Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest: For he whose car the winds are, and the clouds Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet The labor, were a task more arduous still. Rivers of gladness water all the earth, And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field Laughs with abundance; and the land once lean, Or fertile only in its own disgrace, Exults to see its thistly curse repealed. The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal spring, The garden feels no blight, and needs no fence, For there are none to covet-all are full. The lion, and the libbard, and the bear, Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees, The breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not. The pure and uncontaminate blood Behold the measure of the promise filled; Saw never, such as heaven stoops down to see. By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth; And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with thy blood. Thy saints proclaim thee king; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen Dipped in the fountain of eternal love. Thy saints proclaim thee king; and thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see The dawn of thy last advent, long desired, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, COWPER. Let the scholar, in a series of lessons, if necessary, designate the figures in this passage, and point out the peculiarities of the modu lation. CHAPTER XIII. THE APPLICATION OF THE LAWS OF FIGURES TO THE knowledge of the laws of figures is as necessary to the just interpretation of language as the knowledge is of the literal meaning of words, or the rules of grammar. They are the vehicle of the thoughts which those who employ them aim to express; and not to understand the principle on which they are used, is to lose not only much of the beauty with which they invest the objects to which they are applied, and the distinctness with which they set them forth, but often the whole meaning which it is their office to convey, and pervert them to the expression of a wholly different and false sense. This is pre-eminently true of the Scriptures, in which they are more frequently used than in any other writings. They are not only important auxiliaries in determining the sense, and raising it to a |