By whom it is defined thus
That no perfume

For ever shall presume

To pass for odoriferous,

But such alone whose sacred pedigree

Can prove itself some kin, sweet Name! to thec.
Sweet Name, in thy each syllable

A thousand blest Arabias dwell;

A thousand hills of frankincense;
Mountains of myrrh and beds of spices,
And ten thousand paradises,

The soul that tastes thee takes from thence.

How many unknown worlds there are

Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping!

How many thousand mercies there

In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping.

Happy he who has the art

To awake them,

And to take them

Home, and lodge them in his heart.

Oh, that it were as it was wont to be,

When thy old friends, on fire all full of thee,

Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase

To persecutions; and against the face

Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave

And sober pace march on to meet a grave.

On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee,

And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee;

In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee

Where racks and torments strived in vain to reach thee. Little, alas! thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,

Their fury but made way

For thee, and served them in thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides thee hardly covers ?
What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee? fair purple doors, of love's devising;
The ruby windows which enriched the east
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.

Each wound of theirs was thy new morning;

M

And re-enthroned thee in thy rosy nest,

With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning :
It was the wit of love o'erflowed the bounds

Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds.
Welcome, dear, all-adoréd name!

For sure there is no knee

That knows not thee;

Or if there be such sons of shame,

Alas! what will they do,

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heaven-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night,
Next to their own low nothing they may lie,

And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread Majesty.
They that by love's mild dictate now

Will not adore thee,

Shall then, with just confusion, bow
And break before thee.

JEREMY TAYLOR, the "Spenser of our prose writers," though of honourable descent, was the son of a barber at Cambridge, where he was born in the year 1613. He received his elementary education at the Free Grammar School, and in his thirteenth year entered Caius College as a sizar. In 1631 he took his bachelor's degree. Having received holy orders, he attracted the notice and the patronage of Archbishop Laud, who procured for him a fellowship at Oxford, and made him his chaplain. He ob

tained also the rectory of Uppingham, in the county of Rutland. In 1639 he married Phoebe Langdale, who, having borne him three sons, died in 1642. At the breaking out of the civil war he espoused the side of royalty, and became chaplain to the king, in virtue of whose mandate he was made a Doctor of Divinity. In 1644 Taylor, who accompanied the royal army, was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary forces in a battle fought before Cardigan Castle; but his release followed speedily. His prospects darkened with the ruin of the king's fortunes; and during the ascendancy of Cromwell he secluded himself in Wales, keeping a school at Newton Hall, Caermarthenshire, where he wrote many of those discourses which have immortalized his name.

He married for his second wife Mrs. Joanna Bridges, a lady of fortune in the county of Caermarthen; but their resources were crippled by the fines and sequestrations of the Parliamentary party. Taylor visited London in 1657. Thence he accompanied the Earl of Conway to Ireland, where he remained as lecturer in a church at Lisburn till 1660, when he again visited London for literary purposes. In August of this year-the year of the Restoration-he was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor, to which the see of Dromore was added "on account of his virtue, wisdom, and industry." He died at Lisburn in 1667, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

It is to the prose works of Jeremy Taylor that we have chiefly to look for his poetry. Of these one of the most remarkable is his "Theologia Eclectica: a Discourse of the Liberty of Prophecying, showing the Unreasonableness of Persecution to other Men's Faith, and the Iniquity of Persecuting Differing Opinions." This Discourse was published in 1647. His Sermons; his Golden Grove;" his "Holy Living;" and his "Contemplations on the State of Man," present many passages which exhibit an eloquence unsurpassed by any writer in the language.

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"Taylor is unrivalled," says Mr. Craik, "in abundance of thought; in ingenuity of argument; in opulence of imagination; in a soul made alike for the feeling of the sublime, of the beautiful, and of the picturesque; and in a style answering in its compass, flexibility, and sweetness, to the demands of all these powers."

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The whole works of Jeremy Taylor were published in 1822 in fifteen volumes, "with a life of the author and a critical examination of his writings by Reginald Heber, A.M., Canon of St. Asaph, Rector of Hodnet, and late fellow of All Souls' College, Cambridge." In the Life of Taylor, Heber says, At the end of the Golden Grove' are some hymns for different festivals, which, had they no other merit, would be interesting as the only remaining specimens of that which a mind so intrinsically poetical as Taylor's was, could effect when he attempted to arrange his conceptions in a metrical form. They are, however, in themselves, and on their own account, very interesting compositions. Their metre, indeed, which is that species of spurious Pindaric which was fashionable with his contemporaries, is an obstacle, and must always have been one, to their introduction into public or private psalmody; and the mixture of that alloy of conceits and quibbles which was an equally frequent and still greater defilement of some of the finest poetry of the seventeenth century, will materially diminish their effect as devotional or descriptive odes. Yet, with all these faults, they are powerful, affecting, and often harmonious. There are many passages of which Cowley need not have been ashamed, and some which remind us, not disadvantageously, of the corresponding productions of Milton."

Such is the whole of the "Second Hymn for Advent" -the one quoted. Such, too, is the passage in his "Meditation of Heaven," commencing with the line "That bright eternity," to the end.

A HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR, CHRIST'S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH.

Lord, come away;

Why dost Thou stay?

Thy road is ready; and thy paths, made straight,
With longing expectation wait

The consecration of thy beauteous feet.

Ride on triumphantly: behold, we lay

Our lusts and proud wills in thy way.

Hosannah, welcome to our hearts: Lord, here
Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear

As that of Sion; and as full of sin;

Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein,
Enter and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor;
Crucify them, that they may never more
Profane that holy place,

Where Thou hast chose to set thy face.

And then if our stiff tongues shall be

Mute in the praises of thy deity,

The stones out of the temple-wall
Shall cry aloud and call

Hosannah! and thy glorious footsteps greet. Amen.

A MEDITATION OF HEAVEN.
O beauteous God, uncircumscribéd treasure
Of an eternal pleasure,

Thy throne is seated far
Above the highest star,

Where thou preparest a glorious place
Within the brightness of thy face
For every spirit
To inherit,

That builds his hopes on thy merit,
And loves Thee with a holy charity.

What ravisht heart, seraphic tongue or eyes,
Clear as the morning's rise,

Can speak, or think, or see
That bright eternity?

Where the great King's transparent throne

Is of an entire jasper stone;