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Untitled Article
The best outline which could be given of the poem would be dry and uninviting . It is a history of the world from the beginning to the end of time , supposed to be delivered by an " ancient bard of earth , " who , ages after the adjustment of all belonging to our planet , is requested by two
young immortals to record its birth , progress , and final destruction . In the course of this narrative many characters are introduced- —many beautiful descriptions . The grand religious scheme is that of Calvinism , and Calvinism of the most revolting kind . This , indeed , must unavoidably go far to condemn the book with Unitarians , in spite of its high merits and beauties .
It is painful to think a youth of such promise as the lamented author ' s , should have been turned so frequently , and by choice , to the contemplation of the doctrine of eternal punishment . Uncharitable he might not have originally been ; but no mind can come unvitiated from the frequent contemplation of horrors such as these . A man may believe the doctrine in question , doubtless , and yet bear so firm a previous conviction in his mind of Divine goodness , that the doctrine makes no practical impression upon him ; , but
to dwell upon it , to analyze , to extend , to add imagination to Scripture , must , and cannot but be injurious . There are , however , many pages of such extreme beauty , so calculated to lead the spirit to religious contemplation , and to invigorate the mind with wholesome aliment , that it were pity if even our deep and serious grounds of objection should keep us away from it .
Brief extracts give but little idea of its merits , which are widely diffused , and not concentrated . I have already spoken of the description of the resurrection and judgment : these occupy two books out of the ten , and cannot be broken into detached passages without great injustice . The character of Lord Byron , in the fourth canto , is sketched with a powerful hand ; the few following lines are taken from this part of the poem :
** Others , though great , Beneath their argument seemed struggling whiles ; He from above descending" stooped to touch The loftiest thought ; and proudly stoop'd , as though It scarce deserv'd his verse . With Nature ' s self He seem'd an old acquaintance , free to jest At will with all her glorious majesty . He laid his hand upon * the Ocean ' s mane /
And play'd familiar with his hoary locks . Stood on the Alps , stood on the Appenines , And with the thunder talk'd , as friend to friend : And wove his garland of the liglit ' ning ' s wing , Then turn'd , and with the grasshopper , who sung His evening song beneath nis feet , convers'd . Suns , moons , and stars and clouds his sisters were ;
Rocks , mountains , meteors , seas , and winds and storms , His brothers , younger brothers , whom he scarce As equals deemed . All passions of all men The wild , the tame , the gentle and severe ,.... He toss'd about , as tempest , wither'd leaves , Then , smiling , lookM upon the wreck he made . "
In a different strain is the following touching domestic scene : " Fresh in our memory , as fresh As yesterday , is yet the day she died .
Untitled Article
Polloh ' s " Course of Time . " 381
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1828, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2561/page/21/
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