The preacher (beg his pardon, the poet) then describes his Heaven. This falls into verse almost of its own accord.

"Glorious bodies are not restored to the righteous only to strike a harp, nor imperishable bodies to the wicked only to suffer and not die. To the righteous they are given to renew the connexion between spirit and matter, which is productive even in this fallen world of such exquisite delight; and in order to meet the nicer capacities of these new-formed organs, a new world is created, fair as the sun, beautiful as the moon, fresh and verdant as the garden of Eden."

Yet not unto the righteous are restored
Such glorious bodies, but to strike a harp,
Nor to the bad, bodies imperishable
To suffer and not die. No-they are given
Unto the righteous, that may be renewed
That union between matter and the spirit,
Productive, even in this fallen world,
Of exquisite delight; and then to meet
These new-form'd organs' nice capacities,
Fair as the sun, as the moon beautiful,
As fresh and verdant as was Eden's gar-
den-

Lo! a new world created!

The imagination of the new poet of Heaven and Hell now brightens and expands, and yet exhibits proofs " of a cool and reasonable spirit."

"Who knows what new enchantment of melody, what new witchery of speech, what poetry of conception, what variety of design, and what brilliancy of execution, he may endow the human faculties withal -in what new graces he may clothe nature, with such various enchantment of hill and dale, woodland, rushing streams, and living fountains; with bowers of bliss and sabbath-scenes of peace, and a thousand forms of disporting creatures, so as to make all the world hath beheld, to seem like the gross picture with which you catch infants; and to make the eastern tale of romances, and the most rapt imagination of eastern poets, like the ignorant prattle and rude structures which first delight the nursery, and afterwards ashame our riper years."

Why was this done back into prose? Surely in the original it will be found thus written.

Who knows what new enchanting melody,
New witchery of speech, what poetry
Of new conception, what variety
Of new design, and oh! what brilliancy
Of execution, new, he may endow
The human faculties withal-in what new

All that the world hath witnessed seem like pictures

Drawn gross, to catch the infant's roving eyes!

And the most rapt imagination

Of Eastern poets, all the eastern tale Romantic, like the ignorant prattle vain, And those rude structures which at first delight

The nursery, and then ashame our riper years.

Mr Irving then draws an animated picture of those exquisite enjoyments which will spring in the new "Establishment," from the heavenly loves and friendships of domestic life.

"The tongue shall be eloquent to disclose all its burning emotions, no longer labouring and panting for utterance. And a new organization of body for joining and mixing affections may be invented, more quiet homes for partaking it undisturbed, and more sequestered retreats for barring out the invasion of other affairs." Then shall the tongue, no longer labouring, 'Panting for utterance, eloquent be to speak All its emotions burning; then a new Organization of the bodily frame

May be invented ;-homes more quiet far, For joining and for mixing the affections For undisturb'd partaking of the mixture, Retreats far more sequester'd, to bar out The invasion of all different affairs.

can

The Poetical Preacher then attacks all those persons who, from that depraved taste in human nature which delights in strife and struggle, " not look upon innocent peace without a smile of scorn, or a ravenous lust to mar it ;" and who, out of this "fund of bitterness," pour forth epithets of derision upon the innocent images of heaven. He observes, that "these light and ignorant wits" laugh likewise at the pastoral simplicity of heaven, "and strive to be severe on the indolence of the bowers of bliss." Mr Irving meets these gentry boldly.

"But that with all these accompaniments it will be a scene of activity, I have no doubt. Activity both of body and of mind; that sensual and physical enjoyments will be multiplied manifold; that affectionate attachments will yield a thousand times more enjoyment; that schemes of future good will occupy our thoughts,

If

one,

in short, had nought to lose but life, No death, no retribution after death Staring him in the face, the lengths that he would go

Are shocking to reflect on.

Now, my friends, This most precisely is the state of things In the nether world. For there there is no hope,

There is no end, nor no good beings there
To hold the balance against evil, and there
Is no restraining providence of God.
Now, were there nothing more, my Chris-
tian Friends,

I hold that even this is quite sufficient
To constitute the hottest, cruelest hell.
Observe I ask no elemental fire,
No furnace heated with the living flames,
Not even tormenting demons! All I ask
Is but a congregation of the wicked,

In the same wicked state in which they died

And stood at the tribunal, driven together Into one settlement, to make the best

Or worst of it they can. Let every man Rise in his proper likeness, and be clothed In his proper nature, which he did not choose

To put off, but to die with. Let arise Beauty, with all the self-same tints so pure That Death did nip; and Wit, with all

its flashes;

Knowledge, with all its powers; and Policy,
With its addresses all; the generations
Of the unrighteous gather all together,
And because they possess no single quality
That in his volume God approves, nor care
About possessing them, then let them all
BE SHIPPED ACROSS THE GULPH IM.
PASSABLE,

To planet of their own; to carry on
Their several intrigues, indulgences
For ever! Oh! my Christian Brethren,
Here were indeed a hell, which neither fire,
Nor brimstone-no, nor yet the gnawing

worm,

Can represent!

