and publication of the paper. He soon got himself into trouble, being prosecuted for printing a ballad, written by a clergyman of Belfast, in commemoration of the destruction of the Bastile, which was, in that period of great political agitation, interpreted into a seditious libel. He was convicted, and sentenced to a fine of twenty pounds, and three months' imprisonment in York Castle.

On returning to his editorial duties, he abstained, as much as possible, from politics; but in January, 1795, he was tried for a second imputed political offence -a paragraph in his paper which reflected on the conduct of a magistrate in quelling a riot at Sheffield. He was again convicted, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, to pay a fine of thirty pounds, and to give security to keep the peace for two years. "All the persons," says the amiable poet, writing in 1840, "who were actively concerned in the prosecutions against me in 1794 and 1795, are dead, and, without exception, they died in peace with me. I believe I am quite correct in saying, that from each of them distinctly, in the sequel, I received tokens of good-will, and, from several of them, substantial proofs of kindness. I mention not this as a plea in extenuation of offences for which I bore the penalty of the law; I rest my justification, in these cases, now on the same grounds, and no other, on which I rested my justification then. I mention the circumstance to the honor of the deceased, and as an evidence that, amidst all the violence of that distracted time, a better spirit was not extinct, but finally prevailed, and, by its healing influence, did indeed comfort those who had been conscientious sufferers." In the spring of 1797 he printed his "Prison Amusements,"-the production of his pen during his recent confinement. In 1805 he published "The Ocean," and the next year "The Wanderer of Switzerland, and other Poems," which, in spite of a very ill-natured criticism in the "Edinburgh Review," soon rose into popularity, and completely established the reputation of the author as a poet. His next work was the "West Indies," which appeared in 1809, written in honor of the abolition of the African slave trade by the British legislature in 1807. In vigor and freedom of description, and in fine pathetic painting, this poem is much superior to any thing in his first volume. In 1812 appeared "The World before the Flood," a poem in the English heroic couplet, and extending to ten short cantos, of which a writer in the Monthly Magazine" justly remarked, that "No man of taste or feeling can possibly read it without wishing to make others participate in the pleasure he has derived from it." He next published (1817) "Thoughts on Wheels," directed against lotteries; and "The Climbing Boy's Soliloquies," to enlist the sympathies of the public in favor of the chimney-sweeps. In 1819 appeared "Greenland," containing a sketch of the ancient Moravian church and its missions in Greenland. The only other long poem of Mr. Montgomery is "The Pelican Island," describing the haunts of the pelican in the

This same "Edinburgh Review," twenty-eight years afterward, altered its tone completely-thus: "Gradually with every successive production, the excrescences of our auther's early style have been pruned away. Earnestness has succeeded to affectation; a manly simplicity of thought and reserve of expression, to the flowery exuberance and strained conceits of youth; overcharged and almost whining pathos has softened into a more chastened, natural, and unobtrusive tenderness; and a spirit of religion, profound and awe-inspiring, yet withal cheerful and consolatory, forming a part of the man himself, pervades and informs all his works, till the poet, who seemed at one time too likely to prolong the absurdities of the 'Della Crusca School,' has taken his place, not unworthily, among the classics of the nation" -Edinburgh Review, 1xi. 473. In the sixth volume of the "London Quarterly" is a very severe notice of the early criticism of the "Edinburgh,"-critic censuring critic.

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small islands on the coast of New Holland. Besides these, he has written a number of sacred lyrics, which rank among the best in the language.

In 1825, Mr. Montgomery retired from the editorship of the Sheffield newspaper, which post he had filled for more than thirty years. On this occasion his friends and neighbors invited him to a public entertainment. "There the happy and grateful poet ran through the story of his life even from his boyish days,' when he came among them friendless and a stranger, from his retirement at Fulneck among the Moravian brethren, by whom he was educated in all but knowledge of the world. He spoke with pardonable pride of the success which had crowned his labors as an author. Not, indeed,' he said, 'with fame and fortune, as these were lavished on my greater contemporaries-in comparison with whose magnificent possessions on the British Parnassus my small plot of ground is no more than Naboth's vineyard to Ahab's kingdom; but it is my own; it is no copyhold; I borrowed it, I leased it from none. the common myself; and I can say that not an inch which I had once gained Every foot of it I enclosed from have I ever lost. I wrote neither to suit the manners, the taste, nor the temper of the age; but appealed to universal principles, to unperishable affections, to primary elements of our common nature, found wherever man is found in civilized society, wherever his mind has been raised above barbarian ignorance, or his passions purified from brutal selfishness.""

