learned prelate, we shall briefly consider it in reference to the bounties of divine providence, and the riches of divine grace.

The feast of Tabernacles was about the end of our September, when the fruits of the earth were gathered in, and the praises of Israel were waiting in silence (as it were) ready to burst from every grateful heart, in joyful shouts and songs, at the commencement of this festival. The Chaldee labours to give an idea of the extraordinary rejoicings by an hyperbolical expression. "The praise of angels is accounted as silence before thee, O God, whose majesty is in Sion:" being intended to intimate, that the shouts of Israel were far louder than the songs of angels.

The imagery employed in the following verses, is eminently sublime and beautiful. He girdeth together the mountains by his strength, as with a girdle: he stilleth the roarings of the sea, and the still louder ravings of the people. He maketh the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. The former idea is amplified and illustrated in the nineteenth psalm (ver. 5 and 6), and the latter alluded to in the eighth no scenes in nature can be more beautiful or more cheerful, than the rising of the morning sun, or the moon "walking in brightness" in the evening sky. The watering of the earth with showers, or with full and flowing streams, is another display of providential goodness; but the crowning mercy is the gathering in of the harvest. The expression (in ver. 11) is peculiarly elegant and impressive, "His paths drop fatness." In other psalms, the Almighty is represented as walking or riding "upon the wings of the wind," (psalm xviii. 10; civ. 3): the clouds, therefore, are his pathways, and the showers which distil from them enriching the earth, may be said, poetically, to "drop fatness" upon it; and from the cheerful and useful vegetation which clothes the hills and valleys, they are said to become joyful, and even to "shout and sing."

But we must not confine our remarks to blessings merely temporal. The Psalmist complains of iniquities prevailing against him, and prays to be delivered from them: he speaks of the blessedness of attending God's house, and considers communion with him as the highest privilege of man. The floods of heaven, and the rivers of earth, are both used to typify the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the diffusion of divine truth (Acts ii. 17, 18), which produces the same effect in the moral, as water in the natural world. This psalm may therefore be considered as no less rich in spiritual unction than in poetic beauty; and is especially interesting to us Gentiles, residing in the "ends of the earth," as our part of Europe was considered. Blest is the man whom thou shalt choose,

And give him kind access to thee;

Give him a place within thy house,
To taste thy love divinely free.' Watts.

• NOTES.

PSALM LXV.Title.-A Psalm and Song.

• Ver. 1. Praise waiteth.-The Heb. term means, to wait in silence, as slaves in the presence of their master.

Ver. 9. Iniquities.-Heb. " Words (or matters) of iniquity pre. vail," &c.-Purge them.-Heb. "Cover," expiate them: the allusion is to the cover of the mercy-seat. See Ainsworth.

Ver. 5. By terrible things. - Ainsworth, "Fearful;" Horne, "wonderful" things.

"Ver. 8. Thy tokens.-Or signs; i. e. tempests, by sea or land. Ibid. To rejoice.-Marg. "Sing."

Ver. 9. The river of God.-Rain from heaven. See Gen. i. 6, 7. Or the Jordan, which overflowed its banks in harvest. See Josh. iii. 15.

Ver. 10. Thou visitest the earth.-Or, " land :" namely Canaan. -Thou settlest the furrows.-Marg. "Thou causest (rain) to descend (into) the furrows thereof."

Ver. 12. Rejoice on every side--Heb. "Are girded with joy.' Compare ver. 6.'

Art. V. The Life of Paul Jones, from Original Documents in the Possession of John Henry Sherburne, Esq. Register of the Navy of the United States. Small 8vo. pp. 332. London. 1825.

