PEACE. My soul, there is a country, Where stands a wingéd Sentry All skilful in the wars; There above all noise and danger, Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles, Commands the beauteous files. "THOMAS FLATMAN," in the words of Wood, "an eminent poet of his time, was born in Aldersgate Street, in the suburb of London, educated in grammar learning in Wykeham's School, near Winchester, elected fellow of New College (Oxford), in 1654, left it before he took a degree,* retired to the Inner Temple, of which he became a barrister, and equally ingenious in the two noble faculties of poetry and painting, or limning, as several choice pieces show." It has been said, however, that he painted better than he wrote; and that one judge at least esteemed one of his heads worth a ream of his Pindarics. His principal works are "Pindarique" odes, either of an elegiac or a congratulatory kind; and celebrate the virtues of members of the royal family, or their friends and adherents. His "Poems and Songs" were first published in 1674; an enlarged and amended edition in 1676; and, again, a third edition, with additions and a portrait of the author, in 1682. At the age of fifty-three, Flatman “gave way to fate in his house, in Fleet Street, on the eighth day of December, in sixteen hundred eighty and eight, and was three days after buried in the church of St. Bride, alias Bridget, near to the rails of the communion table." The "Thought of Death" is not animated by any jubilant degree of Christian expectation; but it occupies an interesting position as intermediate between the famous poem of the Emperor Hadrian, commencing “Animula vagula, blandula," and the more thoroughly evangelical version presented by Pope in the " Dying Christian to his Soul." Fairness, also, at once to Flatman and to Pope, makes it desirable to offer a poem by the former, of which the latter almost certainly availed himself "without thinking it necessary to mention the obligation." A THOUGHT OF DEATH. Flatman was A.M. of Cambridge, by the King's letters, dated December 11th, 1666; having been some time before admitted bachelor of arts of Oxford. My soul just now about to take her flight That have been long below, What shall I think, when cruel death appears, Be not fearful, come away! Think with thyself that now thou shalt be free, Better thou mayest, but worse thou canst not be Like Cæsar, with assurance then come on, (1637-1711.) THOMAS KEN was born in July, 1637, at Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire. He received from his "virtuous parents an "education pious, careful, mild." Anne, the elder of his two sisters, was married to Izaak Walton, the famous angler and biographer. In January, 1650-1, Ken was admitted to Winchester, and in 1655-6, in default of a vacancy at New College, he was entered of Hart Hall, which then occupied the site of Magdalen College, Oxford. He took his bachelor's degree in 1661, and received ordination soon after. In 1666, he was elected to the vacant fellowship in Winchester College; and, upon his going to reside there, was welcomed by Bishop Morley, to whom he became domestic chaplain, and by whom he was preferred in his profession. About this time he produced his "Manual of Prayers," and the “Morning, Evening, and Midnight Hymns," for the use of the Winchester scholars. It was his habit to sing the "Morning Hymn," to the accompaniment of his lute, when-often very early in the day, or, as we should now be inclined to call it, very late in the night-he awoke from his first sleep, which, once broken, he never sought to resume. In 1675, he accompanied his nephew, the son of Izaak Walton, to Italy; and, although envious and railing tongues professed to discover in this a tendency to the Romish doctrine and Church system, he professed that his Protestantism was fortified by the near view it afforded him of Papal corruption. In 1679, he was appointed chaplain to the Princess of Orange at the Hague. He filled this office for a year, and then returned to England. During a voyage which he made with the expedition of Lord Dartmouth against Tangier, in 1683, he wrote an epic poem entitled " Edmond." He had been already appointed chaplain to the king; and on the 25th January, 1684, was consecrated to the see of Bath and Wells, vacant by the translation of Bishop Mew to the diocese of Winchester. Ken attended Charles II. in his last illness, but all his pious prayers and ejaculations seem to have passed the dying king without arresting his attention. Ken was a laborious and devoted bishop; constant in earnest and eloquent ministrations. He composed his "Exposition of the Church Catechism" for the enlightening of the darkness which he sorrowfully found too prevalent. He was one of the bishops who, in May, 1688, were committed to the tower for refusing to read the Declaration of Indulgence. The conscientious recusants were released on their own recognizances on the 15th of June, tried on the 29th, and acquitted, to the great and grateful joy of the people. As a non-juror, Ken was in 1691 deprived of his episcopal emoluments; and, after protest, he resigned his title and his see in favour of his friend, Dr. Hooper. He retired to Longleate, where, after many years of precarious health and great suffering, he died in March, 1711. He was buried at sunrise, and the attendants upon his funeral, having seen his body committed to the tomb, broke forth in salutation to the day in the strains of his "Morning Hymn." Although the knowledge of parts of this hymn is coextensive with the language in which it is written, comparatively few persons are acquainted with it, as here presented, in its integrity. The "Anodyne" quoted is one of forty-two with which the pious author sought to relieve the tedium and the paroxysms incident to ten years of bodily affliction. The thirty-second" Anodyne" has for its first stanza : "Two lustres now are well nigh flown, She on my tender membranes preys, No medicine can approach her where she stays." From a somewhat minute knowledge of "Hymnotheo; or, the Penitent "-from which the first of the following poems is extracted—which we discovered to be very exceptional, we had prepared an analysis, for which, because it has at least the merit of being shorter, we substitute one adopted by Mr. Willmott in his "Life of Ken," from the editor of the bishop's "Select Poetry:" "In the church of Smyrna was a catechumen, by name Hymnotheo, peculiarly distinguished by the apostle John, and recommended by him to the care of the aged Bucolo, who then presided over the church. Thus eminently favoured the youth gradually increased in genius and accomplishments, a poet hardly inferior to Homer, until the death of Bucolo, when, becoming inflated with spiritual pride, |