“Ah, sinful nation! Ah, ungrateful Isle! See what thy crimes at last have done! At last thy Shechinah is gone; Thy beauteous sun no more must on thee smile, Thy dove is shelter’d in the ark; The heavens are silent all and dark, Dark as thy fate,—or where, Through horrid rifts, some streaks of light appear, They bode a dreadful flood Of fire and blood.” The following is from the twenty-fifth stanza, and is meant to be descriptive of Mary’s admission into heaven. The extract is inserted with reluctance; but, in delineating character, faults as well as virtues must be noted:— “How was heaven moved at her arrival there! With how much more than usual art and care, The angels, who so oft to earth had gone, And borne her incense to the Eternal’s throne, For her new coronation now prepare! How welcome! how caressed! Among the blest! And first mankind’s great mother rose— ‘Give way, ye _crowding souls_!’ said she, ‘That I the second of my race may see!’” Notwithstanding our high veneration for Samuel Wesley, we feel bound to say that such lines are fulsome foolishness. Upon the whole, Mary was a good woman, but Wesley’s eulogy of her is sadly excessive:— “Would virtue take a shape, she’d choose to appear, And think, and speak, and dress, and live like her. Zeal without heat, devotion without pride, Work without noise, did all her hours divide; Wit without trifling, prudence without guile, Pure faith, which no false reasoning e’er could spoil, With her, secured and blest our happy Isle.” The poem on Tillotson is written in the same eulogistic strain. The primate is represented as one who excelled in pulpit, church, and state. As a preacher, he taught without noise, and differed from others without strife. As a prelate, he was watchful, humble, wise. As a statesman, unambitious and upright:— “’Twas music, poetry, and rapture all, The sweets of his orac’lous words to share; As soft they fell, as balmy dewdrops fall, As smooth as undisturbed ethereal air. One word you cannot take away; Complete as Virgil’s, his majestic sense; To twenty ages of the world, shall stay, The standard he of English eloquence.” Dr Adam Clarke properly observes, that “great and good as both the queen and archbishop were, both their characters are sadly overdrawn, and their praises are extended even beyond poetic licence. These, and some other of Mr Wesley’s early productions excited the ridicule of the wits, and made him the subject of such an occasional squib as the following, written by John Dunton:—