Sermons Practical and Occasional Dissertations, Translations, Including New Versions of Virgil's Bucolica, and of Milton's Defensio Secunda, Seaton Poems, &c. &c. By the Rev. Francis Wrangham ... In Three Volumes |
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 | Sermons Practical and Occasional |  |
'Mid it's light Task with strains of holiest theme
Oft sounded, and for Sion's songs renounced
Th' accomplish'd Sofa's praise, oh yet pursue
Thy wonted ministry; and breathe again
Accents, which seraphs, from their tuneful toil
Pausing, deem'd more than mortal! Oh, 'ere heaven
Receive thee, Spirit, for it's loftier airs
Impatient, cast that mystic robe below—
Thy Cowper's mantle—on the pilgrim muse,
And guide to Palestine her destined way.
Like some dread spell, from memory's inmost depths
With thrilling magic wakes a shadowy train
Of joys and woes, thy many-colour'd fate
Whence shall the bard begin?—From that bright hour
When to thy land, of idol fiends the prey,
Remphan and Rimmon and the crew obscene
Of Bäalim, th' avenger Israel rush'd;
And Jordan, in it's pride of summer-flood
Roll'd backward, own'd his mission. In the van
March'd Havock, and with Canaan's guilty line
To Gaza's frontier bound. With equal stroke
Th' impartial steel smote manhood's towering crest,
And nerveless age: the buckler of her charms,
Which erst repell'd the blunted shafts of war,
Even Beauty rear'd in vain. The bastion's strength,
Whose front impregnable defied th' assault
Of sturdiest enginry, subdued by sound
Sank: and th' auxiliar sun, to human voice
Then first obedient, o'er th' ensanguined field
Stay'd his fleet coursers. Such the righteous doom
Of realms, apostate from their Lord: such doom
The victor felt, as oft his knee forsook
Jehovah's altar; or in battle bow'd
Beneath Philistim's spear, or scourged with plagues
(Disastrous option! ) or for many a year
Crush'd by Assyria's fetters. Still unfill'd
His sin's deep measure, and his sufferings still
Less than extreme; 'till Heaven's Anointed came,
And God rejected crown'd his crimes and woes.
From eastern climes advancing, hung it's lamp
O'er royal Bethlehem; not with comet-glare
Portending war to nations, but of ray
Pacific? 'Twas the harbinger of morn:
That Sun's glad herald, from whose living spring
Natures scarce finite in perennial stream
Draw floods of intellect, and bathe in light
Strong beyond human ken. In thickest cloud
Shrouding his native glories, lest the blaze
Of orient Deity with mortal flash
Should blast the gazer's vision, He arose—
So darken'd, yet refulgent. Through the cell
Of maniac Guilt, exulting in his chain,
Instant his bonds remit: with night's foul train
His cherish'd phrensy flies; and freed he springs,
On faith's firm wing, to liberty and heaven.
In that bright day of wonders, which have shed
O'er all thy lakes and hills a holy light,
Glowing with inextinguishable flame,
Though thou and thine are prostrate. In the dust
Thy relics shine; and deep-indented still,
By time's aye-rolling billows uneffaced,
The pilgrim tracks the footsteps of his God.
His pride, that unto him alone display'd
The mighty Workman stood, of other eyes
Seen by reflected beam; his shame, and crime
Of costliest expiation (yet unpaid—
Though Scorn with finger stretch'd, and biting Wrong,
Untired pursue the exile) that He stood
Display'd in vain! Yet Nature knew her Prince;
And prompt, as when at first th' Almighty Word
Awed the conflicting elements to peace,
Obey'd his powerful voice. Th' infuriate storm,
Which with rough pinion swept Judæa's wave,
Fled at his bidding; and in stillest calm
Th' obsequious surface slept. On restless couch
Wan Fever pined: He spake, and ruddy health
Sprang from her roseate bower, with pristine bloom
To light the faded cheek. Departed saints,
Dread spectacle! their yawning tombs forsook,
To hail the Victim-God. But Israel saw,
Prompt at his voice, th' infuriate storm retire;
Saw ruddy health on Fever's faded cheek
Shed pristine bloom; saw yawning sepulchres
Resign their shrouded captives—sceptic still,
And unconvinced; nay, to th' accursed tree
And centuries of anguish!) doom'd his King,
And stretch'd his own Messiah on the cross.
