HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

"Daughter of Jove! relentless power!
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
Affright the bad, afflict the best.
Bound in thine adamantine chain

The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade thee form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse, thy rigid love
With patience many a year she bore.
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own, she learnt to melt at others'

woe,

Scared at thy frown terrific fly
Self pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe,

By vain prosperity deceived,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eyes that love the ground.

Still on thy solemn steps attend

Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice, to herself severe:

And Pity dropping soft, the sadly pleasing tear.

Oh gently on thy suppliant's head

Dread Goddess lay thy chast'ning hand."

Gray.

This is by far the most difficult poem which has been yet inserted in this book. Its beauties are acknowledged by most critics, and it is considered

as classical poetry-classical, means what is like ancient authors of established reputation, who are all ranked or classed the foremost among writers either ancient or modern.

The object of the poem is moral, and as it relates more to the higher ranks of men, than to those of inferior station, the lesson it inculcates or enforces has something awful and sublime that commands attention.

The poet tells the rich, the powerful, and the proud, that they are liable to numerous faults and vices from their exalted situation. In general, they hear nothing but their own praises, they feel nothing but pleasure, they are exempt or free from the common wants of the rest of mankind, and whilst they continue fortunate, they meet with nothing to cor

rect their faults and scarcely any thing to encourage their virtues.

From Adversity alone can they hope for amendment. She teaches the mighty and the proud, that they are men, subject to the same miseries, and wants, and failings as the rest of their fellow creatures; and that they are liable to one great aggravation of adversity the want of pity and sympathy from others.

The first thirty-five lines of this poem are invocations or addresses to Adversity, and we do not reach the verb, the principal word that shews the meaning and object of the whole, till we come to the thirty-sixth linein which the words lay thy hand finish the sentence and complete the

sense.

Daughter of Jove! relentless power. This daughter of Jove is Adversity, to whom Jupiter gives Virtue, another of his daughters, to be educated-the words relentless power, are placed equivocally in this sentence, the sense requires that they should relate to Adversity; but the construction connects them with Jove. Thou tamer of the human breast. Adversity is here said to tame or subdue the breast-that is, the passions contained in the breast.

Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour.

Iron scourge means, a scourge so severe as to be like iron when compared with common instruments of punishment, tort'ring hour, hours of torture which afflict even the good, but which not only afflict but frighten

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