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BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY GOULD AND LINCOLN. NEW YORK; SHELDON AND COMPANY. CINCINNATI: GEOROE S. BLANCHARD. 1 859 . f‘’-*|F ' '% ■ n ' 1 '^'•^ ■' ^,1 ^ ' - i^ ' -^^' ' : ;“ ^'r ' f'-y '. ' ^ 1. f i'Mf II t:|<|^t.f it *) A !f [p: |■»»,l*»^•r M»*«rtMb . ^ r..tt «!*»' i -.-I. S " •'ffeS' ^<-«i51S='|4; >f ’* 'jj . ;v , ^ ,S^'l **••., .» ' I ' -rj f 'i^ Ur nCii r Z4*. , _. .. ._ jtt '^- i' ' ?; i '•^C’S ■ ^ n I**" ‘ ' ■*■'■ ^'•1 it' l^V- ■ . «)^.*i-(i»7, ^'i4Vv-¥< '«>^4 ,■3. ^ y, ■ carance and Character of Mahomet, . 197 Charlks DtnniN, . . • . • U2 Term of the Conquest of Tiniour, or Tamerlane; his Triumph at Samtlrcand ; his Death on the road to PKRIODICAL ESSAYISTS. China (a.d. 1405) ; Character and Merits of Tiinour, 193 Dr Samdrl Johnson, .... 152 Invention and Use of Gunpowder, 200 Tale of Anningait and Ajut, 153 Letter of Gibbon to Mrs Porten — Account of his Mode John Hawkkswori H, 155 of Life at Lausanne, .... 200 Dr Moork, • • . . . 155 Remarks on Reading, .... 201 IIk.VRV MACKKNCrS, «... 156 iStory of La Uocbe, • . . . • 156 MKTAPHYSICAL WRITERS. Dr Francis Hutcheson, .... 202 NnvF.l.i.sT.S. David Hume, ..... 202 SaMTKL UfCHARnfiON, .... 160 On Delicacy of Taste, .... 202 H KNRY Tl KI.DINO, .... 161 On Simplicity and Refinement, . . . 20.1 i'artridce at the Playhouse, . • 164 Estimate of the Effects of Luxury, . . . 20;i ToBtAs Georob Smollktt, 165 Of the Middle Station of Life, . 205 Scene at Lanark, ..... 167 Dr David Hartley, . . . . 2o4 Feast in the Manner of the Ancieuts, . 168 Dr Adam Smith, ..... 207 Laurkncr Stern K, .... 171 The Results of Misdirected and Guilty Ambition, . 207 The Story of Le Fevre, 171 Dr Reid, . .... 208 The Starling — Captivity, .... 174 Lord Kambs, .... 208 A Frencli Peasant’s Supper, 175 Pleasures of the Eye and the Ear, . , , 209 Dr Samuel .loMNsoN, • . . , 175 Dr Beattie, . ... 210 Charles Johnstons, .... 176 On the Love of Nature, . • • . 210 Horace Walpole, • . . . 176 On Scottish Music, . , • * 211 Oliver Goldsmith, • • • • 176 Dr Richard I*ricb, ..... 213 Henry Brooke, . • . . • 177 Abraham Tucker, .... 213 Henry Mackbnzib, • • • . 177 Dr Joseph Priestley, • • • • 213 Harley Sets Out on his Journey — The Beggar and bis Dog, ...... 178 WRITERS IN DIVINITY. The Death of Harley, .... 179 Dr Joseph Butler, ..... 2U Miss Clara Reeve, .... 180 Bishop Warburtov, .... 214 The Grecian Mythology — The Various Lights in which - HISTORIAN'S. it was regarded, ..... 215 Thomas Carte, .... 181 Dr Robert Lowth, .... 21t Hooke, ...... 181 Dr C. Middleton, ..... 216 Dr Conyers Middleton, • 181 Rev. W. Law, ..... 216 David Hume, ..... 182 Dr Isa AC Watts, .... 216 State of Parties at the Reformation in England, 188 Dr Richard Hu.id, . . . • 216 The Middle Ages— Progress of Freedom, . 184 Dr G. Horne, ...... 216 Death and Character of Queen Elizabeth, « 184 Dr John Jortin, . . , • 216 Or William Robertson, • 185 George Whitefield, .... 216 Character of Mary Queen of Scots, • 187 John Wesley, .... 216 Martin Luther, • • • . . 187 Nathaniel Lardnbr, .... 217 Discovery of America, . . • 188 Hugh Farmer, . • • • • 217 Chivalry, ...... 190 Dr James Foster, ..... 217 Characters of Francis L and the Emperor Charles V, 191 John Leland, ..... 217 Dr Smollett, . .... 191 Dr Hugh Blair, ..... 217 William Tytler, • . , , I9I On the Cultivation of Taste, . . 217 Archibald Bower, .... 191 Difference between Taste and Geniue, 218 Dr John Campbell, .... 191 On Sublimity, ..... 219 William Guthrie, .... 192 Dr George Campbell, .... 220 George Sale. ..... 192 George Psalmanazab, .... 192 MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. Oliver Goldsmith, .... 192 Dr Samuel Johnson, .... 221 Lord Lyttelton, ..... 192 From the Preface to the Dictionary, 22i Dr Thomas Birch, .... 192 Reflections on Landing at Iona, 22'^ Dr Robert Henry, .... 192 Parallel between Pope and Dryden, . 222 Dr Gilbert Stuart, . . . 192 Picture of the Miseries of War, 223 Dr Warner, ..... 192 Oliver Goldsmith, ..... 223 Dr Lbland, ..... 192 Scenery of the Alps, .... 223 John Whittaker, .... 192 A Sketch of the Universe, 224 Gaangkr, . , . . . 192 Scenery of the Sea-coasts, . . 225 Ormb, ...... 192 On the Increased Love of Life with Age, 225 Macpherson, ..... 192 A City Night-Piece, .... 226 Lord Hailes, ..... 192 Edmund Burke, ..... 327 Robert Watson, • . . , 192 From the Speech on Conciliation with America, 1775, 229 Dr William Russell, . . . • 192 Mr Burke’s Account of his Son, . 930 Edward Gibbon, .... 192 The British Monarchy, .... 231 Opinion of the Ancient Philosophers on the Immortality Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, 231 of the Soul, ..... • 195 The Order of Nobility, .... 231 The City of Bagdad— Magnificence of the Caliphs, 196 Dependence of English on American Freedom, 231 Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, a.d. 1099, 197 Destruction of the Carnatic, 232 vii CYCLOPAEDIA OK ENGLISH LITERATURE. I'agc Page The D^iTcTcnce between Mr Burkoand the Duke of Bc4> Flora’s Horologe, .... 27-1 f'»d, 233 Sonnets, ..... 274 Chai-ucter of Howard the Philanthropist, 2:i4 Recollections of English Sf enery, 27.5 Jl»NtU», 2.34 Miss BLAMirta, ..... 275 Jimiiih’H Celebrated Letter to the King, 2.38 The Nabob, , . . , 27'* DkLulmk, . • • . . 241 What Ails this Heart 0 ’ Mine, 278 Or Adam Smith, . • . • . 242 Auld Ili'bin Forbes, .... 276 Or Ok.VJAMIN FRANKtllf, .... 243 Mrs Bakhauld, .... 276 Willi AM M KI.MO -‘H, • . . . 243 Ode t«. Spring, ..... 277 On Tliinking, « . . . . 244 To a Lady, with some Painted Flowers, 277 On Convernation, • . • . 244 Hymn to Content, .... 277 WiLi.iAM Harris, ..... 245 Washing Day, 278 Jamkh IIakrih, . • • « • 245 Miss Anna Seward, 278 William Stokklry, ..... 24.5 The Anniversary, . ... 279 Rdw'ard Kino, ..... 245 Mrs John Hunter, 278 Sir William Blackstomb, .... 24.5 Song — (The season comes when first we met), 280 On the Uight of Projierty, . . . 248 Song — (0 tuneful voice ! I sfill doplorei, . 280 Earl UP Chkstkrpiklo, .... 248 The Death Song, Written for, and Adapted to. an Definition of Good B'ceding, . . 248 Original Indian Air, .... 28U SoamkJknyns, ..... 24.9 To my Daughter, on being .Separated from her on her Dr Adam Frrqiison, .... 249 Dlarriagc, 280 Lord Monroddo, . 249 The Lot of Thounands, 280 Horace Waltolm, .... 249 Mrs Amelia Opik, 278 Politics and Evening Parties, .... 250 The Orphan Buy’s Tale, 280 The Scottish Rebellion, .... 251 Song — (Go, youth beloved, in distant gladesj, , 281 London EarthqiiakcH and London Gossip, . • 251 Mrs Anne Grant, .... 278 The Earl OP Chatham, .... 252 On a Sprig of Heath, .... 281 Speech of Chatham on being taunted on account of The Highland Poor, ... 281 youth, ...... 253 Mrs Mary Tighb, .... 278 Speech of Chatham against the employment of Indians From Mrs Tighe’s ‘ Psyche,* 281 in the War with America, 253 The Lily, 283 Rokbrt Bloompikld, . . • 283 ENCYCLOP.EDIAS AND MAGAZINES. Turnip-Sowing — Wheat Ripening— Sparrows — Insects— Ephraim Chambers, ..... 255 The Sky-Lark— Reaping, &c.— Harvest Field, 284 Dr Abraham Rees, .... 255 Rosy Hannah, ..... 286 Dr John Campbell, ..... 25.5 Lines Addressed to my Children, 286 Robert Dodslry, .... 255 Description of a Blind Youth, 286 Mr Edward Cave, ..... 255 Banquet of an English Squire, 287 The Soldier’s Home, .... 287 — To his Wife, ..... 288 John Leyden, ..... 288 ^ebenti) |3crtob. Sonnet on Sabbath Mom, . . • 289 Ode to an Indian Gold Coin, 2') From Dishoji I lebcr’8 Journal, . . • 4< y An Fv(*nin>f Walk in Bengal, . . . 410 ClJAMI.KS Wol.KK, ..... 410 The lltirial of Sir John Moore, . . . 410 6t)ng—|Oh say not that my heart is cold), , . 411 Song — (If I had tliought thou eouldst have died), 411 llKaiiKHT Kvovv'i.ks, ..... 411 Lir»cs written in the Churchyard of Richmond, York- shire, .•••.. 411 Uonnur Poi.lok, » . . . , 412 Love, ...... 413 Morning, ...... 413 Friendship, . . . . 413 Happiness, ...... 414 I'icturc of a Miser, .... 415 Jamks Movtoomeuy, ..... 415 Greenland, . . . . . 416 Night, 417 Picture of a Poetical Enthusiast, • . 417 The I’elican Island, ..... 418 The Recluse, ..... 418 The Grave, 418 The Field of the World 419 Aspirations of Youth, ..... 419 The Common Lot, .... 420 Prayer, 420 Home, ...... 420 Thk Hov. Wtm.iam Rorkrt Fpevckr, . . 420 Reth Gelert, or the Grave of the Greyhound, . 421 M'ife, Children, and Friends, , . . 421 To , ...... 422 Epitaph upon the Year 1806, .... 422 Stan/.Jis—4 A Virtuous Woman, .... 454 Thomas Pringle, . . • . , 454 Afar in the Desert, • . • . , 454 Robert Montgomery, .... 455 Description of a Maniac, . . . • 455 The Starry Heavens, • • . • 455 Picture of War, .... 456 Lost Feelings, . . , « . 556 William Herbert, .... * 456 Description of a Northern Spring, . . 456 M usings on Eternity, ..... 456 Ebknezkr Elliott, • • . . 457 To the Bramble Flower, .... 457 The Excursion, ..... 457 Pictures of Native Genius, .... 458 Apostrophe to Futurity, • . • . 459 A Poet’s Prayer, ..... 459 Mrs Norton, ..... 459 To the Duchess of Sutherland, . . . 459 Lines from ‘ The Winter’s Walk,* • . 460 Picture of Twilight, • • , . , 400 The Mother’s Heart, .... 460 Mrs Soothey, ...... 460 The Pauper’s Deathbed, . • • 461 Mariner’s HjTnn, • . • • . 461 Elizabeth B. Barrett, .... 4i>l Couq>er’s Grave, ..... 461 Mary Howitt, ..... 462 Studies Pursued by a Married Pair, • . . 462 Mountain Children, . . 462 The Fairies of the Caldon-Low — A Midsummer Legend, 463 The Monkey, ...... 463 Thomas Hood, ... 464 From * Lament for the Decline of Chivalry,* . 464 From ‘ Ode to the Moon,* . . . 465 A Parental Ode to my Son, aged Three Years nnd Five Months, ... . * . 465 Alfred Tennyson, • • 405 From ‘ The Dying Swan,* • 4(»6 CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME. Page Paj?9 From * New-Ycar's Eve,* Ton Mountain Daisy, , , 4K4 From ‘ hcj^eml of the Lady Godiva/ , , 4t>6 On ('apcain Matthew Henderson, . 485 From * The Talking Oak/ 4fi(; Songs — Maepliertson’s Farewell, 485 From Poem of * Saint Simeon Stylites,* 487 Menie, . . , 4Bff From the * Lotos Eaters/ 468 Ac Fond Kiss, . 488 Thomas HAniNh, • . 473 Allan Cunningham, 4.99 Eliza Cook, . . 473 The Young Maxwell, 500 Ladv Emmelinb TVortley, 473 Ilame, Haine, Ilame, . 500 Mrs Henry C''leridge, • , 473 Fragment, . • , 500 Mrs Hrookk, . 473 She’s Gane to Dwall in Heaven, 500 W. Bki'kkord, • . 478 A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, 501 Prayer, . • 478 My Nanie O, . . 501 Walter Paterson, 478 Tlie Poet's Bridal-Day Song, 501 Sonnet Written on the Burial-ground of his Ances- William Tennant, • 501 tors, . , , . 478 Selections from ‘ Anster Fair,* • 502 John Wilson Croker, • 479 William M«)ther\vell, • 503 Ode on the Duke of Wellington, 1814 479 Jeanie Morrison, . • • 503 Henry Luttrel, 479 The Midniglit Wind, 504 The November Fog of London, 479 Sword Chant of Thorstein Raudi, 5If4 Rev. H. F. Cary, 479 Robert Nicoll, 54)5 William Sothkby, 479 We are Brethren a’, 505 Mr Mitchell, . . 479 Thoughts of Heaven, . . . 505 Lord Stranokord, 479 Death, .... • 506 Dr John Bowrino, . 479 Mr Rodger, « . 506 J. H. WlKKEN, . • 479 Mr Ballantynb, • • • • 606 Stewart Rose, 479 MrVkduer, • . 606 Lord Francis Egkrtow, 479 Mr Gray, .... . 506 Mr Blackik, 479 Robert Gilktllan, . • • 506 J. G. Lockhart, 479 The Exile’s Song, . . • • 605 In the Days 0 ’ Langsyne, « • 506 Thomas CuNNiNiJHAM, 5«)6 SCOTTISH POETS. The Hills 0 ’ Gallowa’, • 506 William Laidlaw, . . 507 Horrrt Burns, . , 479 Lucy’s Flutin’, . 50 : Coda’s Address, . 482 William Nicholson, , , • 5 * Y , Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 483 The Brownie of Blednoch, • 50/ From Burns’s Epistles, • 484 Joseph Train, • 5T)8 XI CYCLOPiEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. rage Pag« 8on^ — drums and pipes the clochan rang], £()H Mrs Inchralo, • . . , . 653 James IltsLOi’, . • • . 6011 Charlotte Smith, ..... 5.54 Tiic Cumcrutiian’s Dream, m Ann Radclifkk, . . . , 5.54 English Travellers Visit a Neapolitan Church, . 5.55 Description of the Castle of Cdolpho, . • 557 Rorkrt Jkpmson, • • . m Hardwick, in Derbyshire, .... 657 Matthku' (iukoorv Lbwis, • 611 An Italian Landscape, .... 558 Toanva Hah.lir, . • 611 Matth B\ v Gukoorv Lewis, .... 658 ?ccnc from l)c* Montfort, 611 Scene of Conjuration by the Wandering Jew, • 658 Vemale IMcture of a Country Life, 6IJ Mrs Amelia Opib, ..... 600 Fears of imagination, . • 613 William Godwin, .... 660 Speech of 1‘rince Kdward in his Dungeon, 613 Concluding Socne of Caleb Williams, m Debcriptioii of Jane de Montfort, 613 St Leon's Escaiie from the Auto do Fe, . « m U’n.i.fAM Godu'in, • 614 Anna Maria Porter, ..... 668 WlM.IAAl SoTHKBV, . 614 Miss Jane Porter, .... 568 6. T. COLBMI DOR, • 614 Miss Edoeivorth, ..... 668 Scene from * Remorse,* • 614 Miss Austen, ..... 671 RbV. ChaHLKH ItORKHT MATURIN, 6IG MrsBhunton, ...... 672 Scene from ‘ liertram,* • 61G Final Escape of Laura, . . • . 672 PlfTHAKD LaLOR ShKIL, 517 Mrs Hamilton, ..... 676 Description of Female Beauty, 517 Picture of Glenbumie, and View of a Scotch Cottage In John IIiiward Favnk, 517 the Last Century, .... 575 P. VV*. Frix’tbr, • 517 Hannah More, ..... 678 I*assage from * Mirandola,* • 517 First interview with Dr Johnson, . . 578 Ja.mk.s Havnrm, . • 517 Death of Garrick, ..... 679 Passage from * Conscience, or the Bridal Night,* 517 Lady Morgan, • . . . • 680 James Sheridan Knocvles, 61B Mrs Shelley, ...... 681 Scene from * Virginiiis,* 618 Extracts from ‘ Frankenstein,* . 682 P'rom * The Wife, a Tale of Mantua,* 620 Love, •.....• 584 Thomas Lovell Bkddoks, 621 Rev. Charles Robert Maturin, . . 684 Passages from ‘ The Bride’s Tragedy,* 521 A Lady’s Chamber in the Thirteenth Century, 685 Miss Mitkord, «... 621 Sir Walter Scott, .... 585 Sir Edward Lvtton Bulwbr, . 521 JoH N Galt, ...... 689 Thomas Noon Talfourd, 521 Placing of Mr Balwhidder as Minister of Dalmailing, 691 Delineation of the Character of Ion, 522 Thomas Hope, ..... 592 Extracts from ‘ Ion,’ . 622 Death of Alexis, from ‘ Anastasius,* . . 693 ITknrv Taylor, • • 524 Washington Irving, .... 694 J. Hrownino, • • . . 524 Manners in New York in the Dutch Times, . 695 Leioh Hunt, • 524 A Rainy Sunday in an Inn, . . , 596 Wii.LiA.M Smith, • 524 John Gibson Lockhart, .... 697 Passage from ‘ Athelwold,’ 624 Athanasia in Prison, from ‘ Valerius,* 698 George Coi.MAv, , . 524 Description of an Ancient English Mansion, from * Re- Scene from the * Ileir at Law,* 62:) ginald Dalton,* ..... 599 From * The Poor Gentleman,’ 627 Prokk.ssor Wilson, . , . . 600 The Newcastle Apothecary, 53fi Removal of the Lyndsays, .... 600 Lodgings for Single Gentlemen, 630 Mrs JOHNSTO.NE, ..... 6o: Mrs Elizabeth Inchbald, 531 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, .... 601 Thomas lioLcrROFT, • . • 631 Thomas Hamilton, .... 601 John Ti>rin, . . 532 Mr Moir, ...... 601 Passage from the * Honeymoon,* 532 Dr James Hook, ..... mi JoHK o’Kkkkb, 532 Andrew Picken, ..... coi Fre.'krick Reynolds, • 632 MissFkrrier, ..... 602 Tho.vas Morton, . • 633 Mrs Violet Maeshake visited by her grand-nephew, Mr Douglas, ..... 603 NOVELISTS. James Morikr, ..... 604 Frances Burney {Madame D’Arblay), 535 Jam K s Bailie Fraser, .... 60fi A Game of Highway Robbery, 536 Meeting of Two Warriors in the Desert, 606 Miss Burney explains to King George III. the circum- The Kuzzilbash’s Return to his Native Village, 6»7 stances attending the composition of * Evelina,' 538 Theodore Edward Hook, 607 Sarah Harriet Burney, 639 Thomas Colley Grattan, .... 608 William Bkckpord, , 539 T. H. Lister, ..... 609 Description of the Caliph Vathek and his Magnificent London at Sunrise, ..... 609 Palaces, . . • . 541 Marquis OF Normanby, .... 609 The Hall of Rblis, 642 Lady Caroline Lamb, ..... 609 Richard Cu.MBKRLAND, 545 Lady Dacre, ..... 609 Thomas Hoi.rhoFT, • 646 Countess of Morlby, ..... 610 Gaffer Gray, • 646 Lady Charlotte Bury, .... 6IU Rorkrt Bade, .... 646 R. Plumer Ward, ..... 610 Sophia and Harriet Lee, 647 Conversation between Wentworth (Canning), Sir George Introduction to the Canterbury Tales, 547 Deloraine, and Dr Herbert, from * De Vere,* . 61C Or John Moore, 549 Benjamin DTsraeli, .... 611 Dispute and Duel between the Two Scotch Servan* s in Mrs Trollope, ..... 611 Italy, 661 John Banim, • ... 611 xii CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME. Piige Pag. Dcucrijition of tlic Burning of a Croppy's House, t>13 Mr Godwin, • • • • M2 T. CnOKTON CkoK KRg • • • . C1.3 Sir Francis PALORATI, « 642 Tlie Lsist of tho Irish Serpents, €14 Mr Conybkark, • • « . 643 MrCkoxvk, • • « , . . €14 Mr Ingram, • • • 641 RkV. C.l-^HAR OTXX’AV, ■ • . • €14 Rkv. Mb Bosworth, . • • f>42 OkRALD CiUtt'KIN, • • • . . cu Thomas Wright, . • &12 Verses— {Seven dreary winters gone and past). €15 Mr Southky, . . . . 642 William Cari.kton^ . • • • €15 John Dunlop, . . 042 Picture of an Irish Village and School-house, 61€ James Mill, . 642 Miss Mary Husski.i. Mitkoro, • • €18 Charles Mills, 642 CoUNTKSS OF lll.KSSINliTON, . • CIH Henry IIallam, . • 642 MrsS. C. Hall, . . • , . €19 Effects of the Feudal S^'steni, 642 Depending Upon Others, €20 Patrick Fraser Tvtlbr, • 643 Sir Kuward Lytton Bui.xvkr, €20 Colonel W. F. P. Napier, 643 Lines from ‘ O'Neill, or the Rebel/ €20 Lieutenant-Colonel Gurwood, 643 •Talent and Genius, • • . . €22 A. Alison, • 643 oRu Nugent, . • 646 C. Lkvkr, . , , , 62H Rev. J. Smith, 646 Samuel Lovrr, .... 628 John Gibson Lockhart, . 647 John Fknimorr Cooper, 629 Mr IIaliburton, .... 629 METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. W. Harrison Ainsworth, 62!» Samuel Warren, .... 629 Professor Duoald Stewart, • 647 648 Mrs Bra v, . . . . . 629 ALRBRT S.MITH, ..... 629 Desire of the Happiness of Others, 648 novoi HAHi.K C. A. Murray, 629 Sir James Mackintosh, . 649 Charles Dickens, .... &10 Ja.mks Mill, • • • • 649 Death and Funeral of a Pauper, . , 6.30 Mr Bayi.ey, . • . 649 Sketch of an Oruiinal, .... 6.32 Rkv. Archibald Alison, • 649 The Happy Mother, .... 633 George Combe, • 650 Distinction between Power and Activity, • • 6S0 HISTORIANS. VVlLLlA.M MiTFORD, .... 634 WKITEBS IN DIVINITY. Condemnation and Death of Socrates, . 634 Dr W| LLIAM Paley, . • . 651 T)r John Gillies, .... 636 Of Property, . . . 652 5haiu)n Turner, . ... r:i6 The World was Made with a Benevolent Design, 653 VVlLLIAM CoxB, ..... 6.36 Dr Richard Watson, , 654 Grorgk Chalmers, .... 636 Dr Beilby Portkous, • 654 William Roscob, .... 637 Dr Samuel Horsley, 6>I Malcolm Laino, .... 637 Gilbert Wakefield, • . 65.1 John Pinkerton, ..... 6.38 Mr WlLBERFOBCB, . . 65.1 Charles Jamks Fox, .... 638 On the Effects of Religion, . 655 Sir James Mackintosh, .... 638 Mrs Hannah More, • 65.4 Chivalry and Modern Manners, • . 639 Dr Sa.muel Parr, . • . , 655 Extract from Speech in Defence of Mr Peltier, for a Libel Dr Edward Maltby, • 6.55 on Napoleon Bonaparte, February 18U3, , 640 Rev. Sidney Smith, , . , 656 Dr John Li NGARD, .... 640 Difficulty of Governing a Nation, 656 An Account of Cromwell's Expulsion of the Parliament Means of Acquiring Distinction, • . 6.46 in I'JM, ...... &(i The l.ove of our Country, • • . &56 OSOKGB BRoDIB, .... 642 Dr Herbert Marsh, • • * 656 xiii CYCLOP-^]DIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. PaffO Dri Kuu'ard liouvcRtK Pussy, . . . (>5<> Mti Gi.AnsTOMC, ..... G57 Mh CliRI»TMAS, . . ... Ujcv. UoBKitT Hall, .... 0.07 On Wisdom, • . • • • C57 Fro!u the Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte of Walcn, C.'Ifl Ukv. John Fostkr, . • • • . 658 On a Cliangeable Character, from ‘Essay on a Man’s Writiii(( Memoirs of Himself,* • . 658 Dr Adam Clarkk, ..... 660 P Kv. Archibald Al!80M, . . . 660 From the Sermon on Autumn, . . 660 Dr A VDRKW Thomson, .... 661 Dr Thomas Chalmers, .... 661 Inofficaoy of mere Moral Preaching, • . 662 Picture of the Chase — Cruelty to Animals, . • 668 Insignificance of this Earth, . • • 664 TRAVELLERS. James Britcb, • • • . . Henry Salt, ... Nathanif» Pearce, .... Mungo Park, .... African Hospitality, .... Influence of a Small Moss m Fructification Desert, ..... Captain Tuckky, . . • Mr Ritchie, • . Lieutenant Lyon, . Major Denham, .... Captain Clapperton, . Anecdote Respecting the Sultan Bello, • Dn Oudney, .... R icHARD Lander, .... MrBovvdich, .... Mr Campbell, • • Mr Burchrll, .... John Ludwig Burckhardt; John Baptist Belzoni, • The Ruins at Thebes, . . Opening a Tomb at Thebes, J. G. Wilkinson, .... Edward W. Lane, Rev. Dr Edward Daniel Clarke, De'.cription of the Pyramids, . Sir John Cam Hubhouse, Dr Holland, .... Edward Dodwfll, . Sir William Cell, • • H. W. Williams, .... Description of Pompeii, . Edward Gikfard, Dr Christopher Wordsworth, William Mure, .... Joseph Forsyth, The Coliseum, .... John Chetwode Eustace, • W. Stewart Rose, • Hon. R. Kehpel Craven, Henry Mathews, .... Funeral Ceremony at Rome, . . Statue of the Medicean Venus at Florence, MissWaldie, Lady Morgan, .... John Bell, • ... Dr Burton, .... W. Brockkdon, Mr Beckford, .... A Morning in Venice, . . • Captain John Ross, « Sir Edward Parry, . • Description of the Esquimaux, . CG.'i 666 666 6f)6 666 m the 666, 067 6f)7 6()7 667 (Ki7 Gf)7 667 667 668 668 668 668 668 668 669 669 670 670 670 67l> 671 671 671 671 671 674 671 671 671 671 672 672 672 672 672 672 673 672 672 672 672 672 672 673 674 674 675 Captain John Franklin, .... 67o’ Captain Lyon, ..... 676 Captain Beech by, ..... 676 Thomas Simpson, ..... 676 William Scoresry, • . , , . 676 William Rae Wilson, .... 677 Claudius James Rich, .... 677 Hon. George Kkppbl, .... 677 J. 8. Buckingham, ..... 677 Dr It. K. Madden, .... 677 •John Carne, . ..... 677 Dr Robert Richardson, . , . 677 Mr Waddington, ..... 677 Mr Hanbury, ..... 677 Sir John Malcolm, ..... 677 Mr Morier, ..... 67^ Sir William OusELY, ..... 677 Sir Robert Ker Porter, . . . 677 View of Society in Bagdad, .... 677 Rev. Horatio Southgate, . , . 678 Religiou.s Status of Women in the Mohammedan System, 678 Thoma.s Campbell, .... 678 Mrs Broughton, ..... 673 Sir James Alexander, .... 678 Charles Fellows, .... 678 Lieutenant J. R. Well.sted, 678 Lord Lindsay, ..... 678 Scene of the Encampment of the Israelites after Crossing the Red Sea, ..... 678 J. L. Stephens, ..... 679 Sir John Malcolm, ..... 679 W. Moorcroft, ..... 079 George Trebeck, ..... 679 Ja.mes Bailie Fraser, .... 679 Sketch of a Persian Town, . . • . 679 Lieutenant-Colonel Ja.mks Tod, . . 679 Sir Alexander Burnes, .... 679 Lieutenant Arthur CoNOLLV, • . . 679 Miss Emma Roberts, . • • . . 679 Mrs Postans, . • » . . 679 Sacrifice of a Hindoo Widow, • . . 679 Lieutenant Tho.mas Bacon, . . . 680 Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstonb, . . 680 Charles Masson, . • • . . 600 C. U. Baynes, ...... 680 Remark by an Arab Chief, . . . 680 Legend of the Mosque of the Bloody Baptism at Cairo, 680 C. Nash, ....... 680 II. G. Fane, ...... 680 R. II. Kennedy, ..... 680 W. Taylor, ..... 680 Colonel Dennie, ..... 680 Captain T. Postans, .... 680 Lieutenant Vincent Eyrb, .... 680 Lady Sale, . . . . . 680 Sir George Staunton, . , . 680 Sir John Barrow, . . . CBi* Henry Ellis, ...... 680 Scene at Pekin, ..... 681 Dr Abel, ...... 680 John Francis Davis, .... (581 Mr Gutzlaff, ...... 681 Lord Jocelyn, ..... 682 Commander J. Elliot Bingham, . . 682 Chinese Ladies* Feet, .... 682 Dr D. Macphebson, ..... 682 Lieutenant Alexander Murray, . . 6S2 Captain G. G. Loch, ..... 682 Mr Maclbod, ..... 6H3 Captain Basil Hall, ..... 683 Henry David Inglis, .... 683 Sir Francis Head, • • • , . 683 Debcription of the Pampas, • • 683 xiv CONTEND S OF SEc;ONl) VOLUME. riipe M. Si.MONn, ...... (Jy4 Kw iso Mountain and Avalanche, . • 684 M.^iujris OK LondondkkkYj .... 684 John Hakkou’, . • • • • 684 Kkv. Mh Vknablks, • • • • • 684 Uussian Peasants' Houses, . • • 685 Kmployments of the People, • • • • 685 UoitKRT Brkmnkr, • . • • 685 Samuki. Laino, ..... 685 Extract from * Residence in Norway,* . • 685 Extract from ‘ Tour in Sweden,* , . . 686 Mr Si’KNCER, • • • • • 68(5 J, S Bkli., ...... 686 Joseph and John Bullar, . . . 686 The Culthation of the Orange, and Gathering the Fruit, CHfi Rrnkst Dibffknbach, .... 687 Macvamb Calderon dr la Bauca, . . . 687 J. P. and W, P. Robertson, . , . 687 Captain Kino, « . ... 687 Captain Fitzroy, • . . 6H7 C. Darwin, ...... 687 Gp.oroe Combe, ..... 687 Romantic Story, from ‘ Notes on the United States,* 687 J. S. Buckingham, ..... 688 Gror(;e Borrow, ..... 688 Major W. Cornwallis Harris, • • . 688 Mr Duncan, Charles Mackay, • Robert Mudiic, • Sir Henry Ellis, • William Honk, . Jehkmy Bentham, . Isaac Taylor, • MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. Isaac DTsraelt, . • • Sir Eoerton Brydoss, Joseph Ritson, • Fhancis Douce, , • Rev. T. D. Fosbrooke, . • Thomas Pennant, . • Rev. Gilbert White, Evening Six>rts of the Rooks, . Rev. William Gilpin, Sunrise and Sunset in the Woods, Sir Uvkdale Price, , William Corbett, Early Scenes and Recollections, , On Field Sj>orts, . . Robert Southey, . Thomas DE Quinckv, Dreams of the Opium Eater, . William Hazmtt. The Character of Falstaff, The Character of Hamlet, • Thomas Carlyle, . The Succession of Races of Men, Attack upon the Bastille, . Rev. Sidney Smith, .... Account of his Connexion with the Edinburgh Review Lord Jeffrey, ..... The Universality of the Genius of Shakspeare, . Genius not a Source of Unhappiness to its Possessor Thomas Barington Macaulay, Mr and Mrs Howitt, .... John Claudius Loudon, Charles Watkrton, .... Edward Jesse, . • • • Mr Rhind, ,.•••• Mr MM)iahmid, • • • • Mu Kili-ep., •••••• GP8 688 688 688 688 688 683 689 689 689 689 C90 691 691 691 692 69-2 e.93 693 693 694 694 695 695 Ac. 696 ()‘»6 697 698 698 6.98 699 699 699 700 TOO TOO POLITICAL ECONOMISTa Rev. T. R. Malthus, .... David Ricardo, .... James Mill, . . • • • Archbishop Whately, . . • Mrs Marckt, . . • • • Rev. Dr Chalmers, • • . • James R. M'Culloch, . . • • Mr Godwin, . . • • • Michael Thomas Sadler, . • • Rev. Richard Jones, .... Nassau William Senior, • • REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES. Edinburgh Review, .... Quarterly Review, .... Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Ac. POPULAR PUBLICATIONS. Constable's Miscellany, , • , Family Library, ..... Sacred Classics, .... Edinburgh Cabinet Library, Ac. Cha.mbkrs’s Edi.nburgh Journal, . • The Penny Magazine, Ac. . • . Encyclopaedias, .... WRITERS ON SCIENCR Sir John Herschbl, • . . . Sir David Brewster, Charles Babbage, Dr Buckland, • Mr Murchison, Charles Lycll, • Sir Henry Deladechb, Dr Mantell, Rev. Willia.m Whbwbll, Dr John Macculloch, Dr Pritchard, • Professor Nichol, Dr Neil Arnott, • Dr Bostock, • Mr Lawrence, . Mr .Mayo, • Dr lil.L-OTSON, . Dr Fi.ktch er, Dr IlOGKT, . . 1)R Carpenter, Dr Comrr, . . Dr Milj. ingen. Sir James Clark, • Sir Henry Halford, Dr Southw'ood 6b£1T3» Dr Copeland, Page 700 700 700 700 Too 701 701 701 701 701 701 701 701 70] 701 701 701 702 702 702 . 702 71 >2 . 702 702 . 70.1 703 703, 704 703 703 705 703 703 703 703 7i»3 703 703 703 703 7on’s (’ottage, • • Portrait of Dr Samuel Johnson, . Street-Scene in hichfiehl, including the llirtliplace of Dr Jolmson, View of Dr Jt»hn&oii*« Room in Pem- broke College, .... Monument of Collins, in Chichester Cathedral View of the Leasowes, Shenstone's Mouse, View of the Cottage of Shenstone’s Schoolmistress, Shropshire, . View of the IJirthplace of Akenside, View of Maglcy, the seat of Lord Lyttelton, Portrait of Thomas Gray, • Autograph of Gray, • . View of Gray’s Window, St Peter’s College, Cambridge, View of Stoke Pogeis Church, and Tomb of Gray, . . . . View of the Ruins of the Mouse at Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent his youth, View of the Birthplace of Smollett, View of the Deanery, Carlisle, Portrait of James Maepherson, . Portrait of Thomas Chatterton, . Monument of Bruce, in Portmoak Churchyard, .... Portrait of Dr James Beattie, . View of Dod;ley’s Mouse and Shop in Pall Mall Portrait of Sir William Jones, • View of Scott’s Grotto, Amwcll, View of Balcarres Mouse, Fifeshire, where *Auld Robin Gray* .vas composed, .... View of Fergusson’s Tomb, . . Portrait of George Colman, . Portrait of David Garrick, View of Garrick’s Villa, near Hampton, .... Portrait of Samuel Foote, • Monument of Mawkesworth, Brom- ley, View of Richardson’s House, Par- son’s Green, .... Portrait of Henry Fielding, • Portrait of T»)bias George Smollett, View of Smollett’s Mouse, Chelsea, Page Autograpli of Horace ^Val|)ole, . 176 View of Strawberry Mill, near Twickenham, the Ucsidenco of Horace Walpnle, ... 170 Portrait of Oliver Goldsmith, • 177 Portrait of David Hume, . . 182 Portrait of Dr William Robertson, 180 Portrait of Fdward Gibbon, . • 193 View of Gibbon’s Residence at Lau- sanne, 194 Portrait of Or Adam Smith, . . 207 View of llie Ihmse of Lord Karnes, Canongate, Kdinburgli, . , 208 Portrait of Hisljop Warburton, • 214 Portrait of ICdmund Burke, • 227 View of Beaconsfield, . , . 228 P(»rtrait i)f Dr Benjamin Franklin, 243 Illumination— Scott Meditating near a Ruined Castle, . , . 2.*>6 Portrait of William Cowper, . . 2."»7 View of Olney Church, • . 257 Monument of C«jwper, , , , 258 View of Austin’s Farm, the early residence of Bloomfield, . 284 View of the Birthplace of ILK. White, 3ol Portrait of George Crabbe, . 309 Autograpli of Crabbe, . . . 309 View of the Birthplace of Crabbe, 309 Autograph of Samuel Rogers, , 316 View of the Mouse of Mr Rogers, St James’s Place, . . . 316 | Portrait of William Wordsworth, 322 | Autograph of Wordsworth, . . 322 View of Rydal Lake and Words- worth’s Mouse, .... 32.3 View of Tintern Abbey, . . .327 Portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 33.3 View of Mr Gillman’s Mouse, High- gate, the last residence of Cole- ridge, 33.5 View of Bremhill Rectory, Wiltshire, 345 Portrait of Robert Southey, • 347 Autograph of Southey, • • • 347 View of Southey’s Mouse, • . 349 Portrait of Thomas Moore, • • 3(»3 Autograph of Moore, . , . 363 View of Moore’s Cottage, near De- vizes 366 Portrait of Thomas Campbell, • 3t59 Autograph of Campbell, , . 36.9 View of Alison Square, Edinburgh, 370 Portrait of Matthew Gregory Lewis, 374 View of Abbotsford, • . , .*180 Portrait of Byron, . • • 386 Autograph of Byron, • . . 386 View of Newstead Abbey, . • 387 Tomb of Lord Byron, . • 389 View of Shelley’s House, . • 396 Pa«e Portrait of John Keats, . , 403 View of Heber’s Parish Church, . 408 View of Mid Miiirhouse, llio Resi- dence of Pollok in Boyhood, . 413 Portrait of Leigh Hunt, . • 427 Portrait of Janies Smith, . . 439 Bust of Professor Wilson, • • 4.14 Portrait of Mrs Ilemans, • , 4.9/ A iitograph <»f Mrs Memans, . 43’/ V'iew of Rhyllon, the residence of Mrs Ilemans in Wales, • • *3"/ Portrait of Miss Lundon, . . 449 Autograph of Miss Landon, . . 44.9 View of the Birthplace of Miss Lan- don, 449 Autograpli of Joanna Baillie, • 451 View of Miss Baillie’s House, Hamp- stead, 451 Portrait of Ebenezer Elliott, . , 457 Portrait of Robert Burns, . 480 View of Burns's House, Dumfries, 481 Portrait of Robert Tannahill, . 490 Portrait of Allan Cunningham, . 499 Autograph of Cunningham, , 499 Autograph of Maturin, . . . 6.‘6 Portrait of James Sheridan Knowles, 51d Autograph of Knowles, . . 518 Portrait of George Colman, the Younger, 524 Portrait of Frances Burney, , 535 Portrait of .Mrs Inchbald, , 5.53 Portrait of William Godwin, . 5(i0 Autograph of Godwin, . . . 560 View of Miss Edgeworth's House, 571 Portrait of Hannah More, . , 578 Autograph of Hannah More, . • 578 Autograph of Sir Walter Scott, . 586 Portrait of Washington Irving, . 594 View of Washington Irving’s Cot- tage, 595 Portrait of James Morier, • • 604 Autograph of Morier, . • 604 Portrait of Theodore Hook, . , 607 Autograph of Mof>k, . • . C(t7 Portrait of Mrs Trollope, • . 611 Portrait of Mrs S. C. Mall, . 61.9 Autograpli of .Mrs Hall, . . 619 View of Mrs Mall’s residence, Brompton, .... 619 Portrait of Mr G. P. R. James, . 628 Portrait of John Fenimore Cooper, 629 Portrait of Sir James Mackintosh, 6.38 Portrait of James Boswell, . 644 Tomb of Bishop Porteous, • • 654 Portrait of Dr Thomas Clialmcrs, C6I View of Staircase at Kiiinaird Mouse, the scene of Bruce’s fatal accident, C65 Portrait of Lord Brougham, • 70S CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. FROM 1727 TO 1780. poBxa HE fifty-three years between 1727 and 1780, comprehend- ing the reign of George II., and a portion of that of George III., produced more men of letters, as well as more men of science, than any epoch of similar extent in the literary history of Eng- land. It was also a time during which greater pro- gress was made in diffusing literature among the people at large, than had been made, — perhaps, throughout all the ages that went before it. Yet while letters, and the cultivators of letters, were thus abundant, it niust be allowed that, if we keep out of view the rise of the species of fiction called the novel (includ- ing the delineation of character, and not merely in- cidents), the age was not by any means marked by such striking features of originality or vigour as some of the preceding eras. For about a third of this period Pope lived, and his name continued to be the greatest in English poetry. The most distinguished of his contemporaries, how- ever, adopted styles of their own, or at least deptarted widely from that of their illustrious master. Thom- son (who survived Pope only four years) made no attempt to enter the school of polished satire and pungent wit. His enthusiastic descriptions of nature, and his warm poetical feeling, seemed to revive the spirit of the elder muse, and to assert the dignity of genuine inspiration. Young in his best performances — his startling denunciations of death and judgment, his solemn appeals, his piety, and his epigram — was equally an originaL Gray and Collins aimed at the dazzling imagery and magnificence of lyrical poetry — the direct antipodes of Pope. Akenside descanted on the operations of the mind, and the associated charms of taste and genius, in a strain of melodious and original blank verse. Goldsmith blended mora- 43 lity and philosophy with a beautiful simplicity of expression and numbers, pathetic imagery, and natural description. Beattie portrayed the roman- tic hopes and aspirations of youthful genius in a style formed from imitation of Spenser and Thom- son. And the best of the secondary poets, as Shen- stone. Dyer, and Mason, had each a distinct and in- dependent poetical character. Johnson alone, of all the eminent authors of this period, seems to have directly copied the style of Pope and Dryden. The publication of Percy’s Reliques, and Warton’s History of Poetry, may be here adverted to, as directing public attention to the early writers, and to the powerful effects which could be produced by simple narrative and natural emotion in verse. It is true that few or none of the poets we have named had much im- mediate influence on literature : Gray was ridiculed, and Collins was neglected, because both public taste and criticism had been vitiated and reduced to a low ebb. The spirit of true poetry, however, was not broken ■, the seed was sown, and in the next generation, Cowper completed what Thomson had begun. The conventional style was destined to fall, leaving only that taste for correct language and ver- siflcation which was established by the example of Pope, and found to be quite corupatible with the utmost fx'cjedom and originality if conception and expression. In describing the poets of this period, it will not be necessiiry to include all the names that have descended to us dignified with this title. But we shall omit none whose literary history is important, singular, or instructive. RICHARD SAVAGE. Richard Savage is better known for his misfor tunes, as related by Johnson, than for any peculiar 7l' A * novelty or merit in his poetry. The latter rarely rises above the level of tame mediocrity ; the former were a romance of real life, stranger than fiction. Savage was born in London in 1698, the issue of an adulterous connexion between the Countess of Mac- 1 FROM 1727 CYCLOI’^:i)IA OK TO 17 bO but Rtoiipiiij' at Hristol, was tnaitcil with Rreat kind- clesfielil and Lord llivers. The lady ojK'nly avowed her i)roflif'aey, in order tc obtain a divorce from her husband, with whom she lived on unhapi)y terms, and the illegitimate child was born after tbeir 8ei>a- ration. He was jilaced under the charge of a ])oor woman, and brought up as her son. The boy, how- ever, obtained a superior education through the care and generosity of bis maternal grandmother. Lady Mason, who placed him at a gram mar-school in St Albans. Whilst he was there I>ord Uivers died, and in his last illness, it is said the countess had the inhumanity and falsehood to state that Savage was dead, by whieb be was deprived of a i>rovision in- tended for him by bis father. Such unnatural and unprincipled conduct almost exceeds belief. The boy was now withdrawn from school, and placed apiiren- tice to a shoemaker ; but an accident soon revealed his birth and the cause of its concealment. His nurse and supposeil mother died, and among- her effects Savage found .some letters whiidi disc losed the eireumstanees of his paternity. The discovery must have seemed like the oiiening of a new world to his hopes and ambition. He was already distin- guished for quickness and proficiency, and for a sanguine enthusiastic temperament. A bright pro- 8]>ect had dawned on him ; be was allied to rank and opulence ; and though his birth was accompanied by humiliating circumstances, it was not probable that he felt these deeiily, in the immediate view of emancipation from the low station and ignoble em- ployment to which he had been harshly condemned. We know also that Savage was agitated by those tenderer feelings which link the child to the p.arent, and which must have burst upon him wdth peculiar force after so unexpected and wonderful a discovery. The mother of the youth, however, was an exception to ordinary humanity — an anomaly in the history of the female heart. She had determined to disown him, and repulsed every effort at acknowledgment and recognition — Alone from strangers every comfort flowed. His remarkable history became known, and friends sprang up to shield the hapless youth from poverty. Unfortunately, the vices and frailties of his own character began soon to be displayed. Savage w'as not destitute of a love of virtue and principles of piety, but his habits were low and sensual. His temper was irritable and capricious ; and whatever money he received, was instantly spent in the obscure haunts of dissipation. In a tavern brawd he had the misfortune to kill a Mr James Sinclair, for which he was tried and condemned to death. Ilis relent- less mother, it is said, endeavoured to intercept the royal mercy ; but Savage was pardoned by Queen Caroline, and set at liberty. He published various poetical pieces as a means of support ; and having addressed a birth-day ode to the queen, calling him- self the ‘ Volunteer Laureate’ ^to the annoyance, it is said, of Colley Cibber, the legitimate inheritor of the laurel), her majesty sent him £50, and continued the same sum to him every year. His threats and menaces induced Lord Tyrconnel, a friend of his mother, to take him into his family, where he lived on equal terms, and was allowed a sum of £200 per annum. This, as Johnson remarks, was the ‘golden period’ of Savage’s life. As might have been fore- seen, however, the habits of the poet differed very widely from those of the peer ; they soon quarrelled, and the former was again set adrift on the world. The death of the queen also stopped his pension ; but his friends made up an annuity fo him of equal amount, to which Pope generously contributed £20. Savage agreed to withdraw to the country to avoid the temptations of London. He selected Swansea, ness by the oimlent merchants and other inhiibitants, whom he afterwards libelled in a sarcastic poem. In Swansea he resided about a year; but on revisit- ing Hristol, he was arrested for :i snnill debt, and being unable to find bail, was thrown into ))ri,son. His folly, extravagance, and pride, though it was ‘ pride that licks the dust,’ had left him almost with- I out a frienil. He made no vigorous effort to extri- ! cate or maintain him.self. Pope continued his allowance ; but being provoked by some jiart of his conduct, he wrote to him, stating that he was ‘ de- termined to keep out of his suspicion by not being officious any longer, or obtruding into any of bis concern.s.’ Savage felt the force of this rebuke from the steadiest and most illustrious of his friends. He w'as soon afterwards taken ill, and his condition not enabling him to iirocnre medical assistance, he was found dead in his bed on the morning of the 1st of August 174.1. The keeper of the prison, who had treated him with great kindness, buried the unfor- tunate poet at his own expense. Savage wots the author of two jilays, and a volume of miscellaneous poems. Of the latter, the [irincipal piece is The Wamlercr, written with greater care than most of his other iirodiictions, as it was the offspring of that hajqiy jieriod of his life when he lived with Lord Tyrconnel. Amid.st much jiuerile and tawdry description, ‘The Wanderer’ contains some impressive passages. The versification is ea.sy ! and correct. The Bastard is, however, a superior [ poem, and bears the impress of true and energetic j feeling. One couplet is worthy of Pope. Of the | bastard he says, | He lives to build, not boast a generous race : [ No tenth transmitter of a foolish face. The concluding passage, in which he mourns ovei the fatal act by which he deprived a fellow mortal of life, and over his own distressing condition, pos- sesses a genuine and manly pathos : — Is chance a guilt, that my disastrous heart. For mischief never meant, must ever smart? Can self-defence be sin ? Ah, plead no more! What though no purpo.sed malice stained thee o’er! Had heaven befriended thy unhappy side. Thou had.st not been provoked — or thou had.st died. I Far be the guilt of homeshed blood from ali On whom, unsought, embroiling dangers fall ! Still the pale dead revives, and lives to me. To me! through Pity’s eye condemned to see. Remembrance veils his rage, but swells his fate ; Grieved I forgive, and am grown cool too late. Young and unthoughtful then ; who knows, one day. What ripening virtues might have made their way ! He might have lived till folly died in shame. Till kindling wisdom felt a thirst for fame. j He might perhaps his country’s friend have proved ; Both happy, generous, candid, and beloved ; He might have saved some worth, now doomed to fall And 1, perchance, in him, have murdered all. O fate of late repentance ! always vain : Thy remedies but lull undying pain. Where shall my hope find rest ? No mother’s care Shielded my infant innocence with prayer : No father’s guardian hand my youth maintained, Called forth my virtues, or from vice restrained ; Is it not thine to snatch some powerful arm. First to advance, then screen from future harm ? Am I returned from death to live in pain ! Or would imperial pity save in rain ? Distrust it not. What blame can mercy find. Which gives at once a life, and rears a mind f Mother, miscalled, farewell — of soul severe, This sad reflection yet may force one tear : 2 fOKTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BLAia. ^ I All I was ^TTCtchcd by to you I owed ; ' I Alone from str.angers every comfort flowed ! I Lost to the life you gave, your son no more. And now adopted, who was doomed before, i New born, I may n nobler mother claim. Hut dare not whisper her immortal name ; ' Supremely lovely, and serenely great. Majestic mother of a kneeling state ; Queen of a people’s heart, who ne’er before Agreed — yet now with one consent adore ! One contest yet remains in this desire. Who most shall give applause where all admire. [EroOT The Wandercr.'\ I Yon mansion, made by beaming tapers gay, i Dromis the dim night, and counterfeits the day ; I From lumined windows glancing on the eye, i 1 Around, athwart, the frisking shadows fly. ■ There midnight riot spreads illusive joys, I I And fortune, health, and dearer time destroys. ] j Soon death’s dark agent to luxuriant ease ! I Shall wake sharp warnings in some fierce disease. 1 1 0 man ! thy fabric ’s like a well-formed state ; j j Thy thoughts, first ranked, were sure designed the 1 1 great ; I Passions plebeians are, which faction raise ; Wine, like poured oil, excites the raging blaze ; Then giddy anarchy’s rude triumphs rise : Then sovereign Reason from her empire flies : That ruler once deposed, wisdom and wit, j To noise and folly place and power submit ; Like a frail bark thy weakened mind is tost. Unsteered, unbalanced, till its wealth is lost. The miser-spirit eyes the spendthrift heir. And mourns, too late, eflects of sordid care. I Ilis treasures fly to cloy each fawning slave. Yet grudge a stone to dignify his grave. For this, low-thoughted craft his life employed ; For this, though wealthy, he no wealth enjoyed; For this, he griped the poor, and alms denied. Unfriended lived, and unlamented died. Yet smile, grie\ed shade! when that unprosperous store Fast lessens, when gay hours return no more ; Smile at thy heir, beholding, in his fall. Men once obliged, like him, ungrateful all ! Then thought-inspiring wo his heart shall mend. And prove his only wise, unflattering friend. Folly exhibits thus unmanly sport. While plotting mischief keeps reserved her court, j Lo ! from that mount, in blasting sulphur»broke. Stream flames voluminous, enwrapped with smoke ! I In chariot-shape they whirl up yonder tower, j Lean on its brow, and like destruction lower 1 ! From the black depth a fiery legion springs ; I Each bold bad spectre claps her sounding wings : And straight beneath a summoned, traitorous band. On horror bent, in dark convention stand : j From each fiend’s mouth a ruddy vapour flows. Glides through the roof, and o’er the council glows ; The villains, close beneath the infection pent. Feel, all possessed, their rising galls ferment ; And burn with faction, hate, and vengeful ire. For rapine, blood, and devastation dire! But justice marks their ways : she waves in air The sword, high-threatening, like a comet’s glare. I While here dark villany herself deceives, I There studious honesty our view relieves. ■ A feeble taper from yon lonesome room, I Scattering thin rays, just glimmers through the I gloom. { There sits the sapient bard in museful mood. And glows impassioned for his country’s good ! All the bright spirits of the just combined. Inform, refine, and prompt his towering mind ! ROBERT BLAIR. hir Southey has incautiously ventured a state- ment in his ‘ Life of Cowper,’ that Blair’s Grave is the only poem he could call to mind which has been composed in imitation of the ‘ Night Thoughts.’ ‘ The Grave’ was written prior to the publication of the ‘ Night Thoughts,’ and has no other resemblance to the work of Young, than that it is of a serious devout cast, and is in blank verse. The author was an accomplished and exemplary Scottish clergyman, who enjoyed some private fortune, independent of his profession, and was thus enabled to live in a superior style, and cultivate the acquaintance of the neighbouring gentry. As a poet of pleasing and elegant manners, a botanist and florist, as well as a man of scientific and general knowledge, his society was much courted, and he enjoyed the correspond- ence of Dr Isaac Watts and Dr Doddridge. Blair was born in Edinburgh in 1699, his father being minister of the Old Church there. In 1731 he was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford, a parish in East Lothian. Previous to his ordination, he had written ‘ The Grave,’ and submitted the n.anu- script to Watts and Doddridge. It was published in 1743. Blair died at the age of forty-seven, in February 1746. By his marriage with a daughter of Mr Law, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh (to whose memory he dedicated a poem), he left a numerous family ; and his fourth son, a distinguished lawyer, rose to be Lord President of the Court of Session. ‘ The Grave’ is a complete and powerful poem, of limited design, but masterly execution. The sub- ject precluded much originality of conception, but, at the same time, is recommended by its awTu^ im- portance and its universal application. The style seems to be formed upon that of the old sacred and puritanical poets, elevated by the author’s admira- tion of Milton and Shakspeare. There is a Scottish presbyterian character about the whole, relieved by occasional flashes and outbreaks of true genius. These coruscations sometimes subside into low and vulgar ideas, as towards the close of the following noble passage : — Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war ? The Roman Caesars and the Grecian chiefs. The boast of story? Where the hot-brained youth IFho the tiara at his pleasure tore From kings of all the then discovered globe ; And cried, forsooth, because his arm was hampei ^rt. And had not room enough to do its work ? Alas, how slim — dishonourably slim I And crammed into a space we biush to name ! Proud royalty ! How altered in thy looks ! How blank thy features, and how wan thy hue ' Son of the morning ! whither art thou gone? Where hast thou hid thy many-spangled head And the majestic menace of thine eyes Felt from afar? Pliant and powerless now : Like new-born infant w'ound up in his swathe... Or victim tumbled flat upon his back. That throbs beneath his sacrificer’s knife ; Mute must thou bear the strife of little tongues, And coward insults of the base-bom crowd, That grudge a privilege thou never hadst. But only hoped for in the peaceful grave — Of being unmole.sted and alone! Arabia’s gums and odoriferous drugs. And honours by the heralds duly paid In mode and form, e’en to a very scruple ; (Oh cruel irony!) these come too late. And only mock whom they wei e meant to honour f 3 I'll' Ml I "27 CYCLOP^;i)IA OF TO 1780 riu' iluatli of tlie strong man is forcibly depicted — Strcngtli. too ! thou surly and less gentle boast ( )f tliose that laugh loud at the village ring ! A lit of coninion sickness pulls thee down With greater ease than e’er thou didst the stripling That rashly dared thee to the unequal fight. M'hat groan was that 1 heard? Decqi groan, indeed, With anguish heavy lailen ! let me trace it: Kroni yonder bed it comes, where the strong man, I!y stronger arm belaboured, gas[is for breath Like a hard-hunted beast. How his great heart Heats thick ! his roomy chest by far too scant To give the lungs full play ! What now avail The strong-built sinewy limbs and well -spread shoulders ? See, how he tugs for life, and lays about him, Mad with his pain 1 Kager he catches hold Of what comes ne.xt to hand, and grasps it hard, .lust like a creature drowning. Hideous sight ! Oh liow his eyes stand out, and stare full ghastly ! While the distemper’s rank and deadly venom Shoots like a burning arrow ’cross his bowels. And drinks his marrow up. Heard you that groan ? It was his last. See how the great Goliah, .Just like a child that brawled itself to rest, Lies still. What mean’st thou then, 0 mighty boaster. To vaunt of nerves of thine ? What means the bull, Unconscious of his strength, to play the coward, And flee before a feeble thing like man ; That, knowing well the slackness of his arm, Trusts only in the well-invented knife? In our extracts from Congreve, we have quoted a passage, much admired by .lulinson, descriptive of the awe and fear inspired by a cathedral scene at midnight, ‘ where all is hushed and still as death.’ Blair has ventured on a similar description, and has imparted to it a territde and gloomy power- See yonder hallowed fane ! the pious work f)f names once famed, now dubious or forgot. And buried midst the wreck of things which were : There lie interred the more illustrious dead. The wind is up : hark ! how it howls ! methinks Till now I never heard a sound so dreary ! Doors creak, and windows clap, and night’s foul b'nl, Rocked in the spire, screams loud : the gloomy aisles, Black - plastered, and hung round with shreds of ’.“cutcheons. And tattered coats of arms, send back the sound. Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults. The mansions of the dead. Roused from their slumbers. In grim array the grisly spectres rise, Grill horrible, and, obstinately sullen, Pass and repass, hushed as the foot of night. Again the screech-owl shrieks — ungracious sound ! I’ll hear no more ; it makes one’s blood run chill. With tenderness equal to his strength, Blair la- ments the loss of death-divided friendships— Invidious Grave ! how dost thou rend in sunder Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one ! A tie more stubborn far than nature’s band. Friendship ! mysterious cement of the soul ! Sweetener of life ! and solder of society ! I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me Far, far beyond what I can ever pay. Oft have I proved the labours of thy love, And the warm efforts of thy gentle heart. Anxious to please. Oh ! when my friend and I In some thick wood have wandered heedless on, Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down Lipon the sloping cowslip-covered bank. Where the pure limpid stream has slid along In grateful errors through the underwood, Sweet murmuring, methought the shrill - tongued thrush Mended his song of love ; the sc'. ty blackbird .Mellowed his pipe, and softened every note: The eglantine smelled sweeter, and the rose Assumed a dye more deep ; whilst every flower Vied with its fellow-jdant in luxury Of dress ! Oh ! then the longest summer’s day Iseemed too, too much in haste: still, the full heart Hail not imparted half : ’twas happiness Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed Not to return, how painful the remembrance ! Some of his images are characterised by a Shak- spearian force and picturesque fancy : of suicidei he says — The common damned shun their society. And look upon themselves as fiends less foul. Men see their friends Drop off like leaves in autumn ; yet launch out Into fantastic schemes, which the Inn;/ lirers In the world’s hale and under/enerate days Would scarce have leisure for. The divisions of churchmen are for ever closed — The lawn-robed prelate and plain ]iresbyter, Erewhile that stood aloof, as shy to meet. Familiar mingle here, Uhe sister- streams That some r%ide intei-posin;/ rock has split. Alan, sick of bliss, trV'd evil ; and, as a result — The good he scorned Stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost. Not to return ; or, if it did, in visits. Like those of angels, short and far between. The latter simile has been appropriated by Mi Cani])bell, in his ‘ Pleasures of Hope.’ with one slight verbal alteration, which can scarcely be called an improvement — What though my winged hours of bliss have Iieen, Like angel visits, few and far between. The original comparison seems to belong to an obscure religious poet, Norris of Bemerton, who, prior to Blair, w'rote a poem, ‘ The Parting,’ wliich contains the following verse : — How fading are the joys we dote upon ; Like apparitions seen and gone ; Hut those who soonest take their flight, -Are the most exquisite and strong. Like anr/els’ visits short and hrir/ht ; Mortality’s too weak to bear them long. The conclusion of ‘ The Grave’ has been pronounced to be inferior to the earlier portions of (he poem; yet the following passage has a dignity, pathos, and devotional rapture, equal to the higher lliglits ol Young Thrice tvelcomc. Death ! That, after many a painful bleeding step. Conducts us to our home, and lands us safe On th.e long-wishcd-for shore. Prodigious change! Our bane turned to a blessing! Death, disarmed. Loses his fellness quite ; all thanks to Him Will) scourged the venom out. Sure the hast end t)f the good man is peace ! How calm his exit! Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground. Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft. Behold him ! in the evening tide of life, A life well spent, whose early care it was His riper years should not upbraid his green : By uiq erceived degrees he wears away ; Yet, iiae the sun, seems larger at his setting ! High in his faith and hopes, loidt how he reaches -After the jirize in view ! and, like a bird That’s hampered, struggles hard to get away I Wliilst tlie glad gates of sight are wide expanded To let new glories in, the first fair fruits ( If the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh then, 4 Abney House. in 1712 into the house of a benevolent gentleman of his neigh.hourhood. Sir Thomas Abney of Abney bark, vhere he spent all the remainder of his life. There is no circumstance in English literary biogra- p’ny parallel to the residence of this sacred bard in the house of a friend for the long period of thirty- EN G L IS 1 1 L rr E U A'l' U U E. ' liach cartli-born joy grows vile, or disappears, Shrunk to a thing of nouglit ! Uh, how he longs I'o have his passport signed, and bo dismissed ! ;l ’ I'is done — and now he’s liapiiy ! The glad soul 1 Has not a wish uncrowned. K’en the lag flesh j Kests, too, in hope of meeting onee again Its better half, never to sunder more. ; Nor sliall it hope in vain : the time draws on I j When not a single spot of burial earth, j Whether on land, or in the spacious sea, , i But must give back its long-committed dust ' Inviolate ; and faithfully shall these ! Make up the full account ; not the least atom . Kmbczzled or mislaid of the whole tale. I I Each soul shall have a body read}' furnished ; ! • And eacli shall have his own. Hence, ye profane ! ; I Ask not how this can bel Sure the same power ' I Tliat reared the piece at first, and took it down, . Can re-assemble the loose scattered parts. And put them as they were. Almighty God : j Hath done much more: nor is his arm impaired I Through length of days ; and what he can, he will ; I ' His faithfulness stands bound to see it done. ; , Wlien the dread trumpet sounds, the slumbering dust, J ! Not unattentive to the call, shall wake ; I I And every joint possess its proper place, : I With a new elegance of form, unknown I To its first state. Nor shall the conscious soul Mistake its partner, but amidst the crowd, I Singling its other half, into its arms j Shall rush, with all the impatience of a man That’s new come home, and, having long been absent, With haste runs over every difierent room. In pain to see the whole. Thrice-happy meeting ! Nor time, nor death, shall ever part them more. ’Tis but a night, a long and moonless night ; We make the grave our bed, and then are gone ! Thus, at tlie shut of even, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day. Then claps his well-fledged wings, and bears away. DR WATTS. Isaac Watts — a name never to be pronounced without reverence by any lover of pure Christianity, or by any well-wisher of mankind — was Ijorn at Soutliamptoii, July 17, KiTt. His parents «crc remarkable for piety. Means would liavc been pro- Dr Watts. vided for placing him at the university, but be early inclined to the Dissenters, and he was edn cated at one of their establishments, taught by the Kev. Thomas Rowe. He was afterwards four years in the family of Sir John llartopp, at Stoke Newing- ton. Here he was eliosen ( 1 698) assistant minister by an Independent congregation, of which four years after he succeeded to the full charge; bntliad healtli soon rendered liiin unfit for the performance of th ■ heavy labours thus imposed upon him, and in his turn he required tlie assistance of a joint pastor. Ilis health continuing to decline. Watts was received I I i I J i I i FROM 1727 six years. Abney House was a bandsoine mansion, surrounded by beautiful pleasure-ftrounds. He bad apartments assigned to bini, of wbieb he enjoyed the use as freely as if bo bad been the master of the house. Dr Gilibons says, ‘ Here, without any care of his own, he h:ul everything which could contri- \)ute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the pursuit of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family which, for piety, order, harmony, and every virtue, was a house of God. Here he had the [irivilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the s[)reading lawn, the flowery garden, and other advantages to soothe his mind ami aid his restoration to health ; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return to them with redoubled vigour and delight’ The death of Sir Thomas Abney, eight years after he went to reside with him, imade no change in these agreeable arrangements, as the same benevolent patronage was extended to him by the widow, who outlived him a year. While in this retirement he preached occasionally, but gave the most of his time to study, and to the composition of those works which hiive given him a name in the annals of literature. Ilis treatises on Loijic and on the Im- provement of the Mind are still highly prized for their cogency of argument and felicity of illustration. Watts also wrote several theological works and I volumes of sermons. Ilis poetry consists almost I wholly of devotional hymn.s, which, by their sim- plicity, their unaffected ardour, and their imagery, powerfully arrest the attention of children, and are never forgotten in mature life. In infancy we learn the hymns of Watts, as part of maternal instruction, and in youth his moral and logical treatises impart the germs of correct reasoning and virtuous self- government. The life of this good and useful man terminated on the 25th of November 1748, having been prolonged to the advanced age of seventy-five. \The Hose.'] How fair is the rose ! what a beautiful flower. The glory of April and May 1 But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day. Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast. Above all the flowers of the field ; When its leaves are all dead, and its fine colours lost. Still how sweet a perfume it will yield ! So frail is the youth and the beauty of men. Though they bloom and look gay like the rose ; But iill our fond care to preserve them is vain. Time kills them as fast as he goes. Then I’ll not be proud of my youth nor my beau'v. Since both of them wither and fade ; But gain a good name by well-doing my duty ; This will scent like a rose when I’m dea 1. [The Heh'cw Bard.] * * * Softly the tuneful shepherd leads The Hebrew flocks to flowery meads : He marks their path with notes divine. While fountains spring with oil and wine. Rivers of peace attend his song. And ilr.aw their milky train along. He jars ; and, lo 1 the flints are broke. But hoiiey issues from the rock. I When, kindling with victorious fire, I He .shakes his lance across the lyre, I The lyre resounds unknown alarms, Ynd sets the Thunderer in arms. TO 178«. j Bcholil the God ! the Almighty King Hides on a tempest’s glorious wing; His ensigns lighten round the sky. And moving legions sound on high. Ten thousand cherubs wait his course. Chariots of fire and flaming horse : Karth trembles ; and her mountains flow. At his approach, like melting snow. But who those frowns of wrath can draw, I That strike heaven, earth, and hell, with awe 1 Red lightning from his eyelids broke ; His voice was thunder, hail, and smoke. He spake ; the cleaving waters fled. And stars beheld the ocean’s bed ; While the great Master strikes his lyre. You see the frighted floods retire : In heaps the frighted billows stand, Waiting the changes of his hand : He leads his Israel through the .sea, And watery mountains guard their way. Tuniing his hand with sovereign sweep, , He drowns all Kgypt in the deep : 1 Then guides the tribes, a glorious band, | Through deserts to the promised land. Here camps, with wide-embattled force. Here gates and bulwarks stop their course He storms the mounds, the bulwark falls. The harp lies strewed with ruined walls. Sec his broad sword flies o’er the strings. And mows down nations with their kings: From every cRord his bolts are hurled. And vengeance sraiteS the rebel world. Lo 1 the great poet shifts the scene. And shows the face of God serene. Truth, meekness, peace, salvation, ride, With guards of justice at his side. * ♦ ♦ [A Summer Evening.] How fine has the day been, how bright was the sun, How lovely and joyful the course that he run, Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun. And there followed some droppings of rain ! | But now the fair traveller’s come to the west. His rays are all gold, and his beauties ,are best ; He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest. And foretells a bright rising again. .lust such is the Christian ; his course he begins. Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins. And melts into tears ; then he breaks out and shines, And travels his heavenly way : But when he comes nearer to finish his r.ace. Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace, j And gives a sure hope at the end of his days. Of rising in brighter array. EDWARD YOUNG. I ' Edward Young, author of the Night Thoughta, I ^ w.as born in 1681 at Upham, in Hami)shire, where I his father (afterw.ards dean of Salisbury) was i rector. He was educated at Winchester school, I j and subsequently at All Souls’ college, Oxford. In j 1 7 12 he commenced public life as a courtier and poet, and he continued both characters till be was jiast I eighty. One of his patrons was the notorious Duke , of Wharton, ‘ the scorn and wonder of bis days,’ ; whom Young accompanied to Ireland in 1717. He | was next tutor to Lord Burleigh, and was induced j to give up this situation by Wharton, who promised to provide for him in a more suitable and ample 6 CYCLOPiKDIA OF rtM'.Tn. KNdUSIl MTKUATUUR KDWAIID VOUNO. miiiiiuT. 'I'lio duke also prevailed o. Young, as a ])olitieal supporter, to eonie forward as a candidate for the representation of the borough of Cirencester in parliament, and he gave him a bond for £600 to defray the expenses. Young was defeated, Whar- Edward Young. ton died, and the court of chancery decided against the validity of the bond. The poet, being now quali- fied by experience, published a satire on the Uni- •ersal Passion — the Love of Fame, which is at once teen and powerful, and the nearest approach we have to the polished satire of Pope. When upwards of fifty. Young entered the church, wrote a pane- gyric on the king, and was made one of his majesty’s chaplains. Swift has said that the poet was com- pelled to • torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lo.se his pension. But it does not appear that there was any other reward than the appointment as chaplain. In 1730, Young obtained from his college the living of Wel- wyn, in Hertfordshire, where he was destined to close his days. He was eager to obtain further pre- ferment, but having in his poetry professed a strong love of retirement, the miin.-itry seized upon this as a pretext for keeping him out of a bishopric. The poet made a noble alliance with the daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, widow of Colonel Lee, which lasted ten years, and proved a happier union than the titled marriages of Dryden and Addison. The lady had two cliildren by her first marriage, to whom Young was warmly attached. Both died^ ind when the mother also followed, Yo\ing com- posed his ‘ Night Thoughts.’ Sixty years had strengthened and enriched his genius, and aug- mented even the brilliancy of his fancy. In 1761 the poet was made clerk of the closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales, and died four years afterwards, in April 1765, at the advanced age of eighty-four. A life of so much action and worldly anxiety has rarely been united to so much literary industry and genius. In his youth. Young was gay and dissi- pated, and all his life he was an indefatigable cour- tier. In his poetry he is a severe moralist and ascetic divine. That he felt the emotions he de- I scribes, must be true ; hut they did not permanently influence his conduct. He was not weaned from the world till age had incajiacitated him for its jiur- Buits ; and the ei)igrammatic point and wit of his ‘Night Thoughts,’ with the gloomy views it ))re- sents of life and religion, show the poetical artist fully as much as the humble and penitent Christian. His works arc numerous; hut the best are the ‘ Night Thoughts,’ the ‘ Universal Passion,’ and the tragedy of Revenge. The foundation of his great poem was family misfortune, coloured and exaggerated for poetical effect — Insatiate archer ! could not one suffice ? Thy shafts flew thrice, and thrice my peace was .slain ; And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn. This rapid succession of bereavements was a poeti- cal license; for in one of the cases there was an interval of four years, and in another of seven months. The profligate character of Lorenzo has been supposed to indicate Young’s own son. It seems to us a mere fancy skcteli. Like the charac- ter of Childe Harold, in the hands of Byron, it afforded the poet scope for dark and powerful paint- ing, and was made the veliicle for bursts of indig- nant virtue, sorrow, regret, and admonition. This artificial character pervades the whole poem, and is essentially a part of its structure. But it still leaves to our admiration many noble and sublime passages, where the poet speaks as from inspiration^ — with the voice of one cr}'ing in the wilderness — of life, death, and immortality. The truths of religion are en- forced with a commanding energy and persuasion. Epigram and repartee are then forgotten by the poet; fancy yields to feeling; and where imagery is employed, it is select, nervous, and suitable. In this sustained and impressive style Young seldom remains long at a time ; his desire to say witty and smart things, to load his pic> ire with supernume- rary horrors, and conduct his personages to their ‘ sulphureous or ambrosial seats,’ soon converts the great poet into the painter and epigrammatist. The ingenuity of his second style is in some respects as wonderful as the first, but it is of a v;istly inferior order of poetry. Mr Southey thinks, that when Johnson said (in his ‘ Life of Milton’) that ‘ the good and evil of eternity were too ponderous for the wings of wit,’ he forgot Young. The moral critic could not, however, but have condemned even witty thoughts and sparkling metaphors, which are so in- congruous and misplaced. The ‘Night Thoughts,’ like ‘ Hudibras,’ is too pointed, and too full of com- pressed reflection and illustration, to be read con- tinuously with pleasure. Nothing can atone for the want of simplicity and connection in a long poem. In Young there is no plot or progressive interest. Each of the nine books is independent of the other. 'I'he general reader, therefore, seeks out favourite passages for perusal, or contents himself with a single excursion into his wide and variegated field. But the more carefully it is studied, the more ex- traordinary and magnificent will the entire poem appear. The fertility of his fancy, the pregnancy of his wit and knowledge, the striking and felicitous combinations everywhere presented, are indeed re- markable. Sound sense is united to poetical ima- gery ; maxims of the highest practical value, and passages of great force, tenderness, and everlasting truth, are constantly rising, like sunshine, over the quaint and gloomy recesses of the poet’s .inagina- tion — • The glorious fragments of a fire immortal, UTth rubbish mixed, and glittering in the du.st. After all his bustling toils and ambition, how finely FROM 1727 CYCLOPi1i;r>IA OF TO 1780. dots Young advert to tlie quiet retirement of his eouiitry life — lilest be that hand divine, which gently laid My heart at rest beneath tliis humble shade 1 The world’s a stately bark, on dangerous seas, With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril ; Here, on a single plank, thrown safe ashore, I hear the tumult of the distant throng. As that of seas remote, or dying storms ; And meditate on scenes more silent still ; Pursue my theme, and fight the fear of death. Here like a shei)herd, gazing from his hut, 'J'ouehing his reed, or leaning on his staff^ Kager ambition’s fiery chase 1 see ; I see the circling hunt of noisy men Hurst law’s enclosure, leaj) the mounds of right. Pursuing and pursued, each other’s prey ; As wolves for rapine ; as tlie fox for wiles ; Till death, that mighty hunter, earths them all. Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour 1 What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame. Earth’s highest statioi> ends in ‘here he lies,’ And ‘ dust to dust’ concludes her noblest song. And when he argues in favour of the immortality of man from the analogies of nature, with what ex- quisite taste and melody does he characterise the changes and varied apiiearances of creation — Look nature through, ’tis revolution all ; All change, no death ; day follows night, and night The dying day ; stars rise and sec, and set and rise ; Earth takes the example. See, the Summer gay. With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers. Droops into pallid Autumn : Winter gray. Horrid with frost and turbulent with .storm. Blows Autumn and his golden fruits away. Then melts into the Spring : soft Spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south. Recalls the first. All, to reHourish, fades : As in a wheel, all sinks to reascend: Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. He thus moralises on huimui life — Life speeds away From point to point, though seeming to stand still. The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth. Too subtle is the movement to be seen ; Yet soon man’s hour is up, and we are gone. Warnings point out our danger ; gnomons, time ; As these are useless when the sun is set. So those, but when more glorious reason shines. Reason should judge in all ; in reason’s eye That sedentary shadow travels hard. But such our gravitation to the wrong. So prone our hearts to whisper that w'e wish, ’’fis later with the wise than he’s aivare: A Wilmington* goes slower th.an the sun : And all mankind mistake their time of day; Even age itself. Fresh hopes are hourly sown In furrowed brows. To gentle life’s descent We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain. We take fair days in ivinter for the spring. And turn our blessings into bane. Since oft Man must compute that age he cannot feel. He scarce believes he’s older for his years. Thus, at life’s latest eve, we keep in store One disappointment sure, to crown the rest — The disappointment of a promised hour. And again in a still nobler strain, where he com- varcs human life to the sea — Helf-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope. When young, with sanguine cheer and streamers gay. We cut our cable, launch into the world, * Lt>rd Wilmington. And fondly dream each wind and star our friend; All in some darling enter]>rise embarked ; j But where is he can fathom its event ? Amid a multitude of artless hands. Ruin’s sure jierquisite, her lawful prize ! Some steer aright, but the black blast blows hard. And puffs them wide of hope : with hearts of proof Full against wind and tide, some win their way. And when strong effort has deserved the port. And tugged it into view, ’tis won ! ’tis lost 1 Though strong their oar, still stronger is their fate : They strike 1 and while they triumph they expire In stress of weather most, some sink outright ; O’er them, and o’er their names the billows close ; To-morrow knows not they were ever bora. Others a short memorial leave behind. Like a flag floating when the bark’s ingulfed; It floats a moment, and is seen no more. One Caesar lives ; a thousand are forgot. How few beneath auspicious planets born (Darlings of Providence ! fond Fate’s elect !) With swelling sails make gocsl the promised port, [ M ith all their wi,shes freiglited ! yet even these, 1 1 freighted with all their wishes, soon complain; Free from misfortune, not from nature free, 'Ihey still are men, and when is man secure* As fatal time, as storm ! the rush of years Beats down their strength, their numberless escapes In ruin end. And now their proud success ! But plants new terrors on the victor’s brow ; \\ hat pain to quit the world, just made their own. Their nest so deeply downed, and built so high ! Too low they build, who build beneath the stars. With such a throng of poetical imagery, bursts of sentiment, and rays of fancy, does the poet-divine clothe the trite and simiile truths, that aU is vanity, and that man is born to die ! These thoughts, 0 Night ! are thine ; From thee they came like lovers’ secret sighs, AYhile others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign. In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her .sphere. Her shepherd cheered ; of her enamoured iess Than I of thee. .\nd art thou still unsung. Beneath whose brow, and hv whose aid, 1 sing ? Immortal silence ! where shall 1 begin? AV here end ? or how steal music from the spheres To soothe their goddess { 0 majestic Night ! Nature’s great aiicostor ! Day’s elder born ! And fated to survive the transient sun ! By mortals and immortals seen with awe ! A starry crown tliy raven brow adorns. An azure zone thy waist ; clouds, in heaven’s loom Wrought through varieties of shape and shade. In ample folds of drapery divine, Ihy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout. Voluminously [>our thy poniiams train : Ihy gloomy grandeurs — Nature’s most august. Inspiring aspect ! — claim a grateful vei'se ; And, like a sable curtain starred with gold. Drawn o’er my labours past, shall clotlie tlie scene. Tills magnificent apostrophe has scarcely been equalled in our poetry since the epic strains of hlilton. On Life, Ikat?), and Immortality. Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, halmv Sleep ! j He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where Fortune smiles ; the wretclied he forsakes: Swift on his downy pinion flies from wo. And lights on lids unsullied with a tear. From short (a.s usual) ami disturbed repose I wake : how happy tliey who wake no more 1 | Yet that were vain, if dreams iiife.st the grave. ( s ! I I «)ETS. EN(jLISll LITKUATUUE. edwauo vouno. 1 wukc, ciiii’igin^ from iv sea of dreams Tumultuous; where my wrecked desponding thought I'rom w ave to wave of fancied misery At -andum drove, her helm of reason lost. Though now restored, ’tis only change of pain (A bitter change !), severer for severe: The day too short for my distress ; and night, E’en in the zenith of her dark domain, Is sunshine to the colour of my fate. Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne. In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o’er a .slumbering world. Silence how dead ! and d.irkness how profound 1 Nor eye nor listening car an object finds ; Creation sleeps. ’Tis is the general pulse Of life stood .still, a,.d Nature made a pause ; An awful pause ! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be soon fulfilled : Fate ! drop the curtain ; I can lose no more. Silence and Darkness 1 solemn sisters ! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought To reason, and on reason build resolve (That column of true majesty in man), Assist me : I will thank j'ou in the grave ; The grave your kingdom : there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine. But what are ye 1 Thou, who didst put to flight Primeval Silence, when the morning stars. Exulting, shouted o’er the rising ball ; Oh Thou ! whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from ray soul ; My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure, As misers to their gold, while others rest. Through this opaque of nature and of soul. This double night, transmit one pitying ray. To lighten and to cheer. Oh lead my mind (A mind that fain would wander from its wo), Lead it through various scenes of life and death, And from each scene the noblest truths inspire. Nor le.ss inspire my conduct than my song ; Teach my best reason, reason ; my best will Teach rectitude ; and fix my firm resolve Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear : Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, poured On this devoted head, be poured in vain. * ’’’ How poor, how rich, how abject, how august. How complicate, how wonderful is man ! How passing wonder He who madf him such ! Who centered in our make such strange extremes, From ditferent natures marvellously mixed. Connexion exquisite of distant worlds ! Distingushed link in being’s endless chain ! Midway from nothing to the Deity ! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt ! Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine 1 Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! An heir of glory 1 a frail child of dust t Helpless immortal 1 insect infinite 1 A worm ! a god ! I tremble at myself. And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger, Thought wandei-s up and down, surprised, aghast. And wondering at her own. How reason reels ! Oh what a miracle to man is man ! Triumphantly distressed ! what joy ! what dread 1 Alternately transported and alarmed ! \\‘hat can preserve my life ! or what destroy ! An angel’s arm can’t snatch me from the grave ; Legions of angels can’t confine me there. ’Tis past conjecture ; all things rise in proof : While o’er my limbs sleep’s soft dominion spread, \t'hat though my soul fantastic measures ti-od O’er fairy fields ; or mourned along the gloom Of silent woods ; or, down the craggy steep Hurled headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool ; Or Bcab“d the cliff; or danced on hollow winds. With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain ? Her ceaseless flight, though devious, sjieaks her nature Of subtler essence than the common clod : * Even silent night proclaims my soul immortal ! * * Why, then, their loss deplore that are not lost ? * is the desert, this the solitude : How populous, how vital is the grave! This is creation’s melancholy vault. The vale funereal, the sad cyjiress gloom ; The land of apparitions, empty shades! All, all on earth, is shadow, all beyond Is substance; the rev'erse is folly’s creed; How solid all, where change shall bo no more! This is the bud of being, the dim dawn. The twilight of our day, the vestibule ; Life’s theatre as yet is shut, and death. Strong death alone can heave the massy bar, This gross imped' nent of clay remove. And make us emb vos of existence free From real life; but little more remote Is he, not yet a candidate for light, The future embryo, slumbering in his sire. Embryos we must be till we burst the shell. Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life, The life of gods, oh transport ! and of man. Y et man, fool man ! here buries all his thoughts ; Inters celestial hopes without one sigh. Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here pinions all his wishes ; winged by heaven To fly at infinite : and reach it there Where seraphs gather immortality. On life’s fair tree, fast by the throne of God. What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow In his full bearii, and ripen for the just. Where momentary ages are no more ! Where time, and pain, and chance, and death expire! And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought. And smother souls immortal in the duscl A soul immortal, spending all her fires. Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness. Thrown into tumult, raptured or alarmed. At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought. To waft a feather, or to drown a fly. [Thoughts on Time.] The bell strikes one. We take no note of -ime But from its loss : to give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours. Where are they? With the years beyond the fi,.od. It is the signal that demands despatch : How much is to be done? My hopes and fears Start up alarmed, and o’er life’s narrow verge Look down — on what ? A fathomless abyss. A dread eternity ! how surely mine ! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of a.i hour? 0 time 1 than gold more sacred ; more a load Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise. What moment granted man without account ? What years are squandered, wisdom’s debt unpaid ! Our wealth in days all due to that discharge. Haste, haste, he lies in wait, he’s at the door , Insidious Death ; should his strong hand arrest. No composition sets the prisoner free. Eternity’s inexorable chain Fast binds, and vengeance claims the full arreai Youth is not rich in time ; it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing ; pay No moment, but in purchase of its worth ; Ajid what it’s worth, ask death-beds ; they can ter' a FROM 1727 CYCLOPiEDIA OF I’art with it as with life, reluctant ; big \\'ith holy hoi>e of nobler time to come ; Time higher aimed, still nearer the great mark Of men and angels, virtue more divine. On all important time, through every age. Though much, and warm, the wise have urged, the man Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour. ‘ I’ve lost a day ’ — the prince who nobly cried, Had been an emperor without his crown. Of Rome 1 say, rather, lord of human race : He spoke as if deputed by mankind. So should all speak ; so reason speaks in all : From the soft whispers of that God in man, Why liy to folly, why to frenzy fly. For rescue from the blessings we possess ? Time, the supreme ! — Time is eternity ; Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth A power ethereal, only not adored. Ah 1 how unjust to nature and himself Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man ! Like children babbling nonsense in their sports, W e censure Nature for a span too short ; That span too short we tax as tedious too ; Torture invention, all expedients tire. To lash the lingering moments into speed. And whirl us (happy riddance) from ourselves. Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings, And seems to creep, decrepit with his age. Behold him when passed by ; what then is seen But his broad pinions swifter than the winds ? And all mankind, in contradiction strong. Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career. We waste, not use our time ; we breathe, not live ; Time wasted is existence ; used, is life : And bare existence man, to live ordained, 'Wrings and oppresses with enormous weight. And why ? since time was given for use, not waste. Enjoined to fly, with tempest, tide, and stars. To keep his speed, nor ever wait for man. Time’s use was doomed a pleasure, waste a pain. That man might feel his error if unseen, And, feeling, fly to labour for his cure ; Not blundering, sj)lit on idleness for ease. We push time from us, and we wish him back ; Life we think long and short ; death seek and shun. Oh the dark d.ays of vanity ! while Here, how tasteless! and how terrible when gone 1 Gone ? they ne’er go ; when past, they haunt us still : The spirit walks of every day deceased, And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. Nor death nor life delight us. If time past. And time possessed, both pain us, what can please ? That which the Deity to please ordained. Time used. The man who consecrates his hours By vigorous effort, and an honest aim. At once he draws the sting of life and death : He walks with nature, and her paths are jieace. ’Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours. And ask them what report they bore to heaven. And how they might have borne more welcome news. Their answers form what men experience call ; If wisdom’s friend her best, if not, worst foe. All-sensual man, because untouched, unseen. He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else Is truly man’s ; ’tis fortune’s. Time’s a god. Hast thou ne’er heard of Time’s omnipotence ? For, or against, what wonders can he do 1 And will : to stand blank neuter he disdains. Not on those terms was time (heaven’s stranger!) sent i>Q his important embassy to man. TO 1780. I Lorenzo ! no : on the long destined hour, ^ P’roin everlasting ages growing ripe, 'I'hat memorable hour of wondrous birth, When the Dread Sire, on emanation bent, And big with nature, rising in his might. Called forth creation (for then time was bom) 1 By Godhead streaming through a thousand worlds ; Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven. From old eternity’s mysterious orb i Was time cut off, and cast beneath the skies ; The skies, which watch him in his new abode. Measuring his motions by revolving spheres. That horologe machinery divine. Hours, days, and months, and years, his children play, | Like numerous wings, around him, as ho flies ; Or rather, as unequal plumes, they shape I His ample pinions, swift as darted flame, I To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest, ■ And join anew eternity, his sire : In his immutability to nest. When worlds that count his circles now, unhinged, (Fate the loud signal .sounding) headlong rush To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose But why on time so lavish is my song : ! On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school i To teach her sons herself. Each night we die— Each morn are born anew ; each day a life ; ' And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills. Sure vice must butcher. 0 what heaps of slain Cry out for vengeance on us ! time destroyed Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt. Throw years away ? Throw empires, and be blameless : moments seize ; Heaven’s on their wing: a moment we may wi.sh. When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still, Bid him drive back his car and re-impart The period past, re-give the given hour. Lorenzo ! more than miracles we want. Lorenzo ! 0 for yesterdays to come ! [77t€ Man whose Thoughts are not of this World.'] Some angel guide my pencil, while I draw. What nothing less tluan angel can exceed, A man on earth devoted to the skies ; Like ships in seas, while in, above the world. With aspect mild, and elevated eye. Behold him seated on a mount serene. Above the fogs of sense, and passion’s storm ; All the black cares and tumults of this life. Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet. Excite his pity, not impair his peace. Earth’s genuine sons, the sceptred and the slave, A mingled mob ! a wandering herd ! he sees, j Bewildered in the vale; in all unlike! His full reverse in all ! what higher praise 1 What stronger demonstration of the right? The present .ill their care, the future his. When public welfare calls, or private want. They give to Fame ; his bounty he conceals. Their virtues varnish Nature, his exalt. Mankind’s e.steem they court, and he his own. Theirs the wild chase of fiilse felicities ; His the composed possession of the true. Alike throughout is his consistent peace. All of one colour, and an even thread ; While party-coloured shreds of happiness. With hideous gaps between, patch up for them A madman’s robe ; each puff of Fortune blows The tatters by, and shows their nakedness. He sees with other eyes than theirs : where they i Behold a sun, he spies a Deity. W'hat makes them only smile, makes him adore. Where they see mountains, h" but atoms sees. An empire in his balance weigus a grain. 10 ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD ropjta. lei's. Vliev tliiiij;s terrestrial worship as divine ; I) is hopes, immortal, blow them by ns dust Tliat dims Ids sight, niul shortens his survey, \\ hich longs, in infinite, to lose all bound. Titles and honours (if they prove his fate) He lays aside to find his dignity ; No dignity they find in aught besides. They triumph in externals (which conceal Man’s real glory), proud of an eclipse : Himself too much he prizes to be piroud, .\nd nothing thinks so great in man as man. Too dear he holds his interest to neglect Another’s welfare, or his right invade : Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey. They kindle at the shadow of a wrong ; Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven, Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe. Nought but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace. A covered heart their character defends ; A covered heart denies him half his praise. With nakedness his innocence agrees, Wh lie their broad foliage testifies their fall. Their no-joys end where his full feast begins ; His joys create, theirs murder future bliss. To triumph in existence his alone ; And his alone triumphantly to think His true existence is not yet begun. His glorious course was yesterday complete ; Des ‘U then was welcome, yet life still is sweet. [P; •oerastination.'\ Be wise to-day ; ’tis madness to defer : Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time ; Year after year it steals, till all are fled. And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange ? That ’tis so frequent, this is stranger still. Of man’s miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, ‘ That all men are about to live,’ For ever on the brink of being bom : All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel, and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise ; At least their own ; their future selves applaud ; How excellent that life they ne’er will lead ! Time lodged in their own hands is Folly’s vails ; That lodged in ’^ate’s to wisdom they consign ; The thing they can’t but purpose, they postpone. ’Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool. And scarce in human wisdom to do more. All promise is poor dilatory man. And that through every stage. When young, indeed. In full content we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish. As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty man suspects himself a fool ; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; At fifty chides his infamous delay. Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves ; then dies the same. And why ? because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread: But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air. Soon close ; where past the shaft no trace is found. As from the wing no scar the sky retains. The parted wave no furrow from the keel. So dies in human hearts the thought of death : E’en with the tender tear which nature sheds O’er those we love, we drop it in their grave. \_From the Love of Fame.'] Not all on books their criticism waste; The genius of a dish some justly taste. And eat their way to fame 1 with anxious thought The salmon is refused, the turbot bought. Impatient Art rebukes the sun’s delay. And bids December yield the fruits of May. Their various cares in one great point combine The business of their lives, that is, to dine ; Half of their precious day they give the feast, And to a kind digestion spare the rest. Apicius here, the taster of the town. Feeds twice a-week, to settle their renown. These worthies of the palate guard with care The sacred annals of their bills of fare ; In those choice books their panegyrics read. And scorn the creatures that for hunger feed ; If man, by feeding well, commences great. Much more the worm, to whom that man is meat. Belus with solid glory will be crowned ; He buys no phantom, no vain empty sound. But builds himself a name ; and to be great. Sinks in a quarry an immense estate ; In cost and grandeur Chandos he’ll outdo ; And, Burlington, thy taste is not so true ; The pile is finished, every toil is past. And full perfection is arrived at last ; When lo ! my lord to some small corner runs. And leaves state-rooms to strangers and to duns. The man who builds, and wants wherewith to paf Provides a home, from which to run away. In Britain what is many a lordly seat. But a discharge in full for an estate ? Some for renown on scraps of learning dote. And think they grow immortal as they quote. To patch-work learned quotations are allied ; Both strive tc make our poverty our pride. Let high birth triumph ! what can be more great ? Nothing — but merit in a low estate. To Virtue’s humblest son let none prefer Vice, though descended from the Conqueror. Shall men, like figures, pass for high or base. Slight or important only by their place 2 Titles are marks of honest men, and wise ; The fool or knave that wears a title, lies. They that on glorious ancestors enlarge. Produce their debt instead of their discharge. [The Fmptmese of Riches.'] Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine! Can we dig peace or wisdom from the mine ? Wisdom to gold prefer, for ’tis much less To m.ake our fortune than our happiness : That happiness which great ones often see. With rage and wonder, in a low degree. Themselves unblessed. The poor are only po them to be blest; ’J o see their treasure, hear their glory told, And aid the wretched impotence of gold. Jiut some, great souls 1 and touched with warmth divine, (live gold a jirice, and teach its beams to sbine ; All hoarded treasures they rc])ute a load. Nor think their wealth their own, till well bestowed, (irand reservoirs of public happiness, 'I'hrough secret streams diffusively they bless, And, while their bounties glide, concealed from view, Relieve our wants, and spare our blushes too. JA5IES THOMSON. The publication of the Seasons was an important era in the history of lOnglish poetry’. So true and beautiful are the descriptions in the pocTii, and so entirely do they harmonise with those fresh feelings and glowing impulses w-hich all would wish to cherish, that a love of nature seems to be synony- mous with a love of Thomson. It is difficult to con- ceive a person of education in this country, imbued with an admiration of rural or woodland scenery, not entertaining a strong affection and regard for that delightful poet, who has painted their charms with so much fidelity and enthusiasm. The .same features of blandness and benevolence, of simplicity of design and beauty of form and colour, which we recognise as distinguishing traits of the natural landscape, are seen in the pages of Thomson, con- veyed by his artless mind as faithfully as the lights and shades on the face of creation. No criti- cism or change of style has, therefore, affected his popularity. We may smile at sometimes meeting with a heavy monotonous period, a false ornament, or tnmid expression, the result of an indolent mind working itself up to a great effort, and we may wish the subjects of his description were sometimes more select and dignified ; but this drawback does not affect our permanent regard or general feeling ; our first love remains unaltered ; and Thomson is still the poet with whom some of our best and purest associations are indissolubly joined. In the Seasons we have a poetical subject poetically treated — filled to overliowing with tlie riitliest materials of pcetry, and the emanations of benevolemie. In the Casfle of IniJotence we have the concentration or essence of those materials applied to a subject less poetical, but still affording room for luxuriant fancy’, the most exquisite art, and still gi eater melody of ■ numbers. .James Thomson was born at Ednam, near Kelso, county of Roxburgh, on the 1 1th of September, 1700. | Ills father, who was then minister of the parish of Ednam, removed a few years afterwards to that of Southde.an in the same county, a iirimitive ami j retired district situated among the lower slopes of ^ the Cheviots. Here the young poet sjient his boyish i years. The gift of poesy came early, and some j lines written by him at the age of fourteen, show ' | how soon his manner was formed : — I j Now I .surveyed iny native faculties. And traced my actions to their teeming source : Now I explored the universal frame, (lazed nature through, and with interior light ! Conversed with angels and unbodied saints That tread the courts of the Kternal King I (iladly I would declare in lofty strains The power of Godhead to the sons of men, | Rut thought is lost in its immensity : j Imagination wastes its strength in vain, j And fancy tires and turns within itself, i Struck with the amazing dejiths of Deity ! Ah ! my Lord God ! in vain a tender youth. Unskilled in arts of deep philosophy. Attempts to search the bulky ma.ss of matter. To trace the rules of motion, and pursue The phantom Time, too subtle for his grasp: Yet may I from thy most apparent works Form some idea of their wondrous Author.l In bis eighteenth year, Thomson was sent to Edin- burgh college. His father died, and the poet pro- I ceeded to London to pinsh his fortune. His college j friend Mallet procured him the situation of tutor to I the sou of Lord Binning, and being shown some of his descriptions of ‘ Winter,’ advised him to connect , them into one regular poem. This was done, and ‘Winter’ w’as published in March 1726, the pwet having received only three guineas for the copy- right. A second and a third edition apiieared the same year. ‘Summer’ appeared in 1727. In 1728 he issued proposals for publishing, by subscription, the ‘Four Seasons;’ the number of subscribers, at a guinea each copy, was .387 ; but many took more than one, and Pope (to whom Thomson had been j introduced by Mallet) took three copies. The i tragedy of Sophonisba was ne.xt produced; and in j 1731 tile ])oet accompanied the son of Sir Charles j Talbot, afterwards lord chancellor, in the capacity . of tutor or travelling companion, to the continent. 'They’ visited France. Switzerland, and Italy, and it is easy to conceive with what pleasure Thomson | must have passeil or sojourned among scenes which he had often viewed in imagination. In Noveml'cr I of the same year the poet was at Rome, and no j doubt indulged the wish expressed in one of his j letters, ‘ to see the fields where Virgil gathered his , immortal honey’, and tread the same ground where ! men have thought and acted so greatly’.’ On his n - turn ne.xt year he published his poem of Li/terti/, and i obtained the sinecure situation of Secretary of Briefs l in the Court of Chancery, which he held till the i death of Lord 'Talbot, the cliancellor. The succeeil- ' This curious fragment was first published in 1841, in a lile of Thomson by Mr Allan Cunningham, prefixed to an illua- tratej edition of the ‘ Seasons.’ 12 POETS, ENGLISH LITERATUKE. JAMES THOMSON. inp v-hancellor bostowed the situation on anotlier, 'I'liomson not liaving, it is said, from chnractorisfic iiKlolenco, solicited a continuance of the ofiice. lie again tried the stage, and produced Agamemnon, M-hich M-as coldly received. Edward and Eleonora followc'-i, and tlie poet’s circumstances were bright- ened l y a pension of L 100 a-y ear, which he ob- tained through Lyttelton from the Prince of Wales, lie further received the appointment of Surveyor Ocnciad of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he wa.s allowed to perform by deputy, and which brought him L.300 ]>er annum. lie was now in comparative opulence, and his residence at Kew- lane, near Richmond, was the scene of social enjoy- ment and lettered ease. Retirement and nature becaifie, he said, more and more his passion every day. ‘I have enlarged my rural domain,’ he writes to a friend : ‘the two fields next to me, from the first of which I have walled — no, no — paled in, .about as much .as my garden consisted of before, so that the walk inns round the hedge, where you may figure me w.alking any time of the day, and sometimes at night.’ His house appears to have Thomson’s Cottage. been elegantly furnished ; the sale cat.alogue of his effects, which enumerates the contents of every room, prepared after his death, fills eight pages of print, and his cellar was stocked with wines and Scotch ale. In this snug suburban retreat Thomson now applied himself to finish the ‘ Castle of Indo- lence,’ on which he had been long engaged, and a tragedy on the subject of Coriolanus. The poem was published in lilay 1748. In August following, he took a boat at Hammersmith to convey him to Kew, after having walked from London. He caught cold, was thrown into a fever, and, after a short ill- ness, died (27th of August 1748). No poet was ever more deeply lamented or more sincerely mourned. Though born a poet, Thomson seems to have advanced but .slowly, and by reiterated efforts, to refinement of taste. The n.atural fervour tf the man overpowered the rules of the scholar. The first edition of the ‘ Seasons’ dilfers materially from the second, and the second still more from the third. Every alteration was .an improvement in delicacy of thought and language, of which we may mention one instance. In the scene betwixt Hamon and Musidor.a — ‘the solemnly-ridiculous bathing,’ as Campbell has justly termed it— the poet had origi- nally introduced three damsels! Of propriety of language consequent on these corrections, we may cite an example in a line from the episode of La- vinia— And as he viewed her ardent o’er and o’er, stood originally And as he run her ardent o’er and o’er. One of the finest and most picturesque similes in the work was supplied by Pope, to whom Thomson had given an interleaved copy of the edition of 1736. The quotation will not be out of place here, as it is honourable to the friendship of the brother poets, and tends to show the importance of careful revision, without which no excellence can be attained in literature or the arts. How deeply must it be re- gretted that Pope did not oftener write in blank verse 1 In autumn, describing Lavinia, the lines of Thomson were — Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty’s self, Recluse among the wood.s ; if city dames Will deign their faith : .and thus she went, compelled By strong necessity, with as serene And pleased a look as Patience e’er put on, To glean Palemon’s fields. Pope drew his pen through this description, and supplied the following lines, which Thomson must have been too much gratified with not to adopt with pride and pleasure — and so they stand in all the subsequent editions Thoughtless of bi.uity, she was Beauty’s self. Recluse .among the close-embowering woods. As in the hollow breast of Apennine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills A myrtle rises, far from human eyes. And breathes its balmy fragrance o’er the wild ; So flourished blooming, and unseen by all, The sweet Lavima ; till at length compelled By strong Necessity’s supreme command. With smiling patience in her looks, she went To glean Palemon’s fields.* That the genius of Thom.son wuis purifying and w’orking off its alloys up to the termination of his existence, may be seen from the superiority in style and diction of the ‘Castle of Indolence.’ ‘ Between the period of his composing the Seasons and the C.astie cf Indolence,’ says Mr Cy heaven approved, a conqueror without guilt ; And such on earth his friend, and joined on high By deathless love, Godolphin’s patriot worth. Just to his country’s fame, y'et of her W'ealth With honour frugal ; above interest great. Hail men immortal! social virtues hail! First heirs of praise! But I, with weak essay. Wrong the suj)erior theme ; while heavenly choirs. In strains high warbled to celestial harps. Resound your names ; and Congreve’s added voice In heaven exalts what he admired below. M'ith these he mixes, now no more to swerve From reason’s purest law ; no more to please. Borne by the torrent down a sensual age. Pardon, loved shade, that I with friendly blame. Slight note thy error ; not to wrong thy worth. Or shade thy memory (far from my soul Be that base aim), but haply to deter. From flattering the gross vulgar, future pens Powerful like thine in every grace, and skilled To win the listening soul with virtuous charms. The gentle and benevolent nattire of Thomson Is seen in this slight shade of censure. He, too, flat- tered the ‘ gross vulgar,’ but it was with adulation, not licentiousness. We subjoin a few of the detached pictures and descriptions in the ‘ Seasons,’ and part of the ‘ Castle of Indolence.’ U ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES THOMSON. fOETS. [^Sfioicers tn Sjirhtg.] The north-cast spends his rage ; he now, shut up Within his iron cave, the effusive south \\’anns the wide air, and o’er the void of heaven Brea tiles the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first, a dusky wreath they sccni to rise. Scarce staining either, but by swift degrees, 111 heaps on heaps the doubled vapour sails Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep. Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom ; I Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppre.ssing life ; but lovely, gentle, kind. And full of every hope, of every joy. The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calm, that not a breath Is heard to quiver through the closing woods. Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused In glassy breadth, seem, through delusive lapse. Forgetful of their course. ’Tis silence all. And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense. The plumy people streak their wings with oil. To throw the lucid moisture trickling off. And wait the approaching sign, to strike at once Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales, And forests, seem impatient to demand The promised sweetness. Man superior walks Amid the glad creation, musing praise, And looking lively gratitude. At last. The clouds consign their treasures to the fields, And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow In large effusion o’er the freshened world. The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard By such as wander through the forest-walks. Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves. [StVefs Pairing in Spring.'] To the deep woods They haste away, all as their fancy leads. Pleasure, or food, or secret safety, prompts ; That nature’s great command may be obeyed : Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive Indulged in vain. Some to the holly hedge Nestling repair, and to the thicket some ; Some to the rude protection of the thorn Commit their feeble offspring ; the cleft tree Offers its kind concealment to a few. Their food its insects, and its moss their nests : Others apart, far in the grassy dale Or roughening waste their humble texture weave; But most in woodland solitudes delight. In unfrequented glooms or shaggy banks, Steep, and divided by a babbling brook. Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long day. When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots Of hazel pendent o’er the plaintive stream. They frame the first foundation of their domes. Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid. And bound with clay together. Now ’tis nought But restless hurry through the busy air. Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps The slimy pool, to build his hanging house Intent : and often from the careless back Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills Steal hair and wool ; and oft, when unobserved. Pluck from the bam a straw ; till soft and warm. Clean and complete, their habitation grows. As thus the patient dam assiduous sits. Not to be tempted from her tender task Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight. Thovigh the whole loosened spring around her blows. Her sympathi.sing lover takes his stand High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings The tedious time away ; or else supplies Her place a moment, while she sudden flits To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young. Warmed and expanded into perfect life. Their brittle bondage break, and come to light ; A helple.ss family! demanding food With constant clamour : 0 what passions then. What melting sentiments of kindly care, On the new parent seize ! away they fly Affectionate, and, undesiring, bear The mosit delicious morsel to their young. Which, equally distributed, again The search begins. Even so a gentle pair. By fortune sunk, but formed of generous mould. And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar breast. In some lone cot amid the distant woods. Sustained alone by providential heaven. Oft as they, weeping, eye their infant train. Check their own appetites, and give them all. Nor toil alone they scorn ; exalting love. By the great Father of the spring inspired. Gives instant courage to the fearful race. And to the simple art. AVith stealthy wing. Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest. Amid the neighbouring bush they si. "'nt drop. And whirring thence, as if alarmed, deseive The unfeeling schoolboy. Hence around the head Of wandering swain the white-winged plover wheels Her sounding flight, and then directly on. In long excursion, skims the level lawm To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck hence O’er the rough moss, and o’er the trackless waste The heath-hen flutters : pious fraud ! to lead The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray. [A Summer 3 Io)~ning.'] With quickened step Brown night retires : young day pours in apace. And opens all the laivny pro.spect wide. The dripping rock, the mountain’s misty top Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn. Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine ; And frofn the bladed field the fearful hare Limps awkward ; while along the forest glade The wild-deer trip, and often turning gaze At early passenger. Music awakes The native voice of undisserabled joy ; And thick around the woodland hymns arise. Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells ; And from the crowded fold, in order, drives His flock, to taste the verdure of the mom. [Summer Evening.'] Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees. Just o’er the verge of day. The shifting clouds Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train. In all their pomp attend his setting throne. Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now. As if his weary chariot sought the bowers Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs, (So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb ; Now half immersed ; and now a golden curve Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. * * Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds, All ether softening, sober evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air ; A thousand shadows at her beck. First this 15 FROM 1727 CYCLOP^iniA OF to 17bo, She Rends on earth ; tlicn that of deeper dye Steals soft behind ; and then a deeper still, In circle following circle, gathers round. To close tlie face of things. A fresher gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream. Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn : While the quail clamours for his running mate. Wide o’er the thistly lawn, as swells the lireeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, from field to field the feathered seeds she wings. His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies merry-hearted ; and by turns relieves The ruddy milkmaiitying men, the garden seeks. Urged on by fearless want. Tlie bleating kme Kye the bleak heaven, and next, the glistening earth. With looks of dumb des])air ; then, sad dispersed. Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow. * * As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce All winter drives along the darkened air. In his own loose revolving fields the swain Disastered stands ; sees other hills aseend. Of unknown joyless brow, and other scenes. Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain ; Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild ; but wamlers on From hill to dale, still more and more astray. Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps. Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts of home Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul 1 What black despair, what horror, fills his heart 1 When for the dusky spot which fancy feigned. His tufted cottage rising through the snow. He meets the roughness of the middle waste. Far from the track and blessed abode of man ; While round him night resistless closes fast. And every tempest howling o’er his head. Renders the savage wilderne.ss more wild. Then throng the busy .shapes into his mind. Of covered pits, unfathomably deep, A dire descent ! beyond the power of frost ; Of faithless bogs ; of precipices huge Smoothed up with snow ; and what is land unknoivn. What water of the still unfrozen spring. In the loose marsh or solitary lake. Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. These check his fearful steps, and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift. Thinking o’er all the bitterne.ss of death. Mixed with the tender anguLsh nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man. His wife, his children, and his friends,, unseen. In vain for him the officious wife prepares The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm ; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire With tears of artless innocence. Alas 1 Nor wife nor children more shall he behold. Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve The deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense. And o’er his inmost vitals creeping cold. Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse. Stretched out, and bleaching on the northern blast. [Benevolent Reflections, from ‘ Winter. Ah little think the gay licentious proud. Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround ; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth. And wanton, often cruel, riot waste ; Ah little think they, while they dance along. How many feel, this very na«*s> *nt, death And all the sad variets i* How many sink in tho dev-, ing flood. Or more devouring flame. How many bleed, By shameful variance betwixt man and man. How many pine in want and dungeon glooms ; Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds. How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheerless poverty. How many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind. Unbounileil passion, madness, guilt, remorse; Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life. They furnish matter for the tragic muse. Kveu in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell. With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined. How many, racked with lionest ])assions, droop In deep retired distress. How many stand Around the deathbed of their dearest friends, .And iioint the jiarting anguish. Thought fond mao Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills. That one ince.ssant struggle render life. One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate. Vice in his high career would stand appalled, And heedless rambling impulse learn to think ; The consious heart of charity wouhl warm. And her wide wish benevolence dilate ; The social tear would rise, the social sigh ; And into clear ])erfeetion, gradual bliss. Refining still, the social passions work. Jlymn on the Seasons. These, as they change. Almighty Father, these Are but the varied (iod. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the .softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense anil every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer months. With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks. And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined. And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter awful thou 1 with clouds and storms Around thee thrown, tempest o’er tempest rolled, Majestic darkness ! On the whirlwind’s wing Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore. And humblest nature with thy northern blast. Mysterious round ! what skill, what force divine. Deep-felt, in these appear 1 a simple train Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art. Such beauty and beneficence combined ; Shade unperceived, so softening into shade ; And all .so forming a harmonious whole. That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze, Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; Works in the secret deep ; shoots steaming thence The fair profusion that o’erspreads the spring; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ; Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth. And, as on earth this grateful change revolves. With transport touches all the springs of life. Nature, attend! join, every living soul Beneath the spacious temple of the sky. In adoration join ; and ardent raise One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales. Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes. Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms. Where o’er the rock the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, AVho shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound ; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ; and thou majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice 13 ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES THOMSON. POSTS. Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fall. So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers. In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts. Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints, i Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him ; Breathe your still song into the reaper’s heart, As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. V e that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams ; Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. Great source of day! blest image here below 01 thy Creator, ever pouring wide. From world to world, the vital ocean round, On nature write with everj'beam His praise. The thunder rolls : be hushed the prostrate world. While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. Bleat out afresh ye hills ; ye mossy rocks Retain the sound ; the broad responsive low. Ye valleys, raise ; for the Great Shepherd reigns. And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands, all awake; a boundless song I Burst from the groves ; and when the restless day, I Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, I Sweetest of birds ! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles ; At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all, Crown the great hymn ! in swarming cities vast. Assembled men to the deep organ join The long res Minding voice, oft breaking clear. At solemn pauses, through the swelling base ; And, as each mingling flame increases each. In one united ardour rise to heaven. Or if you rather choose the rural shade. And find a fane in every sacred grove. There let the shepherd’s lute, the virgin’s lay. The prompting seraph, and the poet’s lyre. Still sing the God of seasons as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme. Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams. Or Winter rises in the blackening east — Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more. And, dead to joy, forget my h^rt to beat. Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes. Rivers unknown to song ; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles, ’tis nought to me ; Since God is ever present, ever felt. In the void waste as in the city full ; And where He vital breathes, there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come. And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful w'ill obey ; there with new powers. Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go Where universal love not smiles around. Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; From seeming evil still educing good. And better thence again, and better still. In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in Him, in light ineffable ! Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise. [The Caravan of Mecca.'] Breathed hot From all the boundless furnace of the sky, I And the wide glittering waste of burning sand, I A suflbeating wind the pilgrim smites With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, I Son of the desert ! e’en the camel feels, i Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast. ! Or from the black -red ether, bursting broad, Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands Comraoved around, in gathering eddies play; Nearer and nearer still they darkening come. Till with the general all-involving storm Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise ; And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown. Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep. Beneath descending hills, the caravan Is buried deep. In Cairo’s .crowded streets The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain, And Mecca saddens at the long delay. [The Siba-ian Exile.] Our infant winter sinks Divested of his grandeur, should our eye Astonished shoot into the frigid zone ; Where for relentless months continual night Holds o’er the glittering waste her starry reign. There, through the prison of unbounded wilds. Barred by the hand of nature from escape. Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around Strikes his sad eye, bat deserts lost in snow ; And heavy-loaded groves ; and solid floods That stretch athwart the solitary waste Their icy horrors to the frozen main ; And cheerless towns far distant, never blessed Save when its annual course the caravan Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay. [Pestilence at Carthagena.] Wasteful, forth Walks the dire power of pestilent disease. A thousand hideous fiends her course attend. Sick nature blasting, and to heartless wo And feeble desolation casting down The towering hopes and all the pride of man. Such as of late at Carthagena quenched The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw The miserable scene ; you, pitying, saw To infant weakness sunk the warrior’s arm ; Saw the deep racking pang, the ghastly form. The lip pale quivering, and the beamless eye No more with ardour bright ; you heard the groans Of agonising ships, from shore to shore ; Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves. The frequent corse ; while on each other fixed In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed Silent to ask whom Fate would next demand. [From the ‘ Castle of Indolence.’’] 0 mortal man, who livest here by toil. Do not complain of this thy hard estate ; That like an emmet thou must ever moil. Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; And, certes, there is for it reason great ; For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and waii, And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come a heavier bale. Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale. In lowly dale, fast by a river’s side. With woody hill o’er hill encompassed round, A most enchanting wizard did abide. Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground : And there a season atween June and May, Half pranked with spring, with summer half im- browned, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say. No living wight could work, ne cared even for play. Was nought around but images of rest : Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ; And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest. From poppies breathed ; and beds of pleasant green, 19 I PROM 1727 CYCLOP7KDIA OF to 178o. Where never ^et wa» creeping :reature seen. Meantime unnumbered glitteringstreamlets played, And hurled cverywliere tlieir waters sheen ; That, as they bickered through the sunny giaQe, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made. .Joined to the prattle of the purling rills. Were heard the lowinff herds along the vale. And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, And vacant shei)herds jiiping in the dale : And now and then sweet Philomel would wail. Or stock -doves ’plain amid the forest deep. That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale ; And still a coil the grasshopper diil keep ; Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep. Full in the passage of the vale above, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood. Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move. As Idlesse fancied in her dreaming mood: And up the hills, on either s-de, a wood Of blackening pines, aye w.s ving to and fro. Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood ; And where this valley winded out below. The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow. A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was. Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye : And of gay castles in the clouds that pass. For ever flushing round a summer sky : There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast. And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh ; But whate’er smacked of noyance or unrest, W’as far, far off expelled from this delicious nest. The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease. Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close hid his castle mid embowering trees. That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright. And made a kind of checkered day and night. Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate. Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was placed ; and to his lute, of cruel fate. And labour harsh, complained, lamenting man’s estate. Thither continual pilgrims crowded still. From all the roads of earth that pass there by ; For, as they chanced to breathe on neighbouring hill. The freshness of this valley smote their eye. And drew them ever and anon more nigh ; Till clustering round the enchanter false they hung, Y molten with his syren melody ; While o’er the enfeebling lute his hand he flung. And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung : ‘ Behold ! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold ! See all but man with unearned pleasure gay : See her bright robes the butterfly unfold. Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of Jlay ! W’hat youthful bride can equal her array ? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie ? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray. From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly. Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky. Behold the merry minstrels of the mom. The swarming songsters of the careless grove. Ten thousand throats ! that from the flowering thorn. Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love. Such grateful kindly raptures them emove : They neither plough, nor sow ; ne, fit for flail. E’er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove ; Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale. Outcast of nature, man! the wretched thrall Of bitter dropping sweat, of sweltry pain. Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall. And of the vices, an inhuman train. That all proceed from savage thirst of gain : For when hard-hearted Interest first began To poison earth, Astroea left the plain ; Guile, violence, and murder, seized on man. And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran ! Come, ye who still the cumbrous load of life Push hard up hill ; but as the farthest steep You trust to gain, and put an end to strife, Down thunders back the stone with mighty sw -ep. And hurls your labours to the valleys deep, For ever vain ; come, and, withouten fee, I in oblivion will your sorrows steep. Your cares, your toils, will steep you in a sea Of full delight : oh come, ye weary wights, to mel With me, you need not rise at early dawn. To pass the joyless day in various stounds ; Or, looting low, on upstart fortune fawn. And sell fair honour for some paltry pounds ; Or through the city take your dirty rounds. To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay. Now flattering base, nojv giving secret wounds : Or prowl in human courts of law for human prey. In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway. No cocks, with me, to rustic labour call. From village on to village sounding clear : To tardy swain no shrill-voiced matrons squall ; No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear ; No hammers thump ; no horrid blacksmith fear; No noisy tradesmen your sweet slumbers start. With soun.ds that are a misery to hear: But all is calm, as would delight the heart Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art. Here nought but candour reigns, indulgent ease. Good-natured lounging, sauntering up and down : They who are pleased themselves must always please; On others’ ways they never squint a frown. Nor heed what haps in hamlet or in town : Thus, from the source of tender indolence. With milky blood the heart is overflown, Is soothed and sweetened by the social sense , For interest, envy, pride, and strife, are banished hence What, what is virtue, but re])ose of mind, A pure ethereal ealm, that knows no storm ; Above the reach of wild ambition’s wind. Above the passions that this world deform. And torture man, a proud malignant worm ? But here, instead, soft gales of passion play. And gently stir the heart, thereby to form A quicker sense of joy ; as breezes stray Across the enlivened skies, and make them still more gay- The best of men have ever loved repose : They hate to mingle in the filthy fray ; Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows, Imbittered more from peevish day to day. Even those whom Fame has lent her fairest I'ay, The most renowned of wortliy wights of yore. From a base world at last have stolen away : So Scipio, to the soft Cumajan shore Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before. But if a little exercise you choose. Some zest for ease, ’tis not forbidden here. Amid the groves you may indulge tlie muse, Or tend the blooms, and deck the venial year ; Or softly stealing, with your watery gear. Along the brook, the crimson-spotted fry You may delude ; the whilst, amused, you hear Now the hoarse stream, and now the zephyr’s sigh, Attuned to the birds, and woodland melody. 20 ENGLI8II LITERATURE. POETS. Oh, grievous folly ! to heap up estate, Losing the clays you see beneath the sun ; When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate. And gives the entasted portion you have won. With ruthless i.'il, and many a wretch undone, To those who mock you gone to Pluto’s reign. There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun : l!ut sure it is of vanities most vain. To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain.’ He ceased. But still their trembling ears retained 1 he deep vibrations of his ’witching song ; That, by a kind of magic power, constrained To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng. Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped along, In silent ease ; as when beneath the beam Of summer-moons, the distant woods among. Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam, The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream. * * * Waked by the crowd, slow from his bench arose A comely full-spread porter, swollen with sleep ; His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breathed repose ; And in sweet torpor he was plunged deep, Ne could himself from ceaseless yawning keep; While o’er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran. Through which his half-tvaked soul would faintly peep. Then taking his black staff, he called his man. And roused himself as much as rouse himself he can. The lad leaped lightly at his master’s call. He was, to weet, a little roguish page. Save sleep and play who minded nought at all. Like most the untaught striplings of his age. This boy he kept each band to disengage. Garters and buckles, task for him unfit. But ill-becoming his grave personage, And which his portly paunch would not permit. So this same limber page to all performed it. Meantime the master-porter wide displayed Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns ; Wherewith he those that entered in, arrayed Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs. And waves the summer-woods when evening fro\vns. Oh fair undress, best dress ! it checks no vein. But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns. And heightens ease with grace. This done, right fain Sir porter sat him down, and turned to sleep again. # ♦ * Strait of these endless numbers, swarming round. As thick as idle motes in sunny ray. Not one eftsoons in view was to be found. But every man strolled off his own glad way. Wide o’er this ample court’s blank area. With all the lodges that thereto pertained ; No living creature could be seen to stray ; While solitude and perfect silence reigned ; So that to think you dreamt you almost was constrained. As when a shepherd of the Hebrid isles. Placed far amid the melancholy main (Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles. Or that aerial beings sometimes deign To stand embodied to our senses plain), Sees on the naked hill, or valley low. The whilst in ocean Phoebus dips his wain, A vast assembly moving to and fro ; Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show. * « • The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell, Ne cursed knocker plied by villain’s hand. Self-opened into halls, where, who can tell What elegance and grandeur wide expand. JAMES THOMSON The pride of Turkey and of Persia land 1 Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread. And coiiches stretched around in seemly band ; And endless pillows rise to prop the head ; So that each spacious room was one full-swelling bed. And everywhere huge covered tables stood, With wines high flavoured and rich viands ctowned ; Whatever sprightly juice or tasteful food On the green bosom of this earth are found. And all old ocean genders in his round , Some hand unseen these silently displayed. Even undemanded by a sign or sound ; You need but wish, and, instantly obeyed. Fair ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses played. The rooms with costly tapestry were hung. Where was inwoven many a gentle tale; Such as of old the rural poets sung. Or of Arcadian or Sicilian vale: Reclining lovers, in the lonely dale. Poured forth at large the sweetly-tortured heart ; Or, sighing tender passion, swelled the gale, And taught charmed echo to resound their smart ; While flocks, woods, streams, around, repose and peace impart. Those pleased the most, where, by a cunu.ng hand, Depainted was the patriarchal age ; ^Vhat time Dan Abraham left the Chaldee land. And pastured on from verdant stage to stage, Where fields and fountains fresh could best engage. Toil was not then. Of nothing took they heed. But with wild beasts the sylvan war to wage. And o’er vast plains their herds and flocks to feed ; Blest sons of nature they! true golden age indeed ! Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls. Bade the gay bloom of vernal landscapes rise. Or autumn’s varied shades imbrown the walls ; Now the black tempest strikes the astonished eyes. Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies ; The trembling sun now plays o’er ocean blue. And now rude mountains frown amid the skies ; Whate’er Lorraine light-touched with softening hue. Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew. A certain music, never known before. Here lulled the pensive melancholy mind. Full easily obtained. Behoves no more. But sidelong, to the gently-waving wind. To lay the well-tuned instrument reclined ; From which with airy flying fingers light. Beyond each mortal touch the most refined. The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight , Whence, with just cause, the harp of jEoIus it hight. Ah me ! what hand can touch the string so fine ? Who up the lofty diapason roll Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine. Then let them down again into the soul 1 Now rising love they fanned ; now' pleasing dole They breathed, in tender musings, through the heart ; And now a graver sacred strain they stole. As w'hen seraphic hands a hymn impart : Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art! Such the gay splendour, the luxurious state Of Caliphs old, who on the Tigris’ shore. In mighty Bagdad, populous and great. Held their bright court, where was of ladies stoic , And verse, love, music, still the garland wore ; When sleep was coy, the bard in waiting there Cheered the lone midnight with the muse’s lore- Composing music bade his dreams be fair. And music lent new gladness to the morning air. 21 FROM 17‘27 CYCLOPEDIA OF to wdu. Near the jMivilionH where we Hlept, Btill ran Soft tinklinj' streams, and dashing waters fell, And sobbing breezes sighed, and oft began (So worked the wizard) wintry storms to swell. As heaven and earth they would together inell ; At doors and windows threatening seemed to call The demons of the tempest, growling fell. Yet the least entrance found they none at all ; Whenee sweeter grew our sleep, seeure in massy hall. And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams. Raising a world of gayer tinct and graee ; O’er whicli wore shadowy cast Elysian gleams, That j)layed in waving lights, from place to place. And shed a roseate smile on nature’s face. Not Titian’s pencil e’er could so array. So fierce with clouds, the ()ure etliereal space ; Ne could it e’er such melting forms display, As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay. No, fair illusions! artful phantoms, no! My muse will not attempt your fairy land ; She has no colonrs that like you can glow; To catch your vivid scenes too gross her hand. But sure it is, was ne’er a subtler band Than these same guileful angel-seeming sprights. Who thus in dreams voluptuous, soft, and bland. Poured all the Arabian heaven upon our nights. And blessed them oft besides with more refined delights. They were, in sooth, a most enchanting train. Even feigning virtue; skilful to unite With evil good, and strew with pleasure pain. But for those fiends whom blood and broils delight. Who hurl the wretch, as if to hell outright, Down, down black gulfs, where sullen waters sleep ; Or hold him clambering all the fearful night On beetling cliffs, or pent in ruins deep ; They, till due time should serve, were bid far hence Vff to keep. Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear. From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom ; Angels of fancy and of love be near. And o’er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom ; Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, And let them virtue with a look impart : But chief, awhile, oh lend us from the tomb Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart. And fill with pious awe and joy-mixt wo the heart. Ride Britannia. When Britain first at Heaven’s command, Arose from out the azure main. This was the charter of the land. And guardian angels sung the strain : Rule Britannia, Brit.annia rules the waves ! Britons never shall be slaves. The nations not so blest as thee. Must in their turn to tyrants fall. Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free. The dread and envy of them all. Rule Britannia, &c. • Still more majestic shalt thou rise, ^lore dreadful from each foreign stroke ; As the loud blast that tears the skies. Serves but to root thy native oak. Rule Britannia, &c. Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame. And work their wo and thy renovm. Rule Brita inia, &c. To thee belongs the rural reign ; Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All shall be subject to the main. And every shore it circles thine. Rule Britannia, &c. | The muses, still with freedom found. Shall to thy happy coast rej)air ; Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned. And manly hearts to guard the fair. Rule Britannia, Ac. JOHN DYER. John Dver, a picturesque and moral poet, was a native of Wales, being born at Aberglasslyn, Car- , marthenshire, in 1700. His father was a solicitor, and intended his son for the same profession. The latter, however, had a taste for the fine arts, and rambled over his native country, filling his mind with a love of nature, and his portfolio with sketches of her most beautiful and striking objects. The sister art of poetry also claimed his reg.ard, and during his excursions he wrote Grongar Hill, the | production on which his fame rests, and where it j rests securely. Dyer next made a tour to Italy, to | study painting. He does not seem to have excelled | as an artist, though he was an able sketcher. On his return in 1740, he published another poem. The , Ruins of Rome, in blank verse. One short passage, ■ often quoted, is conceived, as Johnson remarks, j ‘ with the mind of a poet :’ — ■ The pilgrim oft At dead of night, ’mid his orison, hears. Aghast, the voice of time, disparting towers. Tumbling all precipitate down dashed. Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon. Seeing, probably, that he had little chance of sue- 1 ceeding as an artist. Dyer entered the church, and obtained successively the livings of Calthrop, in Lei- j cestershire, of Conningsby, in Huntingdonshire, and , of Belchford and Kirkby, in Lincolnsliire. He pub- i lished in 1757 his longest poetical work. The Fleece, j devoted to The care of sheep, the labours of the loom. j The subject was not a happy one. How can a man | write poetically, as was remarked by Johnson, of i serges and druggets? One critic asked Dodsley i how old the author of ‘ The Fleece’ was ; and learn- I ing that he was in advanced life, ‘ He '•ill,’ said the I critic, ‘ be buried in woollen.’ The yoet did not | long survive the publication, for he died next year, on the 24th of July 1758. The poetical j)icturcs of j Dyer are happy miniatures of nature, correctly | j drawn, beautifully coloured, and grouped with the i i taste of an artist. His moral reflections arise na- 1 1 tnrally out of his subject, and are never intrusiva i ; All bear evidence of a kind and gentle heart, and a [ ] true poetical fancy. | , Grongar IlilL Silent nymph, with curious eye. Who, the purple evening, lie On the mountain’s lonely van. Beyond the noise of busy man ; Painting fair the form of things. While the yellow linnet sings ; Or the tuneful nightingale | Charms the forest with her tale ; ' Come, with all thy various hues. Come, and aid thy sister Muse ; Now, while Phoebus, riding high. Gives lustre to the land and sky! 23 fOETO. ENGLISH LITERATURE. joiin dter. Gron^ar Hill invites my song. A little rule, a little sway. Draw the tamlscui)e bright and strong ; A sunbeam in a winter’s day. Grongar, in whose mossy cells, la all the proud and mighty have Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells ; Between the cradle and the grave. Grongar, in whose silent shade, And see the rivers, how they run Koi the modest Muses made; Through woods and meads, in shade and SUllf So oft 1 have, the evening still. Sometimes swift, sometimes slow. At the fountain of a rill. Wave succeeding wave, they go SaLupou a flowery bed. A various journey to the deep. With my hand beneath my head ; Like human life, to endless sleep 1 While strayed my eves o’er Towy’s flood, Thus is nature’s vesture wrought. Over mead, and over wood, To instruct our wandering thought ; From house to house, from hill to hill. Thus she dresses green and gay. Till contemplation had her till. To disperse our cares away. About his chequered sides I wind. Ever charming, ever new. And leave his brooks and meads behind. When will the landscape tire the view 1 And groves, and grottos where 1 lay. The fountain’s fall, the river’s flow. And vistas shooting beams of day : The woody valleys, w-arm and low ; Wide and wider spreads tin? vale. The windy summit, wild and high. As eiroles on a smooth canal : Roughly rushing on the sky ! Th • mountains round, unhappy fate. The pleasant seat, the ruined tower. Sooner or later, of all height. The naked rock, the shady bower ; Withdraw their summits- from the skies, The town and village, dome and farm, And lessen as the others rise : Each give each a ilouble charm. Still the prosiieet wider spreads. As pearls upon an jUthiop’s arm. Adds a thousand woods and meads ; See, on the mountain’s southern side. Still it widens, widens still. Where the prospect opens wide. And sinks the newly-risen hill. Where the evening gilds the tide. Now I gain the mountain’s brow. How close and small the hedges lie ! What a landscape lies below ! What streaks of meadows cross the eye 1 No clouds, no vapours intervene. A step, methinks, may pass the stream. But the gay, the open scene. So little distant dangei-s seem ; Does the face of nature show. So we mistake the future’s face. In all the hues of heaven’s bow ; Eyed through hope’s deluding glass ; And, swelling to embrace the light. As yon summits soft and fair. Spreads around beneath the sight. Clad ill colours of the air. Old castles on the cliffs arise. Which to those who journey near. Proudly towering in the skies ! Bai-ren, Irown, and rough appear; Rushing from the woods, the spires Still we tread the same coarse way. Seem from hence ascending fires ! The present’s still a cloudy day* Half his beams Apollo sheds 0 may I with myself agree. On the yellow mountain heads ! And never covet what I see ! Gilds the fleeces of the flocks. Content me with a humble shade. And glitters on the broken rocks ! My passions tamed, my wishes laid ; Below me trees unnumbered rise, For while our wishes wildly roll. Beautiful in various dyes : We banish quiet from the soul : The gloomy pine, the poplar blue. ’Tis thus the busy beat the air. The yellow beech, the sable yew. And misers gather wealth and care. The slender fir, that taper grows. Now, even now, my joys run high. The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs. As on the mountain turf I lie ; And beyond the purple grove. While the wanton zephyr sings. Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love ! And in the vale perfumes his wings ; Gaudy as the opening dawn. While the waters murmur deep. Lies a long and level la/''n. While the shepherd charms his sheep. On which a dark hill, steep and high. While the birds unbounded fly. Holds and charms the wandering eye ! And with music fills the sky. Deep are his feet in Towy’s flood. Now, even now% my joys run high. His sides are clothed with waving wood, * Be full, ye courts ; be great who will And ancient towers crown his brow. Search for peace with all your skill; That cast an awful look below ; Open wide the lofty door; W'hose ragged walls the ivy creeps. Seek her on the marble floor : .And with her arms from falling keeps : In vain you search, she is not there; So both a safety from the wind In vain you search the domes of care ! On mutual dependence find. Tis now the raven’s bleak abode ; Grass and flowers Quiet treads. On the meads and mountain heads. 'Tis now the apartment of the toad ; Along with Pleasure close allied. And there the fox securely feeds. Ever by each other’s side : And there the poisonous adder breeds. And often, by the murmuring rill. Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds ; Hears the thrush, while all is still. While, ever and anon, there falls Huge heaps of hoary mouldered walls. Yet time has seen, that lifts the low, Within the groves of Grongar Hill. ♦ Byron thought the lines here printed in Italics the original And level lays the lofty brow. of Campbell’s far-famed lines at the opening of ‘ The riea* Has seen this broken pile complete. gures of Hope — Big with the vanity of state ; But transient is tne smile of fate ! * *Tis distance lends enchantment to the view And robes the mountain in its azure hofr’ 2S FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1/80, ■WILLIAM HAMILTON. W iLLiAM Hamilton of Bangonr, a Scottish gentle- man of education, rank, and accomplisliments, was horn of an ancient family in Ayrsliire in 1704. He was the delight of the fashionahle circles of his native country, and became early distinguished for his poetical talents. In 174.1, struck, we ni.ay sup- pose, with the romance of tlie enterprise, Hamilton joined the standard of Prince Charles, and became the ‘volunteer laureate’ of the Jacobites, by cele- brating the battle of Gladsmuir. On the discomfi- ture of the party, Hamilton succeedetl in effecting his escape to France; but having many friends and admirers among the royalists at home, a pardon was procured for the rebellions poet, and he was soon restored to his native country and his p.aternal estate. He did not, however, live long to enjoy his good fortune. His health had always been delicate, and a pulmonary complaint forced him to seek the warmer climate of the continent. He gradually declined, and died at Lyons in 1754. Hamilton’s first and best strains were dedicated to lyrical poetry. Before he was twenty, he had assisted Allan llamsay in his ‘ Tea-Table Miscellany.’ In 1748, some person, unknown to him, collected and published his poems in Glasgow ; bat the first genuine and correct coi>y did not appear till after the author’s death, in 1760, when a collection was made from his own manuscripts. The most attrac- tive feature in his works is his pure English style, and a somewhat ornate poetical diction. He had more fancy than feeling, and in this respect his amatory songs resemble those of the courtier poets of Charles H.’s court. Nor was he more sincere, if we may credit an anecdote related of him by Alex- ander Tytler in his life of Henry Home, Lord Kanies. One of the ladies whom Hamilton annoyed by his perpetual compliments and solicitations, consulted Home how she should get rid of the poet, who she was convinced had no serious object in view. The philosopher advised her to dance with him, and show him every mark of her kindness, as if she had re- solved to favour his suit. The lady adopted the counsel, and the success of the experiment was com- plete. Hamilton wrote a serious poem, entitled Con- templation, and a national one on the Thistle, which is in blank verse : — How oft beneath Its martial influence have Scotia’s sons, Through every age, with dauntless valour fought On every hostile ground ! While o’er their breast, Companion to the silver star, blest type Of fame, unsullied and superior deed. Distinguished ornament ! this native plant Surrounds the sainted cross, with costly row Of gems emblazed, and flame of radiant gold, \ sacred mark, their glory and their pride ! Professor Richardson of Glasgow (who wrote a critique on Hamilton in the ‘ Lounger’) quotes the following as a favourable specimen of his poetical powers : — In everlasting blushes seen. Such Pringle shines, of sprightly mien ; To her the power of love imparts. Rich gift ! the soft successful arts. That best the lover’s fire provoke. The lively step, the mirthful joke. The speaking glance, the amorous wile. The sportful laugh, the winning smile. Her aottl awakening erery grace. Is all abroad vrpon her face ; In bloom of youth still to survive, Ml charms are there, and all alive. Others of his am.atory strains are full of quaint conceits and exaggerated expressions, without any trace of real passion. His ballad of 77/e Braes of Yarrow is by far the finest of his effusions ; it has real nature, tenderness, and pastoral simplicity. As the cause of the composition of Wordsworth’s three Ireautiful poems, ‘ Yarrow Unvisited,’ ‘ Yarrow Visited,’ and ‘ Yarrow Revisited,’ it has, moreover, some external importance in the records of British literature. The i>oet of the lakes has copied some of its lines and images. The Brats of Yarrow. A. Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow 1 Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride. And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow. B. Where gat ye that bonny bonny bride ? Wliere gat ye that winsome marrow ? A. I gat her where I darena weil be seen, Pouing the birks on the Braes of Y arruw. Weep not, weep not, my bonny bonny bride. Weep not, weep not, my winsome marrow! Nor let thy heart lament to leave Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow. B. Why does she weep, thy bonny bonny bride? Why does she weep, thy winsome marrow ? And why dare ye nae mair weil be seen, Pouing the birks on the Braes of Y arrow ? A. Lang maun she weep, lang maun she, maun sb« weep, Lang maun she weep with dule and sorrow. And lang maun I nae mair weil be seen Pouing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow. For she has tint her lover lover dear. Her lover dear, the cause of sorrow. And I hae slain the comeliest swain That e’er poued birks on the Braes of Yarrow. Why runs thy stream, 0 Yarrow, Yarrow, red ? \l’hy on thy braes heard the voice of sorrow ? And why yon melancholious weeds Hung on the bonny birks of Yarrow ! What’s yonder floats on the rueful rueful flude? What’s yonder floats ? 0 dule and sorrow ! ’Tis he, the comely swain I slew Upon the duleful Braes of Yarrow. Wash, oh wash his wounds his wounds in tears. His wounds in tears with dule and sorrow. And wrap his limbs in mourning weeds. And lay him on the Braes of Yarrow. Then build, then build, ye sisters sisters sad. Ye sisters sad, his tomb with sorrow. And weep around in waeful wise. His helpless fate on the Braes of Yarrow. Curse ye, curse ye, his useless useless shield. My arm that wrought the deed of sorrow, The fatal spear that i/ierced his breast. His comely breast, on the Braes of Yarrow. Did I not warn thee not to lue. And warn from fight, but to my sorrow ; O’er rashly bauld a stronger arm Thou met’st, ami fell on the Braes of Yarrow. Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows u.r [ grass, \ Y ellow on Y arrow bank the gowan, '■ Fair hangs the apple frae the rock. Sweet the wave of YaiTow flowan. 124 roKTS. ENGLISH LITl'NiATUHE. william Hi.MILro^. riowa Yarrow sweet! as sweet, as sweet flows Tweed, As green its grass, its gowan as yellow, As sweet smells on its braes the birk, The apple frae the rock aa mellow. Fair was thy love, fair fair indeed thy love, In flowery bands thou him didst fetter; Tliougli he was fair and rveil beloved again, Than me he never lued thee better. Busk ye, then busk, my bonny bonny bride. Busk ye, busk ye, ray winsome marrow. Busk ye, and lue me on the banks of Tweed, And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow. C. How can I busk a bonny bonny bride, How can I busk a winsome marrow. How lue him on the banks of Tweed, That slew my love on the Braes of Yarrow. 0 Y arrow fields ! may never never rain. Nor dew thy tender blossoms cover, For there was basely slain my love. My love, as he had not been a lover. The boy put on his robes, his robes of green. His purple vest, ’twas my ain sewing. Ah! wretched me! I little little kenned He was in these to meet his ruin. The bey took out his milk-white milk-white steed. Unheedful of my dule and sorrow. But e’er the to-fall of the night He lay a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow. Much I rejoiced that waeful waeful day ; I sang, my voice the woods returning, But lang ere night the spear was flown That slew my love, and left me mourning. What can my barbarous barbarous father do. But with his cruel rage pursue me? My lover’s blood is on thy spear. How canst thou, barbarous man, then woo me ! My happy sisters may be may be proud ; With cruel and ungentle scofEn, May bid me seek on Yarrow Braes My lover nailed in his coffin. My brother Douglas may upbraid, upbraid, And strive with threatening words to move me. My lover’s blood is on thy spear. How canst thou ever bid me love thee ? Y'es, yes, prepare the bed, the bed of love. With bridal sheets ray body cover. Unbar, ye bridal maids, the door. Let in the expected husband lover. But who the expected husband husband is 1 His hands, methinks, are bathed in slaughter. Ah me ! what ghastly spectre’s yon. Comes, in his pale shroud, bleeding after ? Pale as he is, here lay him lay him doivn, 0 lay his cold head on my pillow ; Take aff take aff these bridal weeds. And crown my careful head with willow. Pale though thou art, yet best yet best beloved, 0 could my warmth to life restore thee 1 Ye’d lie all night between my breasts, No youth lay ever there before thee. Pale pale, indeed, 0 lovely lovely youth. Forgive, forgive so foul a slaughter, And lie all night between my breasts. No youth shall ever lie there after. A. Return, return, 0 mournful mournful bride, Return and dry thy useless sorrow : Thy lover heeds nought of thy sighs. He lies a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow, Song, Y’e shepherds of this pleasant vale. Where Yarrow streams along. Forsake your rural toils, and join In my triumphant song. She grants, she yields ; one heavenly smile Atones her long delays. One happy minute crowns the pains Of many suffering days. Raise, raise the victor notes of joy. These suffering days are o’er ; Love satiates now his boundless wish From beauty’s boundless store: No doubtful hopes, no anxious fears. This rising calm destroy ; Now every prospect smiles around. All opening into joy. The sun with double lustre shone That dear consenting hour. Brightened each hill, and o’er each vale New coloured every flower: The gales their gentle sighs withheld, No leaf was seen to move. The hovering songsters round were mute^ And w'onder hushed the grove. The hills and dales no more resound The lambkin’s tender cry ; Without one murmur Yarrow stole In dimpling silence by : All nature seemed in still repose Her voice alone to hear. That gently rolled the tuneful wave. She spoke and blessed my ear. Take, take whate’er of bliss or jo> Y ou fondly fancy mine ; Whate’er of joy or bliss I boast. Love renders wholly thine : The woods struck up to the soft gaie, The leaves were seen to move. The feathered choir resumed thel vo:-«, And wonder filled the grove ; The hills and dales again resound The lambkins’ tender cry. With all his murmurs Y arrow trilled The song of triumph by ; Above, beneath, around, all on Was verdure, beauty, song ; I snatched her to my trembling breast. All nature joyed along. Song. Ah, the poor shepherd’s mournful fate. When doomed to love and doomed to languish, To bear the scornful fair one’s hate. Nor dare disclose his anguish I Yet eager looks and dying sighs My secret soul discover, While rapture, trembling through mine eyes. Reveals how much I love her. The tender glance, the reddening cheek, O’erspread with rising blushes, A thousand various ways they speak A thousand various wishes. For, oh ! that form so heavenly fair. Those languid eyes so sweetly smiling. That artless blush and modest air. So fatally beguiling ; r FROM 1727 CYCLOPiEDIA OF «> 1/rogress his passport was talent and virtue ; and when the royal countenance and favour were at length extended to him, it was but a ratification by the sovereign of the wishes and opi- nions entertained by the best and wisest of the nation. Johnson was born at Lichfield, September 18 1709. His father was a bookseller, and in circum- stances th.at enabled him to give his son a good edu- cation. In his nineteenth year he was placed at Pem- fitiwit Scene in Lichfield, lachuling the hirfhplace of Johnson 'bcinj; the under p.irt of the lighted side on the right hand side of the picture. 1 the large houw ENGLISH LITERATURE. FORTS. nroke coUeffe, Oxford. ^lisfortunes in trade liappened to tlie elder Johnson, and Samuel was compelled t' leave the university without a degree, lie was Dr Johnson’s Room in Pembroke College, a short time usher in a school at Market Bosworth ; but marrying a widow, Mrs Porter (whose age was double his own), he set up a private academy near his native city. He had only three pupils, one of whom was David Garrick. After an unsuccess- ful career of a year and a-half, Johnson went to London, accompanied by Garrick, lie now com- menced author by profession, contributing essays, reviews, &c., to the Gentleman’s Magazine. In 1738 appeared his London, a satire-, in 1744 his ■ Life of Savage; in 1749 The Vanitij of Human Wishes, an imitation of Juvenal’s tenth Satire, and the tragedy of Irene; in 1750-52 the Rambler, pub- lished in numbers; in 1755 his Dictionary of the English Language, which had engaged him above seven years ; in 1758-60 the Idler, another series of essays; in 1759 Rasselas; in 1775 the Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland; and in 1781 the Lives of the Poets. Tlie high chnrch and Tory pre- dilections of Johnson led him to embark on the troubled sea of party politics, and he wrote some vigorous pamphlets in defence of the ministry and against the claims of the Americans. His degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him first by Trinity college, Dublin, and afterwards by the university of Oxford. His majesty, in 1762, settled upon him an annuity of £300 per annum. Johnson died on the 13th of December 1784. As an illustration of Johnson’s character, and in- cidentally of his prose style, -we subjoin his cele- I brated letter to Lord Chesterfield. The courtly nobleman had made great professions to the retired scholar, but afterwards neglected him for some years. When his ‘Dictionary’ was on the eve of publica- I tion, Chesterfield (hoping the work might be dedi- cated to him) attempted to concilia’e the aiitlior by I I writing two papers in the periodical called ‘ The j World,’ in recommendation of the work. Johnson thought all was ‘ false and hollow,’ and penned his indignant letter. He did Chesterfield injustice in the affair, as from a collation of the facts and cir- cumstances is now apparent ; but as a keen and dignified expression of wounded pride and surly Independence, the composition is inimitable : — DR SAMUKL JOHNSON. rcbi'uary 7, I7M. My Lord — I have been lately informed by tli'e proprietor of the ‘World,’ that two papers, in which iny ‘ Dictionary’ is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your aid rival monarchs give the fatal wound. Or hostile millions press him to the ground 1 His fall was destined to a barren strand, A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; He left the name, at which the world grew pale. To point a moral, or adorn a tale.* All times their scenes of pompous woes afford. From Persia’s tyrant, to Bavaria’s lord. In gay hostility and barbarous pride. With half mankind embattled at his side. Great Xerxes came to seize the certain prey, And starves exhausted regions in his way ; Attendant flattery counts his myriads o’er, Till counted myriads soothe his pride no more ; Fresh praise is tried till madness fires the mind. The waves he lashes, and enchains the wind ; New powers are claimed, new powers are still bestowed. Till rude resistance lops the spreading god ; The daring Greeks deride the martial show. And heap theit valleys with the gaudy foe ; The insulted sea with humbler thoughts he gains, A single skiff to speed his flight remains ; The encumbered oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast Through purple billows and a floating host. * * Enlarge my life with multitude of days. In health, and sickness, thus the suppliant prays ; Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know. That life protracted, is protracted wo. Time hovers o’er, impatient to destroy. And shuts up all the passages of joy : In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour. The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flower ; With listless ej'es the dotard views the store, He views and wonders that they please no more ; Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines, .\nd luxury with sighs her slave resigns. Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain, Uifl'use the tuneful lenitives of pain : No sounds, alas ! would touch the impervious’ ear. Though dancing mountains witnessed Orpheus near ; * To show how admirably Johnson has imitated this part of Juvenal, applying to the modern hero, Charles XII., what the Roman satirist directed against Hannibal, we subjoin a literal version of the words of Juvenal: — ‘Weigh Hannibal — how many pounds' weight will you find in that consummate general? This is the man whom Africa, washed by the Moorish sea, and stretching to the warm Nile, cannot contain. Again, in addition to Ethiopia, and other elephant-breeding countries; Spain is added to his empire. He jumps over the Pyrenees: in vain nature opposed to him the Alps with their snows ; he severed the rocks, and rent the mountains with Wnegar. Now he reaches Italy, yet he determines to go farther : “ Nothing is done,” says he, “ unless with our Punic soldiers we break down their gates, and I plant my standard in the midst of Saburra (street). 0 what a figure, and what a fine picture he would make, the one-eyed general, carried by the Getulian brute! ^Vhat, after all, was the end of it? Alas for glory! this very man is routed, and flies headlong into banishment, and there the great and wonderful comman3er sits like a poor dependent at the palace door of a king, till it please the Bithynian tyrant to awake. That life, which had so long disturbed all human affairs, was brought to an end, not by swords, nor stones, nor darts, but by that redresser of Cann$, and avenger of the blood that had been shed — a ring.^ Go, madman ; ‘hurrj’ over the savage Alps, to please the school- boys, and become their subject of declamation !”' * It will be recollected that Hannibal, to prevent his falling Into the hands of the Romans, swallowed poison, which he carried in a ring on his finger. Nor lute nor lyre his feeble powers attend, Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend, But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue. Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning tale, and lingering jest. Perplex the fawning niece, and pampered guest. While growing hopes scarce awe the gathering sneer. And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear ; The watchful guests still hint the last offence. The daughter’s petulance, the son’s expense. Improve his heady rage with treacherous skill, And mould his passions till they make his will. Unnumbered maladies his joints invade. Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade ; But unextinguished avarice still remains. And dreaded losses aggravate his pains ; He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands, His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands; Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes. Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies. But grant the virtues of a temperate prime. Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime ; An age that melts with unperceived decay. And glides in modest innocence away ; Whose peaceful day benevolence endears. Whose night congratulating conscience cheers ; The general favourite as the general friend ; Such age there is, and who shall wish its end ? Yet even on this her load misfortune flings, To press the weary minutes’ flagging wings; New sorrow rises as the day returns, A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns. Now kindred merit fills the sable bier, Now lacerated friendship claims a tear. Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from withering life away; New forms arise, and different views engage, Supeifiuous lags the veteran on the .stage. Till pitying nature signs the last release. And bids afflicted worth retire to peace. But few there are wliom hours like these await. Who set unclouded in the gulfs of fate. From Lydia’s monarch should the search descend. By Solon cautioned to regard his end. In life’s last scene what prodigies surprise. Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise? From Marlb’rough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show. * * Where, then, shall hope and fear their object! find ? Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate. Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate ? Mu.st no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, No cries invoke the mercies of the skies ? Inquirer, cease ; petitions yet remain, Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. Still raise for good the supj)licating voice, But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. Safe in his power, whose eyes discern afar The secret ambush of a specious prayer. Implore his aid, in his decisions rest. Secure whate’er he gives, he gives the hc.st. Yet 'when the sense of sacred presence fires, And strong devotion to the .skies aspires, Pour forth thy fervours for a l;ealtliftil mind. Obedient passions, and a will resigned ; For love, which scarce collective man can fill ; For patience, sovereign o’er transmuted ill ; For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, Counts death kind nature’s signal of retreat : These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain. These goods he grants, who grants the power to gain , With these celestial wisdom calms the mind. And makes the happiness she does not find. 29 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA or TO 1780. I’rulof/tte spol-en hy Mr Garriclc, at the opening of the Theatre in Drury Lane, in 1747. When Leiiriiing’fl triurniili o’er lier barbarous foes First reared tlie staee, iiriinortal J'bakspeare rose ; Kacb cbatigo of many-coloured life be drew, Kxbausted worlds, and then iina"incd new: F.xistence saw bini spurn her bounded reign, And panting time toiled after him in vain; llis powerful strokes presiding truth impressed. And unresisted passion stormed tlie breast. Then .lonson eame, instructed from the school, I To please in method, and invent by rule; I llis studious patience and laborious art, lly regular approach essayed the heart : I Cold apiuobation gave the lingering bays, 1 For those who durst not eensure, scarce could praise. K mortal born, he met the general doom, I But left, like Egypt’s kings, a lasting tomb. I The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame. Nor wished for .lonson’s art, or Shakspeare’s flame; Themselves they studied, as they felt they writ. Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. Vice always found a sympathetic friend ; They pleased their age, and did not aim to mend. Yet bards like these aspired to lasting praise. And proudly hoped to pimp in future days : Their cause was general, their supports were strong. Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long ; Till shame regained the post that sense betrayed. And virtue called oblivion to her aid. Then crushed by rules, and weakened as refined. For years the power of Tragedy declined : From bard to bard the frigid caution crept. Till declamation roared, whilst passion slept; Yet still did virtue deign the stage to tread; Philosoiihy remained, though nature fled. But forced at length her ancient reign to quit. She saw' great Faustus lay the ghost of wit : Exulting folly hailed the joyful day, And Pantomime and song confirmed her sway. But who the coming changes can presage. And mark the future periods of the stage ? Perhaps, if skill could distant times explore. New Behns, new D’Urfeys, yet remain in store ; Perhaps, where Lear has raved, and Hamlet died. On flying cars new sorcerers may ride ; Perhaps (for who can guess the effects of chancel) Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance. Hard is his lot, that, here by fortune placed, Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste ; With every meteor of caprice must play. And chase the new-blown bubble of the day. Ah! let not censure terra our fate our choice. The stage but echoes back the public voice ; The drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give. For we that live to please, must please to live. Then prompt no more the follies you decry. As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die ; ’Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence Of rescued nature and reviving sense; To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show. For useful mirth and solitary wo. Bid Scenic V'irtue form the rising age. And Truth diffuse her radiance from the stage. On the Death of Dr Robert Levett — 1782. Condemned to hope’s delusive mine. As on we toil from day to day. By sudden blasts, or slow decline. Our social comforts drop away. Well tried through many a varying year. See Levett to the grave descend. Officious, innocent, sincere. Of every friendless name the friend. Yet still he fills affection’s eye. Obscurely wi.se and coarsely kind ; Nor, lettered arrogance, deny Thy praise to merit unrefined. When fainting nature called for aid. And hovering death prepared the blow. His vigorous remedy dis]>layed The power of art without the show. In misery’s darke.st cavern known. His useful care was ever nigh. Where hopeless anguish poured nis groan. And lonely want retired to die. No summons mocked by chill delay. No petty gain disdained by pride; The modest wants of every day The toil of every day supplied. His virtues walked their narrow round. Nor made a pau.se, nor left a void ; And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed. The busy day — the peaceful night. Unfelt, uncounted, glided by ; His frame was firm — his powers were brightj Though now his eightieth year was nish. Then with no fiery throbbing pain. No cold gradations of decay. Death broke at once the vital chain. And freed his soul the nearest way. ' i ■WILLIAM COLLINS. None of our poets have lived more under the ‘ skiey influences’ of imagination than that exquisite but ill-fated bard, Collins. His works are imbued with a fine ethere.al fancy and purity of taste ; and though, like the [loems of Gray, they are small in number and amount, they are rich in vivid imagery and beautiful description. His history is brief but I painful. William Collins was the son of a respect- able tradesman, a hatter, at Chichester, where he M'as born on Christmas day, 1720. In his ‘Ode to Pity,’ the poet alludes to his ‘ native plains,’ w'hich ■ are bounded by the South Down hills, and to the small river Arun, one of the streams of Sussex, near j which Otway, also, was born. i But wherefore need I wander wide To old Hissus’ di.stant side? Deserted stream and mute ! Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains, And Echo ’midst my native plains Been soothed by Pity’s lute. Collins received a learned education, in which be was aided by pecuniary assistance from his uncle, j Colopel Martin, stationed with his regiment in j Flanders. While at ilagdalen college, Oxford, he published his Oriental Eclogues, which, to the dis- i grace of the university and the literary public, ■w'ere I wholly neglected. Meeting shortly afterwmrds with some repulse or indignity at the university, he sud- denly quitted Oxford, and repaired to London, full of high hopes and magnificent schemes. His learn- ing was extensive, but he wanted steadiness of pur- pose and application. Two j'ears afterwards, in 1746, he published his Odes, which were purchased by Millar the bookseller, but failed to attract at- tention. Collins sunk under the disappointment, and became still more indolent and dissipated. The fine promise of his j’outh, his ardour and ambition, melted away under this baneful and depressing in- fluence. Once again, however, lie strung his lyre with poetical enthusiasm. Thomson died in 1747 : Collins seems to have known and loved him, and he 30 ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. I WILLIAM COki ins. honoured his memory with an Ode, which is cer- taiidy one of tlie finest elepiac productions in the laiifcuage. Among liis friends was also Home, the author of ‘ Douglas,’ to whom he addressed an Ode, w’hich was found unfinished after his death, on the Superstitions of the Highlands. He loved to dwell on these dim and visionary objects, and the compliment he pays to Tasso, may be applied equally to himself — Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Relieved the magic wonders which he sung. At this period, Collins seems to have contemplated a journey to Scotland — The time shall come when I perhaps may tread Your lowly glens o’erhung with spreading broom ; Or o’er your stretching heaths by Fancy led ; Or o’er ^our mountains creep in awful gloom ! Then will I dress once more the faded flower, M’here Jonson sat in Drummond’s classic shade ; Or crop from Teviotdale each lyric flower. And mourn on Yarrow’s basiks where Willy’s laid. In the midst of the poet’s difficulties and distresses, his uncle died ami left him £2000 ; ‘ a sum,’ says Johnson, ‘ wliich Collins could scarcely think ex- haustible, and which he did not live to exhaust.’ He repaid Millar the bookseller the loss sustained by the publication of his ‘ Odes ;’ and buying up the remaining copies, committed them all to the flames. He became still more irregular in his habits, and sank into a state of nervous imbecility. All hope and exertion had fled. Johnson met him one day, carrying with him as he travelled an English Testa- ment. ‘ I have but one book,’ said Collins, ‘ but it is the best’ In his latter days he was tended by his sister in Chichester; but it was necessary at one time to confine him in a lunatic asylum. He used, when at liberty, to w.ander day and night among the aisles and cloisters of Chichester cathedral, ac- companying the music with loud sobs and moans. Death at length came to his relief, and in 1756 — at the early age of thirty-six, ten years after the publi- cation of his immortal works — his troubled and melancholy career w'as terminated : it atfords one of the most touching examples of accomplished youth and genius, linked to personal humiliation and calamity, that throws its lights and shades on our literary annals. Collins’s Monument in Chichester Cathedral. Mr Southey has remarked, that, though utterly neglected on their first appearance, the ‘Odes’ of Collins, in the course of one generation, without any adventitious aid to bring them into notice, were acknowledged to be the best of their kind in the language. ‘ Silently and imperceptibly they had risen by their own buoyancy, and their power was felt by every reader who had any true poetic feel- ing.’ This popularity seems still to be on the in- crease, though the want of human interest and of I action in Collins’s poetry prevent its being generally read. The ‘ Eclogues’ are free from the occasional i obscurity and remoteness of conception that in part | pervade the ‘ Odes,’ and they charm by their figu- rative language and descriptions, the simplicity and beauty of their dialogues and sentiments, and their musical versification. The desert scene in Hassan, I the Camel Driver, is a finished picture — impressive | and even appalling in its reality. The Ode on the Passions, and that on Evening, are the finest of his lyrical works. The former is a magnificent gallery of allegorical paintings ; and the poetical diction is equally rich wdth the conception. No poet has made more use of metaphors and personi- fication. He has individualised even metaphysical pursuits, which he terms ‘the shadowy tribes of Mind.’ Pity is pres, nted with ‘eyes of dewy light’ — a felicitous epithet ; and Danger is described with the boldness and distinctness of sculpture — Danger, whose limbs of giant mould What mortal eye can fixed behold 1 M^ho stalks his round, a hideous form, Howling amidst the midnight storm, Or throws him on the ridgy steep Of some loose hanging rock to sleep. Eclogue II. — Hassan; or the Camel Driver. Scene— The Desert. Time — Mid-day. In silent horror, o’er the boundless waste, The driver Hassan with his camels past ; One cruise of water on his back he bore. And his light scrip contained a scanty store; A fan of painted feathers in his hand. To guard his shaded face from scorching sand. The sultry .sun had gained the middle sky, And not a tree and not a herb was nigh ; The beasts with pain their dusty way pursue, Shrill roared the winds, and dreary was the view f With desperate sorrow wild, the affrighted man Thrice sighed, thrice struck his breast, and thus began ‘ Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way !’ Ah ! little thought I of the blasting wind. The thirst or pinching hunger that I find ! Bethink thee, Hassan ! where shall thirst assuage, When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage ? Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign, Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine ! Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear In all my griefs a more than equal share ! Here, where no springs in murmurs break away. Or moss-cro\vned fountains mitigate the day. In vain ye hope the green delight to know. Which plains more ble.ssed or verdant \ ales bestow , Here rocks alone and tasteless sands are found, Aud faint and sickly winds for ever howl around. ‘ Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way i’ Cursed be the gold and silver which persua*te Weak men to follow far fatiguing trade I The lily peace outshines the silver store. And life is dearer than the golden ore ; Yet money tempts us o’er tbe desert brown. To every distant mart and wealthy town. Full oft we temjit the land, and oft the sea; And are we only yet repaid by thee ? Fiti M 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF All ! why was ruin so attractive niaile, Or why fond man so easily betrayed? Why heed we not, while mad we haste along, I'he gentle voice of Peace, or Pleasure’s song? Or wherefore think the flowery mountain’s side, I’he fountain’s murmurs, and the valley’s pride; .\'hy think we these less jdeasing to behold f nan dreary deserts, if they lead to gold ? ‘Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way!’ O cease, my fears ! All frantic as I go. When thought creates unnumbered scenes of wo, U’hat if the lion in his rage I meet ! Oft in the dust 1 view his printed feet ; And fearful oft, when Day’s declining light Yields her pale empire to the mourner Night, •Ily hunger roused he scours the groaning plain, (iaiint wolves and sullen tigers in his train ; Ilefore them Death with shrieks directs their way. Fills the wild yell, and leads them to their prey. ‘ Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way !’ At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep, If aught of rest I find, upon my sleep ; Or some swoln serpent twist his scales around, And wake to anguish with a burning wound. Thrice happy they, the wise contented poor. From lust of wealth and dread of death secure 1 They tempt no deserts, and no griefs they find ; Peace rules the day where reason rules the mind. ‘ Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way !’ O hapless youth ! for she thy love hath won. The tender Zara ! will be most undone. Big swelled my heart, and owned the powerful maid, ^Vllen fast she dropped her tears, as thus she said : ‘ Farewell the youth whom sighs could not detain. Whom Zara’s breaking heart implored in vain ! Yet as thou go’st, may every blast arise Weak and unfelt as these rejected sighs ; Safe o’er the wild no perils niay’st thou see. No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth ! like me.’ ‘ 0 ! let me safely to the fair return. Say with a kiss, she must not, shall not mourn ; O ! let me teach my heart to lose its fears. Recalled by Wisdom’s voice and Zara’s tears.’ He said, and called on Heaven to bless the day When back to Schiraz’ walls he bent his way. Ode Written in the Year 1746. How sleep the brave who sink to rest. By all their country’s wishes blest ? When Spring, with dewy fingers cold. Returns to deck their hallowed mould. She there shall dress a sweeter sod. Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung. By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray. To bless the turf that wraps their clay, And Freedom shall awhile repair. To dwell a weeping hermit there. Ode to Evening, If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song. May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear. Like thy own solemn springs. Thy springs, and dying gales ; Oh nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts. With brede ethereal wove, *')’«rhang his wary bed • TO 178u. Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat. With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing. Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn. As oft he rises midst the twilight path. Against the ))ilgrim borne in heedless hum : Now teach me, maid composed. To breathe some softened strain. Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale May not unseemly with its stillness suit. As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return 1 For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day. And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And .sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still. The pensive pleasures sweet Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and he.athy scene. Or find some ruin ’midst its dreary dell.s, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain. Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut That from the mountain’s side Views wilds and swelling floods. And hamlets brotvn, and dim-discovered spires. And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont. And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve ! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light : While sallow autumn fills thy lap with leaves. Or Winter yelling through the troublous air, Aft'rights thy shrinking train. And rudely rends thy robes : So long, regardful of thy quiet rule. Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own. And love thy favourite name 1 Ode on the Passions. When Music, heavenly maid! was young, W’hile yet in early Greece she sung. The Passions oft, to hear her shell. Thronged around her magic cell ; Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting. Possessed beyond the muse’s painting ; By turns they felt the glowing mind Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined ; Till once, ’tis said, when all were fired. Filled with fury, rapt, inspired. From the supporting myrtles round. They snatched her instruments of sound ; And as they oft had heard apart Sweet lessons of her forceful art. Each, for madness ruled the hour. Would prove his own expressive power. First Fear his hand, its skill to try. Amid the chords, bewildered laid ; And back recoiled, he knew not why. Even at the sound himself had made. Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire In lightnings owned his secret stings; In one rude clash he struck the lyre. And swept with hurried hand the stringk, 32 roBTs. ENGLISH LITERATURE. william colliiu. Il’ith woful ineiisurea wan Despair, Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled ; A soleiiMi, strange, and mingled air ; ’Twas sad by fits, by starts ’twas wild. But then, oh Hope ! with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure ? Still it whispered promised pleasure. And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail. Still would her touch the strain prolong ; And from the rocks, the woods, the vale. She called on Echo still through all the song; Ami where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close ; And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair: And longer had she sung, but with a frown Revenge impatient rose ; He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down. And, with a withering look. The war-denouncing trumpet took. And blew a blast so loud and dread. Were ne’er prophetic sounds so full of wo ; And ever and anon he beat The double drum with furious heat ; And though sometimes, each dreary pause between. Dejected Pity at his side Her soul-subduing voice applied. Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien. While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed ; Sad proof of thy distressful state ; Of differing themes the veering song was mixed, Aud now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate. ^Yith eyes upraised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sat retired. Anil from her wild sequestered seat. In notes by distance made more sweet. Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul ; And clashing soft from rocks around. Bubbling runnels joined the sound ; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole : Or o’er some haunted streams with fond delay. Round a holy calm diffusing. Love of peace and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. But oh ! how altered was its sprightly tone. When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung. Her buskins gemmed with morning dew. Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung. The hunter’s call, to Fawn and Dryad known ; The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen. Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green ; Broivn Exercise rejoiced to hear. And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy’s ecstatic trial : He, with viny crown advancing, Fir.'tt to the lively pipe his hand addressed ; But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol. Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain. They saw, in Terape’s vale, her native maids. Amidst the festal sounding shades. To some unwearied minstrel dancing : While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings. Love framed with Mirth, a gay fantastic round. Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound : And he, amidst his frolic play. As if he would the charming air repay. Shook thousand odour.s from his dewy wings. 4.5 Oh Music ! sphere-descended maid. Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom’s aid, Why, goddess ! why to us denied, Lay’st thou thy ancient lyre aside! As in that loved Athenian bower. You learn an all-commanding power; Thy mimic soul, oh nymph endeared, Can well recall what then it heard. Where is thy native simple heart, Devote to virtue, fancy, art ? Arise, as in that elder time. Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders in that godlike age Fill thy recording sister’s page ; ’Tis said, and 1 believe the tale. Thy humblest reed could more prevail, Had more of .strength, diviner rage. Than all which charms this laggard age ; Even all at once together found, Cecilia’s mingled world of sound. Oh ! bid your vain endeavours cease, Revive the just designs of Greece ; Return in all thy simple state ; Confirm the tales her sons relate. Ode to Liberty. STROPHE. Who shall awake the Spartan fife. And call in solemn sounds to life. The youths, whose locks divinely spreading. Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue. At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, Applauding freedom loved of old to view 2 What new Alceus, fancy-blessed. Shall sing the sword, in myrtles dressed. At wisdom’s shrine a while its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renowned?) Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing. It leaped in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound! Oh goddess, in that feeling hour. When most its sounds would court thy ears. Let not my shell’s misguided power, E’er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears. No, freedom, no ; I will not tell How Rome, before thy face. With heaviest sound, a giant statue fell. Pushed by a wild and artless race From off its wide ambitious base. When time his northern sons of spoil awoke. And all the blended work of strength and grace. With many a rude repeated stroke. And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke. EPODE. Yet, even where’er the least appeareu. The admiring world thy hand revered ; Still ’midst the scattered states around. Some remnant.? of her strength were found ; They saw, by what escaped the storm. How wondrous rose her perfect form ; How in the great, the laboured whole. Each mighty master poured his soul ; For sunny Florence, seat of art. Beneath her vines preserved a part, ' Till they, whom science loved to name, (Oh, who could fear it 2) quenched her flame. And, lo, a humbler relic laid In jealous Pisa’s olive shade ! See small Marino joins the theme. Though least, not last in thy esteem ; Strike, louder strike the ennobling strings To those whose merchants’ sons were kings ; To him, who, decked with pearly pride. In Adria weds his green-haired bride : PROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF w I7b0. Hftil port of glory, wealth and pleasure, Ne’er let me cliange tliis Lydian measure ; Nor e’er her former pride relate, To sad Liguria’s bleeding state. Ah, no ! more pleased thy haunts I seek, On wild Helvetia’s mountains bleak (Where, when the favoured of thy choice, Tlie daring archer lieard thy voice. Forth from his eyry roused in dread. The ravening eagle northward fled) ; Or dwell in willowed meads more near. With those to whom thy stork is dear: Tliose whom the rod of Alva bruised. Whose crown a llritish queen refused ! The magic works, thou feel’st the strains, One holier name alone remains ; The perfect spell shall then avail. Hail, nymph, adored by IJritain, hail ! ANTISTROPHE. Beyond the measure vast of thought. The works the wizard time has wrought ! The Gaul, ’tis held of antique story. Saw Britain linked to his now adver.se strand. No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary. He passed with unwet feet through all our land. To the blown Baltic then, they say. The wild waves found another way. Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding; Till all the banded west at once ’gain rise, A wide wild storm even Nature’s self confounding. Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise. This pillared earth so firm and wide, I By winds and inward labours tom. In thunders dread was pushed aside. And down the shouldering billows home. And see, like gems, her laughing train. The little isles on every side, Mona, once hid from those who search the main. Where thousand elfin shapes abide. And Wight who checks the westering tide. For thee consenting heaven has each bestowed A fair attendant on her sovereign pride : To thee this blessed divorce she owed. For thou hast made her vales thy loved, thy last abode ! SECOND EPODE. Then, too, ’tis said, a hoary pile, ’Midst the green naval of our isle. Thy shrine in some religious wood, 0 soul enforcing goddess, stood ! There oft the painted native’s feet Were vront thy form celestial meet : Though now with hopeless toil we trace Time’s backward rolls, to find its place ; Whether the fiery-tressed Dane, Or Roman’s self o’erturned the fane. Or in what heaven left age it fell, ’Twere hard for modern song to tell. Yet still, if truth those beams infuse. Which guide at once, and charm the muse Beyond you braided clouds that lie. Paving the light embroidered sky ; Amidst the bright pavilioned plains. The beauteous model still remains. There happier than in islands blessed. Or bowers by spring or Hebe dressed. The chiefs who fill our Albion’s story, In warlike weeds, retired in glory, Hear their consorted Druids sing Their triumphs to the immortal string. How may the poet now unfold What never tongue or numbers told! How learn deliglited, and amazed, What hands unknown that fabric raised I Even now, before his favoured eyes. In Gothic pride it seems to rise! Yet Grecia’s graceful orders join. Majestic, though the mixed design; The secret builder knew to choose. Each sphere found gem of richest hues ; WTiate’er heaven’s purer mould contains. When nearer suns emblaze its veins ; There on the walls the patriots sight May ever liang with fresh delight, And, graved with some prophetic rage. Read Albion’s fame through every age. Ye forms divine, ye laureate band, That near her inmost altar stand ! Now soothe her to her blissful train, Blithe Concord’s social form to gain : Concord, whose myrtle wand can steep Even Anger’s blood-shot eyes in sleep : Before whose breathing bosom’s balm. Rage drops his steel, and stonns grow calm ; Her let our sires and matrons hoar Welcome to Britain’s ravaged shore; Our youths, enamoured of the fair. Play with the tangles of her hair ; Till, in one loud applauding sound. The nations shout to her around. 0 how supremely art thou blest. Thou, lady, thou shalt rule the west ! Dirge in Cymheline. Sung by Gdiderius and Arvfragus over Fideie, suppowid to be dead. To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom. And rifle all the breathing spring. No wailing ghost shall dare appear To vex with shrieks this quiet grove. But shepherd lads assemble here, And melting virgins own their love. No withered witch shall here be seen. No goblins lead their nightly crew; The female fays shall haunt the green. And dress thy grave with pearly dew; The redbreast oft at evening hours Shall kindly lend his little aid. With hoary moss, and gathered flowers, To deck the ground where thou art laid. When howling winds, and beating rain. In tempests shake thy sylvan cell. Or midst the chase on every plain. The tender thought on thee shall dweU, Each lonely scene shall thee restore. For thee the tear be duly shed ; Beloved till life can charm no more ; And mourned till pity’s self be dead. Ode on the Death of Mr Thomson. The scene of the following stanzas is supposed to lie on the Thames, near Riehmoni In yonder grave a Druid lies. Where slowly winds the stealing wave ! The year’s best sweets shall duteous rise. To deck its poet’s sylvan grave ! In yon deep bed of whispering reeds His airy harp shall now be laid, That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds, May love through life the soothing shade. I I ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM SIIKNBTOW*. The innids and youths shall linger here. And, wliile its scunds at distance swell, Shall sadly'seein in jiity’s ear To heir the woodland pilgrim’s knell. Kemeinl ranee oft shall haunt the shore, When Thames in summer wreaths is drest ; And oft suspend the dashing oar. To hid his gentle spirit rest! And oft as case and health retire To breezy lawn, or forest deep, The friend shall view yon whitening spire, And ’raid the varied landscape weep. But thou, who own’st that earthly bed. Ah ! what will every dirge avail ? Or tears, which love and pity shed. That mourn beneath the gliding .sail ! Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near ? With 'lira, sweet bard, may fancy die. And joy desert the blooming year. But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide No sedge-crowned sisters now attend. Now waft me from the green hill’s side, Whose cold turf hides the buried friend ! ^ And see, the fairy valleys fade. Dun night has veiled the solemn view ! Yet once again, dear parted shade. Meek nature’s child, again adieu ! The genial meads, assigned to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom ! Their hinds and shepherd girls shall dress With simple hands thy rural tomb. Long, long thy stone and pointed clay Shall melt the musing Briton’s eyes : 0 ! vales, and wild woods, shall he say. In yonder grave your Druid lies !■ WILLIAM SHENSTONE. William Shenstone added some pleasing pas- toral and elegiac strains to our national poetry, but he wanted, as Johnson justly remarks, ‘ comprehen- sion and variety.’ Though highly ambitious of poetical fame, he devoted a large portion of his time, and squandered most of his means, in landscape- gardening and ornamental agriculture. lie reared up around him a sort of rural paradise, expending his poetical taste and fancy in the disposition and embellishment of his grounds, till at length pecuniary difficulties and distress drew a cloud over the fair prospect, and darkened the latter days of the poet’s life. Swift, who entertained a mortal aversion to all projectors, might have included the unhappy Shenstone among the fanciful inhabitants of his Laputa. The estate which he laboured to adorn was his natal ground. At Leasowes, in the parish of Hales Owen, Shropshire, the poet was born in November 1714. He was taught to read at what is termed a dame school, and his venerable precep- i tress has been immortalised by his poem of the j Schoolmistress. At the proper age he was sent to I Pembroke college, Oxford, where he remained four i j years. In 1745, by the death of his parents and an 1 1 elder brother, the paternal estate fell to his own care 1 1 and management, and he began from this time, as j Johnson characteristically describes it, ‘ to point his I prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his I ' walks, and to wind his waters ; which he did with I such judgment and fancy, as made his little domain I the envy of the great and the admiration of the ! gkiiful a place to be visited by travellers and copied |! by designers.’ Descriptions of the Leasowes have been written by Dodslcy and Goldsmith. 'I'he pro- perty was altogether not worth more than £300 per annum, and Shenstone had devoted so much of his The Leasowes. means to external embellishment, that he wa com- j pelled to live in a dilapidated house, not fit, as be acknowledges, to receive ‘ polite friends.’ An unfor- | tunate attachment to a young lady, and disappointed j ambition — for he aimed at poliUcal as well as poetical celebrity — conspired, ■with his passion for gardening and improvement, to fix him in his solitary situation. He became querulous and dejected, pined at the un- equal gifts of fortune, and even contempl.ated with a gloomy joy the complaint of Swift, that he would be ‘ forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.’ Y et Shenstone was essentially kind and bene- volent, and he must at times have experienced ex- quisite pleasure in his romantic retreat, in which every year would give fresh beauty, and develop more distinctly the creations of his taste and labour. ‘ The works of a person that builds,’ he saj's, ‘ begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve.’ This advantage be pos- sessed, with the additional charm of a love of litera- ture ; but Shenstone sighed for more than inward ■ peace and satisfaction. He built his happiness on the applause of others, and died in solitude a votary of the world. His death took place at the Leasowes, February 11, 1763. The works of Shenstone were collected and jiub- lished after his death by his friend Dodsley, in three volumes. The first contains his poems, the second his prose essays, and the third his letters and other pieces. Gray remarks of his correspondence, that it is ‘ about nothing else but the I^easowes, and bis writings with two or three neighbouring r lergyman who wrote verses too.’ The essays are good, dis- playing .an ease and grace of style united to judg- ment and discrimination. They have not the mellow i 36 _J PROM 1727 CYCLOPiEUIA OF to 176u ri|UTiess of thought and learning of Cowley’s essays, but they resemble them more elosely than any others we ixjssess. In pro- bably suggested to Gray the fine reflection in his elegy— ‘ Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,’ &c. Mr D’Israeli has pointed out this resemblance in Ins ‘ Curiosities of Literature,’ and it appears well- founded. The palm of merit, as well as originality, seems to rest with Shenstone ; for it is more natural and just to predict the existence of undeveloped powers and great eminence in the humble child at school, than to conceive they had slumbered through life in the peasant in the grave. Yet the conception of Gray has a sweet and touching pathos, that sinks into the heart and memory. Shenstone’s is as follows : — Yet, nursed with skill, what dazzling fruits appear! Even now sagacious foresight points to show A little bench of heedless bi.shops here, And there a chancellor in embryo. Or bard sublime, if bard may e’er be so. As Milton, Shakspeare — names that ne’er shall die 1 Though now he crawl along the ground so low. Nor weeting how the Muse should soar on high, tVisheth, poor starveling elf ! his paper kite may fly. * Schoolmistress. Ah me ! full sorely is my heart forlorn. To think how modest worth neglected lies ; While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise ; Heeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprise; Lend me thy clarion, goddess! let me try To sound the praise of merit ere it dies ; Such as I oft have chanced to espy. Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. In every village marked >yith little spire. Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame, There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire, A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name; Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame : They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, Awed by the power of this relentless dame ; And ofttirnes, on vagaries idly bent, For unkempt haii', or task uncouned, are sorely' shent. Cottage of the Schoolmistress, near llales-Owen, Shropshire. And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree. Which learning near her little dome did stowe; Whilom a twig of small regard to see. Though now so wide its waving branches flow, And work the simple vassals mickle wo ; For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew, ■ But their limbs shuddered, and their pul.se beat low ; And as they looked, they found their horror grew. And shaped it into rods, and tingled at the view. Near to this dome is found a patch so green. On which the tribe their gambols do display ; And at the door impri.soning board is seen. Lest weakly wdghts of smaller size should stray ; Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day ! The noises intermixed, which thence resound. Do learning’s little tenement betray ; Where sits the dame, disguis' i in look profound. And eyes her fairy throng, and tarns her wheel around. Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield : Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, 1 trow, As is the harebell that adorns the field ; pt'UTS. ENGLISH LITER A'l’U HE. wii.uam siienstonb. Aiul in Iwr liaml, for sceptre, she does wield Tway birchen sprays ; with anxious fear entwined, Witli dark distrust, and sad repentance filled ; And steadfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, Ai.d fury uncontrolled, and chastisement unkind. A russet stole was o’er her shoulders thrown ; A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air; ’Twas simple russet, but it was her own ; ’Twas her own country bred the flock so fairl ’Twos her own labour did the fleece prepare ; And, sooth to say, her pupils ranged around, Th’rough pious awe, did terra it passing rare ; For they in gaping wonderment abound. And think, nC' doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground. Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth, Ne pompous title did debauch her ear ; Goody, good woman, gossip, n’aunt, forsooth. Or dame, the sole additions she did hear ; Y et these she challenged, these she held right dear ; Ne would esteem him act as mought behove. Who should not honoured eld with these revere ; For never title yet so mean could prove. But there was eke a mind which did that title love. One ancient hen she took delight to feed. The plodding pattern of the busy dame ; Which, ever and anon, impelled by need. Into her school, begirt with chickens, came ; Such favour did her past deportment claim ; And, if neglect had lavished on the ground Fragment of bread, she would collect the same ; For well she knew, and quaintly could expound. What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found. Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak, That in lier garden sipped the silvery dew ; Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak. But herbs for use and physic, not a few. Of gray renown, within those borders grew : The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme, Fresh balm, and marigold of cheerful hue : The lowly gill, that never dares to climb ; And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme. Here oft the dame, on Sabbath’s decent eve. Hymned such psalms as Stemhold forth did mete ; If winter ’twere, she to her hearth did cleave. But in her garden found a summer-seat : Sweet melody ! to hear her then repeat How Israel’s sons, beneath a foreign king. While taunting foemen did a song entreat. All, for the nonce, untuning every string, Uphung their useless lyres — small heart had they to sing. For she was just, and friend to virtuous lore. And passed much time in truly virtuous deed ; And, in those elfins’ ears would oft deplore The times, when truth by popish rage did bleed. And tortuous death was true devotion’s meed ; And simple faith in iron chains did mourn. That nould on wooden image place her creed ; And lawny saints in smouldering flames did bum : Ah ! dearest Lord, forefend thilk days should e’er re- turn. In elbow-chair (like that of Scottish stem. By the sharp tooth of cankering eld defaced. In which, when he receives his diadem. Our sovereign prince and liefest liege is placed) The matron sat ; and some with rank she graced, (The source of children’s and of courtiers’ pride!) Redressed affronts- — for vile affronts there passed ; 1 And warned them not the fretful to deride. But love each other dear, whatever them betide. Right well she knew each temper to descry. To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise ; Some with vile copper-prize exalt on high. And some entice with pittance small of praise; And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays ; Even absent, she the reins of power doth hold, While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she sways ; Forewarned, if little bird their pranks behold, ’Twill whisper in her ear, and all the scene unfold. Lo 1 now with state she utters her command j Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair. Their books of stature small they take in hand. Which with pellucid horn secured are. To save from finger wet the letters fair : The work so gay, that on their back is seen, St George’s high achievements does declare ; On which thilk wight that has y-gazing been, Kens the forthcoming rod — unpleasing sight, I ween ! Ah ! luckless he, and born beneath the beam Of evil star ! it irks me whilst I write ; As erst the bard by Mulla’s silver stream,* Oft, as he told of deadly dolorous plight. Sighed as he sung, and did in tears indite ; For brandishing the rod, she doth begin To loose the brogues, the striplings late delight ; And down they drop ; appears his dainty skin. Fair as the furry coat of whitest ermilin. 0 ruthful scene ! when, from a nook obscure. His little sister doth his peril see. All playful as she sat, she grows demure ; She finds full soon her wonted spirits flee ; She meditates a prayer to set him free ; Nor gentle pardon could this dame deny (If gentle pardon could with dames agree) To her sad grief that swells in either eye, And wrings her so that all for pity she could die. No longer can she now her shrieks command ; And hardly she forbears, through awful fear. To rushen forth, and, with presumptuous hand. To stay harsh justice in its mid career. On thee she calls, on thee her parent deal ; (Ah I too remote to ward the shameful blow !) She sees no kind domestic visage near. And soon a flood of tears begins to flow. And gives a loose at last to unavailing wo. But, ah ! what pen his piteous plight may trace ! Or what device his loud laments explain — The form uncouth of his disguised face — The pallid hue that dyes his looks amain — The plenteous shower that does his cheek distaiu 1 When he, in abject wise, implores the dame, Ne hopeth aught of sweet reprieve to gain ; Or when from high she levels well her aim. And, through the thatch, his cries each falling stroke proclaim. But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle sky. And liberty unbars her prison door ; And like a rushing torrent out they fly ; And now the grassy cirque ban covered o’er With boisterous revel rout and wild uproar ; A thousand ways in wanton rings they run. Heaven shield their short-lived pastimes I imploie , For well may freedom erst so dearly won Appear to British elf more gladsome than the sun. Enjoy, poor imps! enjoy your sportive trade, And cliase gay flies, and cull the fairest flowers ; For when my bones in grass-green sods are laid. Oh never may ye taste more careless hours In knightly castles or in ladies’ bowers. * Spenser. 87 FROM I in CYCLOP^iDIA vtF •lO I7bt Oh vain to seek delight in earthly thing ! lint most in courts, where proud ambition towers ; Ueluded wight 1 who weens fair peace can spring Beneath the pompous dome of kesar or of king. See in each sprite some various bent appear ! These rudely carol most incondite lay ; Those sauntering on the green, with jocund leer Salute the stranger passing on his way ; Some builden fragile tenements of clay ; Some to the standing lake their courses bend. With pebbles smooth at duck and drake to play ; Thilk to the huxter’s savoury cottage tend. In pastry kings and queens the allotted mite to spend. Here as each season yields a different store, Each season’s stores in order ranged been ; Api)les with cabbage-net y-covered o’er. Galling full sore the unmoneyed wight, are seen. And goosebrie clad in livery red or green ; And here, of lovely dye, the cath.arine pear. Fine pear ! as lovely for thy juice, I ween ; O may no wight e’er penniless come there. Lest, smit with ardent love, he pine with hopeless care. See, cherries here, ere cherries yet abound. With thread so white in tempting posies tied. Scattering, like hlooming maid, their glances round, With pampered look draw little e3'es aside ; And must be bought, though pcnui-y betide. The plum all azure, and the nut all brown ; And here each season do those cakes abide. Whose honoured names* the inventive city own. Rendering through Britain’s isle Salopia’s praises known. Admired Salopia ! that with venial pride Eyes her bright form in Severn’s ambient wave, Famed for her loyal cares in perils tried. Her daughters lovely, and her striplings brave : Ah ! midst the rest, may flowers adorn his grave Whose art did first these dulcet cates display ! A motive fair to learning’s imps he gave. Who cheerless o’er her darkling region stray ; rill reason’s morn arise, and light them on their way. A Pastoral Ballad, in Four Parts — 1743. • Aibusta humilesque mjTicas.’ — V iro. I. ABSENCE. Ye shepherds, so cheerful and gay. Whose flocks never carelessly roam ; Should Corydon’s happen to stray. Oh ! call the poor wanderers home. Allow me to muse and to sigh. Nor talk of the change that ye find ; None once was so watchful as I ; I have left my dear Phyllis behind. Now I know what it is to have strove With the torture of doubt and desire ; What it is to admire and to love, And to leave her we love and admire. Ah ! lead forth my flock in the mom. And the damps of each evening repel ; Alas 1 I am faint and forlorn — I have hade my dear Phyllis farewell. Since Phyllis vouchsafed me a look, I never once dreamt of my vine ; May I lose both my pipe and my crook, If I knew of a kid that was mine. 1 prized every hour that went by. Beyond all that had pleased me before ; But now they are past, and I sigh. And I grieve that I prized them no more. * Shrewsbury Cakes. But why do I languish in vain ? Why wander thus pensively here? Oh ! why did I come from the ))lain. Where I fed on the smiles of my dearl They tell me, my favourite maid. The pride of that valley, is flown ; Alas! where with her 1 have strayed, I could wander with pleasure alone. When forced the fair nymph to forego. What anguish I felt at my heart : Yet I thought — but it might not be so — ’Twas with pain that she saw me depart. She gazed as I slowly withdrew. My path I could hardly discern ; So sweetly she bade me adieu, 1 thought that she bade me return. The pilgrim that joumies all day To visit some far distant shrine. If he bear but a relic away, I Is happy, nor heard to repine. | Thus widely removed from the fair, I Where my vows, my devotion, I owe ; Soft hope is the relic I bear. And my solace, wherever I go. II. HOPE. My banks they are furnished with bees. Whose murmur invites one to sleej) ; My grottos are shaded with trees. And my hills are white over with sheep. I seldom have met with a loss. Such health do my fountains bestow ; My fountains, all bordered with moss. Where the harebells and violets grow. Not a pine in my grove is there seen, i But with tendrils of woodbine is bound ; I ; Not a beech’s more beautiful green. But a sweetbrier entwines it around. | Not my fields in the prime of the year j i More charms than my cattle unfold ; Not a brook that is limpid and clear, ' But it glitters with fishes of gold. ; One would think she might like to retire j To the bower I have laboured to rear; I Not a shrub that I heard her admire, | But I hasted and planted it there. i 0 how sudden the jessamine strove i With the lilac to render it gay ! ' Already it calls for my love ; To prune the wild branches away. From the plains, from the woodlands, and grovoe^ | What strains of wild melody flow! j How the nightingales warble their loves, j From thickets of roses that blow! | And when her bright form shall appear. Each bird shall harmoniously join In a concert so soft and so clear. As — she may not be fond to resign. t 1 have found out a gift for my fair, | 1 have found where the wood-pigeons breed ; I But let me that plunder forbear. She will say, ’twas a barbarous deed. For he ne’er could be true, she averred, I Who could rob a poor bird of his young; | And I loved her the more when I heard I Such tenderness fall from her tongue. I have heard her with sweetness unfold How that pity was due to a dove ; That it ever attended the bold. And she called it the sister of Love. 38 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. WILLIAM SHENSTOni. But her words such a pleasure convey, So much I her accents adore, Let her sp6ak, and whatever she say, hletbinks 1 should love her the more. Can a bosom so gentle remain Unmoved, when her Corydon sighs 1 Will a nymph that is fond of the plain. These plains and this valley despise ! Dear regions of silence and shade! Soft scenes of contentment and ease! Where I could have pleasingly strayed. If aught in her absence could please. But where does my Phyllida stray ? And where are her grots and her bowers ? Are the groves and the valleys as gay. And the shepherds as gentle as ours! « The groves may perhaps be as fair. And the face of the valleys as fine ; The swains may in manners compare. But their love is not equal to mine. III. SOLICITUDE. Why will you my passion reprove ! Why term it a folly to grieve ? Ere I show you the charms of my love ; She is fairer than you can believe. With her mien she enamours the brave. With her wit she engages the free, i With her modesty pleases the grave ; j She is every way pleasing to me. j 0 you that have been of her train, j Come and join in my amorous lays ; j I could lay down my life for the swain, j That will sing but a song in her praise, j When he sings, may the nymphs of the tewn j Come trooping, and listen the while ; I Nay, on him let not Phyllida frown, ! But I cannot allow her to smile. j For when Paridel tries in the dance ( Any favour with Phyllis to find, j 0 how, with one trivial glance. Might she ruin the peace of my mind! j In ringlets he dresses his hair, j And his crook is bestudded around ; j And his pipe — oh my Phyllis, beware I Of a magic there is in the sound. j ’Tis his with mock passion to glow, ’Tis his in smooth tales to unfold ‘ How her face is as bright as the snow, ! And her bosom, be sure, is as cold. How the nightingales labour the strain. With the notes of his charmer to vie ; How they vary their accents in vain. Repine at her triumphs, and die.’ To the, grove or the garden he strays. And pillages every sweet ; Then suiting the wreath to his lays. He throws it at Phyllis’s feet. * 0 Phyllis, he whispers, more fair. More sweet than the jessamine’s flower ! What are pinks in a mom, to compare I What is eglantine after a shower! Then the lily no longer is white. Then the rose is deprived of its bloom. Then the violets die with despite. And the woodbines give up their perfume.’ Thus glide the soft numbers along, And he fancies no shepherd his peer; Yet I never should envy the song. Were not Phyllis to lend it an ear. Let his crook be with hyacinths bound. So Phyllis the trophy despise : Let his forehead with laurels be crowned, So they shine not in Phyllis’s eyes. The language that flows from the heart. Is a stranger to Paridel’s tongue ; Yet may she beware of his art. Or sure I must envy the song IV. DISAPPOINTMENT. Y e shepherds, give ear to my lay, And take no more heed of my sheep ; They have nothing to do but to stray ; I have nothing to do but to weep. Y et do not my folly reprove ; She was fair, and my passion begun ; She smiled, and I could not but love; She is faithless, and I am undone. Perhaps I was void of all thought : Perhaps it was plain to foresee. That a nymph so complete would be sought By a swain more engaging than me. Ah ! love every hope can inspire; It banishes wisdom the while ; And the lip of the nymph we admire Seems for ever adorn^ with a smile. She is faithless, and I am undone ; Ye that witness the woes I endure. Let reason instruct you to shun What it cannot instruct you to cure. Beware how you loiter in vain Amid nymphs of a higher degree ; It is not for me to explain How fair and how fickle they be. Alas ! from the day that we met, What hope of an end to my woes ! When 1 cannot endure to forget The glance that undid my repose. Yet time may diminish the pain ; The flower, and the shrub, ar d the tree. Which I reared for her pleasuie in vain. In time may have comfort for me. The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose. The sound of a murmuring stream. The peace which from solitude flows, Henceforth shall be Corydoii’s theme. High transports are shown to the sight, But we are not to find them our own ; Fate never bestowed such delight, As I with my Phyllis had known. 0 ye woods, spread your branches apace ; To your deepest recesses I fly ; 1 would hide with the beasts of the chase ; I would vanish from every eye. Yet my reed shall resound through the grove With the same sad complaint it begun ; How she smiled, and I could not but love; Was faithless, and 1 am undone! Sonff. — Jemmy Dawson.* Come listen to my mournful tale, Y e tender hearts and lovers dear ; Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh, Nor will you blush to shed a tear. * Captain James Dawson, the amiable and unfortunate sub- ject of these stanzas, was one of the eight officers belonging to the Manchester regiment of volunteers, in the service of the young chevalier, who were hanged, drawn, and quartered, on Kennington-Common in 17^. 39 PROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. The dismal scene was o’er and pimt, The lover’s niouniful hearse retired ; The maid drew back her languid head. And, sighing forth his name, expired. And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid, Do thou a pensive ear incline ; For thou canst weep at every wo. And pity every plaint but mine. Young Dawson was a gallant youth, A brighter never trod the plain ; And well he loved one charming maid. And dearly was he loved again. , One tender maid she loved him dear, Of gentle blood the damsel c-ame : And faultless was her beauteous form. And s])otless was her virgin fame. But curse on party’s hateful strife. That led the favoured youth astray ; The day the rebel clans appeared, O had he never seen that day ! Their colours and their sash he wore. And in the fatal dress was found ; And now he must that death endure. Which gives the brave the keenest wound. How pale was then his true love’s cheek. When Jemmy’s sentence reached her earl For never yet did Alpine snows So pale or yet so chill appear. With faltering voice she weeping said. Oh Dawson, monarch of my heart 1 Think not thy death shall end our loves. For thou and I will never part. Yet might sweet mercy find a place. And bring relief to Jemmy’s woes, 0 George ! without a prayer for thee Aly orisons should never close. The gracious prince that gave him life Would crown a never-dying flame ; And every tender babe I bore Should learn to lisp the giver’s name. But though, dear youth, thou shouldst be dragged To yonder ignominious tree. Thou shalt not want a faithful friend To share thy bitter fate with thee. O then her mouniing-coach was called. The sledge moved slowly on before ; Though lK>rne in her triumphal car. She had not loved her favourite more. She followed him, prepared to view The terrible behests of law ; And the last scene of Jemmy’s woes With calm and steadfast eye she saw. Distorted was that blooming face. Which she had fondly loved so long ; And stifled was that tuneful breath. Which in her praise had sweetly sung : And severed was that beauteous neck. Round which her anns had fondly closed ; And mangled was that beauteous breast. On which her love-sick head reposed : And ravished was that constant heart. She did to every heart prefer ; For though it could its king forget, ’Twas true and loyal still to her. Amid those unrelenting flames She bore this constant heart to see ; But when ’twas mouldered into dust. Now, now, she cried, I follow thee. My death, my death alone can show The pure and lasting love I bore : Accept, 0 Heaven ! of woes like ours. And let us. let us weep no more. Though justice ever must prevail. The tear my Kitty sheds is due ; For seldom shall she hear a tale So sad, so tender, and so true. [ WriUen at an Inn at Ilenky.'] To thee, fair Freedom, I retire F’rom flattery, cards, and dice, and din ; Nor art thou found in mansions higher Than the low cot or humble inn. ’Tis here with boundless power I reign. And every health which I begin Converts dull port to bright champagne : Such freedom crowns it at an inn. I fly from pomp, I fly from plate, I fly from falsehood’s specious grin ; Freedom I love, and form I hate. And choose my lodgings at an inn. Here, waiter ! take my sordid ore, Which lackeys else might hope to win ; It buys what courts have not in store. It buys me freedom at an inn. Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round. Where’er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn. DAVID MALLET. David Mallet, author of some beautiful ballad stanzas, and some florid unimpassioned poems in blank verse, was a successful but unprincipled lite- rary adventurer. lie praised and courted Pope while living, and, after experiencing his kindness, traduced his memory when dead. He earned a dis- graceful pension by contributing to the death of a brave naval oflScer, Admiral Byng, who fell a victim to the clamour of faction ; and by various other acts of his life, he evinced that sedf-aggrandisement was his only steady and ruling passion. When .John- son, therefore, states that Mallet was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend, he pays a com- pliment to the virtue and integrity of the natives of Scotland. The original name of the poet was Mal- loch, which, after his removal to London, and his intimacy with the great, he changed to Mallet, as more easily pronounced by the English. His father kept a small inn at Crieff, Perthshire, where David was born about the year 1700. He attended Aber- deen college, and was afterwards received, though w'ithout salary, as tutor in the family' of Mr Home of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. He next obtained a similar situation, but with a salary of i'.JO per an- num, in the family of the Duke of Jlontrose. In 1723, he went to London with the duke’s family, and next year his ballad of William atnl Muryaret appeared in Hill’s periodical, ‘ The Plain Dealer.’ He soon numbered among his friends Young, Pope, and other eminent persons, to whom his assiduous atten- tions, his agreeable manners, and literary taste, rendered his society acceptable. In 1733 he pub- lished a satire on Bentley, inscrited to Pope, en- titled Verbal Criticism, in which he characterises the venerable scholar as In error obstinate, in wrangling loud, For trifles eager, positive, and )>roud ; Deep, in the darkness of dull authors bred. With all their refuse lumbered in his head. 40 KXCI-ISll LITKItATUUK. DAVID MALLET. Mallet was aiiiioiuted under secretary to tlie Prince of Wales, with a salary of i200 per annum ; and, in conjunction with Thomson, lie produced, in 1740, the Manque of Alfred, in honour of the birth-day of the Princess Augusta. A fortunate second marriage (nothing is known of his first) brought to the poet a fortune of £10,000. The lady was daughter of Lord Carlisle’s steward. Both Mallet and his wife professed to be deists, and the lady is said to have surprised some of her friends by commencing her arguments with — ‘iSVr, we deists’ When Gibbon the historian was dismissed from his college at O.vford for embracing popery, he took refuge in Mallet’s house, and was rather scandalised, he says, than reclaimed, by the philosophy of his host. Wilkes mentions that the vain and fantastic wife of Mallet one day lamented to a lady that her husband suffered in reputation by his name being so often confounded with that of Smollett; the lady wittily answered, ‘ Jladam, there is a short remedy ; let your husband keep his own name.’ To gratify Lord Bolingbroke, Mallet, in his prefiice to the ‘ Patriot King,’ heaped abuse on the memory of Pope, and Bolingbroke rewarded him by bequeathing to him the whole of his works and manuscripts. When the government became unpopular by the defeat at Minorca, he was employed to defend them, and under the signature of a Plain Man, he published an address imputing cowardice to the admiral of the fleet. He succeeded ; Byng was shot, and Mallet was pensioned. On the death of the Duchess of Marl- borough, it was found that she had left £1000 to Glover, author of ‘ Leonidas,’ and Mallet, jointly, on condition that they should draw up from the family papers a life of the great duke. Glover, in- dignant at a stipulation in the will, that the memoir was to be submitted before publication to the Earl of Chesterfield, and being a high-spirited man, de- volved the whole on Mallet, who also received a pension from the second Duke of Marlborough, to stimulate his industry. He pretended to be busy with the work, and in the dedication to a small col- lection of his poems published in 1762, he stated that he hoped soon to present his grace with some- tliing more solid in the life of the first Duke of Iilarlborough. Mallet had received the solid money, and cared for nothing else. On his death, it was found that not a single line of the memoir had been written. In his latter days the poet held the lucra- tive situation of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London. He died April 21, 1765. ftlallet wrote some theatrical pieces, which, though partially successful on their representation, are now utterly forgotten. Gibbon anticipated, that, if ever his friend should attain poetic fame, it would be acquired by his poem of Amyntor and Theodora. This, the longest of his poetical works, is a tale in blank verse, the scene of which is laid in the solitary island of St Kilda, whither one of his characters, Aurelius, had fled to avoid the religious perse- cutions under Charles II. Some highly-wrought descriptions of marine scenery, storms, and ship- wreck, with a few touches of natural pathos and affection, constitute the chief characteristics of the poem. The whole, however, even the very names in such a locality, has an air of improbability and extravagance. Another work of the same kind, but inferior in execution, is his poem The Excursion, written in imitation of the style of Thomson’s ‘ Seasons.’ The defects of Thomson’s style are servilely copied ; some of his epithets and expres- sions are also borrowed ; but there is no approach to his redeeming graces and beauties. Contrary to the dictum of Gibbon, the poetic fame of Mallet rests on his ballads, and chiefly on his ‘ William and Margaret,’ which, written at the age of twenty- three, afforded high hopes of ultimate excellence. The simplicity, here remarkable, he seems to have thrown aside when he a.ssumed the airs and dress of a man of taste and fashion. All critics, from Dr Percy downwards, have united in considering ‘ Wil- liam and Margaret’ one of the finest compositions of the kind in our language. Sir Walter Scott con- ceived that Mallet had imitated an old Scottish tale to be found in Allan liamsay’s ‘ Tea-Table Miscel- lany,’ beginning. There came a ghost to Margaret’s door. The resemblance is striking. Mallet confessed only (in a note to his ballad) to the following verse in Fletcher’s ‘ Knight of the Burning Pestle :’ — M'hen it was grown to dark midnight, And all were fast asleep, In came Margaret’s grimly ghost. And stood at William’s feet. In the first printed cojiies of Mallet’s ballad, the two first lines were nearly the same as the above — M'hen all was wrapt in dark midnight. And all were fast asleep. He improved the rhyme by the change ; but beauti- ful as the idea is of night and morning meeting, it may be questioned whether there is not more of superstitious awe and affecting simplicity in the old words. William and Margaret. ’Twas at the silent solemn hour. When night and morning meet ; In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost, And stood at William’s feet. Her face was like an April mom Clad in a wintry cloud ; And clay-cold was her lily hand That held her sable shroud. So shall the fairest face appear When youth and years are flown Such is the robe that kings must weal, When death has reft their crown. Her bloom was like the springing flowei, That sips the silver dew ; The rose was budded in her cheek. Just opening to the view. But love had, like the canker-worm, Consumed her early prime ; The rose grew pale, and left her cheek — She died before her time. Awake 1 she cried, thy true love calls. Come from her midnight grave : Now let thy pity hear the maid Thy love refused to save. This is the dark and dreary hour When injured ghosts complain; When yawning graves give up their dead, To haunt the faithless swain. Bethink thee, William, of thy fault. Thy pledge and broken oath ! And give me back my maiden-vow. And give me back my troth. Why did you promise love to me. And not that promise keep ? Why did you swear my eyes were bright, Yet leave those eyes to weep ! PROM 1727 CYCLOPiEDIA OF TO 17«K>. IIow could you say my face was fair, And yet tliat f.vcc forsake 1 IIow eould you win my virgin heart, Y et leave that heart to break 1 Why did you say my lip was sweet. And made the scarlet pale ? And why did 1, young witless maidl Believe the flattering tale? That face, alas ! no more is fair, Tliose lips no longer red : Dark are my eyes, now closed in death. And every charm is fled. The hungry worm my sister is ; This winding-sheet I wear: And cold and weary lasts our night. Till that last morn appear. But hark ! the cock has warned me hence ; A long and last adieu ! Come see, false man, how low she lies. Who died for love of you. The lark sung loud ; the morning smiled With beams of rosy red : Pale William quaked in every limb. And raving left his bed. He hied him to the fatal place Where Margaret’s body lay ; And stretched him on the green-grass turf That wrapt her breathless clay. And thrice he called on Margaret’s name, And thrice he wept full sore ; Then laid his cheek to her cold grave. And word spake never more ! Edwin and Emma, Far in the windings of a vale. Fast by a sheltering wood, The safe retreat of health and peace, A humble cottage stood. There beauteous Emma flourished fair. Beneath a mother’s eye ; Whose only wish on earth was now To see her blest, and die. The softest blush that nature spreads Gave colour to her cheek ; Such orient colour smiles through heaven, When vernal mornings break. Nor let the pride of great ones scorn This charmer of the plains : That sun, who bids their diamonds blaze. To paint our lily deigns. Long had she filled each youth with love. Each maiden with despair; And though by all a wonder owned. Yet knew' not she was fair: Till Edwin came, the pride of swains, A soul devoid of art ; Afld from whose eye, serenely mild. Shone forth the feeling heart. A mutual flame was quickly caught. Was quickly too revealed ; For neither bosom lodged a wish That virtue keeps concealed. What happy hours of home-felt bliss Did love on both bestow ! But bliss too mighty long to last. Where fortune proves a foe. Ilis sister, who, like envy formed. Like her in mischief joyed. To work them harm, with wicked skill. Each darker art employed. 'rhe father too, a sordid m.an. Who love nor pity knew. Was all unfeeling as the clod From whence his riches grew. Long had he seen their secret flame. And seen it long unmoved ; Then with a father’s frown at last Had sternly disapproved. In Edwin’s gentle heart, a war Of differing passions strove: , His heart, that durst not disobey. Yet could not cease to love. Denied her sight, he oft behind The spreading hawthorn crept. To snatch a glance, to mark the spot Where Emma nalked and wept. Oft, too, on Stanmore’s wintry waste. Beneath the moonlight shade. In sighs to pour his softened soul. The midnight mourner strayed. His cheek, where health with beauty glow‘»d, A deadly pale o’ercast ; So fades the fresh rose in its prime. Before the northern blast. The parents now, with late remorse. Hung o’er his dying bed ; And wearied Heaven with fruitless vows. And fruitless sorrows shed. ’Tis past ! he cried, but, if your souls Sweet mercy yet can move. Let these dim eyes once more behold What they must ever love ! She came ; his cold hand softly touched. And bathed with many a tear : Fast-falling o’er the primrose pale. So morning dews appear. But oh ! his sister’s jealous care, A cruel sister she 1 Forbade what Emma came to say; ‘ My Edwin, live for me 1’ Now homeward as she hopeless wept. The churchyard path along. The blast blew cold, the dark owl screamed Her lover’s funeral song. Amid the falling gloom of night. Her startling fancy found In every bush his hovering shade. His groan in every sound. ' Alone, appalled, thus had she passed The visionary vale — When lo ! the death-bell smote her ear. Sad sounding in the gale ! Just then she reached, with trembling step, Her aged mother’s door : He’s gone 1 she cried, and I shall see That angel-face no more. I feel, I feel this breaking heart Beat high against my side ! From her white arm down sunk her head — She shivered, sighed, and died. 43 ENGLISH LITERATURE. MARK AKRITStDB. The Birh of Invemiay. The smiling morn, the breathing spring, Invite the tunefu’ birds to sing ; And, while they warble from the spray, Love melts the universal lay. I.et us, Amanda, timely wise. Like them, improve the hour that flics ; And in soft raptures waste the day. Among the birks of Invermay. For soon the winter of the year. And age, life’s winter, will appear; At this thy living bloom will fade. As that will strip the verdant shade. Our taste of pleasure then is o’er. The feathered songsters are no more ; And when they drop and we decay. Adieu the birks of Invermay ! Some additional stanzas were added to the above by Dr Bryce, Kirknewton. Invermay is in Perth- shire, the native county of ^lallet, and is situated near the termination of a little picturesque stream called the May. The ‘ birk’ or birch-tree is abun- dant, adding grace and beauty to rock and stream. Though a Celt by birth and language. Mallet had none of the imaginative wildness or superstition of his native country. Maepherson, on the other hand, seems to have been completely imbued with it. MARK AKENSIDE. The author of The Pleasures of Imagination, one of the most pure and noble-minded poems of the age, was of humble origin. Ilis parents were dis- senters, and the Puritanism imbibed in his early years si^ems, as in the case of Milton, to have given a gravity and earnestness to his character, and a love of freedom to his thoughts and imagination. Mark Akenslde was the son of a respectable House in which Akenside was bom. butcher at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was born, November 9, 1721. An accident in his early years — the fall of one of his father’s cleavers, or hatchets, on his foot — rendered him lame for life, and per- petuated the recollection of his lowly birth. The Society of Dissenters advanced a sum for the edu- cation of the poet as a clergyman, and he repaired to Edinburgh for this purpose in his eighteenth year. He afterwards repented of this destination, and, returning the money, entered himself as a stu- dent of medicine. He was then a poet, and in his Hymn to Science, W'ritten in Edinburgh, we see at once the formation of his classic taste, and the dignity of his personal character : — • That last best effort of thy skill, To form the life and rule the will. Propitious Power ! impart ; Teach me to cool my passion’s fires. Make me the judge of my desires. The master of my heart. Raise me above the vulgar’s breath. Pursuit of fortune, fear of death. And all in life that’s mean ; Still true to reason be my plan, Still let my actions speak the man, Through every various scene. A youth animated by such sentiments, promised a manhood of honour and integrity. After three years spent in Edinburgh, Akenside removed to Leyden to complete his studies; and in 1744 he was admitted to the degree of M.D. He next esta- blished himself as a physician in London. In Hol- land he had (at the age of twenty-three) writ- ten his ‘ Pleasures of Imagination,’ which he now offered to Dodsley, demanding £120 for the copy- right. The bookseller consulted Pope, who told him ‘ to make no niggardly offer, since this was no every-day writer.’ The poem attracted much at- tention, and was afterwards translated into Erench and Italian. Akenside established himself as a physician in Northampton, where he remained a year and a-half, but did not succeed. The latter part of his life was spent in London. At Leyden he had formed an intimacy with a young English- man of fortune, Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., which ripened into a friendship of the most close and enthusiastic description ; and Mr Dyson (who w’as afterwards clerk of the House of Commons, a lord of the trea- sury, See.) had the generosity to allow the poet £300 ayear. After writing a few Odes, and attempting a total alteration of his great poem (in which he was far from successful), Akenside made no further efforts at composition. His society was courted for his taste, knowledge, and eloquence ; but his solemn sententiousness of manner, his romantic ideas of liberty, and his unbounded admiration of the an- cients, exposed him occasionally to ridicule. The physician in Peregrine Pickle, who gives a feast in the manner of the ancients, is supposed to have been a caricature of Akenside. The description, for rich humour and grotesque combinations of learning and folly, has not been excelled by Smollett ; but it was unAvorthy his talents to cast ridicule on a man oi high character and splendid genius. Akenside died suddenly of a putrid sore throat, on the 23d of June 1770, in his 49th year, and was buried in St James’s church. With a feeling, comm on to poets', as to more ordinary mortals, Akenside, in his latter days, reverted with delight to his native landscape on the banks of the Tyne. In his fragment of a fourth bqok of ‘ The Pleasures of Imagination,’ written in the last year of his life, there is the following beau- tiful passage : — 0 ye dales Of Tyne, and ye most ancient Avoodlands ; where Oft as the giant flood obli lue y strides, 43 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF And his hanks open and liis la«'n» extend, Stops short tlie pleased traveller to view, Presidinj' o’er the secne, some rustic tower Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands: 0 ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook The rocky pavement and the mossy falls Of solitary W’ensbeek’s limpid stream 1 How gladly 1 recall your well-known seats Ileloved of old, and that delightful time When all alone, for many a summer’s day, 1 wandered through your calm recesses, led In silence by some powerful hand unseen. Nor will I e’er forget you ; nor shall e’er The graver tasks of manhood, or the advice Of vulgar wisdom, move me to disclaim Those studies which possessed me in the dawn Of life, and fixed the colour of my mind For every future year: whence even now From sleep 1 rescue the clear hours of mom. And, while the world around lies overwhelmed In idle darkness, am alive to thoughts Of honourable fame, of truth divine Or moral, and of minds to virtue won By the sweet magic of harmonious verse. The spirit of Milton seems to speak in this strain of lofty egotism 1 ‘ The Pleasures of Imagination’ is a poem seldom read continuously, though its finer passages, by fre- quent quotation, particularly in works of criticism and moral philosophy, are well known. Gray cen- sured the mixture of spurious philosophy — the spe- culations of Hutcheson and Shaftesbury — which the ■work contains. Plato, Lucretius, and even the papers by Addison in the Spectator, were also laid under contribution by the studious author. He gathered sparks of enthusiasm from kindred minds, but the train was in his own. The pleasures which his poem professes to treat of, ‘ proceed,’ he says, ‘ either from natural objects, as from a flourishing grove, a clear and murmuring fountain, a calm sea by moonlight, or from works of art, such as a noble edifice, a mu- sical tune, a statue, a picture, a poem.’ These, with the moral and intellectual objects arising from them, furnish abundant topics for illustration ; but Aken- side dealt chiefly with abstract subjects, pertaining more to philosophy than to poetry. He did not seek to graft upon them human interests and pas- sions. In tracing the final causes of our emotions, he could have described their exercise and effects in scenes of ordinary pain or pleasure in the walks of real life This does not seem, how'ever, to have been the purpose of the poet, and hence his work is deficient in interest. He seldom stoops from the heights of philosophy and classic taste. He con- sidered that physical science improved the charms of uUture. Contrary to the feeling of an accomplished living poet, who repudiates these ‘ cold material laws,’ he viewed the rainbow with additional plea- sure after he had studied the Newtonian theory of lights and colours. Nor ever yet The melting rainbow’s vernal tinctured hues To me have shone so pleasing, as when first The hand of Science pointed out the path In which the sunbeams gleaming from the west Fall oE. the watery cloud, whose darksome veil Involves the orient. Akenside’s Hymn to the Naiads has the true classical spirit. He had caught the manner and feeling, the varied pause and harmony, of the Greek poets, with ewch felicity, that Lloyd considered his Hymn as fitted to give a better idea of that form of compo- sition, than could be conveyed by any translation af Homer or Callimachus. Gray was an equally TO 1780. learned poet, perhaps superior. His knowledge wag better digested. But Gray had not the romantic enthusiasm of character, tinged with pedantry, which naturally belonged to Akenside. He had also the experience of mature years. The genius of Aken- side was early developed, and his diffuse and florid descriptions seem the natural product — marvellous of its kind— of youthful exuberance. He was after- wards conscious of the defects of his poem. He saw that there was too much leaf for the fruit; but iii cutting off' these luxuriances, he sacrificed some of the finest blossoms. Posterity has been more just to his fame, by almost wholly disregarding this second copy of his philosophical poem. In his youth- ful aspirations after moral and intellectual great- ness and beauty, he seems, like Jeremy Taylor in the pulpit, ‘ an angel newly descended from the visions of glory.’ In advanced years, he is the pro- fessor in his robes; still free from stain, but stately, formal, and severe. The blank verse of ‘ The Plea- sures of Imagination’ is free and well-modulated, and seems to be distinctively his own. Though apt to run into too long periods, it has more compactness of structure tlian Thomson’s ordinary composition. Its occasional want of perspicuity probably arises from the fineness of his distinctions, and the difli culty attending mental analysis in verse. He might also wish to avoid all vulgar and common expres- sions, and thus err from excessive refinement. A redundancy of ornament undoubtedly, in some p.as- sages, takes off from the clearness and prominence of his conceptions. His highest flights, however — as in the allusion to the death of Caisar, and his exquisitely-wrought parallel between art and na- ture — have a flow and energy of expression, with appropriate imagery, which mark the great poet. His style is chaste, yet elevated and musical. He never compromised his dignity, though he blended sweetness with its expression. [Aspirations after the Infinite.^ Say, why was man so eminently raised Amid the vast creation ; why ordained Through life and death to dart his piercing eye, With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame ; But that the Omnipotent might send him forth In sight of mortal and immortal powers, As on a boundless theatre, to run The great career of justice; to exalt His generous aim to all diviner deeds ; To chase each partial purpose from his breast ; And through the mists of p.assion and of sense. And through the tossing tide of chance and pain, To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent Of Nature, calls him to his high reward. The applauding smile of Heaven ? Else wherefore bums In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope. That breathes from day to day subliiner things. And mocks possession ! wherefore darts the mind With such resistless ardour to embrace Majestic forms ; impatient to be free. Spurning the gross control of wilful might ; Proud of the strong contention of her toils ; Proud to be daring ? who but rather turns To Heaven’s broad fire his unconstrained view, Thau to the glimmering of a waxen flame ? Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade. And continents of sand, will turn his gaze To mark the windings of a scanty rill That murmurs at his feet 2 The high-bom soul 44 POETS. ~9 — — ENGLISH LITERATURE. maiik AKunsiDR. Disdains to rest her hcaTcn-aspiring wing Beneath its ijative quarry. Tired of earth .•\nd this diurnal scene, she springs aloft Tlirough fields of air; pursues the flying storm ; Bides on the vollied lightning through the heavens ; Dr, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast, I^weeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars The blue profound, and, hovering round the sun, Beholds him pouring the redundant stream Of light ; beholds his unrelenting sway Bend the reluctant planets to absolve The fated rounds of Time. Thence far effused, She darts her swiftness up the long career Of devious comets ; through its burning signs K.xulting measures the perennial wheel Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars. Whose blended light, as with a milky zone. Invest the orient. Now, amazed she views The empyreal waste, where hapjiy spirits hold. Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode ; .\nd fields of radiance, whose unfading light lias travelled the profound six thousand years. Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things. Even oi> the barriers of the world, untired She meditates the eternal depth below; Till half recoiling, down the headlong steep She plunges ; soon o’erwhelraed and swallowed up In that Immense of being. There her hopes Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said. That not in humble nor in brief delight. Not in the fading echoes of Renown, Bower’s purple robes, nor Pleasure’s flowery lap. The soul should find enjoyment ; but from these Turning disdainful to an equal good. Through all the ascent of things enlarge hev view. Till every bound at length should disappear. And infinite perfection close the scene. [Intellectual Beauty — PatnotismJ] Mind, mind alone (bear witness earth and heaven !) The living fountains in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime : here hand in hand Sit paramount the Graces ; here enthroned. Celestial Venus, with divinest airs. Invites the soul to never-fading joy. Look, then, abroad through Nature, to the range ( )f planets, suns, and adamantine spheres. Wheeling unshaken through the void immense ; And speak, oh man! does this capacious scene With haU that kindling majesty dilate Thy stron, conception, as when Brutus rose Refulgent Item the stroke of Caesar’s fate. Amid the crowd of patriots ; and his arm Aloft extending, like eternal Jove When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud On Tully’s name, and shook his crimson steel. And bade the father of his country, hail ! F or lo ! the tyrant prostrate on the dust. And Rome again is free! Is aught so fair In all the dewy landscapes of the spring. In the bright eye of Hesper, or the morn, in Nature’s fairest forms, is aught so fair As virtuous friendship 1 as the candid blush Of him who strives with fortune to be just ? The graceful tear that streams for others’ woes. Or the mild majesty of private life, WTiere Peace, with ever-blooming olive, crowns The gate ; where Honour’s liberal hands effuse IJnenvied treasures, and the snowy wings Of Innocence and Love protect the scene? Once more search, undismayed, the dark profound Where nature works in secret ; view the beds Of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault That bounds the hoary ocean ; trace the forms Of atoms moving with incessant change Their elemental round : behold the seeds Of being, and the energy of life Kindling the mass with cver-active flame: Then to the secrets of the working mind Attentive turn ; from dim oblivion call Her fleet, ideal band ; and bid them, go ! Break through time’s barrier, and o’ertake the hour That saw the heavens created : then declare If aught were found in those external scenes To move thy wonder now. For what are all The forms which brute unconscious matter wears. Greatness of bulk, oi symmetry of parts? Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows The supei-ficial impulse ; dull their charms. And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye. Not so the moral species, nor the powers Of genius and design : the ambitious mind There sees herself : by these congenial forms Touched and awakened, with intenser act She bends each nerve, and meditates well-p ti.sed Her featujes in the mirror. For of all The inhabitants of earth, to man alone Creative Wisdom gave to lift his eye To truth’s eternal measures ; thence to frame The sacred laws of action and of will. Discerning justice from unequal deeds, .And temperance from folly. But beyond This energy of truth, whose dictates bind .Assenting reason, the benignant Sire, To deck the honoured paths of just and gvod. Has added bright imagination’s rays: Where virtue, rising from the awful depth Of truth’s mysterious bosom, doth forsake The unadorned condition of her birth ; And, dressed by fancy in ten thousand hues. Assumes a various feature to attract With charms responsive to each gazer’s eye. The hearts of men. Amid his rural walk. The ingenious youth, whom solitude inspires With purest wishes, from the pensive shade Beholds her moving, like a virgin-muse That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme Of harmony and wonder : while among The herd of servile minds her strenuous form Indignant flashes on the patriot’s eye. And through the rolls of memory appeals To ancient honour, or, in act serene Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword Of public power, from dark ambition’s reach. To guard the sacred volume of the laws. [^Operations of the Mind in the Production of Warii of Imagination.'\ By these mysterious ties, the busy power Of memory her ideal train preserves Entire ; or when they would elude her watch. Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste Of dark oblivion ; thus collecting all The various forms of being, to present Before the curious eye of mimic art Their largest choice : like spring’s unfolded blooms Exhaling sweetness, that the .skilful bee May taste at will from their selected spoils To work her dulcet food. For not the expanse Of living lakes in summer’s noontide calm. Reflects the bordering shade and sun-bright heavens With fairer semblance ; not the sculptured gold More faithful keeps the graver’s lively trace. Than he whose birth the sister powers of art Propitious viewed, and from his genial star Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind. Than his attempered bosom must preserve The seal of nature. There alone, unchanged Her f ■ rm rema ins. The balmy walks of May 45 FROM 1 727 CYCLOPiEDIA OF TO 1780- Thcre lirciithe perennial sweeta : the trembling chord Itcaatinds for ever in tlie abstracted ear, Melodious; and the virgin’s radiant eye, Superior to disease, to grief, and time, Sliines with unbating lustre. Thus at length lOndowcd with all that nature can bestow. The child of fancy oft in silence bends O’er these mixed treasures of his pregnant breast With conscious pride. From them he oft resolves To frame he knows not what excelling things, And win he knows not what sublime reward Of praise and wonder, liy degrees the mind Feels her young nerves dilate : the plastic powers Labour for action : blind emotions heave His bosom ; and with loveliest frenzy caught, I From earth to heaven he rolls his daring eye, I From heaven to earth. Anon ten thousand shapes, ' Like spectres trooping to the wizard’s call, I Flit swift before him. From the womb of eaith, I From ocean’s bed they come : the eternal heavens I Disclose their splendours, and the dark abyss I Pours out her births unknown. With fixed gaze He marks the rising phantoms. Now compares Their different forms ; now blends them, now divides; Enlarges and extenuates by turns ; Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands. And infinitely varies. Hither now. Now thither fluctuates his inconstant aim. With endless choice perplexed. At length his plau Begins to open. Lucid order dawns ; And as from Chaos old the jarring seeds Of nature at the voice divine repaired I'lach to its pliice, till rosy earth unveiled Her fragrant bosom, and the joyful sun Sprung up the blue serene ; by swift degrees Thus disent.angled, his entire design Emerges. Colours mingle, features join. And lines converge : the fainter parts retire ; The fairer eminent in light advance; And every image on its neighbour smiles. Awhile he stands, and with a father’s joy Contemplates. Then with Promethean art Into its proper vehicle he breathes The fair conception ; which, embodied thus. And permanent, becomes to eyes or ears An object ascertained : while thus informed. The various objects of his mimic skill. The consonance of sounds, the featured rock. The shadowy picture, and impassioned verse. Beyond their proper powers attract the soul By that expressive .semblance, while in sight Of nature’s great original we .scan The lively child of art ; while line by line. And feature after feature, we refer To that divine exemplar wheirce it stole Those animating charms. Thus beauty’s palm Betwixt them wavering hangs: applauding love Doubts where to choose ; and mortal man aspires To tempt creative praise. As when a cloud Of gathering hail with limpid crusts of ice Enclosed, and obvious to the beaming sun. Collects his large effulgence ; straight the heavens With equal flames present on either h.and The radiant visage : Persia stands at gaze. Appalled ; and on the brink of Ganges doubts I'he snowy- vested seer, in Mithra’s name. To which the fragrance of the south shall burn. To which his warbled orisons ascend. [Taste.'] What then is taste, but these internal powers Active, and strong, and feelingly alive lo each fine impulse? a discerning sense Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust ’rom things deformed or disarranged, or gross In specicii? This, nor gems nor stores of gold. Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow ; But God alone, when first his active hand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. He, mighty parent ! wise and just in all. Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven. Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain Who journies homeward from a summer day’s Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils And due repo.se, he loiters to behold The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds. O’er all the western sky ; full soon, I ween. His rude expression and untutored airs. Beyond the power of language, will unfold The form of beauty smiling at his heart. How lovely ! how commanding ! But though heaven In every breast hath sown these early seeds Of love and admiration, yet in vain. Without fair culture’s kind parental aid. Without enlivening suns, and genial showers. And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope The tender plant should rear its blooming head. Or yield the harve.st promised in its spring. Nor yet will every soil with equal stores Repay the tiller’s labour ; or attend His will, obsequious, whether to produce The olive or the laurel. Different minds Incline to different objects : one pursues The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild ; Another sighs for harmony, and grace. And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the groun I ; When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air. And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed. Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky. Amid the mighty uproar, while below The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad From some high cliff superior, and enjoys The elemental war. But Waller longs All on the margin of some flowery stream To spread his careless limbs amid the cool Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer The tale of slighted vows and love’s disdain Resound soft-warbling all the live-long day : Consenting zephyr sighs ; the weeping rill Joins in his plaint, melodious ; mute the groves ; And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn. Such and so various are the tastes of men. O blest of heaven ! whom not the languid songs Of luxury, the siren ! not the bribes Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant honour, can seduce to leave Those ever-blooming sweets, w'hich from the store Of nature fair imagination culls To charm the enlivened soul ! What though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights Of envied life ; though only few possess Patrician treasures or imperial state ; Y et nature’s care, to all her children just, W'ith richer treasures and an ampler state. Endows at large whatever happy man Will deign to use them. His the city’s pomp, Tlie rural honours his. Whate’er adorns The princely dome, the column and the arch. The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold, Beyond the proud possessor’s narrow claim. His tuneful breast enjoys. For him the sirring Distils her dews, and from the silken gem Its lucid leaves unfolds : for him the hand Of autumn tinges every fertile branch With blooming gold and blushes like the morn. Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings ; And still new beauties meet his lonely walk. And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze Flies o’er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes The setting sun’s effulgence, not a strain ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. From all the tenants of the warbling shade Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake Fresh pleasure, unreproved. Nor thence partakes Fresh pleasure only : for the attentive mind, Hy this harmonious action on her powers, llccomes herself harmonious : wont so oft In outward things to meditate the charm Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home To find a kindred order, to exert Within herself this elegance of love, This fair inspired delight ; her tempered powers Refine at length, and every passion wears A chaster, milder, more attractive mien. Rut if to ampler prospects, if to gaze On nature’s form, where, negligent of all These lesser graces, she assumes the port Of that eternal majesty that weighed The world’s foundations ; if to these the mind Exalts her daring eye ; then mightier far Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms Of servile custom cramp her generous power ; Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear \ Lo ! she appeals to nature, to the winds And rolling waves, 'the sun’s unwearied course, The elements and seasons : all declare For what the eternal Maker has ordained The powers of man : we feel within ourselves His energy divine : he tells the heart. He meant, he made us to behold and love What he beholds and loves, the general orb Of life and being ; to be great like him. Beneficent and active. Thus the men Whom nature’s works can charm, with God himself Hold converse ; grow familiar, day by day. With his conceptions, act upon his plan. And form to his, the relish of their souls. On a Sermon Against Glory. — 1747. Come, then, tell me, sage divine. Is it an offence to own That our bosoms e’er incline Towards immortal glory’s throne 1 For with me nor pomp nor pleasure. Bourbon’s might, Braganza’s treasure. So can fancy’s dream rejoice, So conciliate reason’s choice. As one approving word of her impartial voice. If to spurn at noble praise Be the passport to thy heaven. Follow thou those gloomy ways ; No such law to me was given ; Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me. Faring like my friends before me ; Nor a holier place desire Than Timoleon’s arms acquire. And Tully’s curule chair, and Milton’s golden lyre. Inscription for a Monument to Shakspeare. 0 youths and virgins : 0 declining eld : O pale misfortune’s slaves ; 0 ye who dwell Unknown with humble quiet : ye who wait In courts, or fill the golden seat of kings : O sons of sport and pleasure : 0 thou wretch That weep’st for jealous love, or the sore wounds Of conscious guilt, or death’s rapacious hand, Which left thee void of hope : O ye who roam In exile, ye who*through the embattled field Seek bright renown, or who for nobler palms Contend, the leaders of a public cause, Approach : behold this marble. Know ye not The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue Told you the fashion of your own estate. LORD LYTTELTOJI. The secrets of your bosom ? Here then round His monument with reverence while ye stand. Say to each other: ‘This was Shakspeare’s form ; Who walked in every path of human life. Felt every passion ; and to all mankind Doth now, will ever that experience yield. Which his own genius only could acquire.’ Insanption for a Statue of Chaucer, at Woodstock. Such was old Chaucer : such the placid mien Of him who first with harmony informed The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt For many a cheerful day. Those ancient walls Have often heard him, while his legends blithe He sang ; of love, or knighthood, or the wiles Of homely life ; through each estate and age. The fashions and the follies of the world With cunning hand portraying. Though perchance From Blenheim’s towers, 0 stranger, thou art come Glowing with Churchill’s trophies ; yet in vain Dost thou applaud them, if thy breast be cold To him, this other hero ; who in times Dark and untaught, began with charming verse To tame the rudeness of his native land. LORD LYTTELTON. As a poet, Lyttelton might escape remembrance, but he comes before us as a general author, and is, from various considerations apart from literary talent, worthy of notice. He was the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton of Hagley, in Worcestershire (near the Leasowes of Shenstone) ; and after distinguishing Hagley, the seat of Lord Lyttelton. I himself at Eton and Oxford, he went abroad, and passed some time in France and Italy. On his return, he obtained a seat in parliament, and op- posed the measures of Sir Robert Walpole. He be- came secretary to the Prince of Wales, and was thus able to benefit his literary friends, Thomson and Mallet. In 1741 he married Miss Lucy Fortescue of Devonshire, who, dying five years afterwards, afforded a theme for his muse, considered by many the most successful of his poetical efforts. When Walpole and the Whigs were vanquished, Lyttelton 47 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1780. was made one of the lords of the treasury. He was afterwards a ])rivy couneillor and chancellor of the exchequer, and was elevated to the peerage. He died August 22, 1773, aged sixty-four. Lyttelton was author of a short but excellent treatise on The Conversion of Si J’liitl, which is still regarded as one of the subsidiary bulwarks of Christianity. He also wrote an elaborate History of the lleiyn of Henry //., to which he brouglit ample information and a spirit of imi)artiality and justice. These valuable works, and his patronage of literary men (Fielding, it will be recollected, dedicated to him his Tom Jones, and to Thomson he was a firm friend), constitute the chief claim of Lyttelton njion the regard of pos- terity. Gray has j)raised his Monody on his wife’s death as tender and elegiac; but undoubtedly the finest poetical effusion of Lyttelton is his Prologue to Thomson's Tragedy of Coriolanus. Before this jilay eould be brought out, 'I’homson liad paid the debt of nature, and his premature death was deeply lamented. 'J’he tragedy was acted for the “benefit of the poet’s relations, and when Quin spoke the prologue by Lyttelton, many of the audience wept at the lines — He loved his friends — forgive this gushing tear: Alas ! I feel 1 am no actor here. [From the Monody.'] In vain I look around O’er all the well-known ground, My Lucy’s wonted footsteps to descry ; ^Vhel■e oft we used to walk, M’here oft in tender talk We saw the summer sun go down the sky; Nor by yon fountain’s side, Nor where its waters glide Along the valley, can she now be found : In all the wide-stretched prospect’s ample bound, No more my mournful eye Can aught of her espy. But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie. Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns. Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns. By your delighted mother’s side : Who now your infant steps shall guide ? Ah ! where is cow the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have formed your youth. And strewed with flowers the thorny ways of truth ? 0 loss beyond repair ! 0 wretched father, left alone To w'eep their dire misfortune and thy own ! How shall thy weakened mind, oppressed with wo. And drooping o’er thy Lucy’s grave. Perform the duties that you doubly owe, Now she, alas ! is gone. From folly and from vice their helpless age to save 1 Advice to a Lady. The counsels of a friend, Belinda, hear. Too roughly kind to please a lady’s ear. Unlike the flatteries of a lover’s pen. Such truths as women seldom learn from men. Nor think I praise you ill, when thus I show What female vanity might fear to know: Some merit’s mine to dare to be sincere; But greater yours sincerity to bear. Hard is the fortune that your sex attends ; Women, like princes, find few real friends : All who approach them their own ends pursue; Lovers and ministers are seldom true. Hence oft from Reason heedless Beauty strays. And the most trusted guide the most betrays ; Hence, by fond dreams of fancied power amused. When most you tyrannise, you’re mo.st abused. What is your sex’s earliest, latest care, Y our heart’s supreme ambition ? — To be fair. For this, the toilet every thought emidoys. Hence all the toils of dress, .and all the joys: For this, Inands, lips, and eyes, are put to school. And each instructed feature has its rule : And yet how few have learnt, when this is given. Not to disgrace the partial boon of Heaven ! How few with ah their pride of form can move ! How few are lovely, that are made for love 1 Ho you, my fair, endeavour to j)Osse,ss An elegance of mind, as well as dress ; Be that your ornament, and know to plca.se By graceful Nature’s unaffected ease. Nor make to dangerous wit a vain pretence. But wisely rest content with modest .sense ; For wit, like wine, intoxicates the brain. Too strong for feeble woman to sustain : Of those who claim it more than half have none ; And half of those who have it are undone. Be still superior to your sex’s arts, Nor think dishonesty a proof of parts: For you, the plainest is the wisest rule : A cunning woman is a knavish fool. Be good yourself, nor think another’s shame Can raise your merit, or adorn your fame. Virtue is amiable, mild, serene ; Without all beauty, and all peace within ; The honour of a prude is rage and storm, ’Tis ugliness in its most frightful form ; Fiercely it stands, defying gods and men, As fiery monsters guard a giant’s den. Seek to be good, but aim not to be great ; A woman’s noblest station is retreat ; Her fairest virtues fly from public sight. Domestic worth, that shuns too strong a light. To rougher man Ambition’s task resign, ’Tis ours in senates or in courts to shine. To labour for a sunk corrupted state. Or dare the rage of Envy, and be great ; One only care your gentle breasts should move, The important business of your life is love ; To this great point direct your constant aim. This makes your happiness, and this your fame. Be never cool reserve with passion joined ; With caution choose! but then be fondly kind. The selfish heart, that but by halves is given. Shall find no place in Love’s delightful heaven ; Here sweet extremes alone can truly bless: The virtue of a lover is excess. A maid unasked may own a well-placed flame ; Not loving but loving wrong, is shame. Contemn the little pride of giving pain. Nor think that conquest justifies disdain. Short is the period of insulting power ; Offended Cupid finds his vengeful hour; Soon will resume the empire which he gave. And soon the tyrant shall become the slave. Blest is the maid, and worthy to be blest. Whose soul, entire by him she loves possessed, Feels every vanity in fondness lost. And asks no power but that of pleasing most : Hers is the bliss, in just return, to prove The honest warmth of undissembled love ; For her, inconstant man might cease to range. And gratitude forbid desire to change. But, lest harsh care the lover’s peace destroy. And roughly blight the tender buds of joy. Let Reason teach what Passion fein would hide. That Hymen’s bands by Prudence should be tied ; Venus in vain the wedded pair would crown. If angry Fortune on their union frown : Soon will the flattering dream of bliss be o’er. And cloyed Imagination cheat no more. 48 ENGLISH LITERATURE. TnOMAS O&AT. I Ihoii, wakiii" to the sense of lasting pain, ; With nuitual tears the nuptial couch they stain ; ■ And that fond love, which should afford relief, I Does hut increase the anguish of their grief : I While both could easier their own sorrows bear, ■ Than the sad knowledge of each other’s care. Yet may you rather feel that virtuous pain. Than sell your violated charms for gain, ! Than wed the wretch whom you despise or hate, j For the vain glare of useless wealth or state. E’en in the happiest choice, where favouring Heaven I Has equal love and easy fortune given, I Think not, the husband gained, that all is done ; I The prize of happiness must still be won : I And oft the careless find it to their cost, The lover in the husband may be lost ; I The Gnvees might alone his heart allure ; ! They and the Virtues meeting must secure. { Let e’en your prudence wear the pleasing dress Of care for him, and an.vious tenderness ; I From kind concern about his weal or wo, I Let each domestic duty seem to flow. I The household sceptre if he bids you bear, I Make it your pride his servant to appear: j Endearing thus the common acts of life. The mistress still shall charm him in the w'ife ; And wrinkled age shall unobserved come on, Before his eye perceives one beauty gone : I E’en o’er your cold, your ever-sacred urn, ! His constant flame shall unextinguished bum. Thus 1, Belinda, would your charms improve. And form your heart to all the arts of love. The task were harder, to secure my own Against the power of those already known ; F'or well you twist the secret chains that bind With gentle force the captivated mind ; Skilled every soft attraction to employ. Each flattering hope, and each alluring joy ; I own your genius, and from you receive The rules of pleasing, which to you I give. [Prologxie to the Tragedy of Coriolanus — Spoken hy Mr Quin.] I come not here your candour to implore For scenes whose author is, alas ! no more ; He wants no advocate his cause to plead ; Y on will yourselves be patrons of the dead. No party his benevolence confined. No sect — alike it flowed to all mankind. He loved his friends — forgive this gushing tear : Alas ! I feel I am no actor here — He loved his friends with such a warmth of heart. So clear of interest, so devoid of art. Such generous friendship, such unshaken zeal. No words can speak it, but our tears may tell. O candid truth ! O faith without a stain ! 0 manners gently firm, and nobly plain ! 1 O sympathising love of others’ bliss — Where will you find another breast like his ! Such was the man : the poet w'ell you know ; Oft has he touched your hearts with tender wo ; Oft in this crowded house, with just applause. You heard him teach fair Virtue’s purest laws; For his chaste muse employed her heaven-taught lyre None but the noblest passions to inspire ; Not one immoral, one corrupted thought. One line which, dying, he could wish to blot. 0 may to-night your favourable doom Another laurel add to grace his tomb : Whilst he, suj>erior now to praise or blame, ] Hears not the feeble voice of human fame. Yet if to those wnom most on earth he loved. From whom his pious care is now removed. With whom his liberal hand, and bounteous heart. Shared all his little fortune could impart : 46 If to those friends your kind regard shall give Wliat they .no longer can from his receive. That, that, even now, above yon starry pole. May touch with pleasure his immortal soul. To the ‘Castle of Indolence,’ Lyttelton contributed the following excellent stanza, containing a portrait of Thomson : — A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems. Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain. On virtue still, and nature’s pleasing themes. Poured forth his unpremeditated strain : The world forsaking with a calm disdain. Here laughed he careless in his easy seat; Here quaffed encircled with the joyous train. Oft moralising sage: his ditty sweet He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat. THOMAS GRAY. Thomas Gray was born at Cornhill. Londo^, December 26. 1716. His father, Philip Gray, was a money-scrivener — the same occupation carried on by Milton’s father; but though a ‘respectable citizen,’ the parent of Gray was a man of harsh and violent disposition. His wife was forced to separate from him ; and it was to the exertions of this excellent woman, as partner with her sister in a millinery business, that the poet owed the advan- tages of a learned education, first at Eton, and after- w’ards at Cambridge. The painful domestic circum- stances of his youth gave a tinge of melancholy and pensive reflection to Gray, which is visible in his poetrv. At Eton, the young student had made the friendship of Horace Wal])ole, son of the prime minister; and when his college education was com- pleted, Walpole induced him to accompany him in a tour through France and Italy. They had been about a twelvemonth together, exploring the natural beauties, antiquities, and picture galleries of Rome, Florence, Naples, &c., when a quarrel took place between them at Reggio, and the travellers sepa- rated, Gray returning to England. Walpole took riu)M 1727 CYCLOVTlilDlA Oy TO 1780. tlio blame of this (iiirereiice on himself, as he was vain .and volatile, and not dis])osed to trust in the better knowledge and the somewhat fastidious tastes and habits of his assoeiate. Gray went to Cam- bridge, to take his degree in eivil law, but without intending to follow up the profession. Ilis father had died, his mother's fortune w;is small, and the poet was more intent on learning than on riches. He had, however, enough for his wants. He fixed his residence at Cambridge; and amid.st its noble libraries and learned society, passed the greater part of his remaining life. He hated mathematical and metaphysical ]mrsuits, but was ardently de- voted to classical learning, to which he added the study of architecture, antiquities, natural history, and other branches of kuowdedge. His retired life was varied by occasional residence in London, where, he revelled among the treasures of the British Museum ; and bv frequent excursions to the country on visits to a few learned and attached friends. At Cambridge Gray was considered as an unduly fastidious man, and this gave occasion to practical jokes being jdayed olf upon him by his fellow-inmates of St I’eter’s college, one of which — ■ a false alarm of fire, by which he was induced to descend from his window to the ground by a rope — was the cause of his removing (17.'j0) to Pend)roke Hall. In 1765 he took a journey into Scotl.and, Gray’s Window, St Peter’s college, Cambridge. and met his brother poet Dr Beattie, at Glammis castle. He also penetrated into Wales, and made a journey to Cumberland and Westmoreland, to see the scenery of the lakes. His letters de.scribing these excursions are remarkable for elegance and precision, for correct and extensive observation, and for a dry scholastic humour peculiar to the poet. On returning from these agreeable holidays. Gray set himself calmly down in his college retreat— pored over his favourite authors, compiled tables of chro- nology or botany, moralised on ’ all he felt and all he saw’ in correspondence with his friends, and occa- sionally ventured into the realms of poetry and ima- gination. He had studied the Greek poets w ith such intense devotion and critical care, that their sj)irit and cs.sence seem to have sunk into his mind, and | coloured all his efforts at original composition. At ^ the same time, his knowledge of human nature, j and his sympathy with the world, were varied and 1 profound. Tears fell unbidden among the classic j flowers of fancy, and in his almost monastic cell, his heart vibrated to the finest tones of humanity. Gray’s first public appc.arance as a poet was made in 1747, wdien his Ode to Eton College was published by Dodsley. 