fro,

Until its dull eyes opened lazily to the glow.

He spoke !

The darkness shuddering broke:

Then the sun-orb, from a chasm, moaning in the troubled ocean,
Rose and towered grandly upward, with a slow melodious motion;
Blazed the zodiac's giant circle, shouting rose the Pleiades ;
Glittered all the starry islands in their blue, surrounding seas:
Other spheres from other caverns gave the gift of flame to space,-
Mighty Jove with many vassals kneeling round his golden mace;
Trembling Vesta gliding coyly under all the ardent glare;
Venus with her snow-white bosom throbbing passion in the air;
Pallas leading out the young Winds, murmuring with joy the while,
Over the emerald vales and mountains, by the blue lakes of her Isle ;
Ceres on her sunny uplands with the blossoms keeping tryst ;
Lone Uranus walking slowly in his wilderness of mist;

Solemn Saturn with his bright rings wheeling round his stately form,
And the world of red savannahs shimmering ghastly through the storm;
Followed by the silver planet-Planet! whom I now behold,
Looking on the Earth serenely as thou look'dst in ages old,
When ye first, with low, sweet laughter, in your azure circles whirled.
And the Angel-shepherd, smiling on the far extending wold
Which had drank his sudden splendor, numbered all his starry fold;
Then like melody his white wings on the morning air unfurled,
Wafting up the great World-maker to the waiting Inner World.

VI.

But still the INFLUENCE brooding hung

O'er all the spheres and peopled all their climes :
First through the grosser shapes it sprung,

First to the lower atoms clung;

But took the nobler in the nobler times.

It swept along with permeating song,

In whose harmonious breath

An Eden kissed to life the cold, black lips of Death.
The huge sea-monster, stricken by the tone,
Sank to his vasty tomb in dark despair;
Th' enormous beast, left in the worlds alone,
His mighty race to marble history grown,
Crouched, dying darkly in his caverned lair.
To them the rosy flower and rainbow wing
Were torture, and upon their tombs

The snow-white swan went sweetly murmuring,
And all the hyacinth urns of dewy spring
Poured out their rich perfumes.

VII.

And still the Influence swept along,

And still diviner grew the song.

The wild bee murmured in the flower; the wild bird sang aloud;
The Eagle soared, and drank from out his beaker of the cloud;
The wild deer glanced like beams along the dizzy mountain race;
The Lord of all majestic rose and filled his throned place;
And at the last, when softest grew the silver-sounding strains,
Did Woman, glorious Woman rise from all the Eden plains
Of those resplendent worlds; then Silence through the space
Leaned pressing her pale hands upon the hushed lips of the air,
And in the quiet sabbath morn Creation bowed in prayer.

1845.

W. W.

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