The tempest came; and 'round her glittering domes
Raved the resistless blast. Beneath it's rage,
Which never burst upon a nobler prey,
Sank in wide ruin whelm'd her triple wall,
And temple's golden splendor. Far away,
Born in her summer-beam, on rapid wing
Fled revelry and song. In scornful state,
Raised by the fierce invader, idol forms
(Jove, and Adonis, and th' Idalian Queen )
Mark'd to th' indignant traveller's shrinking glance,
Where Earth first heard her Saviour's infant wail;
Where, with keen throe, she felt his mortal pang;
And where she saw Him rise, death's conquering Lord,
Pure from Corruption's touch, by proper force
Triumphant. But imperial Constantine
Redeem'd the hallow'd soil, and from their base
The guilty mockeries push'd. In after-times,
When his false Koran on the captive's breast
With his sharp steel th' impostor Arab graved,
Fast by God's fallen fane it's gorgeous horns
The crescent lifting high, to pious wrath
To chase pollution from th' insulted hill.
The Red-Cross Hermit flew, his crimson flag
Waving aloft, and to the holy tomb
Summon'd her barbarous tribes. Through climes unknown,
At his wild whoop, in rout fanatic rush'd
Th' enthusiast myriads: on their scatter'd rear
Hung Famine, meagre fiend, with shrivell'd lips
Blasting the yellow harvest. Ætna thus,
Deep-heaving, from her darksome caverns pours
The fiery surge; and sad Sicilia mourns
Her buried hopes. Their woes were long to tell,
Where all was woe; 'till Salem's rescued streets
Smoked with her tyrants' blood. Then, thrown aside
The wearied sword, and hush'd the battle's roar—
Up Calvary's mount the barefoot victors toil'd,
Kiss'd the blest stone, and melted into tears.
Roused by th' inspiring theme, the Muse directs
Her towering course. O'er Gallia's far-spread land
Hurrying, with tearful eye she marks the shrine
By impious hands to harlot Reason rear'd;
From her bruised shield the lily's silver pride
Effaced, and high-born Capet's nameless tomb.
In war's dread garb the village-swain array'd,
Crowd on her glance, and force her pitying sigh.
Attract the stranger's foot. With lagging step
He winds amazed around their ample base,
And climbs with straining gaze th' aërial spire;
Within, pale Death, in grisly pomp enthroned,
Rules the twin realms of silence and the grave.
The wanderer greets; her plains of old renown,
And Mincio's sinuous stream—ah! stream, no more
Conscious of Maro's sylvan minstrelsy,
Whose oaten reed to the responsive woods
Sung beauteous Amaryllis. Other sounds
Burst on her startled ear, the shrill-toned fife,
Trumpet, and drum, and all the clanging war;
And urge her way to Tiber's trophied shore.
His terrors quench'd, the Latian eagle lies;
Whose plume, exulting 'mid the blaze of day,
Defied the vulgar shaft. She sees, and weeps
Her Rome's departed glories. More she weeps
The lofty spirit fled, and proud disdain
Of tyrant power, and virtue's vestal flame.
The forked mount, and famed Castalia's spring
To Athens, scene of all her infant joys,
Glowing with various life, nor Virgin's fane,
Nor marble breathing from the Phidian hand
Meets her sad eye. By Rome's fell lightning scathed
With partial blast, at Othman's withering touch
Th' Athenian amaranth died: the servile brow
No chaplet binds. Yet other sorrows wound,
With keener pang, the Muse's gentle breast.
Once warm with grace and genius like his own,
Her favourite sleeps; whom far from Granta's bowers
Studious to cull the wise, and fair, and good.
He could have taught the echoes of old Greece
(Silent, since Freedom fled) their ancient strains
Of liberty and virtue, to his soul
Strains more congenial! But high heaven forbade.
Rest, Youth beloved! most blest, if to thy shade
'Tis given to know what mighty forms of Chiefs,
Whose deathless deeds oft dwelt upon thy tongue;
Of Patriots, bold like thee with ardent tone
T' assert their country's cause; of Bards, whose verse
Thy Lesbian lyre could emulate so well,
Repose in tombs contiguous! Rest, loved Youth,
In thine own Athens laid; secure of fame,
While worth and science win the world's applause!