Dante! What is Dante, after that? Tasso is tame-Byron blank as a cypher-and the " Pilgrimage to Kirkof-Shotts," an expedition to Paradise. The minister of the Caledonian Church, Hatton-Garden, follows out his view of hell in the same "cool and reasonable spirit ;" and although we must all agree with him in thinking, "that upon the nature of these two several estates, it is not easy to speak correctly," still we conceive the above passage, which we have, by a gentle process, reduced to the original verse, to be about as correct, and as spirited too, as the common run of the Recluse being a portion of the Excursion, a poem, by William Wordsworth, who,

Mr Irving says, leads a god-like life" among the mountains of Westmoreland, as distributor of stamps for that county.

For our own parts, we were quite satisfied with the above, and really wished that the preacher would not push the matter any farther. But he despises that vain injunction, 66 never mention hell 'fore ears polite ;" and, to use his own language elsewhere, (the language, too, of Dr Kitchiner, and Mesdames Glasse and Rundle,) being determined "not to mince the matter," he unfurls over the front of his pulpit, that all the spectators may have a full view, quite a new scene, painted for the occasion, a "Panoramic View of Hell." Exultingly he exclaims

"Here, then, I say, is hell enough out of the natural workings of such a population, without one interference of Almighty God. With what full swing power will rage and havoc ! with what fell swoop the arm of revenge will bring its bloody stroke! Hosts encountering hosts in du bious battle, wounds and bloodshed and agony, and no relief of death! Knowledge will invent systems of slavery and arts of cruelty; and inventions for accomplishing the ends of wickedness, beyond aught recorded of in history, will come forth from thoughtful and malicious brains. All the

cruel acts of man will be played off remorseless; inquisitionary dungeons will arise anew, and racks and torments for the body of men will ply their ancient work. The ferocity of Carribs and the dark cruelty of Malays, and the torturing of American savages, and Sodom's lustfulness, and Carthaginian fraud, and Rome's tyrant grasp, will all revive. And beauty will be there to light the cruel fires of jealousy, and arm nation against nation as heretofore. And poetry will be there to compose the war-song. And ambition to league revolts; and civil warfare, with every form of mischief this earth hath groaned beneath, all embittered and exasperated manifold.

"Now, tell me, brethren, could you endure such anarchy and confusion for a life long-could you endure it for ever? this carnival of every lust, and revelry of every passion."

HERE, THEN, I SAY, IS HELL ENOUGH,

MY BRETHREN,

OUT OF THE NATURAL WORKINGS OF

ITS PEOPLE,

AND ALL WITHOUT ONE SINGLE IN

TERFERENCE

OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD. With what fell swung

agony,

And no relief of death. Knowledge here
Will frame new slaveries, and cruel arts;
Inventions for the ends of wickedness,
Beyond the records of old history,
Come forth from thoughtful and malicious
brains.

All cruel arts of man will be played off
Remorseless; dungeons inquisitionary
Will rise anew, and for the bodies of men
Will racks and torments ply their ancient
work.

There will the Carrib's wild ferocity
Meet the dark cruelty of the Malay,
And savage tortures of America;
There Sodom's lustfulness, the fraud of
Carthage,

And tyrant grasp of Rome, will all revive
And Beauty will be there to light the fire
Of Jealousy, and arm, as heretofore,
Nation against nation. Poetry, (alas!
Divine no more) the war-song will compose,
Ambition will be there to league revolts,
And Civil War, with every form of mis-
chief

;

'Neath which this miserable earth hath grieved,

Embittered and exasperate manifold. Now, TELL ME, BRETHREN, IF YOU

COULD ENDURE

SUCH ANARCHY AND SUCH CONFUSION FOR A LIFE LONG? COULD YOU EN

DURE'T FOR EVER?

ENDURE THIS CARNIVAL OF EVERY LUST, &c.

We take upon us to assert, that Mr Irving's congregation, in the Caledonian Church, Hatton-Garden, would, if allowed to speak out, have answered this question in the negative, with one universal groan.

But hitherto Mr Irving has "supposed things no otherwise conditioned than they are here on earth." The reader, therefore, who shall stop short here, must be contented with a most imperfect and inadequate, idea of hell. So let him read on, for entire satisfac tion.

