AND, I LOOKED, AND, BEHOLD, A PALE HORSE: AND HIS NAME THAT SAT ON HIM WAS DEATH. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY WESTLEY & DAVIS, & LONGMAN & Co ON THE PALE HORSE. BY JOHN BRUCE; MINISTER OF THE LOW-HILL GENERAL CEMETERY, LIVERPOOL. The other shape,- If shape it might be call'd that shape had none, Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. MILTON. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY WESTLEY & DAVIS, STATIONERS' COURT; ADVERTISEMENT. MANY years ago, when the Author was on a visit to the metropolis, he first saw the celebrated Painting of WEST-DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. "The general effect proposed to be excited by the Picture is the terrible sublime, and its various modifications, until lost in the opposite extremes of pity and horror." Such was certainly the impression produced on the Author's mind; and while his imagination was powerfully at work, he more immediately turned his attention to that awful part of the Apocalyptic vision, from whence the Artist had taken his subject. Not long after, in improving the death of a friend to a crowded assembly, he made it the theme of discourse. This discourse, having subserved the design for which it was written, was laid aside, and would, probably, have never emerged from its hiding-place, had it not been that the preacher, in consequence of a long cessation from pastoral duties, occasioned by severe indisposition, was induced to seek an occupation of his leisure hours in a pursuit which might be beneficial to his own heart, and ultimately serviceable in promoting that cause, the interests of which he had no longer the strength publicly to plead and defend. His own deep affliction—his desire to bring his mind into an habitual contemplation of an event which might not be far distant-and his conviction that no subject was more calculated to arrest the attention and impress the heart of the reader, should he be spared to finish the manuscript-decided at once that the sketch which he had drawn out of Death on the Pale Horse, should form the basis of his future meditation and inquiries. Alas! little did the writer think, at that time, that the Father of spirits, by thus secretly disposing his heart, was graciously preparing him for a series of events fearfully solemn and painfully interesting. He had not proceeded far in completing his intended work-he had scarcely |