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 |  |
And streams of splendor gush'd around their Lord.
Forth at that bidding, emulous to run
His course of glory, sprang the giant Sun;
And, as he chased the scattered rear of night,
O'er the wide East diffused his earliest light.
There while his infant beam on Ganges play'd,
Or hung entranced o'er Agra's spicy glade,
India, first cherish'd with his orient ray,
Shone like a bride in brightest colours gay.
Cradled on earth's soft lap, it's lowly bed,
In blushing pride luxuriant Butea spread:
Itself a grove, the banyan there was seen,
Arch within arch, and “echoing walks between;”
There Vegetation fix'd her choice abode,
And one sweet garden all the region glow'd.
India rose brilliant from the penal wave;
Rush'd to the Sun's invigorating arms.
Rear'd in her fields, and foster'd by her skies,
The growth of mind attain'd it's loftiest size:
There where the mango swell'd on every bough,
And double harvests teem'd without the plough,
Her happy race knew none save letter'd toil,
And Arts and Science bless'd the genial soil.
India rejoiced in patriarchal light.
Tradition there preserved, from sire to son,
That first great truth, that God is All and One;
'Till fabling bards the mystic song began,
And learned darkness stole on wilder'd man.
His rigid code then selfish Brahma framed,
Then for his Caste it's proud distinction claim'd;
Waved o'er the cheated realm his ebon wand,
And scatter'd demon-meteors through the land.
Pure as his source, awhile young Ganges flows;
Through flowery meads his loitering way pursues,
And quaffs with gentle lip the nectar'd dews;
'Till, swoln by many a tributary tide,
His waters wash some tall pagoda's side:
Then broad and rough, 'mid rocks unknown to day,
Through tangled woods where tigers howl for prey,
He foams along; and, rushing to the main,
Drinks deep pollution from each tainted plain.
Smiled on her dusky suitor as he woo'd.
To him, while Europe's hordes lay whelm'd in shade,
Her fullest charms the radiant power display'd:
Show'd him the wonders of her secret lore,
The plant's retiring virtues to explore;
From midnight depths the sparkling gem to raise,
And bid it on the brow of beauty blaze:
'Mid the bright orbs, that gild the peopled sky;
To trace the self-poised planets, as they run
In endless circle round their central sun:
See whirling earth, with two-fold impulse driven,
Wheel through the vast obliquity of heaven;
While day and night, and all the changeful year,
Turn as she turns and hang on her career:
Taught him, with useful fiction, to portray
The glittering monsters of th' ecliptic way:
Th' innumerous host of stars to group and name,
That pour on worlds unseen their solar flame;
Orion's might which sways the southern seas,
Arcturus, and the cluster'd Pleiades:
Taught him with subtiler skill, and better art,
To pierce the close recesses of the heart;
Hold moral beauty to man's raptured sight,
Guide him from passion's glare to reason's light;
And prompt him, to himself severely true,
His high descent to prove, his glorious end pursue.
With patient labour to the throne of truth,
Studious by just gradation to refine
From brute to human, human to divine:
But Fancy rapt him on her wing of fire
To realms sublime, where bliss outruns desire;
Where streams of crystal feed ambrosial flowers,
And Love and Glory speed the laughing hours:
Her lyre, and liquid voice, and numerous lay;
Gave him her holy hymn, her lofty ode,
To sing the chieftain or to sound the God:
Gave him her stately epic, to rehearse
His Arjun's fame with all the pomp of verse;
When Krishna, mounted on the hero's car,
Bore him secure amid the clanging war:
Gave him her drama's tearful vase, to pour
O'er virtue's sacred anguish pity's shower;
When soft Sacontalá in Canna's grove
Press'd the fond pledge of her Dushmanta's love,
Or as her steps yet linger'd on the green
(Of all her infant sports the happy scene)
Wept o'er each flower, her garden's blameless pride.
Kiss'd the young fawn that sorrow'd by her side;
And still, to ease her bosom's bursting swell,
To flower and fawn prolong'd the sad farewell.
May Genius like the brood of earth expire?
With meteor-front a few short moments soar,
Then sink forgotten, and be seen no more?
Ah! no: by age undimm'd his cheek appears;
His laurell'd brow defies th' assault of years.
'Twas Mecca's star, whose orb malignant shed
It's baleful ray o'er India's distant head.
