The all-pervading influence of the Supreme Being is then described in a few tolerable lines borrowed from Pope, and a great many intolerable lines of Mr. Robert {200}Montgomery’s own. The following may stand as a specimen: “But who could trace Thine unrestricted course, Though Fancy follow’d with immortal force? There’s not a blossom fondled by the breeze, There’s not a fruit that beautifies the trees, There’s not a particle in sea or air, But nature owns thy plastic influence there! With fearful gaze, still be it mine to see How all is fill’d and vivified by Thee; Upon thy mirror, earth’s majestic view, To paint Thy Presence, and to feel it too." The last two lines contain an excellent specimen of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s Turkey-carpet style of writing. The majestic view of earth is the mirror of God’s presence; and on this mirror Mr. Robert Montgomery paints God’s presence. The use of a mirror, we submit, is not to be painted upon. A few more lines, as bad as those which we have quoted, bring us to one of the most amusing instances of literary pilfering which we remember. It might be of use to plagiarists to know, as a general rule, that what they steal is, to employ a phrase common in advertisements, of no use to any but the right owner. We never fell in, however, with any plunderer who so little understood how to turn his booty to good account as Mr. Montgomery. Lord Byron, in a passage which every body knows by heart, has said, addressing the sea, “Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow." Mr. Robert Montgomery very coolly appropriates the image and reproduces the stolen goods in the following form: “And thou, vast Ocean, on whose awful face Time’s iron feet can print no ruin-trace." So may such ill got gains ever prosper! {201}The effect which the Ocean produces on Atheists is then described in the following: lofty lines: O v “Oh! never did the dark-soul’d Atheist stand, And watch the breakers boiling on the strand, And, while Creation stagger’d at his nod, Mock the dread presence of the mighty God! We hear Him in the wind-heaved ocean’s roar, Hurling her billowy crags upon the shore; We hear Him in the riot of the blast, And shake, while rush the raving whirlwinds past!” If Mr. Robert Montgomery’s genius were not far too free and aspiring to be shackled by the rules of syntax, we should suppose that it is at the nod of the Atheist that creation staggers. But Mr. Robert Montgomery’s readers must take such grammar as they can get, and be thankful.