III.-Oh! might these sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent

Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourn'd in vain;
In mine idolatry what show'rs of rain

Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?
That sufferance was my sin I now repent;

'Cause I did suffer, I must suffer pain.

Th' hydroptic drunkard, and night-scouting thief,
The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud,
Have th' remembrance of past joys, for relief
Of coming ills. So poor me is allowed

No case; for long, yet vchement, grief hath been
Th' effect and cause-the punishment and sin.
IV.-Oh! my black soul, now thou art summoned
By sickness, Death's herald and champion;
Thou'rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath donc
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which, till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison;
But, damn'd and hawl'd to execution,
Wisheth that still he might b' imprisoned:
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Oh! make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin:

Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might,
That, being red, it dies red souls to white.

V.-I am a little world made cunningly

Of elements and an angelic spright;

But black sin hath betrayed to endless night

My world's both parts, and, oh! both parts must die.
You, which beyond that heav'n, which was most high,
Have found new spheres, and of new land can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly;
Or wash it, if it must be drown'd no more:
But, oh! it must be burnt; alas! the fire
Of lust and envy burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: let their flames retire,

And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal

Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

VI.—This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,
Idly yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;
And gluttonous Death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;
But my ever-waking part shall see that face
Whose fear already shakes my every joint:

Then as my soul to heav'n, her first seat, takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,

So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred, and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil;
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.
VII.-At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom th' flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow;
All, whom war, death, age, ague's tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance, hath slain; and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these my sins abound,

"Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace,

When we are there. Here on this holy ground
Teach me how to repent: for that's as good

As if thou had'st seal'd my pardon with thy blood.

VIII.-If faithful souls be alike glorified

As angels, then my father's soul doth see,
And adds this ev'n to full felicity,

That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride:
But if our minds to these souls be descry'd
By circumstances and by sighs, that be

Apparent in us not immediately,

How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried?

They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,

And style blasphemous conjurers to call

On Jesus' name, and pharisaical

Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn,

O pensive soul, to God; for he knows best
Thy grief, for he put it into my breast.

IX.-If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious,
Cannot be damned, alas ! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous ?
And mercy being easy and glorious

To God, in his stern wrath, why threatens he?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee!
O God, oh! of thine only worthy blood,

And my tears, make a heav'nly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory:
That thou remember them, some claim as debt;
I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.

X-Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow:
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery,

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally;

And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

XI.-Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet and scoff, scourge and crucify me ;
For I have sinn'd, and sinn'd; and only he,
Who could do no iniquity, hath died:
But by my death cannot be satisfied
My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety:
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify him daily, being now glorified.
O, let me then his strange love still admire :
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment;
And Jacob came, clothed in vile harsh attire,
But to supplant, and with gainful intent:
God clothed himself in vile man's flesh, that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.

XII.-Why are we by all creatures waited on!
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simpler, and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why do you, bull and boar, so sillily

Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe's me! and worse than you;
You have not sinn'd, nor need be timorous,
But wonder at a greater, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue;
But their Creator, whom sin, nor nature tied,
For us, his creatures, and his foes hath died.

XIII.—What if this present were the world's last night?
Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,

The picture of Christ crucified, and tell

Whether his countenance can thee affright!

Tears in his eyes quench the amazing light,

Blood fills his frowns, which from his pierced head feil
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,

Which pray'd forgiveness for his foes' fierce spite!
No, no; but as in my idolatry

I said to all my profane mistresses,

Beauty of pity, foulness only is

A sign of rigour; so I say to thee;

To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd,
This beauteous form assumes a piteous mind.

XIV.-Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
1, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour t' admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, we should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue;
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me; for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free;
Nor ever chaste except you ravish me.

XV.-Wilt thou love God, as he thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,

How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heav'n, doth make his temple in thy breast;
The Father having begot a Son most bless'd,
And still begetting, (for he ne'er begun),
Had deign'd to choose thee by adoption,
Coheir to his glory, and sabbath's endless rest,
And as a robb'd man, which by search doth find
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy't again :
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom h' had made and Satan stole t' unbind;
"Twas much, that man was made like God before ;
But, that God should be made like man, much more.

XVI.-Father, part of his double interest

Unto thy kingdom thy Son gives to me;

His jointure in the knotty Trinity

He keeps, and gives to me his death's conquest.

This Lamb, whose death with life the world hath bless'd,

Was from the world's beginning slain; and he

Hath made two wills, which, with the legacy

Of his and thy kingdom, thy sons invest:
Yet such are these laws, that men argue yet
Whether a man those statues can fulfil;
None doth; but thy all-healing grace and spirit
Revive again, what law and letter kill:
Thy law's abridgment and thy last command
Is all but love; O let this last will stand!

[SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, who filled the distinguished post of King's Advocate in Scotland, was born at Dundee in 1636, and died in 1691. He has the reputation of being amongst the first Scotsmen who wrote the English language with purity. The following extract is from a treatise published after his death, and dedicated by him to the University of Oxford, entitled, The Moral History of Frugality.']

One might reasonably have thought that as the world grew older luxury would have been more shunned; for the more men multiplied, and the greater their dangers grew, they should have been the more easily induced to shun all expense, that they might the more successfully provide against those inconveniences. But yet it proved otherwise, and luxury was the last of all vices that prevailed over mankind; for after riches had been hoarded up, they rotted, as it were, into luxury; and after that tyranny and ambition had robbed many poor innocents, luxury, more cruel than they, was made use of by Providence to revenge their quarrel, and so triumphed over the conquerors. Thus, when Rome had by wit and courage subdued the world, it was drowned in that inundation of riches which these brought upon it.

This vice has its own masks and disguises too; for it transforms itself into virtue, whilst, like that, it runs faster from avarice, and laughs more loudly at it than liberality itself does, and to that height that it seems to be angry at liberality, as being only a kind of niggardliness. It pretends to keep open table to those who starve, and to have an open purse always for men of merit. Beauty and learning are its pensioners, and all manner of divertisements are still in his retinue. It obliges the peaceable to favour it, as an enemy to every thing that is uneasy; and it engages men of parts to speak for it, because, whilst it lavishes the treasures others have hoarded up, it feeds the hope and expectations of such as were provided by Nature of nothing but a stock of wit. And there being seldom other matches betwixt liberality and prodigality but such as are to be measured by exact reflections upon the estates of the spenders, it sometimes praises that as liberality which ought to be condemned as luxury; and even where the transgression may be discerned, the bribed and interested multitude will not acknowledge that liberality, by exceeding its bounds, has lost its name. Some, also, from the same principle, authorise this vice by the pretext of law, crying out that every man should have liberty to dispose of his own as he pleases, and by the good of commerce, saying, with a serious face, that frugality would ruin all trade, and if no man spent beyond his measure riches would not circulate; nor should virtuous, laborious, or witty men find in this circulation occasions to excite or reward their industry. And from this, probably, flows the law of England's not interdicting prodigals, denying him the administration of his own estate, as the laws of all other nations do.

The great arguments that weigh with me against luxury are, first, that luxury disorders, confounds, and is inconsistent with that just and equal economy, whereby God governs the world as his own family, in which all men are but children or servants; for as the avaricious hoards up for one that which should be distributed 3RD QUARTER.

F