To blast her bloom the Bactrian archer came:
Beside him rode, twin ministers of fate,
The Lust of Empire and Religious Hate;
And still, where'er their sanguine banners flew,
Spring's rosy splendors vanish'd from the view.
See from the north remorseless Timur rush!
His drear morasses, and his boisterous sky,
The fire-eyed Tartar quits without a sigh:
Calls his grim squadrons from their realms of snow,
And leads where zenith suns strange lustre throw:
By Bember's foot, who dreary, black, and bold
Stands the stern guard of Cashmere's vale of gold;
Through bowery Matra, where the Gopia nine
In love's disport with youthful Krishen join.
There while the mango from it's stem they tear,
Or light with saffron-wreaths their raven hair,
O'er India's plains the myriad swarms expand,
And Science, Genius, Fancy fly the land.
In the broad noon a spot is seen to rise,
Dread Typhon's cradle! O'er th' horizon's space
The monster spreads, till heaven scarce yields him place;
Then pours his fury, and with vengeful sweep
Bears houses, herds, and harvests to the deep:
Behind him scowls a desert and a tomb.
Thus India, bright in fortune's favouring hour,
Bewail'd the ravage of invading power.
Witness imperial Delhi's fatal day,
When bleeding Rajahs choked proud Jumna's way:
Witness, Benares, thy neglected towers,
Where Wisdom mused in academic bowers;
Their quadrant-curves where learned walls display'd,
And gnomon-pillars threw their length of shade:
Witness the voice suppress'd, the silent shell,
Which erst in lovely strife were wont to swell:
Witness (ah! heaviest curse) the night of mind,
To Superstition's ghastly brood resign'd.
Mute are her schools, and hush'd her warbling shades.
No more the Muse exulting Fancy fires,
Prompts the high thought, the lofty strain inspires:
Memory no more to the degenerate line
Points, where their country's ancient glories shine;
On Youth's pure cheek bids generous passion glow,
Or lifts his arm to lay th' oppressor low.
Thy sons enslaved, thy cities in decay!
But light the chains, the abject frame that bind,
To those which bow to earth th' aspiring mind.
Where once th' Hindu his simple prayer preferr'd,
And sweet his caroll'd hymn of praise was heard;
His gentle heart's religion, to do good;
There in her gory shrine, with outstretch'd hands,
Her human food stern Calica demands:
There his huge car the monster-god impels
O'er prostrate crowds, who court the crushing wheels:
There, from her babes by savage Brahmins borne,
The widow'd mother clasps her consort's urn;
With ill-feign'd triumph mounts his blazing pyre,
And sinks, proud trembler! in the sacred fire.
These, Superstition's execrable train,
Throng the vex'd soul where darkness holds her reign.
Portentous sculptures frown along the walls:
With snaky wreaths, in strong projection bold,
Clasp the wide arch, the massive shaft enfold;
And, as amid the gloom their forms dilate,
In the chill'd breast mysterious awe create.
And the mild flame of Zion's star prevail,
To guide her sages to the God's abode,
Would now, bright harbinger of peace! dispense
On her faint head it's healing influence.
But, ah! it rose in clouds. With sanguine glare
Ambition's comet fired the sickening air:
And, black exhaling from the putrid ground,
The mists of avarice heaven's blest radiance drown'd;
Breathed thick infection o'er the dawning day,
And quench'd the lustre of th' eternal ray.
Have ground her children with their iron mace!
Too long has Silence heard her whisper'd fears,
And glens impervious drank her flowing tears!
'Tis past. Her bosom stung with conscious shame,
Awaken'd Albion re-asserts her fame;
Inclines in pity to a groaning land,
Wrests the foul sceptre from the spoiler's hand;
And, greatly lavish in the glorious cause,
Grants with her Jones her science and her laws—
Her Jones, high-gifted to fulfil her plan;
The friend of learning, freedom, truth, and man.
His were the stores of letter'd time, comprest
The mind of ages in a single breast;
The glance to catch, the patience to inquire,
The sage's temper and the poet's fire.
Their Themis, Clio, Erato his own;
And his, reveal'd in all their dazzling hues,
The luscious charms of Asia's florid Muse:
With her o'er Schiraz' roseate plain he roved,
Where Hafiz revell'd and where Sadi loved;
On Rocnabad's green marge delighted stray'd,
Heard her soft lute in Mosellay's sweet shade:
Then pierced the mazy depths of Sanscrit lore,
While Brahmins own'd a light unseen before;
Bow'd to their master-pupil, and confest
With humbled brow the genius of the West.
