to which the best saints of God in this life are subject; but lift up their eyes to the ultimate and final victories of God's servants, who, at last, through Christ prove more than conquerors."

We need not direct particular attention to any of the deaths recorded in our list. We should, indeed, have noticed Whitefield's name, but have not the account at hand. That of Pope Urban VII., within twelve days of his attaining ecclesiastical sovereignty, gives its own lesson in the mere mention of it. Wolfe's is well known. Those of most of the others, though eminent and excellent men, were not distinguished in the manner of them. The reader will find particulars in the Nonconformists' Memorial; Kirchhofer's Life of Farel; Le Bas' Life of Jewel; and Roberts's Life of Hannah More.

THE SONGS OF THE SUMMER ISLES.

In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there stands alone, a singular cluster of more than three hundred islets, "not unlike," as Captain Basil Hall observes, "one of those beautiful nebulæ in the heavens, to ordinary sight only specks or little clouds, but which, when viewed through a telescope, are discovered to be collections of separate stars.” The largest island, though only twelve miles in length, and two in breadth, is dignified with the name of The Continent, on account of its extent, which is indeed great as compared with the rocky islets which stud the ocean around it.

On approaching the Bermudas or Summer Isles, "the well-known cliffs of St. David's Head, topped with dark green cedars and lightertinted orange-trees, show pleasantly ahead," and the delightful valleys of St. George's Island are to be seen in view. Bermuda Island is the largest of the group, and with Somerset Island and New Ireland, are the most habitable portions of this tiny archipelago. "Its trees are of such obviously foreign growth, that the consciousness of being in a strange land, strikes the senses at once. The long, broad, thicklymatted leaves of the plantain, banana, and calabash, together with the various members of the palm tribe, which afford a perfect shade to the little cedar-built verandas, encircling most of the dwellings, are so characteristic of the climate, and suited to the rest of the scene, that in viewing them, we readily yield up our imagination, and consent to believe that we are transported to another world. Amongst these tropical-looking trees, we discover the orange, the cedar, and the lime; and when we come to examine more closely the ground upon which they stand, we find the commonest weed is a geranium, and most of the shrubs are myrtle. Or if we choose to go afloat with a fair wind,

and in fine weather, which can almost always be reckoned on, we may sail through openings, hardly wide enough for our boat, between islets, covered over so thickly with the exuberant verdure of this fairy region, from the very top to the water's edge, that we can hardly see the ground, and often find difficulty in landing.

The

"Owing to the sea at Bermuda being quite clear, the bottom can be seen at the depth of many fathoms; and this, when not spread with a coating of the whitest sand, is overlaid with a gorgeous natural mosaic, of various coloured corallines, long, brilliant weeds, and innumerable specimens of the sponge tribe, of a purple, red, or green colour, and often of a bright saffron, approaching to yellow. The intermediate spaces lying between the rocks are generally spangled over with shells, some of them not inferior in point of beauty to the corals. variety in the scenery, both terrestrial and submarine, is, accordingly, so great, that hardly any two points of view are quite alike; while every hundred yards brings out new combinations of lights and shades, colours and forms."* But it was not amidst these fascinating combinations that the Bermudas were first seen by English eyes. They were first revealed to British seamen by a dreadful shipwreck in 1591; and again in 1609 by a violent tempest, which scattered a fleet of nine sail of merchantmen, bound for Virginia, and drove the principal vessel, which had on board Sir George Summers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Capt. Newport on shore. The whole relation is contained in the additions to Stow's Annals, by Howes, of which the following paragraph will be sufficient. "Sir George Sommers, sitting at the stern, seeing the ship desperate of relief, looking every minute when the ship would sink, he espied land, which, according to his and Capt. Newport's opinion, they judged to be the dreadful coast of the Bermudas, which islands were, of all nations, said and supposed to be enchanted, and inhabited with witches and devils, which grew by reason of a continued, monstrous thunder-storm and tempest, near unto those islands; also for that the whole coast is so wondrous dangerous of rocks, that few can approach them, but with unspeakable hazard of shipwreck; Sir George Sommers and the rest, suddenly agreed, of two evils to choose the least, and so in a kind of desperate resolution, directed the ship mainly for the islands, which, by God's Divine providence at a high water, ran right between two strong rocks, where it stuck fast, without breaking, which gave leisure and good opportunity for them to hoist out their boat, and to land all their people, as well sailors as soldiers and others, in good safety; and being come ashore,

* Capt. Basil Hall's Fragments of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. chap. 6. This group was first discovered in 1515, by a Spanish vessel named La Garza, commanded by Juan Bermudaz. It was named by the Spaniards indifferently, Bermuda, from the captain, or La Garza, from the ship.

they were soon refreshed and cheered, the soil and air being most sweet and delicate."

