In a very different style he discourses 'UPON HEARING OF MUSIC BY NIGHT.' 'How sweetly doth this music sound in this dead season! In the daytime it would not, it could not so much affect the ear. All harmonious sounds are advanced by a silent darkness: thus it is with the glad tidings of salvation. The gospel never sounds so sweet as in the night of preservation or of our own private affliction--it is ever the same, the difference is in our disposition to receive it. O God, whose praise it is to give songs in the night, make my prosperity conscionable and my crosses cheerful!' Hall fulfilled one test of lofty genius: he was in several departments an originator. He first gave an example of epistolary composition in prose,--an example the imitation of which has produced many of the most interesting, instructive, and beautiful writings in the language. He is our first popular author of Meditations and Contemplations, and a large school has followed in his path--too often, in truth, _passibus iniquis_. And he is unquestionably the father of British satire. It is remarkable that all his satires were written in youth. Too often the satirical spirit grows in authors with the advance of life; and it is a pitiful sight, that of those who have passed the meridian of years and reputation, grinning back in helpless mockery and toothless laughter upon the brilliant way they have traversed, but to which they can return no more. Hall, on the other hand, exhausted long ere he was thirty the sarcastic material that was in him; and during the rest of his career, wielded his powers with as much lenity as strength.