He plies his restless energies of mind.
Strung by that orb, beneath whose flaming ray
Inferior natures crumble to decay,
With growing speed he presses to the goal,
And his fleet axles kindle as they roll.
In Law, pure reason's ripen'd progeny:
Whose rule the bad endure, the good obey;
Whose giant grasp o'er whirling spheres extends,
Whose tender hand the insect-speck befriends;
Her voice of quiring worlds th' harmonious mode,
And her high throne the bosom of her God.
One vivid burst, to lighten and expire!
In vain the Christian crown'd the learned name,
And boundless knowledge form'd his meaner fame!
He falls, bewail'd from where Hydaspes laves
His sands of gold, to Thames' distant waves:
Isis and Ganges weep their sage's doom,
And mingle sorrows o'er his early tomb.
O stay your griefs, sad streams! On length of years
Rests not the age, which ruthless Time reveres.
Ripe to his grave unspotted Youth descends,
Though to his cheek the rose it's radiance lends;
And hoary Folly ranks in childhood's train,
Taught to be wise by rolling suns in vain.
By frailties sullied or obscured by crimes,
To his own heaven resumed, o'er Asia's night
Still shall he shed his tutelary light;
Still kindred worth with rival zeal inspire,
And pour from Wellesley's urn transmitted fire.
Wellesley, his Eton's boast, his Oxford's pride,
Loved by each Muse, to every Grace allied;
And yet fresh millions he subdues and saves;
His eye's soft beam still throws on Learning's groves,
And fosters while he guards the arts he loves.
Forms with his mind, and with his presence cheers;
In gorgeous state the glittering turrets rise,
And brighter dawn illumes the Eastern skies.
There Brown, Buchanan (name to learning dear)
Train the fair promise of the opening year:
From Granta's mart convey th' exhaustless store,
Her schools' ingenuous strife, her classic lore;
All that her Newton, all her Bentley taught,
Her Barrow's eloquence, her Bacon's thought;
The precious cargo bear to India's strand,
And a new Granta decks the happy land.
O to my heart beyond all rival dear!
Dream of my night, and vision of my day,
Accept the homage of this grateful lay.
That I have friends, my throbbing bosom's pride,
That love for me his fillet threw aside;
That round my hearth his tenderest pledges shine,
That home and peace and competence are mine—
To thee, next heaven, I owe: and should the strain,
Which now I raise, thy favouring plaudit gain;
Thou gavest the lyre from which the music springs,
Thou gavest the art to sweep it's sounding strings.
Returning Science eastward leads her train—
Law, nurse and guardian of each useful art;
Honour, pure sovereign of the noble heart;
Blithe Industry, who whistles at his plough;
And Freedom, choicest gift her hands bestow.
And rustic echoes the glad note prolong;
As o'er his rice-field's floating verdure thrown,
His gay parterres and woodland's podded down,
His eye ascends to heaven with glistening gleam,
Joy tunes his tongue, and Albion is his theme:
Albion, who now each selfish care resign'd,
And all her glories flashing on her mind,
Now that the foe high lifts his blood-stain'd brand,
And law and freedom hang upon her hand,
Rides proudly buoyant o'er her own blue wave,
And what she bled to win would die to save.
The swarthy artist plies his dexterous loom.
Light through it's filmy maze the shuttle springs,
Nor deigns to touch the gossamery strings:
The slender form vests more than Coan grace,
And half seduce the eye from beauty's face.
And wants and woes entreat her soothing hand.
With patient toil on each new scene she pores,
Each lonely dell, each tangled brake explores:
Dauntless the death-snake's dreary haunt invades,
Led by her own effulgence through the shades:
Then, where with hues unprofitably gay
Superba reddens in the blaze of day,
From the deep fibre wring it's hoarded dye;
O'er the fine web the blushing tincture shed,
And gird with richer wreaths her India's head.
Where long it lurk'd, withdrawn from day's fierce glare,
Bids Medicine thence the wholesome simple bear;
From the coy root extort it's liquid health,
And bribe stern death with vegetable wealth.
His foaming urn cœrulean Jumna pours,
(As erst on Sunium's point) some Plato stands,
With virtue's magic charms th' ingenuous bands;
Points to the fair, and good, and brave, and free,
And bids them view, and emulate, and be:
Through each young vein the tingling ardor glows,
And all Ilissus into Ganges flows.