PAUL JONES has hitherto been little more than the hero of chap-books. His terrific figure, in the act of shooting the recreant lieutenant who had dared to strike the bloody flag, may yet be seen on hawkers' stalls, striding across the quarterdeck of the Bonhomme Richard in the fiercest hues of gamboge, indigo, and vermilion. Five and twenty years have 'not elapsed since the nurses of Scotland hushed their crying infants by the whisper of his name;' and we are still apt to think of him as of a mere rover of the seas, ferocious, unprincipled, and disavowed even by those to whom his reckless valour might make his services, though not his person or his name, acceptable. His story, obscurely known, and, hitherto, imperfectly authenticated, has been usually taken as the last chapter in the chronicles of piracy, and his character as exhibiting a sort of counterpart to those of Morgan and Monbar.

It now appears, however, that much of all this was misapprehension; and that this last of the Buccanneers, this rival of Mansvelt and l'Olonnois, although certainly a British-born subject fighting against his native flag, and liable to be hanged. at the yard-arm, if he had fallen into the hands of his countrymen, was not a mere adventurer of casual means and desperate enterprise, but a seaman of consummate ability, an intriguer of no little dexterity, and a regularly commissioned officer, decorated with chivalric honours, and enjoying the emoluments of high naval rank, under more than one legitimate government. He was in friendly and confidential intercourse

with some of the leading men of his time, with Franklin, Segur, Jefferson, and la Fayette; the young nobility of France were ambitious of serving under his command; he commanded a frigate in the French navy, he was a commodore in the service of the United States, and a vice admiral in that of Russia. He received a diamond-hilted sword and the cross of Military Merit from Louis XVI., the order of St. Anne from the imperial Catharine, a pension from Denmark, and his funeral was attended by a deputation from the National Assembly of France. All this is so much at variance with the general apprehension of his character and career, that a distinct authentication of the original documents was obviously necessary; and this has been satisfactorily given in the Editor's preface. Paul seems to have been an indefatigable scribe, and his papers, after passing through the hands of Mr. Hyslop and Mr. Ward, both of New York, came into the possession of Mr. Sherburne. The Marquis de la Fayette has given his attestation to all that he was in any way connec ted with; and the ex-presidents Jefferson and Madison have been applied to with effect: the former, in particular, supplied a number of letters that he had formerly received from Jones.

The early part of the life of this extraordinary man is involved in some obscurity. He was born in July, 1747, at Arbegland, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, Scotland. His father, John Paul, was a gardener. The youth, after receiving the elements of education at the parochial school, was, in compliance with his own wishes, bound apprentice to a Whitehaven merchant, trading to America. After much_voyaging, he engaged for himself in traffic, but unsuccessfully; and when the war broke out between England and her Transatlantic colonies, he obtained a command in the insurgent navy. Of his exploits in this service, the burning of the shipping at Whitehaven, the capture of the Drake sloop, and the taking of the Serapis frigate, were the most conspicuous. Few naval engagements have exceeded the latter in desperate resolution. The Bonhomme Richard, Jones's ship, was an old and decayed vessel, with a motley crew of Americans, French, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Malays; while the Serapis was quite new, and one of the finest heavy frigates in the British service. Her commander, Captain Pearson, was a brave and able seaman, and appears to have manoeuvred with much skill; but he was far beneath his antagonist in the determination which rises superior to average calculations, and the tact which discerns the probabilities of success where others would discover only the certainty of failure. The first broadsides of the Serapis shook the crazy timbers of her opponent with such effect as to

put her in danger of sinking; and Jones could find no surer way of securing his vessel, than by lashing her alongside the English frigate. Amid all the horrors of the fight, with his ship filling, his officers flinching, his heavy guns bursting, and the rest nearly all silenced, this extraordinary man never for a moment lost his presence of mind; nor, even when his own consort, instead of assailing the enemy, opened a heavy fire on the Bonhomme Richard, did his resolution forsake him.

The leak gained ground on the pumps, and the fire increased so much on board both ships, that some officers advised Jones to strike, "of whose courage and good sense he entertained the highest opinion."

