button to main menu  Gents Mag 1853 part 2 p.374
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Gentleman's Magazine 1853 part 2 p.374

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
It was a heavenly sight;
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light.
* * * *

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the pilot's cheer;
My head was turn'd perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.
The pilot and the pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast.
* * * *

The skiff-boat near'd, I heard them talk:
"Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights, so many and fair,
That signal made but now?"
"Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said,
"And they answered not our cheer."
We think we have sufficiantly made out our assertion that the secretary of Ambrose has afforded no small assistance to the English bard. The leading idea - that the duty of treating animals with humanity - Coleridge has indeed drawn from some other source, but for the circumstances he seems to have been almost entirely indebted to the Bishop of Nola. With respect to the epistle itself, what influence it had upon the person to whom it was addressed, whether it induced him to intercede with Postumianus, and, if so, what were the results of his intercession, we have now no means of knowing; but, whatever its success, regarding it merely as containing the germ of a poem elevated in sentiment and forcible in expression, we have no reason to regret that the wanderings and adventures of the aged Valgius gave an hour's occupation to the learned pen of the devout Paulinus.
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