The foe she softens, and endears the friend.
—What wretch art thou, those desert wilds among,
Whose fearful footsteps shun the human throng?
Who fliest to forests, exiled from thy kind,
And all thy youth's best transports left behind?
Ah! by those streaming tears I know thee now,
And the despair that sits upon thy brow,
Devoted Paria! outcast of thy race,
Thrown shivering from thy fellows' fond embrace:
Like a blue plague-spot, hapless thing! abhorr'd;
Thy touch pollution, and thy doom the sword!
Pierce with her sun-bright beams thy dark retreat;
And close without a cloud thy late decline.
Yes: thou again the bosom's glow shalt prove,
The hand of friendship and the lip of love;
Thee shall the village-cot protect from harms,
And Brahmins clasp thee with fraternal arms.
Whose airy splendors mock the grasping hand.
Where Bhâgulpour uplifts her front sublime,
See to her topmost summits Cleveland climb;
Call from their craggy dens her savage swarm,
With learning polish, with affection warm;
Bid through their souls the flame ethereal thrill,
And mould their melting natures to his will.
Her tints Contentment to the scene applies,
And the waste desert blooms a paradise.
Raptured repairs where first her footsteps stray'd,
When down to earth she came, an angel guest;
And man, yet pure, her genial presence blest.
On Guilt's dark brow her glittering cross appears,
His sullied cheek is wash'd with pious tears;
And Ganges, hallow'd still for holier ends,
Death-stream no more, his wave baptismal lends.
The mild evangelists of peace and love.
Where in his fiery belt Dahomey glows;
Hoist round the stormy Cape their straining sail,
From Yemen's mountains woo the fragrant gale,
And bear (strange merchandise!) to Asia's shore
The Gospel's bright imperishable ore:
Unsold to deal it's unbought wealth, their plan;
Their traffic, to redeem the soul of man.
To check their eager march, Tibetian snows
And Caggar's sands their trackless wilds oppose:
Onward they press at Duty's sacred call,
South, North, o'er Decan's ghauts and China's wall;
Stretch uncontroll'd their Saviour's gentle reign,
And art and nature bar their way in vain.
On mosques where late the lurid crescent shone,
Pagodas rear'd to shrine an idol-stone,
Seringham's walls spread many an acre o'er,
And the proud domes of gorgeous Gazipour
Her banner'd cross victorious Albion waves,
Beneath that symbol strikes, beneath that symbol saves.
Thine is each gallant aim, each generous toil.
For thee, while Fame her wreath of amaranth twines,
And with her palm thy native oak combines,
The succour'd orphan lisps his little prayer,
And the slave's shackles crumble in thine air.
With what delight thy winding shores I tread,
Catch thy white sails by busy Commerce spread,
With labouring gaze ascend thy rocky steeps,
Or hear thy thunder bellowing o'er the deeps—
Heaven knows: and, hung th' event on vow of mine,
Thy cloudless sun should never know decline.
With poor intrigue to crop thy well-won bays,
And mask'd in traffic's or religion's robe,
Merchant or preacher, traverses the globe;
To shake thee, proof in Europe to alarms,
On Asia's plains with Holkar's faithless arms:
Pursue thy glorious course. Be this thy art,
Not to corrupt, but meliorate the heart:
Where'er mankind in gentile darkness lie,
Instruction's blessed radiance to supply;
O'er the oppress'd soft mercy's dews to shed,
And crush with ruin the oppressor's head.
Long by prophetic minstrelsy foretold!
Where yon bright purple streaks the orient skies,
Rise Science, Freedom, Peace, Religion rise:
'Till, from Tanjore to farthest Samarcand,
In one wide lustre bask the glowing land;
And (Brahma from his guilty greatness hurl'd
With Mecca's Lord) Messiah rule the world!
The knowledge of physics (particularly astronomy) by which the old Hindus were distinguished, as well as their metaphysical, ethical, and poetical fame, are briefly stated by Robertson, with his accustomed elegance, in the Appendix to his ‘Historical Disquisition concerning Ancient India;’ and more at large by Craufurd, in his ‘Sketches’ of that ingenious people.