It was a grand scene that the Channel witnessed that night. A numerous fleet had taken refuge under the walls of Scarborough Castle; the Bonhomme and Serapis, joined in an encounter almost unparalleled for its fierceness and duration, finely contrasted with the picturesque and shattered appearance of the Pallas and the Countess of Scarborough, now both silenced; and the moon, which was extremely bright and full, lighted up, not only this magnificent scene, but Flamborough Head, and the surrounding heights covered with the inhabitants of all the neighbouring towns. While the American commodore appeared to be hesitating, whether he should follow the advice of his officers, his master at arms, who was frightened out of his wits, suddenly let loose all the prisoners, amounting to nearly five hundred, telling them, " to save themselves, as the ship was going to sink." This last misfortune seemed to be decisive. One prisoner jumped over to the enemy, and told them, that if they held out a moment longer, the enemy must strike. "Our rudder," says Jones, in his letter to Franklin, "was nearly off; the sternframe and transoms were almost entirely cut away; the timbers by the lower deck, especially from the mainmast to the stern, being greatly decayed by age, were mangled beyond every power of description; and a person must have been an eye-witness, to have formed a just idea of the tremendous scene of carnage, wreck, and ruin, that every where appeared." Yet, notwithstanding this state notwithstanding that the prisoners were let loose-that the ship was on fire in many places, and that there was five feet of water in the hold, Jones determined to fight on. He observed what his affrightened crew had overlooked-he saw the mainmast of the Serapis shake, and his practised ear told him that "their firing decreased." He took care that his own should immediately increase; and at half past ten, in the sight of thousands, the flag of England, which had been nailed to the mast of the Serapis, was struck by Capt. Pearson's own hand. Her mainmast at the same time went overboard. Before any thing, except the wounded, could be removed, the Bonhomme Richard sank.'

39

After this extraordinary sea-fight, Jones put into the Texel, where he was permitted to land his prisoners, and to refit his

ship, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the British ambassador. When his repairs were completed, he put to sea, eluded the cruizers that were stationed at every outlet, and, after sailing through the Downs, and in full view of the Isle of Wight, reached l'Orient in safety. Early in 1780, he visited Paris, where he was received with enthusiasm by the people, and with favour by the monarch. His time was fully occupied with intrigue, both amorous and political; for Jones was a Libertine by temperament, and an unreluctant courtier. In September, he sailed for America, where he arrived early in the following year, and was appointed to the command of at seventy-four, then building. While superintending the equipment of his ship, he, as usual, recreated himself with composition, and, in one instance, with disquisition of a very singular kind. After adverting to the disadvantageous circumstances under which the United States commenced the naval war against Great Britain, he speaks of his own qualifications. Although he had sailed in armed ships and frigates, he states, that when he assumed command, he found himself deficient in the requisite experience, and that midnight study, as well as diligent attention to the instructions of the greatest and most learned 'sea-officers,' had still left him with the conviction that he had much to acquire. Frigate service and cruising are, he observes, very inadequate preparation for the command of a fleet.

The English, who boast so much of their navy, never fought a ranged battle on the ocean before the war that is now ended. The battle off Ushant was, on their part, like their former ones, irregular; and Admiral Keppel could only justify himself by the example of Hawke in our remembrance, and of Russel in the last century. From that moment, the English were forced to study, and to imitate, the French in their evolutions. They never gained any advantage when they had to do with equal force; and the unfortunate defeat of Count de Grasse was owing more to the unfavourable circumstances of the wind coming a-head four points at the beginning of the battle, which put his fleet into the order of echiquier when it was too late to tack, and of calm and currents afterwards, which brought on an entire disorder, than to the admiralship or even the vast superiority of Rodney, who had forty sail of the line against thirty, and five threedeckers against one. By the account of some of the French officers, Rodney might as well have been asleep, not having made a second signal during the battle, so that every captain did as he pleased."

In this last statement, there is much that is erroneous. Rodney's line of battle consisted of thirty-six ships, including five of 90 guns, twenty-one of 74, and ten of 64. The French had an equal number, but two were armed en flûte, and three