Except it be Milton's, there is not any prose fuller of grand poetic embodiments than Lord Bacon's. Yet he always writes contemptuously of poetry, having in his eye no doubt the commonplace kinds of it, which will always occupy more bulk, and hence be more obtrusive, than that which is true in its nature and rare in its workmanship. Towards the latter end of his life, however, being in ill health at the time, he translated seven of the Psalms of David into verse, dedicating them to George Herbert. The best of them is Psalm civ.--just the one upon which we might suppose, from his love to the laws of Nature, he would dwell with the greatest sympathy. Partly from the wish to hear his voice amongst the rest of our singers, partly for the merits of the version itself, which has some remarkable lines, I have resolved to include it here. It is the first specimen I have given in the heroic couplet. Father and King of Powers both high and low, Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow; My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise, And carol of thy works, and wondrous ways. But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright? They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight. Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown, All set with virtues, polished with renown: Thence round about a silver veil doth fall Of crystal light, mother of colours all. The compass, heaven, smooth without grain or fold, All set with spangs of glittering stars untold, And striped with golden beams of power unpent, Is raiséd up for a removing tent Vaulted and archéd are his chamber beams Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams; The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky; The stormy winds upon their wings do fly His angels spirits are, that wait his will; As flames of fire his anger they fulfil. In the beginning, with a mighty hand, He made the earth by counterpoise to stand, Never to move, but to be fixed still; Yet hath no pillars but his sacred will. This earth, as with a veil, once covered was; The waters overflowéd all the mass; But upon his rebuke away they fled, And then the hills began to show their head; The vales their hollow bosoms opened plain, The streams ran trembling down the vales again; And that the earth no more might drowned be, He set the sea his bounds of liberty; And though his waves resound and beat the shore, Yet it is bridled by his holy lore. Then did the rivers seek their proper places, And found their heads, their issues, and their races; The springs do feed the rivers all the way, And so the tribute to the sea repay: Running along through many a pleasant field, Much fruitfulness unto the earth they yield; That know the beasts and cattle feeding by, Which for to slake their thirst do thither hie. Nay, desert grounds the streams do not forsake, But through the unknown ways their journey take; The asses wild that hide in wilderness,