The Bhágvat Geeta, or ‘Dialogues of Krishna and Arjun,’ an extract from the Mahabharat (the great epic poem of India, written, if we may trust the chronology of the Brahmins, within a century after the deluge) was translated by Mr. Wilkins from the original Sanscrit in 1785. It contains all the grand mysteries of the Brahminical faith.
See Sir William Jones' elegant version of Calidasa's drama, ‘The Fatal Ring.’ It's author, the Shakspeare of India, was the brightest of the Nine Gems, who adorned the court of Vicramáditya in the century immediately preceding the birth of Christ.
Mahmoud of Ghizni; who, after desolating India by twelve successive irruptions (the first, A. D. 1002), under the pretence of converting it's inhabitants to the true faith, founded a dynasty which lasted about 150 years.
This was the peculiar feature of Tamerlane. “His eyes (say the historians) appeared full of fire.” Krishen and the nine Gopia, mentioned below, are the obvious prototypes of the Grecian Apollo and his Muses.
The saffron-flowers of the Michelia are used by the Indian ladies, to relieve the jetty blackness of their hair. (Pennant, ib.)
“The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.” (Joel ii. 3.)
When Tamerlane caused it to be destroyed, A. D. 1397, upon the pretext of an insult offered to his troops, after the horrid ceremony of ‘the Joar.’
For a particular account of the celebrated Observatory at this place, see a Letter from Sir Robert Barker to the President of the Royal Society of London, read May 29, 1777.
The blood-thirst of this black goddess (the wife of Shiva, and the counterpart of the Tauric Diana or Hecate) is allayed in proportion to the dignity of her victim. After an offering of fish or tortoise, it soon recurs: by the sarabha it is quenched for twenty five, and by the tiger for a hundred years: but man is her favourite sacrifice, and his blood is effectual for a complete chiliad. This latter oblation however, as Sir William Jones informs us, is now forbidden.
Jagrenaut. The car of this deity is four stories high, and moves upon sixteen wheels; beneath which, numbers of his deluded votaries annually throw themselves to be crushed to death, as a sure passport to immortal happiness.
This custom still prevails in the Mahratta empire, and in the dominions of the ancient Rajahs, particularly among families of distinction. By the English it has been uniformly opposed.
For a description of this stupendous subterranean temple consult Thevenot, Anquetil, Robertson, Pennant, &c. but, especially, Niebuhr.
Sir William. Of this extraordinary man—extraordinary in respect of talents, attainments, and virtues, singly perhaps unequalled, but assuredly never before so united, Mr. Gibbon (in cases of simple literature, no mean commender) pronounced, that “he was equally familiar with the Year-Books of Westminster, the Commentaries of Ulpian, the Attic Pleadings of Isæus, and the Sentences of Arabian and Persian Cadhis.” From such a quarter, we do not look for any panegyric upon his conscientious investigation and acceptance of Christianity.
The lutanist Mirza Mahomed, from his sweetness called Bulbul, ‘the Nightingale,’ is recorded to have excited the emulation of his namesake birds, in a grove near Schiraz. (Pennant, ib. 261.) Sir W. J. had the story from one, who was himself witness to the circumstance.
“At a public durbar, a few days after his death, the Pundits could neither restrain their tears for his loss, nor find terms to express their admiration at the wonderful progress he had made in the sciences which they professed.” (Lord Teignmouth's ‘Life of Sir William Jones.’)
In 1794, Sir William Jones published his translation of ‘The Ordinances of Menu,’ comprising the Indian system of religious and civil duties. In the lines beginning
Rice, opium, and cotton supply the chief employment and support to the peasantry of Hindostan. Hodges represents the manufacturer as setting up his light loom every morning in the cool shade, and taking it home with him in the evening.
This most fatal reptile (the Cobra de morte) is said, perhaps fancifully, to bear upon it's head the marks of a scull and two crossbones. (Pennant, ib.)
Of the dreadful exclusion of these unhappy beings from society, a striking exemplification is given by St. Pierre, in his ‘Chaumière Indienne.’ Their very shadow, in the estimation of the purer Hindu, literally pollutes what it passes over; and, if they happen to touch one of the Nayrs, or old nobles of Malabar (of the Khatre caste) they are not unfrequently cut down by his sword.
Composuit, legesque dedit.”
This gentleman, who died in 1783, civilised the savages of his district chiefly by trusting himself among them unarmed, stating his benevolent purpose, and making occasional presents to their wives and children. (Hodges, and Penn. ib.)
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