With the great glory of that wondrous light
His throne is all encompassed around,

And hid in his own brightness from the sight
Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound;
And underneath his feet are to be found
Thunder, and lightning, and tempestuous fire,
The instruments of his avenging ire.
There in his bosom Sapience doth sit,
The sovereign dearling of the Deity,
Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit
For so great power and peerless majesty,
And all with gems and jewels gorgeously
Adorned, that brighter than the stars appear,
And make her native brightness seem more clear.
And on her head a crown of purest gold

Is set, in sign of highest sovereignty;
And in her hand a sceptre she doth hold

With which she rules the house of God on high,

And menageth the ever-moving sky,

And in the same these lower creatures all

Subjected to her power imperial.

Both heaven and earth obey unto her will,
And all the creatures which they both contain
For of her fulness, which the world doth fill,
They all partake, and do in state remain
As their great Maker did at first ordain,
Through observation of her high beheast,

By which they first were made and still increased.
The fairness of her face no tongue can tell,
For she the daughters of all women's race,
And angels cke, in beauty doth excel,
Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face,
And more increased by her own goodly grace,
That it doth far exceed all human thought,
Ne can on earth compared be to aught:
Ne could that painter, had he lived yet,
Which pictured Venus with so curious quill,
That all posterity admired it,

Have pourtrayed this, for all his maistering skill;
Ne she herself, had she remained still,

And were as fair as fabling wits do feign,

Could once come near this beauty sovereign.

But had those wits, the wonders of their days,
Or that sweet Teian poet which did spend
His plenteous vein in setting forth her praise,
Seen but a glimpse of this which I pretend *,
How wondrously would he her face commend,
Above that idol of his feigning thought,

That all the world should with his rhymes be fraught!

• Show forth.

How then dare I, the novice of his art,
Presume to picture so divine a wight,

Or hope t'express her least perfection's part,
Whose beauty fills the heavens with her light,
And darks the earth with shadow of her sight?
Ah, gentle muse! thou art too weak and faint
The portrait of so heavenly hue to paint.
Let angels, which her goodly face behold
And see at will, her sovereign praises sing,
And those most sacred mysteries unfold
Of that fair love of mighty Heaven's King;
Enough is me t' admire so heavenly thing,
And, being thus with her huge love possessed,
In the only wonder of her self to rest.

But whoso may, thrice happy man him hold,
Of all on earth whom God so much doth grace,
And lets his own beloved to behold;

For in the view of her celestial face
All joy, all bliss, all happiness have place;
Ne ought on earth can want unto the wight
Who of her self can win the wishful sight.
For she, out of her secret treasury,
Plenty of riches forth on him will pour,
Even heavenly riches, which there hidden lie
Within the closet of her chastest bower,
The eternal portion of her precious dower,
Which mighty God hath given to her free,
And to all those which thereof worthy be.

None thereof worthy be but those whom she
Vouchsafeth to her presence to receive,
And letteth them her lovely face to see,
Whereof such wondrous pleasure they conceive,
And sweet contentment, that it doth bereave
Their soul of sense through infinite delight,
And them transport from flesh into the sprite;

In which they see such admirable things
As carries them into an extasy,
And hear such heavenly notes and carollings
Of God's high praise, that fills the brazen sky,
And feel such joy and pleasure inwardly,
That maketh them all worldly cares forget,
And only think on that before them set.

Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense
Or idle thought of earthly things remain,

But all that erst seemed sweet seems now offence,
And all that pleased erst now seems to pain:
Their joy, their comfort, their desire. their gain,
Is fixed all on that which now they see;
All other sights but feigned shadows be,

And that fair lamp which useth to inflame
The hearts of men with self-consuming fire
Thenceforth seeras foul, and full of sinful blame;
And all that pomp to which proud minds aspire
By name of honour, and so much desire,
Seems to them baseness, and all riches dross,
And all mirth sadness, and all lucre loss.

So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,
And senses fraught with such satiety,
That in nought else on earth they can delight
But in th' aspect of that felicity,

Which they have written in their inward eye,
On which they feed and in their fastened mind
All happy joy and full contentment find.

Ah then, my hungry soul! which long hast fed
On idle fancies of my foolish thought,

And, with false Beauty's flattering bait misled,
Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought,
Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought
But late repentance through thy folly's prief *,
Ah! cease to gaze on matter of thy grief;

And look at last up to that sovereign light
From whose pure beams all perfect Beauty springs,
That kindleth love in every godly sprite,
Even the Love of God, which loathing brings
Of this vile world and these gay seeming things;
With whose sweet pleasures being so possessed,
Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest.

