erty of will," says Jeremy Taylor,
"is like the motion of a magnetic needle towards the north, full of
trembling and uncertainty till it be fixed in the beloved point; it
wavers as long as it is free, and is at rest when it can choose no more.
It is humility and truth to allow to man this liberty; and, therefore,
for this we may lay our faces in the dust, and confess that our dignity
and excellence suppose misery, and are imperfection, but the instrument
and capacity of all duty and all virtue." Happy he whose faith is
finally "fixed in the beloved point!" But even of that faith, what
hinders the poet whom it has blessed to sing? While, of its tremblings,
and veerings, and variations, why may not the poet, whose faith has
experienced, and still may experience them all, breathe many a
melancholy and mournful lay, assuaged, ere the close, by the descent of
peace?

Thanksgiving, it is here admitted, is the "most joyful of all holy
effusions;" and the admission is sufficient to prove that it cannot be
"confined to a few modes." "Out of the fulness of the heart the tongue
speaketh;" and though at times the heart will be too full for speech,
yet as often even the coldest lips prove eloquent in gratitude--yea, the
very dumb do speak--nor, in excess of joy, know the miracle that has
been wrought upon them by the power of their own mysterious and high
enthusiasm.

That "repentance, trembling in the presence of the Judge, should not be
at leisure for cadences and epithets," is in one respect true; but
nobody supposes that during such moments--or hours--poetry is composed;
and surely when they have passed away, which they must do, and the mind
is left free to meditate upon them, and to recall them as shadows of the
past, there is nothing to prevent them from being steadily and calmly
contemplated, and depictured in somewhat softened and altogether
endurable light, so as to become proper subjects even of poetry--that
is, proper subjects of such expression as human nature is prompted to
clothe with all its emotions, as soon as they have subsided, after a
swell or a storm, into a calm, either placid altogether, or still
bearing traces of the agitation that has ceased, and have left the whole
being self-possessed, and both capable and desirous of indulging itself
in an after-emotion at once melancholy and sublime. Then, repentance
will not only be "at leisure for cadences and epithets," but cadences
and epithets will of themselves m