7' wo years afterwards, his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard was printed, and immediately became pojmlar. His Eindaric Of/c.9 appeared in 1757, but met with little success. His name, however, was now so well known, that he w.as offered the situation of poet-laureate, vacant 1 by the death of Colley Cibber. Gray declined the .appointment; but shortly afterwards he obtained the more reputable and lucrative situation of Pro- fessor of Modern History, which brought him in about £400 per annum. For some years he had been subject to hereditary gout, and as liis circum- stances improved, his health declined. tVliile at dinner one day in the college hall, he was seized with an attack in the stomach, which was so vio- lent, as to resist all the efforts of medicine, and after six days of suffering, he expired on the .‘JOth of July 1771, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was buried, according to his desire, by the side of his mother, at Stoke, near Eton — adding one more I>oetical association to that beautiful and classic j district of England. , The poetry of Gray is all comprised in a few pages, yet he appears worthy to rank in quality | with the first order of poets. His two great odes, 1 The Progress of Poesy, and The Bard, are the most j splendid compositions we possess in the Pindaric i stj’le and measure. They surpass the odes of Col- lins in fire and energy, in boldness of imagination, 1 and in condensed and brilliant expression. Collins is as purely and entirely poetical, hut he is less com- manding and sublime. Gray’s stanzas, notwith- standing their v,aried and complicated versification, flow with lyrical ease and perfect harmony. Each presents rich personification, striking thoughts, or happy imagery — Sublime their starry fronts they rear. ‘ The Bard’ is more dramatic and picturesque than ‘ The Progress of Poesy,’ yet in the latter are some of the poet’s richest and most majestic strains. As, for example, the sketch of the savage youth of Chili : — In climes beyond the solar road. Where shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam, The muse has broke the twdlight gloom. To cheer the shivering native’s dull abode. And oft beneath the odorous .shade Of Chili’s boundless forests laid. She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, In loose numbers wildly sweet, Their feather-cinctured chiefs and dusky loves. Her track, where’er the g6ddess roves, Glory pursue and generous shame, The unconquerable mind and Freedom’s holy flame. Or the poetical characters of Shakspeare, Milton, and Dryden : — Far from the sun and summer gale. In thy green lap was Nature’s darling laid. What time, where lucid Avon strayed. To him the mighty mother did unveil SO ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS ORAT Her awful face : the dauntless child Stretched forth his little anus, and smiled, j ‘ This pencil take,’ she said, ‘ whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: I Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal boy 1 This can unlock the gates of .Toy ; Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, [ Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.’ . i Nor second he, that rode sublime I Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstacy, The secrets of the abyss to spy. I He passed the flaming bounds of space and time : ' The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, I Where angels tremble while they gaze. He saw ; but blasted with excess of light, j Closed his eyes in endless night. ' Behold where Dryden’s less presumptuous car i ! Wide o’er the fields of glory bear !j Two coursers of ethereal race, j VV'ith necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace. ' The ‘ Ode to Eton College,’ the ‘ Ode to Adversity,’ : and the far-famed ‘ Elegy,’ present the same careful and elaborate finishing ; but the thoughts and ima- I I gery are more simple, natural, and touching. A 1 1 train of moral feelings, and solemn or affecting asso- j ciations, is presented to the mind, in connection I with beautiful natural scenery and objects of real I I life. In a letter to Beattie, Gray remarks — ‘ As to ; i description, I have always thouglit that it made the i I most graceful ornament of poetry, but never ought ; to make the subject.’ lie practised what he taught ; ’ for there is always some sentiment or reflection I arising out of the poet’s descriptive passages. These 1 ! are generally grave, tender, or pathetic. The cast of I ! his own mind, and the comparative loneliness of his I situation and studies, nursed a sort of philosophic I spleen, and led him to moralise on the vanity of I life. Byron and others have attached inordinate I value to the ‘ Elegy,’ as the main prop of Gray’s ! reputation. It is, doubtless, the most frequently I read and repeated of all his productions, because it i I is connected with ordinary existence and genuine ] feeling, and describes, in exquisite harmonious verse, i I w'hat all persons must, at some time or other, have j felt or imagined. But the highest poetry can never be very extensively popular. A simple ballad air I will convey jdeasure to a greater number of persons ' than the most successful efforts of accomplished musical taste and genius ; and, in like manner, poetry which deals with subjects of familiar life, must find more readers than those inspired flights of imagination, or recondite allusions, however graced with the charms of poetry, which can only I be enjoyed by persons of fine sensibility, and some- I thing of kindred taste and knowledge. Gray’s I classical diction, his historical and mythological I personifications, must ever be lost on the multi- i I tude. Even Dr Johnson was tempted into a coarse ! and unjust criticism of Gray, chiefly because the I critic admired no poetry which did not contain I some weighty moral truth, or some chain of rea- I soning. To restrict poetical excellence to this standard, would be to blot out Spenser from the I list of high poets, and to curtail Shakspeare and I Milton of more than half their glory. Let us I recollect with another poet — the author of the I Night Thoughts — that ‘ a fixed star is as much in the bounds of nature as a flower of the field, though less obvious, and of far greater dignity.’ I In the character of Gray there are some seeming ! I inconsistencies. As a man, he was nice, reserved, j and proud — a haughty retired scholar ; yet we find him in his letters full of Enghsh idiom and English feeling, with a touch of the gossip, and sometimes not over fastidious in his allusions and remarks. He was indolent, yet a severe student — hating Cam- bridge and its college discipline, yet constantly re- siding there. He loved intellectual ease and luxury, and wished, as a sort of Mohammedan paradise, to ‘ lie on a sofa, and read eternal new romances of M.arivaux and Crebillon.’ Yet all he could say of Thomson’s ‘ Castle of Indolence,’ when it wuis first published, was, that there were some good verses in it! Akenside, too, whom he was so well fitted to appreciate, he thought ‘ often obsc\ire, and even un- intelligible.’ As a poet. Gray studied in the school of the ancient and Italian poets, labouring like an artist to infuse part of their spirit, their melody, and even some of their expressions, into his inimitable Mosaic work, over which he breathed the life and fragrance of eternal spring. In his country tours, the poet carried with him a plano-convex mirror, which, in surveying landscapes, gathers into one confined glance the forms and tints of the surround- ing scene. His imagination performed a similar operation in collecting, fixing, and appropriating the materials of poetry. All is bright, natural, and interesting — rich or magnificent — but it is seen but for a moment. Yet, despite bis classic taste and models. Gray was among the first to welcome and admire the Celtic strains of Maepherson’s Ossian ; and be could also delight in the wild superstitions of the Gothic nations : in transiating from the Norse tongue the Fatal Sisters and the Descent of Odin, he called up the martial fire, the rude energy and abruptness of the ancient bailad minstrels. Had his situation and circumstances been different, the genius of this accomplished and admirable poet would in all probability have expanded, so as to < m- brace subjects of wider and more varied interest — of greater length and diversity of character. The subdued humour and fancy of Gray are per- petually breaking out in his letters, with brief jiicturesque touches that mark the poet and man of taste. The advantages of travelling and of taking notes on the spot, he has playfully but admirably summed up in a letter to a friend, then engaged in making a tour in Scotland : — ‘ Do not you think a man may be the wiser (I had almost said the better) for going a hundred or two of miles ; and that the mind has more room in it than most people seem to think, if you will but furnish the apartments ? I almost envy your last month, being in a very insipid situation myself ; and desire you would not fail to send me some furniture for nty Gothic apartment, which is very cold at present. It will be the easier task, as you have notliing to do but transcribe your little red books, if they are not rubbed out ; for I conclude you have not trusted everything to memory, which is ten times worse than a lead pencil. Half a word fixed upon or near the spot is worth a cartload of recollection. When we trust to the picture that objects draw of themselves on our mind, we deceive ourselves , without accurate and particular observation, it is but ill-drawn at first, the outlines are soon blurrcii, the colours every d.ay grow fainter, and at last, when we would produce it to anybody, we art forced to supply its defects with a few strok ?s of oui own imagination.’ Impressed with the opinion he here inculcates, the poet was a careful note-taker, and liis delinea- tions are all fresh and distinct. Thus, lie writes in the following graceful strain to his friend Ni» bolls, ' in commemoration of a tour which be made to | Southampton and Netiey Abbey: — ‘My health j is much improved by the sea, not that I drank it or bathed in it, as tlie common people do-. 51 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF to 1780. no, I only walked by it, and looked upon it. The climate is remarkably mild, even in October and November; no snow has been seen to lie there for these thirty years past ; the myrtles grow in the ground against the houses, and Guernsey lilies bloom in every window ; the town clean and well- built. surrouiuled by its old stone-walls, with their towers and gateways, stands at the point of a penin- sula, and opens full south to an arm of the sea, which, having formed two beautiful bays on each hand of it, stretches away in direct view, till it joins the British Channel ; it is skirted on either side with gently-rising grounds, clothed with thick wood, and directly cross its mouth rise the high lands of the Isle of Wight at some distance, but distinctly seen. In the bosom of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie hid the ruins of Netley Abbey ; there may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow, under the shade of those old trees that bend into a half circle about it, he is walking slowly (good man !), and bidding his beads for the souls of his benefactors, interred in that venerable i>ile that lies beneath him. Beyond it (the meadow still descending) nods a thicket of oaks that mask the building, and have e.xcluded a view too garish and luxuriant for a holy eye ; only on either hand they leave an opening to the blue glittering sea. Did you not observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself to drive the tempter from him that had thrown that distraction in his way? I should tell you that the ferryman who rowed me, a lusty young fellow, told me that he would not for all the world pass a night at the abbey (there were such things near it), though there was a power of money hid there. Fivim thence I went to Salisbury, Wil- ton, and Stonehenge ; but of these I say no more ; they will be published at the university press. P. S. — I must not close my letter without giving j’ou one princi[)al event of my history, which was, that (in the course of my late tour) I set out one morning before five o’clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and got to the sea-coast time enough to be at the sun’s levee. I saw the clo;ids and dark vapours open gradually to right and left, rolling over one another in great smoky wreaths, and the tide (as it flowed gently in upon the sands) first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and blue ; and all at once a little hue of insufferable brightness that (before I can write these five words) was grown to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen. It is very odd it makes no figure on paper ; yet I shall remember it as long as the sun, or at least as long as I endure. I wonder whether anybody ever saw it before? I hardly believe it’ >Iueh as has since been written on the lake country, nothing can exceed the beauty and Jinish of this mini.ature picture of Grassmere : — 'Passed by the little chapel of Wiborn. out of which the Sun- day eongreg.ation were then issuing. Passed a beck [rivulet] near Dunmailrouse, and entered Westmore- land a second time ; now begin to see Helmcrag, dis- tinguished from its rugged neighbours not so much by its height, as by the strange broken outline of its top, like some gigantic building demolished, and the stones that composed it flung across each other in wild confusion. Just bej’ond it opens one of the sweetest landscapes that art ever attempted to imi- tate. The bosom of the mountains spreading here into a broad basin, discovers in the midst Grassmere water; its margin is hollowed into small bays with bold eminences, some of them rocks, some of soft turf, that half conceal and vary the figure of the little lake they command. From the shore a low promontory pushes itself far into the water, and on it stands a white village with the parish church rising in the midst of it; hanging inclosures, corn fields, and meadows green as an emerald, with their trees, hedges, and cattle, fill up the whole space from the edge of the water. Just opposite to you is a large farm-house, at the bottom of a steep smooth lawn embosomed in old woods, which climb half way up the mountain’s side, and discover above them a broken line of crags, that crown the scene. Not a single red tile, no glaring gentleman’s house or garden M-all.s, break in upon the repose of this little unsu.spected paradise; but all is peace, rusticity, and hapj)y poverty, in its neatest and most bei:oming attire.’ The sublime scenery of the Grande Chartreuse, in Dauphiny (the subject of Gray’s noble Alcaic ode), awakened all his poetical enthusiasm. Writ- ing to his mother from Lyons, he says — ‘ It is a fortnight since we set out hence upon a little excur- sion to Geneva. We took the longest road, which lies through Savoy, on purpose to see a famous monastery, called the Grande Chartreuse, and had no reason to think our time lost. After having travelled seven days very slow (for we did not change horses, it being impossible for a chaise to go post in these roads), we arrived at a little village among the mountains of Savoy, called Echelles ; from thence we proceeded on horses, who are used to the way, to the mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top ; the road runs winding up it, commonly not six feet broad ; on one hand is the rock, with woods of pine-trees hanging overhead ; on the other a monstrous precipice, almost perpen- dicular, at the bottom of which rolls a torrent, that, sometimes tumbling among the fragments of stone that have fallen from on high, and sometimes preci- pitating itself down vast descents with a noise like thunder, which is still made greater by the echo from the mountains on each side, concurs to form one of the most solemn, the most romantic, and the most astonishing scenes I ever beheld. Add to this the strange views made by the crags and cliffs on the other hand, the cascades that in many places throw themselves from the very summit down into the v.ale and the river below, and many other par- ticulars impossible to describe, you will conclude we had no occasion to repent our pains, ’rids place St Bruno chose to retire to, and upon its very top founded the aforesaid convent, which is the stiperior of the whole order. When we came there, the two fathers who are commissioned to entertain strangers (for the rest must neither speak one to another, not to any one else) received us very kindly, and set be- fore us a repast of dried fish, eggs, butter, and fruits, all excellent in their kind, and extremely neat. They pressed us to spend the night there, and to stay some days with them ; but this we could not do, so they led us about their house, which is. you must think, like a little city, for there are a hundred fathers, besides three hundred servants, that make their clothes, grind their corn, press their wine, and do everything among themselves. The whole is quite orderly and simple ; nothing of finery ; but the wonderful decency, and the strange situation, more than supply the place of it. In the evening we descended by the same way, passing through many clouds that were then forming themselves on the mountain’s side.’ In a subsequent letter to his poetical friend West, Gray again adverts to this memorable visit: ' In our little journey up the Grande Chartre ,rse,’ he say.s, ' I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation that there was no restraining. Not 62 I POKTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS OBAT. I a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that I would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other i argument. One need not have a very fantastic ima- ' gination to see spirits there at noonday. You liave Death perpetually before your eyes, only so far re- moved, as to compose the mind without frigliten- ing it’ In turning from these exquisite fragments of de- scription to the poetry of Gray, the difference will be found to consist chiefly in the rhyme and mea- sure : in loftiness of sentiment and vividness of expression, the prose is equal to the verse. Hymn to Adversity. Daughter of Jevo, relentless power. Thou tamer of the human breast. Whose iron scourge, and torturing hour. The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain, ! The proud are taught to taste of pain, I And purple tyrants vainly groan I With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone. I When first thy sire to send on earth 1 Virtue, his darling child, designed, ! To thee he gave the heavenly birth. And bade to form lier infant mind. I Stern rugged nurse, thy rigid lore I With patience many a year she bore : 1 What sorrow was, thou bad’st her know, I And from her own she learned to melt at others’ wo. I j Scared at thy frown terrific, fly : Self-pleasing Folly’s idle brood, I Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, ^ And leave us leisure to be good. I Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe ; i By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom, in sable garb arrayed. Immersed in rapturous thought profound. And Melancholy, silent maid, I I With leaden eye, that loves the ground, j i Still on thy solemn steps attend : Warm Charity, the general friend. With Justice, to herself severe, I And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. j Oh, gently on thy suppliant’s head, I Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! I Not in thy gorgon terrors clad, (1 Nor circled with the vengeful band I (As by the impious thou art seen), I With thundering voice, and threatening mien. With screaming Horror’s funeral cry. Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. j Thy form beni^, oh goddess ! wear, Thy milder influence impart. Thy philosophic train be there, I To soften, not to wound, my heart, j The generous spark extinct revive ; i Teach me to love and to forgive; j Exact my own defects to scan, j What others are, to feel, and know myself a man. I j Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. I Ye distant spires, ye antique towers. That crorvn the watery glade. Where grateful science still adores Her Henry’s* holy shade ; V King Henry VI., foimder of the college. And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor’s heights the expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey ; Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way ! Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! Ah, fields beloved in vain ! Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain : I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow. As, waving fresh their gladsome wing. My weary soul they seem to soothe. And, redolent of joy and youth. To breathe a second spring. Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race. Disporting on thy margent green. The paths of pleasure trace. Who foremost now delight to cleave With pliant arm thy glassy wave 1 The captive linnet which inthral? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle’s speed, Or urge the flying ball ? While some on earnest business bent Their murmuring labours ply ’Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty ; Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign. And unknowm regions dare descry : Still as they run, they look behind ; They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy. Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed. Less pleasing when possessed ; The tear forgot as soon as shed. The sunshine of the breast. Theirs buxom health of rosy hue. Wild wit, invention ever new, And lively cheer of vigour born ; The thoughtless day, the easy night. The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn. Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play ; No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to day; Yet see how all around ’em wait The ministers of human fate. And black Misfortune’s baleful train. Ah! show them where in ambush stand. To seize their prey, the murth’rous band ; Ah, tell them they are men ! These shall the fury passions tear. The vultures of the mind. Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And shame that skulks behind ; Or pining love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth. That inly gnaws the -secret heart ; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, And Sorrow’s piercing dart. Ambition this shall tempt to rise. Then whirl the m-etch from high. To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall tiy. And hard Unkinduess’ altered eye. PROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to .7Ca Tliat mockB the tear it forced to flow ; j\i)d keen Kemorsc with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest wo. Lo! in the vale of years beneath A grisly troop are .seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen ; This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every labouring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage : Lo ! Poverty, to fill the band. That numbs the soul with icy hand, And slow-consuming Age. To each his sufferings : all are men. Condemned alike to groan ; The tender for another’s pain, The unfeeling for his own. Y et, ah 1 why should they know their fate. Since sorrow never comes too late. And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more ; where ignorance is bliss, ’Tis folly to bo wise. [ The Bard. — -A Pindaric Ode.~\ [This ode is founded on a, tradition current in Wales, that Udward I., wlicn he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.] ‘ Ruin seize thee, ruthless king. Confusion on thy banners wait ; Though fanned by conquest’s crimson wing. They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail, Nor e’en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears. From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears !’ Such were the sounds, that o’er the crested pride Of the first Edward scattereil wild dismay. As down the steep of Snowdon’s * shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Glo’ster- stood aghast in speechless trance ; ‘ To arms 1’ cried Mortimer,-'* and couched his quiver- ing lance. On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood. Robed in the sable garb of wo. With haggard eyes the poet stood (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air) ; And with a master’s hand, and prophet’s fire. Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. ‘ Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave. Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath 1 O’er thee, oh king! their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; \'ocal no more, since Cambria’s fatal day. To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s Lay. 1 Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that moun- tainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryri. It included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merio- nethshire, as far east as the river Conway. It. Ilygden, speak- ing of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward I., says, * Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum mentis Erery and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 128.S), ‘ Apud Aberconway id pedes mentis Snowdonioe feeit erigi castrum forte.' : -Giibeit de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. s Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were Lords- Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and Drobably accompanied the king in this expedition. ‘ Cold is Cadwallo’s tongue, i That hushed the stormy main : Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed : Mountains, ye mourn in vain < Modred, whose magic song j Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head, | On dreary Arvon’s shore* they lie, | Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: i Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail ; j] The famished eagle^ screams, and passes by. j i Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, 1 1 Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, j | Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, j Ye died amidst your dying country’s cries — | No more 1 weej). They do not sleep. ! On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, 1 I see them sit ; they linger yet. Avengers of their native land : With me in dreadful harmony they join. And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.' ‘ Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-.sheet of Edward’s race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. 1 Mark the year, and mark the night, ' When Severn shall re-echo with affright, The shrieks of death through Berkeley’s-'* roof that ring, Shrieks of an agonising king! ; She-wolf^ of France, with unrelenting fangs, 'J'hat tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate, | , From thee be born,5 who o’er thy country hangs The scourge of Heaven 1 What terrors round him wait 1 Amazement in his van, with Flight combined. And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind. hlighty victor, mighty lord. Low** on his funeral couch he lies ! i No pitying heart, no eye afford , A tear to grace his obsequies. * Is the sable warrior" fled? i : Thy son i.s gone. He rests among the dead. | The swarm, that in thy noontide beam were born ? | Gone to salute the rising morn. Fair laughs the morn,** and soft the zephyr blow.s, ' ' While proudly riding o’er the azure realm. In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ; i Y outh on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway, ; That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey. Fill high the .sparkling bowl,9 The rich repast prepare ; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast : Close by the regal chair i - Fell Thir.st and Famine scowl j A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. 1 1 ' The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the Isle of i Anglesey. | 2 Camden and others observe, th.at eagles used annually to j build their eyry among the rocks of Snowdon, which from ( thence (as some think) were named by the \Vel.-,h Craigian- j eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day, I am told, the [ highest point of Snowdon is called the eagle's nest. That bird j is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots and the j people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, &c., can testify; it | h;i3 even built its nest in the Peak of Derbyshire. — (See lEif- loughbi/s OrnUhologti, published by Rayl. 3 Edward II., cruelly butchered in llerkeley Castle, i -* Isabel of France, Edward ll.'s adulterous queen. ; 5 Alluding to the triumphs of Edward III. in France. , <* Alluding to the death of that king, abandoned by his chil- [ dren, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and I his mistress. 1 7 Edward, the Black Prince, dead some time beforehis father. ! 3 Magnificence of Richard II. 's reign. See Froissart, and other contemporary writers. * Richard II. (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop, and the 5-i ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS OKAT. Ilcurd ye the din of battle bray,* Lance to lance, and horse to horse t Long years of havoc urge their destined course. And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye Towers of Julius,^ Loudon’s lasting shame. With many a foul and midnight murder fed, Revere his consort’s faith,-* his father’s* fame. And spare the meek usurper’s^ holy head 1 Above, below, the rose of snow,** Twined with her blushing foe, we spread : The bristled boar? in infant gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o’er the accursed loom. Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom. “ Edward, lo ! to sudden fate (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun). Half of thy heart** we consecrate. (The web is wove- The work is done).” Stay, oh stay ! nor thus forlorn Ijcave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn : In yon bright tract, that fires the western skies. They melt, they vanish from my eyes. But oh ! what solemn scenes, on Snowdon’s height Descending slow, their glittering skirts unroll? Visions of glory, spare my aching sight ; Y'e unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! No more our long-lost Arthur'-* we bewail. All hail, ye genuine kings!*** Britannia’s issue haill Girt with many a baron bold. Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old. In bearded majesty appear. In the midst a form divine ! Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line ; Her lion-port,** hbr awe-commanding face. Attempered sweet to virgin-grace. What strings symphonious tremble in the air, M'hat strains of vocal transport round her play ! Hear from the grave, great Taliessin,*2 hear! They breathe a soul to animate thy clay, confederate lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsing-- ham, and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his assassination by Sir Piers, of Exon, is of much later date. ' Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster. * Henry VI., George, Dukeof Clarence, Edward V., Richard, Duke of York, &c., believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vul- garly attributed to Julius Caesar. 3 Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown. A Henry V. * Henry VI. , very near been canon- ised. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown. ® The white and red roses, devices of York and Lancaster. 7 The silver boar was the badge of Richard HI. ; whence he was usually known, in bis own time, by the name of the Boar. ® Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of lier affection for her lord is well-known. The monuments of his regret and sorrow for the loss of her, are still to be seen at Northampton, Gedding- ton, Waltham, and other places. f It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Ailhur w-as still alive in Fairy Land, and should return again to reign over Britain. *“ Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied, that the AVelsh should regain their sovereignty over this island, which seemed to be aceomplisiied in the house of Tudor, ** Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Bzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, ‘And thus she, lion-like, rising, daunted the malipert orator no less with her stately port and inajestieal deporture, tlian with the tartnesse of her princelie checkes.* '* Taliessin, cliief of the b.ards, flourished In the sixth een- Brlght Rapture call.s, and soaring as she sings. Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-coloured wings. The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dressed. In buskined* nietisures move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, 'With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice** as of the cherub-clioir. Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings^ lessen on my ear, That, lost in long futurity, expire. Fond, impious man, think’st thou y-on sanguine cloud. Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day I To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the mvtions with redoubled ray. Enough for me : with joy I see The different doom our Fates assign. Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care ; To triumph, and to die, are mine.’ He spoke, and headlong from the mountain’s height. Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night Elegy Wntten in a Country Churchyard. Stoke Pogeis Church, and Tomb of Gray. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The lowing hei-ds wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape oii the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds Save where the "beetle wheels his droning flight. And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower. The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. tiiry. His worljs are still preservcil, and his memory held iB high veneration among his countrymen. * Shakspeare. 2 Milton. 8 The succession of poets after Milton's time. 6 & FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA Op Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade, W’here heaves tlie turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing mom. The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed. The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn. No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall bum, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire’s return. Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil. Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power. And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: — The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault. If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise. Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust. Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed. Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll ; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage. And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene. The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear : Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood ; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest. Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood. The applause of listening senates to command. The thre.ats of pain and ruin to despise. To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation’s eyes, Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; B’orbade to wade through slaughter to a throne. And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide. To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame. Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame. Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Y et even these bones from insult to protect. Some frail memorial still erected nigh. With uncouth rhymes anil shapeless sculpture decked. Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. TC 1/tHl I Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, i The place of fame and elegy supply : And many a holy text around she strews. That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey. This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned. Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day. Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies. Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries. Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead. Dost in these lines their artless tale relate ; If chance, by lonely Contemplation led. Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate; Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, ‘ Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away. To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high. His listless length at noontide would he stretch. And pore upon the brook that babbles by. Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in sconi. Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn. Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. One morn I missed him on the ’customed hill. Along the heath and near his favourite tree ; Another came ; nor yet beside the rill. Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; The next, with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.’ THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth. And Melancholy marked him for her oivn. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere. Heaven did a recompense as largely send : He gave to Misery all he had, a tear, Hegainedfrom Heaven (’twas all he wished) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose. Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose). The bosom of his Father and his God. The Alliance between Govei-nment and Educaticn; a Fragment. As sickly plants betray a niggard earth. Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth. Nor genial warmth, nor genial juice retains Their roots to feed, and fill their verdant veins : And, as in climes where Winter holds his reign, The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain. Forbids her germs to swell, her shades to rise. Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies : To draw mankind in vain the vital airs. Unformed, unfriended by those kindly cares. That health and vigour to the soul impart. Spread the young thought, and warm the opening heart. So fond instruction on the growing powers Of nature idly lavishes her stores. If equal justice, with unclouded face. Smile not indulgent on the rising race, fi6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM MAaOM. To turn tlie torrent’s swlft-dcsceiiding flood, To brave the savage rushing from the wood, And scatter with a free, though frugal hand. Light golden showers of plenty o’er the laud ; Hut tyranny has fixed her empire tlierc. To check their tender hopes with chilling fear, And blast the blooming promise of the year. The spacious animated scene survey. From where the rolling orb that gives the day, His sable sons with nearer course surrounds. To either pole, and life’s remotest bounds. How rude soe’cr the exterior form we find. Howe’er opinion tinge the varied mind. Alike to all the kind impartial Heaven The sparks of truth and happiness has given : With sense to feel, with memory to retain. They follow pleasure, and they fly from pain ; Their judgment mends the plan their fancy draws. The event presages, and explores the cause ; The soft returns of gratitude they know. By fraud elude, by force repel the foe ; While mutual wishes mutual woes endear. The social smile and sympathetic tear. Say, then, through ages by what fate confined. To different climes seem different souls assigned ? Here measured laws and philosophic ease Fix and improve the polished arts of peace. There industry and gain their vigils keep. Command the winds, and tame the unwilling deep. Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail ; Thei'e languid pleasure sighs in every gale. Dft o’er the trembling nations from afar Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war ; And, where the deluge burst, with sweepy sway. Their arm i, their kings, their gods w'ere rolled away. As oft have issued, host impelling host, The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast. The prostrate south to the destroyer yields Her boasted titles, and her golden fields ; With grim delight the brood of winter view A. brighter day, and heavens of azure hue. Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose. And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows. Proud of the yoke, and pliant to the rod. Why yet does Asia dread a monaich’s nod. While European freedom still withstands The encroaching tide that drowns her lessening lands. And sees far off, with an indignant groan, Her native plains and empires once her own ? Can opener skies and suns of fiercer flame O’erpower the fire that animates our frame ; As lamps, that shed at eve a cheerful ray. Fade and expire beneath the eye of day ! Need we the influence of the northern star To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war ! And where the face of nature laughs around, hlust sickening virtue fly the tainted ground? Unmanly thought ! tvhat seasons can control, Vf hat fancied zone can circumscribe the soul. Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs. By reason’s light, on resolution’s wings. Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes O’er Lybia’s deserts and through Zembla’s snows 1 She bids each slumbering energy awake. Another touch, another temper take. Suspends the inferior laws that rule our clay ; The stubborn elements confess her sway ; Their little wants, their low desires, refine. And raise the mortal to a height divine. Not but the human fabric from the birth Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth. As various tracts enforce a various toil. The manners speak the idiom of their soil. An iron race the mountain cliffs maintain. Foes to the gentle genius of the plain ; For where unwearied sinews must be found. With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground. What wonder, if to patient valour trained. They guard with spirit what by strength they gained .> And while their rocky ramparts round they see, The rough abode of want and liberty, (As lawless force from confidence will grow). Insult the plenty of the vales below? What wonder, in the sultry climes that spread. Where Nile, redundant o’er his summer bed. From his broad bosom life and verdure flings. And broods o’er Egypt with his watery wings. If with adventurous oar and ready sail. The dusky people drive before the gale ; Or on frail floats to neighbouring cities ride. That rise and glitter o’er the ambient tide. WILLIAM MASON. William ^Iason, the friend andliterarj' executor of Gray, long survived the connection which did him so much honour, but he appeared early as a poet. He was the son of the Rev. Mr Mason, vicar of St. Trinity, Yorkshire, where he was born in 1725. At* Pembroke college, Cambridge, he became ac- quainted with Gray, who assisted him in obtaining his degree of M.A. His first literary production was an attack on the Jacobitism of O.xford, to which Tliomas Warton replied in his ‘Triumph of Isis.’ In 1753 appeared his tragedy of Elfrkla, ‘written,’ says Southey, ‘ on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had pre- cluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama.’ The model of Mason was the Greek drama, and he introduced into his play the classic accom- paniment of the chorus. A second drama, Curacta- cus, is of a higher cast than ‘ Elfrida :’ more noble ami spirited in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and character. Mason also wrote a series of odes on Independence, Mimory, Melancholy, and The Fall of Tyranny, in which his gorgeousness of diction swells into extravagance and bombast. His other poetical works are his English Garden, a long descriptive poem in blank verse, extended over four books, and an ode on the Commemoration of the British Ixevolution, in which he asserts those Whig principles which he steadftistly maintained during the trying period of the Ameri- can war. As in his dramas Mason had made an in- novation on the established taste of the times, he ventured, with equal success, to depart from the practice of English authors, in writing the life of his friend Gray. Instead of presenting a continuous narrative, in w'hich the biographer alone is visible, he incorporated the journals and letters of the poet in chronological order, thus making the subject of the memoir in some degree his own biographer, and enabling the reader to judge more fully and correctly of his situation, thoughts, and feeling i. The plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his Life of Johnson, and has been sanctioned by subse- quent usage, in all cases where the subject is cf im- portance enough to demand copious information and minute personal details. The circumstances ot Mason’s life are soon related. After his career at college, he entered into orders, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains. He held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York cathedral. When politics ran high, he took an active part on the side of the Whigs, but was respected by all parties. He died in 1797. Mason’s poetry cannot be said to be popular, even with poetical readers. His greatest want is simpli- city, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his ‘ English Garden,’ though verbose and Ian- fHOM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF 1780. |.'uiil as a whole, there are some exquisite images. 