[RICHARD LUCAS, D.D., Prebendary of Westminster, was the author of a popular book entitled an 'Inquiry after Happiness,' from which the following extract is taken. He also published Practical Christianity,' and 'Sermons,' extending to five volumes. He lived in the early part of the last century. The following extract from the Preface to the 'Inquiry after Happiness,' is a charming illustration of the character of this amiable divine:

"It has pleased God that in a few years I should finish the more pleasant and delightful part of life, if sense were to be the judge and standard of pleasure; being confined (I will not ay condemned), by well-nigh utter blindness, to retirement and solitude. In this state conversation has lost much of its former air and briskness. Business (wherein I could never pretend to any great address) gives me now more trouble than formerly, and that, too, without the usual despatch or success. Study (which is the only employment left me) is clogged with this weight and incumbrance, that all the assistance I can receive from without must be conveyed by another's sense, not my own; which it may easily be believed are instruments or organs as ill fitted, and as awkwardly managed by me, as wooden legs and hands by the maimed.

"In this case, should I affect to procure myself a decent funeral, and leave an honourable remembrance of me behind, should I struggle to rescue myself from that contempt to which this condition (wherein I may seem lost to the world and myself) exposes me, should I ambitiously affect to have my name march in the train of those All (though not all equally) great ones-Homer, Appius, Cn. Aufidius, Didymus, Walkup, Père Jean l'Aveugle, &c., all of them eminent for their service and usefulness, as for their affliction of the same kind with mine; even this might seem almost a commendable infirmity; for the last thing a mind

Isaiah lv. This ever was, and ever will be true; a great fortune is not necessary for the attainment of faith, hope, or charity; and he that is endowed with these cannot be miserable: you may learn the whole system of divine and important truths; you may acquit yourself with all the beauty and enjoyments of virtue at a very cheap rate; and you may learn temperance, fortitude, justice, modesty, constancy, patience, contempt of the world, without the assistance of much more wealth than will serve to feed and clothe you: and canst thou not be content with these possessions? is not this a sort of merchandize to be preferred before hat of fine gold.

I know the greater part of those who accuse their fortune of misery do at least retend that their condition and circumstances of life are so incommodious, that hey have not time to attend to the great interest of the soul, or at least not with hat application which they should. Alas! thus not the mean only, but almost all alk, from the porter to the prince: the circumstances of one are too strait, too arrow; of another too full of trouble, because too full of state; one complains at he is withdrawn from his great end, by the many allurements and sensual emptations to which his rank and quality in the world expose him; another that eis daily fretted and indisposed by the little cross accidents and the rugged conersation which he is necessarily obliged to bear with; one complains of too much usiness, another of too little; the hurry and multitude of things distracts the one, fidel fears and anxious despondencies the other; one complains that his cquaintance and friends are too numerous, and intrench too far upon his precious ours; another is querulous, melancholy, and peevish, because he looks upon himelf either for his meanness neglected, or for his misfortune deserted and forsaken; company is burdensome to the one, and solitude to the other. Thus all conditions re full of complaints, from him that trudges on his clouted shoe, to him who can scarce mention the manners or the fortunes of the multitude without some expressions of contumely and disdain. Thou fool! dost thou not see that all these complaints are idle contradictions? for shame, correct the wantonness of thy humour, and thou wilt soon correct thy fortune: learn to be happy in every state, and every place: learn to enjoy thyself, to know and value the wealth that is in thine own power, I mean wisdom and goodness: learn to assert the sovereignty and dignity of thy soul. Methinks that, if philosophy could not, pride and indignation might conquer fortune. It is beneath the dignity of a soul, that has but a grain of sense, to make chance, and winds, and waves, the arbitrary disposers of his happiness; or, what is worse, to depend upon some mushroom upstart, which a chance smile raised out of his turf and rottenness, to a condition of which his mean soul is so unequal that he himself fears and wonders at his own height. Oh, how I hug the memory of those honest heathens, who, in a ragged gown and homely cottage bade defiance to fortune, and laughed at those pains and hazards, the vanity and pride of men, not their misfortune, drove them to! Men may call this pride or spite in them; as the beggarly rabble doth usually envy the fortune it doth despair of but there were a great many of these who laid by envied greatness, to enjoy this quiet though generally despicable meanness: but let the contempt of the world be what it will in a heathen; let it be pride or peevishness, vain-glory, or any thing, rather than a reproach to Christians; what say you to the followers of our Lord and Master? "Then said Peter, silver and gold I have none," Acts iii. None ? what hast thou then, thou poor disciple of a poor master? A true faith, a godlike charity, and unshaken hope: blessed art thou amongst men; nothing can make thee greater, nothing richer, nothing happier, but heaven. You see plainly, then, a man may be virtuous, though not wealthy; and that fortune, which prevents his being rich, cannot prevent his being happy.