Say, why was man so eminently rais'd
Amid the vast creation? why ordain'd
Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame?
But that th' Omnipotent might send him forth,
In sight of mortal and immortal pow'rs,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice; to exalt
His gen'rous aim to all diviner deeds;

To chase each partial purpose from his breast;
And through the mists of passion and of sense,
And through the tossing tide of chance and pain
To hold his course unfalt'ring, while the voice
Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent
Of nature, calls him to his high reward,
Th' applauding smile of heaven. AKENSIDE.
641 He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud
Sung Hallelujah, as the sound of seas,

And I heard a sound which was as the voice of a great multitude, and loud as the voice of many waters, when the waves of the sea are in a violent agitation, and like the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah for the Lord God Almighty, the Omnipotent Jehovah, who is the Author and support of universal nature, reigneth, and is about to exalt his kingdom among men to more visible splendour than it has ever yet worn. Rev. xix.

643 Just are thy ways

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God

Almighty just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Rev. xv. 3.

647 New Heav'n and Earth shall to the ages rise Or down from Heav'n descend.

And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. Rev. xxi. 2.

to th' other five

Their planetary motions and aspects

Five girdles bind the skies; the torrid zone
Glows with the passing and repassing sun :
Far on the right and left, th' extremes of heaven,
To frosts and snows, and bitter blasts are given ;
Betwixt the midst and these, the gods assign'd
Two habitable seats for human kind :
And cross their limits cut a sloping way

Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway :
And as five zones the etherial regions bind,
Five correspondent are to earth assign'd:
The sun with rays directly darting down
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone :
The two beneath the distant poles, complain
Of endless winters and perpetual rain:
Betwixt th' extremes two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot and cold.

Their corners,

To the winds they set

VIRGIL.

He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind; he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain: he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. Psalm cxxxv, 7.

1

671

Some say the sun

Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road

The equinoctial line divides the globe into two equal parts, forming the northern and southern hemispheres; our charming poet, Thomson, has finely introduced the change occasioned by the revolution of the signs of the zodiac, in his Seasons.

These as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round, the forest smiles;
And ev'ry sense, and ev'ry heart is joy
Then comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year :
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,

By brooks, and groves, in hollow whispering
gales.

Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfin'd,

And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime. Thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin❜d,

Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade; And all, so forming an harmonious whole: That as they still succeed, they ravish still. 686 From cold Estotiland,

Estotiland; so called by the fishermen of Friezland, and afterwards by the Portuguese : and called Terrade Labrador; that is, Land of Labour, being difficult to cultivate: also called New Britain. It is a country in North America; bounded by Hudson's Straits and the Atlantic Ocean; on the north by the same ocean, on the east by the river St. Lawrence, and Canada on the south, and by Hudson's Bay on the west; extremely cold and mountainous; over ran with forests and wild beasts. The natives, called Esquimaux, go naked, notwithstanding the cold; and hunt for furs, which they sell to the English and French. The inhabitants are mostly idol

ators.

687 Beneath Magellan

This navigator was a Portuguese, and set sail under the auspices of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, from Seville, a port in Spain, the 10th of August, 1519; and, having discovered the Magellanic Straits, in South America, through them he entered the South Sea: and, after discovering the Ladrone Islands, he arrived at the Philippines, where he was killed in a skirmish with the natives. His ship returned to Seville, by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, under the direction of Jean Sebastian del Cano, the 8th of September, 1522, after a voyage of abuot three years.

687

At that tasted fruit

The sun as from Thyestean banquet,

Thyestus was banished from Argos for his immoralities his brother, Atreus, to punish him, invited him to partake of an elegant entertainment; but what was his horror, to find that he had been feeding on his own children. This action appeared so barbarous that, it is said, the sun stood still, or chang'd his usual course, not to be a spectator of so shocking a scene.

696 Of Norumbega,

696

A large country of North America, having Nova Scotia on the south west, and New England on the north west, and the ocean on the east. and the Samoed shore

The most northerly province of Russia in Europe, situate on the Frozen Ocean, and on both sides the river Oby, joining to Siberia. The inhabitants are rude, savage and gross idolators, living in huts and caves under the snow they hunt in the winter, and fish in the summer. 699 Boreas, and Cæcias, and Argestes loud.

Boreas, the north wind: Cacias, the north west wind; Argestes, a river of Mysia, in Asia Minor, near the Hellespont, from which the wind blows upon Greece.

700 And Thrascias

Blowing from Thrace, now Romania in Europe upon Greece: the north west wind.

702 Notus and Afer black with thund'rous clouds From Serraliona;

In the west of Africa is the great river Sierra Leona, which is said to be nearly three