"Hitherto I have supposed things no otherwise conditioned than they are here on earth. But what, if the ground should be doubly accursed for their sakes? What, if the body should be liable to tenfold racking pains; what, if the eye should look only upon unsightly things, and the ear should lose its faculty of tasting melodyor, perceiving it, should be inɣaded with 2

restless, dunning noises; what, if the sun should smite with tropic fires, and suffocating winds whirl the miserable natives to and fro; what, if the realities of all that is threatened should come to pass, and the mighty devils become our masters, and we their thralls, to be used and misused as their beasts of labour; what, if God should put forth his power, and give the wicked, who set him at naught, their habitation upon some burning star or fiery comet, to live like the salamander in everlasting fire? -What, if all that Dante and Milton and Tasso have imagined in their several hells -the physical torments of the one, the mental anguish of the other, the deformed, filthy, obscene forms of the third-should concur; and the imagined picture of Belial be realized!

Thus far, my friends, I have supposed things

No otherwise conditioned than on earth. But if the ground should doubly be accursed

Even for their sakes, brethren! I ask,
WHAT THEN?

What, if the body should be liable
To tenfold racking pains; what, if the eye
Should only look upon unsightly things;
What, if the ear should lose its faculty
Of tasting melody, or, tasting still,
Should be invaded with strange dunning
noises;

What, if the sun should strike with tropic fires,

And suffocating winds whirl to and fro
The miserable natives; what, if all
That ever has been threatened, come to

pass,

And the all-mighty devils be our masters, And we their thralls, ay, or their beasts of labour,

To be used and misused? Say what, if God Should put forth all his power, and give

the wicked

The "judicious Irving," (that epithet should no longer be applied to Hooker) says that " we very much take the thing for granted, when we fancy the wicked creatures pinched and scorched alive by active ministers of God." His system, and we presume, as he is a philosopher, that it is built on a vast number of facts, carefully ascertained by induction-is thus decidedly stated :

"Their torture is the absence of the ministry of God. God comes not to their quarters, and therefore their quarters are so hot; for, where God is, there is peace and love, and where he is not, there is confusion and every evil work. Alas! there come no warning prophet nor ministering priest; no reformer, nor Saviour, to their world. It floats far remote from the habitations of

holiness, and no emanations of the divine Spirit shall visit it any more. They range the wastes and wildernesses of sin, and build the fabrics of iniquity, and work the works of darkness, and travel in the ways of cruelty and wickedness. The murderous devil is their master, his emanations inspire them, his powers of darkness rule them. They aye toil like Vulcan and his slaves, manufacturing thunderbolts for this their cruel Jove, to overwhelm themselves withal; and, as Etna, the fabled residence of these workers in fire, conceives in her bowels that flame and smoke which she afterwards vomits to scorch the vegetation up, which else would beautify her woody and verdant sides-so these wretched men will aye conceive within their soul malicious, fiendish imaginations and purposes, which, being brought forth, will destroy all the good which else might flourish in their clime. Who knows but there may be evidences, even there, of a good God,-incitements to meditation upon all the better alternatives of being,-which, by reason of abounding wickedness, are frustrated, and the people tantalized with the sight and thought of good, which their own crazed and disjointed frames did aye hinder them from realizing."

As our readers must by this time have formed their opinion on Mr Irving's versification, we shall not quote this passage in the original, and perhaps this article may be allowed to draw towards a close. Mr Irving is much more unwilling to turn his back on the infernal regions, than we are; and on this fine day, (one of the very few really delightful days we have had this season,) we wish to take a stroll round by Duddingstone, to get an appetite for dinner, and enjoy the beauties of external nature. Whether such a stroll, in company with ▲ or ODoherty, (or, if

"Oh! when I think how near every man verges upon the confines of madness and misery, and how the least shift in the fabric of our minds would send heavenly reason into howling madness-I see, I by the smallest expense of means, to make fancy a thousand powers resident. in God, a hell such as no earthly science or earthly language is able to represent. Bring me all the classes of men upon the earth, and let me have the sorting and the placing of them upon this earth, and I shall make hells for each one of them without further ado. I would send the poets to bear burdens, and the porters to indite tuneful songs. The musicians I would appoint over the kennels, and the roving libertines I would station over the watch and ward of streets. I would banish the sentimentalists to the fens, and send the rustic labourers to seek their food among the mountains; each wily politician I would transplant into a colony of honest men, and your stupid clown I would set at the helm of state. But, lest it may be thought I sport with a subject which I strive to make plain, I shall stop short and give no further proof of this wicked ingenuity; for, sure I am, I could set society into such a hot warfare and confusion, as should in one day make half the world slay themselves, or slay each other, and the other half run up and down in wild distraction."