354 OUR HYMNS :
some poems on his way. It was while thus travelling that he was overtaken by death, at Nice, in 1847. He is buried in the English cemetery there. His end was that of the happy Christian poet, singing while strength lasted, and then waiting quiescently till, rising from the sleep of death, he should with renewed ener gies join in the hallelujahs of heaven.
His sole cause of regret was, that weakness and early death prevented him from accomplishing more for Christ. To this he thus pensively refers, in a piece entitled "Declining Days:"
" Might verse of mine inspire
One virtuous aim, one high resolve impart ; Light in one drooping toul a hallowed fire, Or bind one broken heart.
" Death would be sweeter then,
More calm my slumber neath the silent sod ; Might I thus live to bless my fellowmen, Or glorify my God.
- * # * *
" Thou ! whose touch can lend
Life to the dead, Thy quickening grace supply ; And grant me, swanlike, my last breath to spend In song that may not die ! "
For several of these particulars we are indebted to an interest ing narrative by A. M. M. H., published in 1850, whence we also learn that the poet was united in marriage to Anne, only daughter of Rev. W. Maxwell, D.D., of Bath.
In his " Spirit of the Psalms," 1834, Lyte says, " he endeavoured to give the spirit of each psalm in such a compass as the public taste would tolerate, and to furnish sometimes, when the length of the original would admit of it, an almost literal translation, sometimes a kind of spiritual paraphrase, at others even a brief commentary on the whole psalm."
In illustration of this we may point to
"My trust is in the Lord" No. 10,
his version of Psalm 11. In it he keeps close to the original, and at the same time gives its spirit.
�� �
