But soon we found we faild of our account, For when our minds some freedom did obtain, So that with present griefs, and future fears, burst forth into a stream of tears. As for our harps, since sorrow struck them dumb, We hang’d them on the willow-trees were near ; Taunting us rather in our misery, Alas (said we) who can once force or frame His grieved and oppressed heart to sing In Sion is his seat and dwelling place, Hierusalem, where God his throne hath set, Shall any hour absent thee from my mind ? Nay, if I do not thee prefer in all, Remember thou, O Lord, the cruel cry Of Edom's children, which did ring and sound, Inciting the Chaldean's cruelty, “ Down with it, down with it, even unto the ground.” In that good day repay it unto them, And thou, O Babylon, shalt have thy turn By just revenge, and happy shall he be, Yea, happy he, that takes thy children's bones, THE TRANSLATION OF THE CXLIXTH PSALM. O SING a new song to our God above; Avoid profane ones, 'tis for holy quire: Let Sion's sons lift up their voice, and sing Let not your voice alone his praise forth tell, But move withal and praise him in the dance; Do this not only on the solemn days, а O let the saints bear in their mouth his praise ; And a two-edged sword drawn in their hand; To bind their kings in chains of iron strong, Expect the time, for ’tis decreed in Heaven, FINIS. CHRISTIAN PARADOXES. PREFACE. The Character of a believing Christian in paradoxes and seen ing contradictions is said to have appeared first in 1643, as a separate pamphlet, under Bacon's name'; and in 1648 it was inserted in the Remains ; upon the authority no doubt of that pamphlet; which is therefore the sole authority on which it is ascribed to Bacon, and amounts in effect to no more than this — that within seven years after his death somebody had either thought it was his, or thought that it might be plausibly attributed to him, and that his name on the titlepage would help the sale. Rawley says nothing of it: and as he can hardly be supposed to have overlooked it in the collection, his silence must be understood as equivalent to a statement that it was one of the many “pamphlets put forth under his lordship’s name,” which “are not to be owned for his." Tenison says nothing about it. No 2 traces of it, or of any part of it, or of anything at all resembling it, are to be found among the innumerable Baconian manuscripts, fair and foul, — fragments, rough notes, discarded beginnings, loose leaves, — which may still be seen at Lambeth, in the British — Museum, and in other repositories. So far as I know, if the publisher of the edition of 1643 had not put Bacon's name upon the titlepage, there would have been no reason at all for thinking that he had anything to do with it; and as it is, the reason is so slight, that if the probabilities were otherwise balanced, it would hardly turn the scale. The name on the titlepage of such a publication is enough to suggest and justify the inquiry whether there be any evidence, internal or external, to confirm ? Resuscitatio, at the end. 1 Rémusat, p. 150. note. VOL. VII. U |