(That day, though distant, she remembers well)
The rose and lily, mingling, round the cross
Twined in close folds; scarce twined, 'ere royal feuds
Sever'd their holy bond—at Cressy soon
To wage sad conflict! But nor Cressy's lord,
Nor Poictiers' sable warrior, nor the youth
Who cropp'd at Agincourt the flower of France,
E'er vanquish'd fiercer foe than He, whose sword
Aye-glittering in the foremost van of war
Beneath these walls, still wet with recent gore,
Stay'd the dread Corsican. O'er Syrian sands
Th' undaunted chieftain to Byzantium urged
His fainting files. On purple pinion borne,
Fleet from the poison'd south, so fell Simoom
Sweeps Lybia's burning deserts. Loose in air,
By health's pure gale unfann'd, his banner droops;
And hush'd dismay precedes his dreary march.
Glad Acra sings, whose sinewy arm repell'd
Th' advancing death. But nobler meed is thine,
Thy Albion's praise; and thine her greenest wreath,
Bound in full senate round thy youthful brow.
Expatiates free; o'er Kishon's ancient stream,
Which swept pale Canaan's despot chiefs away,
And flowery Carmel. Tabor's distant mount
(Where, clothed in sun-bright beams, the Godhead blazed
Effulgent) and old Endor's wizard groves
Her onward glance descries, Samaria's hills,
And heretic Gerizim. Sion last,
In mournful ruin rising 'mid the wild,
Bounds her long toil, and wakes her bitterest tear.
“Flowing with nature's nectar? This the soil
“Of vaunted opulence, whose autumn still
“Most prodigal with guiltless usury
“Restored a hundredfold the loan of spring?
“Where are her vines, beneath their clusters bow'd?
“Her rampired towns, her thousand villages,
“And consecrated Salem?” Sunk in shade,
By hope's fair star unpierced.
The murky gloom shall chase, and gild anew
With long-forgotten ray her rising spires.
Whether the Gaul, on Egypt's ravaged strand
Still lingering, with his scorpion thong shall scourge
Her turban'd foe, and infidel himself,
Wage with unconscious arm the war of heaven;
Or the stern Muscovite with zeal's fierce flame
Shall purge her stain, unknown. In tenfold night
Sleeps the mysterious secret, sought in vain
For many an age, though Knowledge lent her lamp,
And lynx-eyed Genius join'd th' exploring throng.
In time's full lapse (so rapt Isaiah sung)
Which to thy renovated plains shall give
Their ancient lords. Imperial fortune still,
If right the bard peruse the mystic strain,
With furtive step the fated Hour steals on,
Like midnight thief, when from thy holy mount
Sorrow's shrill cry, and labour's needless toil,
And servitude shall cease; when from above,
On living sapphire seated and begirt
With clustering cherubim, whose blaze outvies
Meridian suns, through heaven's disparting arch
Thy recognised Messiah shall descend;
In royal Salem fix his central throne,
And rule with golden sway the circling world.
Far in the dim horizon's utmost verge
By Prophecy's unerring finger mark'd
To Faith's strong eye—when, with th' innumerous good
Of every age, the white-robed saint shall stray
Through groves of paradise, and drink unquench'd
Th' exhaustless stream of science! Seaton there,
Who bade to God the annual hymn ascend;
Darting, in every page of nature's code
Saw Deity inscribed; and Paley there
(For why should Praise, still lingering round the tomb,
Her torch of radiance light but for the dead?)
From whose keen spear the atheist crew appall'd
Shrunk to their native night—with all, whose voice
And harmonising life in virtue's cause
Their blended rhetoric pour'd, shall shine as stars;
Glowing in heaven's eternal firmament
With beam unchanged, while suns and worlds decay.
“Ab Hadriani temporibus usque ad imperium Constantini, per annos circiter centum octoginta, in loco Resurrectionis simulacrum Jovis, in Crucis rupe statua ex marmore Veneris à gentibus posita colebatur; existimantibus persecutionis auctoribus, quòd tollerent nobis fidem Resurrectionis et Crucis, si loca sancta per idola polluissent. Bethleem nunc nostram, et augustissimum orbis locum, de quo Psalmista canit (Ixxxiv. 12.) “Veritas de terrâ orto est,” lucus inumbrabat Thamuz, i. e. Adonidis; et in specu, ubi quondam Christus parvulus vagiit, Veneris amasius plangebatur.” (Hieron. Epist. ad Paulin.)