In 1830 and 1831, our author was selected to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, on Poetry and General Literature. This he prepared for the press, and it appeared in 1833; and a more interesting and instructive work on general literature, in the same compass, cannot, I think, be found. "A collected edition of his works, with autobiographical and illustrative matter, was issued in 1841, in four volumes. A tone of generous and enlightened morality pervades all the writings of this poet. He was the enemy of the slave trade and of every form of oppression, and the warm friend of every scheme of philanthropy and improvement. The pious and devotional feelings displayed in his early effusions have grown with his growth, and form the staple of his poetry. In description, however, he is not less happy; and in his 'Greenland' and Pelican Island' there are passages of great beauty, evincing a refined taste and judgment in the selection of his materials. His late works have more vigor and variety than those by which he first became distinguished. Indeed, his fame was long confined to what is termed the religious world, till he showed, by his cultivation of different styles of poetry, that his depth and sincerity of feeling, the simplicity of his taste, and the picturesque beauty of his language, were not restricted to purely spiritual themes. His smaller poems enjoy a popularity almost equal to those of Moore, which, though differing widely in subject, they resemble in their musical flow, and their compendious happy expression and imagery."2

"This poem abounds in minute and delicate description of natural phenomena-has great felicity of diction and expression-and, altogether, possesses more of the power and fertility of the master than any other of the author's works."-Chambers' Cyclopædia.

Chambers' Cyclopædia.

THE LOVE OF COUNTRY AND OF HOME.
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven, o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutor'd age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;
In every clime the magnet of his soul,

Touch'd by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest:
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his soften'd looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend:
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life;
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.

"Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?"
Art thou a man?—a patriot?-look around;
Oh thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land THY COUNTRY, and that spot THY HOME!'

The West Indies.

HOME DEAR TO THE AFRICAN.

Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside;
His HOME the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
And is the Negro outlaw'd from his birth?
Is he alone a stranger on the earth?
Is there no shed whose peeping roof appears
So lovely, that it fills His eyes with tears?

No land, whose name, in exile heard, will dart

Ice through his veins, and lightning through his heart?

"As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so is it beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependant and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity: winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart."-WASHINGTON IRVING.

Ah, yes! beneath the beams of brighter skies,
His home amidst his father's country lies;
There, with the partner of his soul, he shares
Love-mingled pleasures, love-divided cares;
There, as with nature's warmest, filial fire,
He soothes his blind, and feeds his helpless sire;
His children, sporting round his hut, behold
How they shall cherish him when he is old.
Thus lived the Negro in his native land,
Till Christian cruisers anchor'd on his strand;
'Twas night; his babes around him lay at rest,
Their mother slumber'd on their father's breast;
A yell of murder rang around their bed;

They woke; their cottage blazed; the victims fled;
Forth sprang the ambush'd ruffians on their prey,
They caught, they bound, they drove them far away;
The white man bought them at the mart of blood;
In pestilential barks they cross'd the flood;
Then were the wretched ones asunder torn,
To distant isles, to separate bondage borne,
Denied, though sought with tears, the sad relief
That misery loves-the fellowship of grief.

The same.

NIGHT.

Night is the time for rest;

How sweet, when labors close,

To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head

Upon our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is and truth that seems,

Blend in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

Night is the time for toil; '

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang, or heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory, where sleep
The joys of other years;

Hopes that were angels in their birth,

But perish'd young, like things on earth!

Without any wish to make pedantic objections, we may be allowed to remark that this stanza is inconsistent with natural truth and a just economy of life. Day is the time for toil-night is more proper for repose; and, if spent in mental labor, in addition to other duties pursued during the day, must redound to the injury of health.

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Night is the time to watch;
On ocean's dark expanse
To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the homesick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care;

Brooding on hours misspent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent;

Like Brutus, midst his slumbering host,
Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost.

Night is the time to muse;

Then from the eye the soul

Takes flight, and, with expanding views,
Beyond the starry pole,

Descries, athwart the abyss of night,
The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray;

Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;

So will his followers do;

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace,
Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease:
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign
To parting friends-such death be mine!

ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

Higher, higher will we climb,

Up to the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time
In our country's story;
Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls.

Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;

Nature's wealth and learning's spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty.
Minds are of celestial birth;