the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.

The Son of God, the eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed the soul from danger;
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.

The Father's wisdom willed it so;
The Son's obedience knew no _No;_
Both wills were in one stature;
And, as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made flesh indeed,
And took on him our nature.

What comfort by him do we win,
Who made himself the price of sin,
To make us heirs of glory!
To see this babe, all innocence,
A martyr born in our defence!--
Can man forget this story?

Somewhat formal and artificial, no doubt; rugged at the same time, like
him who wrote them. When a man would utter that concerning which he has
only felt, not thought, he can express himself only in the forms he has
been taught, conventional or traditional. Let his powers be ever so much
developed in respect of other things, here, where he has not meditated,
he must understand as a child, think as a child, speak as a child. He can
as yet generate no sufficing or worthy form natural to himself. But the
utterance is not therefore untrue. There was no professional bias to
cause the stream of Ben Jonson's verses to flow in that channel. Indeed,
feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to
speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place
utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, but which
therefore it is not always fair to despise as cant.

About the same age as Ben Jonson, though the date of his birth is
unknown, I now come to mention Thomas Heywood, a most voluminous writer
of plays, who wrote also a book, chiefly in verse, called _The Hierarchy
of the Blessed Angels_, a strange work, in which, amongst much that is
far from poetic, occur the following remarkable metaphysico-religious
verses. He had strong Platonic tendencies, interesting himself chiefly
however in those questions afterwards pursued by Dr. Henry More,
concerning witches and such like subjects, which may be called the shadow
of Platonism.

I have wandered like a sheep that's lost,
To find Thee out in every coast:
_Without_ I have long seeking bin, _been._
Whilst thou, the while, abid'st _within_.
Through every broad street and strait lane
Of thi