See Gibbon's ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ chap. Iviii. (XI. 85.) and Hume's ‘History of England,’ I. 333. Neither of these historians, however, seem fully to sustain the conjecture, that “six millions upon the first summons of Peter the Hermit assumed the cross:” though Robertson, in his ‘Charles V.’ I. 28., states it on the concurring testimony of contemporary authors, some of whom (particularly Fulcherius Carnotensis, the sixth of the ten published by Bongarsius under the fanatic title of ‘Gesta Dei per Francos’) had accompanied this destructive expedition.
Vergniaud, the eloquent friend of Brissot, in answer to a pernicious motion of Robespierre, once observed:
“Vous vaincrez vos ennemis—je le crois: mais la France, epuisée par les efforts faits pour vaincre ses ennemis exterieurs, dechirée par les factions, sera encore epuisée par les hommes, par l'argent qu'il aura fallu tirer de son sein; et craignez qu'clle ne ressemble à ces antiques monumens, qu'on retrouve en Egypte. L'etranger, qui les aperçoit, s'étonne de leur grandeur: s'il y pénètre, qu' y trouve-t-il? —Des cendres inanimées, et le silence des tombeaux.”
John Tweddell, Esq. M. A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. The close of these lines may, perhaps, feebly recal to the reader's mind the conclusion of the subjoined Hendecasyllables, of exquisite beauty.
Si frons ingenua aut rubens juventus
Morbum flecteret improbosque manes;
Non me carmina mæsta postularet,
Qui nunc ante diem domos ad atras
It Tweddellius omnibus videndas.
Intonsas hederâ comas revinxit;
Et risum dedit, et sales honestis
Junctos moribus: ut simul facetum,
Suavemque et lepidum ac merum pudorem
Laudarent alii, pares amarent.
Curas volvere, patriæque sortem
Sævo in gurgite nantis, ille vatum
Sacris parciùs immolavit aris:
Minervæque recentis ac vetustæ
Cultor sedulus, elegantioris
Musæ latiùs arva pervolabat,
Libans omnia mella Gratiarum.
Labra admoverat appetens, in ipsa
Haustu pallida contrahuntur ora,
Nec dulci spolio datur potiri.
Heu! frustra, Juvenis, mea ac tuorum
Manat lacryma! Tu nequis redire;
Nec spes ulla dolorve tangit ultra.
Felix, si tibi forsan inter umbrus
Persentiscere fas sit, ossa tecum
Illo cespite quanta conquiescant;
Tuæ te quoque quòd tegant Athenæ.
In Mr. Tweddell's ‘Remains,’ these lines are considerably altered and expanded, as well as beautifully translated by their author.
Acra, “ita tempore Belli Sacri nuncupata.” (Reland. Palæst. III.)
This city (it will be remembered) after a two years' siege by the German Crusaders under Guy de Lusignan surrendered itself, A. D. 1191, to the assailants, reinforced by the arrival of the Kings of England and France, who for some time “acted by concert, and shared the honour and danger of every action.”—“This harmony, however (the historian adds) was of short duration, and occasions of discord soon arose between these jealous and haughty princes.” (Hume.)
It is known that Buonaparte, when driven back from Acre by Sir Sidney Smith, was on his march to Constantinople.
The Mahometans tell us, that “this province had a thousand villages, each of which had many fine gardens; that the grapes were so large, that five men could hardly carry a cluster of them, &c. &c.” (Calmet, Art. Palestine.)
The notion, that ‘Jerusalem was in the middle of the earth,’ seems chiefly to have originated from Ezek. v. 5., xxxviii. 12.; and the Jewish and Christian commentators upon those passages (Kimchi, Raschi, Jerom, and Theodoret) have united to confirm it. It is a notion, however, by no means confined to the Holy City. A similar honour, if it be one, has been claimed by Xenophon for Athens: and for Delphi, among others, by Euripides, Orest. 325., where the Scholiast relates the story, upon which the epithet μεσομφαλοι rests; and with his statement his brother annotator on Pindar, Pyth. iv., nearly agrees. Ovid (Metam. x. 168.) adopts the tradition; and the later Roman poets (Claudian, Prol. in Cons. Mall. Theod., and Statius, Theb. I. 118.) only differ from him by applying it, with a venial partiality, to Parnassus in the immediate neighbourhood. Pliny, likewise (H. N. XI. 58.) asserts this privilege of central position to Abydus. A passage, in favour of the claim of Jerusalem, is quoted by Johnson from Sir John Mandeville. (Hist. Eng. Language.) The Brahmins deem Benares, as too excellent to constitute a portion of this perishable globe, a gem studding it's centre!
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