Several of Shakspere's critics have supposed that the shipwreck of Summers suggested the incidents of his comedy, "The Tempest," and have sought to determine its date by that calamity. True it is that our immortal bard has in that play a storm, a wreck, an enchanted island, and speaks also of

"The still-vexed Bermoothes;"

but Mr. Charles Knight, in his "Introductory Notice" on "The Tempest," calls their researches "admirable fooling," and plainly shows that these islands cannot be regarded "as actually the scene of this play."

Edmund Waller, the poet, a nephew of John Hampden, and himself a distinguished member of the Long Parliament, is said to have visited the Bermudas, and most likely conjoined with the efforts to colonise them, in connexion with Virginia. His longest poem is called "The Battle of the Summer Islands," and describes a conflict between the settlers and "two mighty whales," in which the latter, by the help of the returning tide, had the best of "the dreadful fight." The first canto is mainly occupied with a description of the islands.

"Bermuda, wall'd with rocks, who does not know?

That happy island where huge lemons grow,

And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear,
Th' Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;
Where shining pearl, and coral, many a pound,
On the rich shore of ambergris is found.
The lofty cedar, which to heav'n aspires,
The prince of trees! is fuel for their fires :
The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn:
Their private roofs on od'rous timber borne,
Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit carousing where their liquor grows.
Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit, inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,
But at some constant seasons, ev'ry year
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowls are crown'd.
Tobacco is the worst of things which they
To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.
Such is the mould, that the blest tenant feeds
On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.

With candy'd plantains and the juicy pine,
On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these cates with such a lavish hand
Pours out among them, that our coarser land
Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return
Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn:
For the kind spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heav'n sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To show how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our cold orchards plac'd,
Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste:
There a small grain in some few months will be
A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.
The palma-christi, and the fair papâ,
Now but a seed, (preventing Nature's law,)
In half the circle of the hasty year

Project a shade, and lovely fruits do wear.
And as their trees, and our dull region set,
But faintly grow, and no perfection get,
So in this northern track our hoarser throats
Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes,
While the supporter of the poets' style,

Phœbus, on them eternally does smile."

Many voluntary exiles fled from England for conscience' sake, during the struggles of the seventeenth century, and some settled in the Islands of Bermuda. Andrew Marvell, the witty and patriotic member for Hull, has commemorated their gratitude to God, for permitting them, amidst such lovely scenes, to enjoy liberty to worship him unmolested, in the following quaint, but beautiful stanzas.

THE EMIGRANTS.

"Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In th' ocean's bosom unespy'd;
From a small boat that row'd along,
The list'ning winds receiv'd this song.

What should we do but sing His praise,

That led us through the wat'ry maze,

Unto an isle so long unknown,

And yet far kinder than our own?

Where He the huge sea-monsters racks,

That lift the deep upon their backs;

He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms, and prelates' rage.*
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels every thing;
And sends the fowls to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pomegranates close,
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet;
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars chosen by his hand,
From Lebanon, He stores the land.
And makes the hollow seas, that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel's pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple, where to sound his name.
Oh! let our voice his praise exalt,
"Till it arrive at heav'ns vault;
Which thence, perhaps, rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay.'

"Thus sung they in the English boat,

An holy and a cheerful note;

And all the way, to guide their chime,

With falling oars they kept the time."

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Dean Berkeley published "A Proposal for the better supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and for converting the savage Americans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called, the Isles of Bermuda," and offered to resign his own opulent preferment, and to dedicate the remainder of his life to its superintendence. Three junior fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, were prepared to sacrifice their preferments also, and to accompany him to this settlement in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, so that they might promote the cause of God amongst the youth of the American colonies. George I. laid his commands on Sir Robert Walpole, to introduce the scheme to Parliament, and a royal charter for erecting a college by the name of St. Paul's College, in Bermuda, was granted; and the dean sailed for Rhode Island to prosecute his benevolent object. After seven years' delay, Sir Robert told Bishop Gibson, in reply to an application for

* Some modern copies soften this by reading thus-" Safe from the storm and billows' rage."