'I'lius, he says of Time, its Gr.adu.al touch Has mouldcn^d into beauty many a tower W'hich, when it frowned with all its battlements, Was only terrible. Of woodland scenery — Many a glade is found The haunt of wood-gods only ; where, if art E’er dared to tread, ’twas with unsandaled foot, Priutless, as if ’tvvere holy ground. Gray quotes the following lines in one of Mason’s odes as ‘ suiierlative :’ — While through the west, where sinks the crimson day. Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray. [From Caractacus.] Mona on Snowdon calls : Hear, thou king of mountains, hear ; Hark, she speaks from all her strings : Hark, her loudest echo rings ; King of mountains, bend thine ear: Send thy spirits, send them soon. Now, when midnight and the moon Meet upon thy front of snow ; See, their gold and ebon rod. Where the sober sisters nod. And greet in whispers sage and slow. Snowdon, mark ! ’tis magic’s hour, Now the muttered spell hath power ; Power to rend thy ribs of rock, And burst thy base with thunder’s shoek : But to thee no ruder spell Shall Mona use, than those that dwell In music’s secret cells, and lie Steeped in the stream of harmony. Snowdon has heard the strain : Hark, amid the wondering grove Other harpings answer clear. Other voices meet our ear. Pinions flutter, shadows move. Busy murmurs hum around, Bustling vestments brush the ground; Round and round, and round they_,go. Through the twilight, through the shade. Mount the oak’s majestic head. And gild the tufted misletoe. Cease, ye glittering race of light. Close your wings, and check your flight ; Here, arranged in order due. Spread your robes of saffron hue ; For lo ! with more than mortal fire. Mighty Mador smites the lyre: Hark, he sweeps the master-strings ; Listen all OLIVER COLE5MITH. Oliver Goldsmith, whose writings range over every department of miscellaneous literature, chal- lenges attention as a poet chiefly for the unaffected ease, grace, and tenderness of his descriptions of rural and domestic life, and for a certain vein of pensive philosophic reflection. Ilis countryman Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas of liberty not too high, that they might last him through life. Goldsmith seems to have pitched his poetry in a subdued under tone, that he might luxuriate at will among those images of quiet beauty, comfort, bene- volence, and simple pathos, that were most congenial to his own character, his hopes, or his experience. This popular poet was born at Pallas, a small village in the parish of Forney, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November 1728. He was the sixth of a family of nine children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the scanty funds which he derived from his pro- fession, by renting and cultivating some land. The poet’s father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm Iluius of the house at Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent his youth. I 1 I I Epitaph, on Mrs Mason, in the Cathedral of Bristol. Take, holy earth ! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which heaven so lately gave : To Bristol’s fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form ; she bowed to taste the wave. And died ! Does youth, does beauty, re.ad the line 2 Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead klaria ! breathe a strain divine ; Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee ; Bid them in duty’s sphere as meekly move ; And if so fair, from vanity as free ; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though ’tis an awful thing to die, (’Twas even to thee) yet the dread path once trod. Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high. And bids ‘ tuc pure in heart behold their God.’ of Lissoy, in his former p.arish. Here Goldsmith’s youth w.as spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. After a good country' edu- cation, Oliver was admitted a sizer of Trinity college, Dublin, June 11,1745. The expense of his education was chiefly defrayed by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarini, an excellent man, son to an Italian of the Cont.arini family at Venice, and a clergyman of the established church. At college, the poet was thoughtless and irregular, and always in want. His tutor was a man of fierce and brutal passions, and having struck him on one occasion before a party of friends, the poet left college, and wandered about the country for some time in the utmost poverty. His brother Henry clothed and carried him back to college, and on the 27th of February 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and returned to Lissoy. 58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. roirrs. KNGLISII LITERATURE. His father was deaJ, but he idled away two years among his relations. He afterwards became tutor in the family of a gentleman in Ireland, where he remained a year. His uncle then gave him £.50 to study the law in Hublin, but he lost the whole in a gaming house. A second contribution was raised, and the poet next proceeded to Edinburgh, where he continued a year and a-half studying medi- cine. He then drew upon his uncle for £ 20 , and embarked for Bordeaux. The vessel was driven into Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and whilst there. Gold- smith and his fellow passengers were arrested and put into prison, where the poet was kept a fortnight. It appeared that his companions were Scotsmen, in the French service, and had been in Scotland enlist- ing soldiers for the French army. Having over- come this most innocent of all his misfortunes, he is represented as having immediately proceeded to Leyden ; but this part of his biography has lately got a new turn from the inquiries of a gentleman whose book is quoted below,* according to which it would appear to have been now, instead of four years later, that Goldsmith acted as usher of Hr Milner’s school at Feckham, in the neighbourhood of London. Tlie tradition of the school is, that he was ex- tremely good-natured and playful, and advanced his pupils more by conversation than by book-tasks. On tile supposition of this being the true account of Goldsmith’s 25th year, we may presume that he next went to Leyden, and there made the resolution to travel over the Continent in spite of all pecuniary defi liencies. He stopped some time at Louvain, in Flanders, at Antwerp, and at Brussels. In France, he is' said, like George Primrose, in his Vicar of 'Wakefield, to have occasionally earned a night’s lodging and food by playing on his flute. How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire 1 Where shading elms along the margin grew. And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ; And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still. But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer’s skill, Y et would the village praise my wondrous power, And dan 'e, forgetful of the noontide hour. Traveller. Scenes of this kind formed an appropriate school for the poet. He brooded with delight over these pictures of humble primitive happiness, and his imagination loved to invest them with the charms of poetry. Goldsmith afterwards visited Germany and the Rhine. From Switzerland he sent the first sketch of the ‘Traveller’ to his brother. The loftier charms of nature in these Alpine scenes seems to have had no permanent effect on the character or direction of his genius. He visited Florence, Verona, Venice, and stopped at Fadua some months, where he is supposed to have taken his medical degree. In 1756 the poet reached England, after tw'o years of wandering, lonely and in poverty, yet buoyed up by dreams of hope and fame. Many a hard struggle he had yet to encounter ! His biographers repre- sent him as now becoming usher at Dr Milner’s school, a portion of his history which we have seen reason to place at an earlier period. However this may be, he is soon .after found contributing to the Monthly Review. He was also some time assistant to a chemist. A college friend. Dr Sleigh, enabled him to commence practice as a humble physician in Bankside, Southwark; but his chief support arose from contributions to the periodical literature * Collections Illustrative of the Geology, History, Anti- quities, and Associations of CamberwelL By Douglas Alljort. Camberwell: 1P41, of the day. In 1758 he presented himself at Surgeons Hall for examination as an hospital mate, with the view of entering the army or navy ■ but he had the mortific.ation of being rejected as unqu.alified. That he might appear before the examining surgeon suit.ably dressed. Goldsmith obtained a new suit of clothes, for which Griffiths, publisher of the Monthly Review, became security. The clothes were immediately to be returned when the purpose was served, or the debt was to be discharged. Poor Goldsmith, having failed in his object, and probably distressed by urgent want, pawned the clothes. The publisher tlireatened, and the poet replied — ‘ I know of no misery but a gaol, to which my own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I h.ave seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as a favour — as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fat;bjccts for witticism, lie was called on for retalia- tion, and, at the next meeting, produced his poem bearing that name, in w hich we find mucli of the shrewd observation, wit, and liveliness wiiich distinguish his prose writings.] » * ♦ Here lies our good Edmund,* whose genius was such. We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much ; Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, \nd to party gave up what was meant for mankind. ♦ Burke. Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat. To persuade Tommy Townsend to lend him a vote; Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining. And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining. Though equal to all things, for all things unfit ; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit; For a patriot too cool ; for a drudge disobedient, And too fond of the liyht to pursue the expedient. In short, ’twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir. To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor. # Here lies David Oarrick, describe him who can. An abridgment of all that was ])leasant in man ; As an actor, confessed without rival to shine ; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line ; Yet with talents like these, anil an excellent heart. The man had his failings — a dupe to his art ; Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread. And beplastered with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; ’Twas only that when he was off he was acting : With no reason on earth to go out of his way. He turned and he varied full ten times a day ; Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick If they were not his own by finessing and trick : He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack. For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. I Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came : , And the puff of a dunce he mi.stook it for fame ; Till his relish grown callous almost to disease. Who peppered the highest was surest to i>lease. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind ; If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kenrick.s, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave. What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised. While he was be-Rosciused, and you were be-praised ! But peace to his .spirit, wherever it flies. To act as an angel, and mix with the skies : Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill. Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; Old Shakspeare, receive him with prai.se and with love. And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. * « * Here Reynolds* is laid ; and, to tell you my mind. He has not left a wiser or better behind. His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve us in every part. His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering; When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing : When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and .vtuff. He shifted his trumpet,! and only took snuff. TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT. Many who are familiar with Smollett as a novel- ist, scarcely recollect him as a poet, though he has scattered some fine verses amidst his prose fictions, and has written an Ode to Independence, wdiich possesses the masculine strength of Dryden, with an elevation of moral feeling and sentiment rarely attempted or felt by that great poet. Tobias George Smollett was born in Dalquhurn-house, near the village of Renton, Dumbartonshire, in * Sir JoBhua Reynolds. 1 Sir Joshua was bo remarKaoiy aeaf, as to be under the necebsity of using an ear-trumpet iu company. 64 po^ns. ENGLISH LITEKATURE. TOBIAS OEOROE SMOLI.ETt. I I i I i , I I '7^1. Ills father, a younger son of Sir Janies Smollett of Honhill, having died early, the poet i"as edueated hy his grandfather. After the usual Birthplace of SmoUatt. course of instruction in the grammar school of Dumbarton, and at the university of Glasgow, Tobias was placed apprentice to a medical prac- titioner, Mr Gordon, Glasgow. He was nineteen when his term of apprenticeship expired, and, at this early age, his grandfather having died with- out making any provision for him, the young and s.anguine adventurer proceeded to London, his chief dependence being a tragedy, called the Regicide, which he attempted to bring out at the theatres. Foiled in this effort of juvenile ambition, Smollett became surgeon's mate on board an eighty-gun ship, and was present at the ill planned and disastrous expedition against Carthagena, which he has de- scribed with much force in his Roderick Random. He returned to England in 1746, published two satires. Advice and Reproof, and in 1748 gave to the world his novel of ‘ Roderick Random.’ Peregrine Pickle appeared three years afterwards. Smollett next attempted to practise as a physician, but failed, .and, taking a house at Chelsea, devoted himself to literature as a profession. Notwithstanding his facility of composition, his general information and talents, his life was one continual struggle for exist- ence, embittered hy personal quarrels, brought on partly by irritability of temper. In 175.3, his ro- mance of Ferdinand Count Fathom was published, and in 1755 his translation of Don Quixote. The version of Motteux is now generally preferred to that of our author, though the Latter is marked by his ch.aracteristic liiimour and versatility of talenb After he had finished this task. Smollett paid a visit to his native country. His fame had gone before him, and his reception by the literati of Scotland was cordial and flattering. His filial tenderness and affection was also gratified by meeting with his surviving parent. ‘ On Smollett’s arrival,’ says Dr Moore. ‘ he was introduced to his mother, with the connivance of Mrs Tclfer (his sister) as a gentleman from the West Indies, who was intimately acquainted 47 with her son. The better to support his assumed character, he endeavoured to preserve a serious countenance approaching to a frown ; but, while his mother’s eyes were rivetted on his countenance, he could not refrain from smiling. She immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her arms around his neck, exclaimed, “ Ah, my son! my sonl I have found you at last.” She afterwards told him that if he had kept his austere looks, and continued to gloom, he might have escaped detection some time 1 longer; “but your old roguish smile,” added she, | “ betrayed you at once.” ’ On this occasion Smollett visited his relations and native scenes in Dumb.ar- j tonshire. and spent two days in Glasgow, amidst I his boj’ish companions. Returning to England, he | resumed his litei ary occupati('us. He unfortunately I became editor of the Critical Review, and an attack | in that journal on Admiral Knowles, one of the j commanders at Carthagena (which Smollett ac- knowledged to be his composition), led to a trial ; for libel ; and the author was sentenced to pay a fine I of £100. and suffered three months imprisonment. He consoled himself by writing, in prison, his novel of Launcelot Greaves. Another proof of his fertility and industry as .an author was afforded by his His- tory of England, written, it is said, in fourteen months. lie engaged in political discussion, for which he was ill qualified by temper, and, taking the unpopular side, he was completely vanquished by the truculent s.atire and abuse of Wilkes. His health was also shattered by close application to his studies, and by private misfortune. In his early days Smollett had married a young fVest Indian lady. Miss Lascelles, by whom he had a daughter. This only child died at the age of fifteen, and tlie disconsolate father tried to fly from his grief by a tour through France and Italy. He was absent two ’ years, and published an account of his travels, which, | amidst gleams of humour and genius, is disfigured hy the coarsest prejudices. Sterne has successfully ridiculed this work in his Sentiinent.al Journey. Some of the critical dicta of Smollett are mere ebullitions of spleen. In the famous statue of the Venus de Medici, ‘which enchants the rvorld,’ he could see no beautv’ of fe.ature, and the attitude he considered awkward and out of character ! The 1 Pantheon at Rome — that ‘ glorious combination of I beauty and magnificence’ — he said looked like a | huge cock-pit, open at the top. Sterne said justly, ; that such declarations should have been reserved for his physician ; they could only have sprung from bodily distemper. ‘Yet.be it said,’ remarks Sir Walter Scott, ‘ without offence to the memory of the witty and elegant Sterne, it is more easy to assume, in composition, an air of alternate gaiety and sensibility, than to practise the virtues of gene- rosity and benevolence, which Smollett exercised during his whole life, though often, like his own Matthew Bramble, under the disguise of peevish- ness and irritability. Sterne’s writings show much flourish concerning virtues of which his life is understood to have produced little fruit; the temper of Smollett was like a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.’ The native air of the gre.at novelist was more cheer- ing and exhil.arating than tlie genial gales of the south. On his return from Italy he repaired to Scotl.and, saw once more his affectionate mother, and sojourned a short time with his cousin, Mr Smollett of Bonhill. on tlie banks of the Leven. ‘ The water of Leven,’ he observes in his Hum- phry Clin’Ker, ‘ though nothing near so considerable j as the Clyde, is much more transparent, pastoral, i FROM 1727 CVCLOPiEDIA 01- Hiiil lU'liHlitfiil. 'I’liis c'lijiniiiiif; stroiim is tho outlet of Locli Lomond, tind throiipli a tfiick of four miles pursues its wiiHlin.u- eourse over a bi-d of jiebbles, till it loins the Firlli of Clyde at Dimibartoii. On this spot stands the castle formerly called Akdtiyair Unmans your soul, as maddening Bentheus felt. When, baited round Cithasron’s cruel sides. He saw two suns, and double Thebes asceml. In prescribing as a healthy situation for residence a house on an elevated part of the sea-coasi, he indulges in a vein of poetical luxury wortliy the en chanted grounds of the ‘ Castle of Indolence ;’ Oh ! when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm ; To sink in warm repose, and he:ir the din Howl o’er the steady battlements, delights Above the luxury of vulgar sleep. The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strara Of waters rushing o’er the slippery rocks. Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest. To please the fancy is no trifling good. Where health is studied ; for whatever moves The mind with calm delight, promotes the just .\nd natural movements of the harmonious irainft 63 rOKTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. joiin aumstrono. All who have witnessed or felt the inspiriting eflects of fine mountain scenery on invalids, will subscribe to the truth so happily expressed in the concluding lines of this passage. The blank verse of Armstrong somewhat resembles that of Cowper in compact- ness and vigour, but his imagination was hard and literal, and wanted the airy expansiveness and tenderness of pure inspiration. It was a high merit, however, to succeed where nearly all have failed, in blending with a subject so strictly practical and prosaic, the art and fancy of the poet. Much learn- ing, skill, and knowledge are compressed into his poem, in illustration of his medical and ethical doc- trines. The whole is divided into four books or divisions — the first on air, the second on diet, the third on exercise, and the fourth on the passions. In his first book, Armstrong has penned a ludicrously pompous invective on the climate of Great Britain, ‘ steeped in continual rains, or with raw fogs be- dewed.’ He exclaims — Our fathers talked Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene : Good Heaven 1 for what unexpiated crimes This dismal change ! The brooding elements Do they, your powerful ministers of wrath. Prepare some fierce exterminating plague 1 Or is it fi.xed in the decrees above. That lofty Albion melt into the main ? Indulgent nature! 0, dissolve this gloom; Bind in eternal adamant the winds That di'own or wither ; give the genial west To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly south, .\nd may once more the circling seasons rule The year, not mix in every monstrous day ! Now, the fiict we believe is, that in this country there are more good days in the year than in any other country in Europe. A few extracts from the ‘ Art of Preserving Health’ are subjoined. The last, which is certainly the most energetic passage in the whole poem, describes the ‘ sweating sickness’ which scourged England Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent Their ancient rage at Bosworth’s purple field. In the second, Armstrong introduces an apostrophe to his native stream, which perhaps suggested the more felicitous ode of Smollett to Leven Water. It is not unworthy of remark, that the poet entirely overlooks the store of romantic association and ballad -poetry pertaining to Liddisdale, which a mightier than he, in the next age, brought so pro- minently before the notice of the world. [ Wrecks and Mxitations of Time.'\ What does not fade ? The tower that long had stood The crush of thunder and the warring winds, Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time, Now hangs in doubtful ruins o’er its base. And flinty pyramids and walls of brass Descend. The Babylonian spires are sunk ; Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down. Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones. And tottering empires rush by their own weight. This huge rotundity we tread grows old. And all those worlds that roll around the sun ; The .sun himself shall die, and ancient night Again involve the desolate abyss. Till the gre.at Father, through the lifeless gloom. Extend his arm to light another world, And bid new planets roll by other laws. [^Recommendation of Anglin/).] But if the breathless chase o’er hill and dale Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue. Not less delightful, the prolific stream Affords. The crystal rivulet, that o’er A stony channel rolls its rapid maze. Swarms with the silver fry : such through the bounds Of pastoral Stafford runs the brawling Trent ; Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains ; such The Esk, o’erhung with woods ; and such the stream On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air ; Liddel, till now, except in Doric lays. Tuned to her murmurs by her love-sick swains. Unknown in song, though not a purer stream Through meads more flowery, or more romantic groves. Rolls towards the western main. Hail, .sacred flood! May still thy hospitable swains be blest In rural innocence, thy mountains still Teem with the fleecy race, thy tuneful woods For ever flourish, and thy vales look gay With painted meadows and the golden grain ; Oft with thy blooming sons, when life was new. Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys. In thy transparent eddies have I laved ; Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks. With the well-imitated fly to hook The eager trout, and with the slender line And yielding rod solicit to the shore The struggling panting prey, while vernal clouds And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool. And from the deeps called forth the wanton swarms. Formed on the Samian school, or those of Ind, There are who think these pastimes scarce humane ; Yet in my mind (and not relentless I) His life is pure that wears no fouler stains. [Pestilence of the Fifteenth Century.] Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent Their ancient rage at Bosworth’s purple field ; While, for which tyrant England should receive. Her legions in incestuous murders mixed. And daily horrors ; till the fates were drunk With kindred blood by kindred hands profused: Another plague of more gigantic arm Arose, a monster never known before. Reared from Cocytus its portentous head ; This rapid fury not, like other pests, Pursued a gradual course, but in a day Rushed as a storm o’er half the astonished isle. And strewed with sudden carcases the land. First through the shoulders, or whatever part Was seized the first, a fervid vapour sprung ; With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark Shot to the heart, and kindled all within ; And soon the surface caught the spreading fires. Through all the yielding pores the melted blood Gushed out in smoky sweats ; but nought assuaged The torrid heat within, nor aught relieved The stomach’s anguish. With incessant toil. Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain. They tossed from side to side. In vain the stream Ran full and clear, they burnt, and thirsted still. The restless arteries with rapid blood Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly The breath was fetched, and with huge labouringj heaved. At last a heavy pain oppressed the head, A wild delirium came : their weeping friends Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs. Harassed with toil on toil, the sinking powers Lay prostrate and o’erthrown ; a ponderous sleep Wrapt all the senses up : they slept and died. In some a gentle horror crept at first O’er all the limbs ; the sluices cf the skin bs* fBOM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1750. Withheld their inoi«ture, till by art provoked 'J'he sweats o’erflowed, but in a clammy tide ; Now free and copious, now restrained and slow; Of tinctures various, as the temperature Had mixed the blood, and rank with fetid streams: As if the pent-up humours by delay Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign. Here lay their hopes (though little hope remained), With full effusion of perpetual sweats To drive the venom out. And here the fates ^V■cre kind, that long they lingered not in pain. For, who survived the sun’s diurnal race. Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeemed ; Some the sixth hour oppressed, and some the third. Of many thousands, few untainted ’scaped; Of those infected, fewer ’scaped alive ; Of those who lived, some felt a second blow ; And whom the second spared, a third destroyed. Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun The fierce contagion. O’er the mournful land The infected city poured her hurrying swarms : Roused by the flames that fired her seats around. The infected country rushed into the town. Some sad at home, and in the desert some Abjured the fatal commerce of mankind. In vain ; w’here’er they fled, the fates pursued. Others, with hopes more specious, crossed the main. To .seek protection in far distant skies ; lint none they found. It seemed the general air. From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east. Was then at enmity with English blood ; For but the race of England all were safe In foreign climes ; nor did this fury taste The foreign blood which England then contained. Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven Involved them still, and every breeze was bane: Where find relief? The salutary art Was mute, and, startled at the new disease. In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave. 'To heaven, with suppliant rites they sent their prayers ; I leaven heard them not. Of every hope deprived, Fatigued with vain resources, and subdued With woes resistless, and enfeebling fear. Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow. Nothing but lamentable sounds were heard. Nor aught w’as seen but ghastly views of death. Infectious heirror ran from face to face. And pale despair. ’Tw'as all the business then To tend the sick, and in their turns to die. In heaps they fell ; and oft the bed, they say. The sickening, dying, and the dead contained. ■WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE. An admirable translation of ‘ The Lusiad’ of Cainoens, the most distinguished poet of Portugal, was executed by William .Iulius Mickle, himself a poet of taste and fancy, but of no great originality or energy. Mickle was son of the minister of Lang- holm, iu Dumfriesshire, where he was born in 1734. He was engaged in trade in Edinburgh as conductor, and afterwards partner, of a brewery ; but he failed in business, and in 1764 went to London, desirous of literary distinction. Lord Lyttelton noticed and encouraged his poetic.al efforts, and Mickle was buoved up -with dreams of patronage and celebrity. Two years of increasing destitution dispelled this vision, and the poet was glad to accept the situation of corrector of the Clarendon press at Oxford. Here ! he published PoUio, an elegy, and The Concubine, a ! moral poem in the manner of Spenser, whicdi he ; afterwards reprinted with the title of Syr Martyn. Mickle adopted the obsolete phraseology of Spenser, wliich was too antiquated even for the age of the ‘ Faery Queen,’ and which Thomson had almost wholly discarded in his ‘ Castle of Indolence.’ The first stanza of this poem has been quoted by Sir Walter Scott (divested of its antique spelling) in illustration of a remark made by him, that Mickle, | ‘ with a vein of great facility, united a power of verbal melody, which might have been envied by bards of much greater renown ;’ — Awake, ye west winds, through the lonely dale. And Fancy to thy faery bower betake ; Even now, with balmly sweetness, breathes the gale. Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake; Through the pale willows faltering whispers wake. And Evening comes with locks bedropped with dew ; On Desmond’s mouldering turrets slowly shake The withered rye-grass and the harebell blue. And ever and anon sweet Mulla’s plaints renew. Sir Walter adds, that Mickle, ‘being a printer by profession, frequently put his lines into types with- out taking the trouble previously to put them into writing.’ This is mentioned by none of the poet’s biographers, and is improbable. The office of a corrector of the jiress is quite separate from the mechanical operations of the printer. Mickle’s poem was highly successful (not the less, perhaps, becaiuse it was printed anonymously, and was as- cribed to different authors), and it went through three editions. In 1771 he iniblished the first canto of his great translation, -which -was completed in 177.6; and being supported by a long list of sub- scribers, was highly .advantageous both to his fame and fortune. In 1779 he went out to Portugal as secretary to Commodore Johnston, and was received , with much distinction in Lisbon by the countrymen of Camoens. On the return of the expedition. Mickle was .appointed joint agent for the distri- bution of the prizes. liis own share was consider- able ; and having received some money by his mar- | ri.age with a lady whom he had knowm in his obscure i sojourn at Oxford, the latter days of the poet were I spent in ease and leisure. He died at i'orest Hill, near Oxford, in 1788. ■ i The most popular of Mickle’s original poems is j his ballad of Cumnor Hall, which has attained addi- | tional celebrity by its having suggested to Sir Walter Scott the groundwork of his romance of Kenilworth.* j The plot is interesting, and the versification easy and musical. Mickle assisted in Evans’s Collection of Old Ball.ads (in which ‘ Cumnor HalT and other pieces of his first appeared); and though in this style of composition he did not copy the direct sim- plicity and unsophisticated ardour of the real old ballads, he had much of their tenderness and pathos. A still stronger proof of this is afforded by a Scottish song, the author of which was long unknown, but which seems clearly to have been written by Mickle. An imperfect, altered, and corrected copy was lound among his manuscripts after his death ; and his widow being applied to, confirmed the external evidence in his favour, by an e.xprcss declaration that her husband had said the song was his oivn, and that he had explained to her the Scottish words. It is the fairest flower in his poetical chaplet. The I delineation of humble matrimonial happiness and | affection which the song presents, is almost un- equalled — I Sae true his words, sae smooth his speech, | His breath like caller air ! | His very foot has music in'r As he conies up the stair. * Sir Walter intended to have n.ained his romance Cumnor Hall, but was persuaded by Mr Constable, his publisher, to adopt the title of Kenilwortli. WEI'S. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM JULIUS MICKlK. And will I see his face again ! And will 1 hear him speak? I’m downright dizzy with the thought. In troth Tm like to greet. Then there are the two lines — happy Epicurean fancy, but elevated by the situation and the faithful love of the speaker — which Burns says ‘ are worthy of the first poet’ — The present moment is our ain, The neist we never saw. These brief felicities of natural expression and feel- ing, so infinitely superior to the stock images of poetry, show that Mickle could have excelled in the Scottish dialect, and in portraying Scottish life, had he truly known his own strength, and trusted to the impulses of his heart instead of his ambition. Cumnor Hall. The dews of summer night did fall. The moon (sweet regent of the sky) Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby. Now nought was heard beneath the skies (The sounds of busy life were still), Save an unhappy lady’s sighs. That issued from that lonely pile. ‘ Leicester,’ she cried, ‘ is this thy love That thou so oft hast sworn to me. To leave me in this lonely grove. Immured in shameful privity ? No more thou com’st, with lover’s speed. Thy once beloved bride to see ; But be she alive, or be she dead, I fear, stern Earl’s, the same to thee. Not so the usage I received When happy in my father’s hall ; No faithless husband then me grieved. No chilling fears did me appal. I rose up with the cheerful morn. No lark so blithe, no flower more gay ; And, like the bird that haunts the thorn, So merrily sung the live-long day. If that my beauty is but small. Among court ladles all despised. Why didst thou rend it from that hall. Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized ? And when you first to me made suit. How fair I was, you oft would say ! And, proud of conquest, plucked the fruit. Then left the blossom to decay. Yes! now neglected and despised. The rose is pale, the lily’s dead ; But he that once their charms so prized, Is sure the cause those charms are fled. For know, when sickening grief doth prey. And tender love’s repaid with scorn, The sweetest beauty will decay : What floweret can endure the storm ! At court, I’m told, is beauty’s throne. Where every lady’s passing rare, That eastern flowers, that shame the sun. Are not so glowing, not so fair. Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds Where roses and where lilies vie. To seek a primrose, whose pale shades Must sicken w hen those gauds are by t ’Mong rural beauties I was one ; Among the fields wild flowers are fair ; Some country swain might me have won. And thought my passing beauty rare. But, Leicester (or I much am wrong), It is not beauty lures thy vows ; Rather ambition’s gilded crown Makes thee forget thy humble spouse. Then, Leicester, why, again I plead (The injured surely may repine). Why didst thou wed a country maid. When some fair princess might be thine? Why didst thou praise my humble charms. And, oh I then leave them to decay ? Why didst thou win me to thy arms. Then leave me to mourn the live-long day I The village maidens of the plain Salute me lowly as they go ; Envious they mark my silken train, Nor think a countess can have wo. The simple nymphs ! they little know How far more happy’s their estate ; To smile for joy, than sigh for wo ; To be content, than to be great. How far less blessed am I than them. Daily to pine and waste with care ! Like the poor plant, that, from its stem Divided, feels the chilling air. Nor, cruel Earl I can I enjoy The humble charms of solitude ; Your minions proud my peace destroy. By sullen frowns, or pratings rude. Last night, as sad I chanced to stray. The village death-bell smote my ear ; They winked aside, and .seemed to .say, “ Countess, prepare — thy end is near.” And now, while happy peasants sleep, Here I sit lonely and forlorn ; No one to soothe me as I weep. Save Philomel on yonder thorn. My spirits flag, my hopes decay ; Still that dread death-bell smites my ear; And many a body seems to say, “ Countess, prepare — thy end is near.’” Thus sore and sad that lady grieved In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear; And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved. And let fall many a bitter tear. And ere the dawn of day appeared. In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear. Full many a piercing scream was heard. And many a cry of mortal fear. The death-bell thrice was heard to ring. An aerial voice was heard to call. And thrice the raven flapped his wing Around the towers of Cumnor Hall. The mastiff howled at village door. The oaks were shattered on the green ; Wo was the hour, for never more That hapless Countess e’er was seen. And in that manor, now no more Is cheerful feast or sprightly ball ; For ever since that dreary hour Hare spirits haunted Cumnor HalL The village maids with fearful glance. Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall ; Nor ever lead the merry dance Among the groves of Cumnor HalL 71 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiEmA OF Full many a traveller has slglied, And pensive wept the Countess’ fall, As wandering on«ards they’ve espied The haunted towers of Cuninor Hall. The Mariner's Wife. But are ye sure the news is true? And are ye sure he’s wcel ? Is this a time to think o’ wark ? Ye Jauds, Hing bye your wheel. For there’s nae luck about the house. There’s nae luck at a’, There’s nae luck about the house. When our gudeman’s awa. Is this a time to think o’ wark. When Colin’s at the door? Ra.H down my cloak — I’ll to the key. And see him come ashore. Rise up and make a clean fireside. Put on the mickle pat ; Gie little Kate her cotton goun. And Jock his Sunday’s coat. And mak their shoon as black as slaes. Their stockins white as snaw ; It’s a’ to pleasure our gudeman — He likes to see them braw. There are twa hens into the crib, Hae fed this month and mair, Mak haste and thraw their necks about, That Colin weel may fare. My Turkey slippers ITl put on. My stockins pearl blue — It’s a’ to pleasure our gudeman. For he’s baith leal and true. Sae sweet his voice, sae smooth his tongue ; His brcath’s like caller air ; His very fit has music in’t. As he comes up the stair. And will I see his face again ? And will I hear him speak 1 I’m downright dizzy wi’ the thought: In troth I’m like to greet. [The Spirit of the Cape.~^ [From the ‘ Lusiad.'] Now prosperous gales the bending canvass swelled ; From these rude shores our fearless course we held: Beneath the glistening wave the god of day Had now five times withdrawn the parting ray. When o’er the prow a sudden darkness spread. And slowly floating o’er the mast’s tall head A black cloud hovered ; nor appeared from fiir The moon’s pale glimpse, nor faintly twinkling star; So deep a gloom the lowering vapour cast. Transfixed with awe the bravest stood aghast. Meanwhile a hollow bursting roar resounds, As when hoarse surges lash their rocky mounds ; Nor had the blackening wave, nor frowning heaven. The wonted signs of gathering tempest given. Amazed we stood — O thou, our fortune’s guide. Avert this omen, mighty God, I cried ; Or through forbidden climes adventurous strayed. Have we the secrets of the deep surveyed. Which these wide solitudes of seas and sky Were doomed to hide from man’s unhallowed eye? Whate’er this prodigy, it threatens more Than midnight tempest and the mingled roar. When sea and sky combine to rock the marble shore. I spoke, when rising through the darkened air. Appalled we saw a hideous phantom glare ; High and enormous o’er the flood he towered. And thwart our way with sullen a-spect lowered. TO 1780. Unearthly paleness o’er his checks was spread, F.rcct uprose his hairs of withered red ; Writhing to sjieak, his sable lips disclose. Sharp and ili.sjoined, his gnashing teeth’s blue row.s, His haggard beard flowed quivering on the wind. Revenge and horror in his mien combined ; His clouded front, by withering lightning scared. The inward anguish of his soul declared. His red eyes glowing from their dusky caves Shot livid fires : far echoing o’er the waves His voice resounded, as the caverned shore With hollow groan repeats the tempest’s roar. Cold gliding horrors thrilled each hero’s breast ; Our bristling hair and tottering knees confessed Wild dread ; the while with visage ghastly wan. His hlack lips trembling, thus the Kiend began: ‘ 0 you, the boldest of the nations, fired By daring pride, by lust of fame inspired. Who, scornful of the bowers of sweet repose. Through these my wave.s advance your fearless prows, Regardless of the lengthening watery way. And all the storms that own my sovereign sway. Who ’mid surrounding rocks and shelves explore Where never hero braved my rage before ; Ye .sons of Lusus, who, with eyes profane. Have viewed the secrets of my awful reign. Have passed the bounds which jealous Nature drew. To veil her .secret shrine from mortal view. Hear from my lips what direful woes attend. And bursting soon shall o’er your race descend. With every bounding keel that dares my rage. Eternal w.ir my rocks and storms shall w.age ; The next proud fleet that through my dear domain, With daring search shall hoist the streaming vane. That gallant navy by my whirlwinds tost. And raging seas, shall peri.sh on my coast. Then He who first my secret reign descried, A naked corse wide floating o’er the tide Shall drive. Unless my heart’s full raptures fail, O Lusus ! oft shalt thou thy children wail ; Each year thy shipwrecked sons shalt thou deplore. Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore.’ * * He spoke, and deep a lengthened sigh he drew, A doleful sound, and vanished from the view ; The frightened billows gave a rolling swell. And distant far [irolongcd the dismal yell ; Faint and more faint the howling echoes die. And the black cloud dispersing leaves the sky. DR JOHN LANGHORNE. Dr John Lanchorne, an amiable and excellent clergynnin, lias long lost the popuhirity which he possessed in his own day as a poet ; but his name nevertheless claims a jdace in the history of Flng- lish literature. He was born at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland, in 1735, and held the curacy and lectureship of St John’s, Clerkenwell, in Lon- don. He afterwards obtained a prebend's stall in AVells cathedral, and was much .admired as a preacher. He died in 1779. Langhorne W'rote various prose works, the most successful of which was his Letters of Theodosius and Constantin ; and, in conjunction with his brother, he published a translation of Plutarch’s Lives, which still main- tains its ground as the best English version of the ancient author. His poetical works were chiefly slight effusions, dictated by the passion or impulse of the moment ; but he made an abortive attempt to repel the coarse satire of Churchill, and to walk in the magic circle of the drama. His ballad, Owen of Carron, founded on the old Scottisn tale of Gil Morrice, is smoothly versified, but in poetical merit is inferior to the original. The only poem of Lang- horne’s which has a cast of originality is his Country Justice. Here he seems to have anticipated Crabl^ 72 1 n>f.Ts. ENGLISH LITERA'rUIiK. i>n joiin langiiorne. ill [uintiiig tlic rural life of England in true colours. His iiieture of the gipsies, and his skctelu s of venal clerks and rapacious overseers, are genuine like- nesses. He has not the raeiness or the distinctness of Crahhe, hut is equally faithful, and as sincerely » friend to huuiauity. lie pleads warmly for the poor vagrant tribe : — Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed ; Still mark the strong temptation and the need: On pressing want, on famine’s powerful call, At least more lenient let thy justice fall. Tor him who, lost to every hope of life, Has long with Fortune held unequal strife, Known to no human love, no human care. The friendless homeless object of despair ; For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains, Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains. Alike if folly or misfortune brought Those last of woes his evil days have wrought ; Ilelieve with social mercy and with me. Folly ’s misfortune in the first degree. Perhaps on some inhospitable shore Tlie houseless wretch a widowed parent bore ; Who then, no more by golden prospects led. Of the poor Indian begged a leafy bed. Cold on Canadian hills or Minden’s plain. Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain ; Rent o’er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew. The big drops mingling with the milk he drew. Gave the sad presage of his future years. The child of misery, baptised in tears. This allusion to the dead soldier and his widow on the field of battle was made the subject of a print by Bunbury, under which were engraved the pa- thetic lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott has mentioned, that tlie only time he saw Burns, the Scottish poet, this picture was in the room. Burns shed tears over it; and Scott, then a lad of fifteen, was the only person present who could tell him where the lines were to be found. The passage is beautiful in itself, but this incident will embalm and nreserve it for ever. \_Appecd to Country Justices in Behalf of the Rural Poor.'] Let age no longer toll with feeble strife. Worn by long service in the war of life ; Nor leave the head, that time hath whitened, bare To the rude insults of the searching air ; Nor bid the knee, by labour hardened, bend, O thou, the poor man’s hope, the poor man’s friend ! If, when from heaven severer seasons fall. Fled from the frozen roof and mouldering wall, Each face the picture of a winter day. More strong than Teniers’ pencil could portray; If then to thee re.sort the shivering train. Of cruel days, and cruel man complain. Say to thy heart (remembering him who said), ‘ These people come from far, and have no bread.’ Nor leave thy venal clerk empowered to hear; The voice of want is sacred to thy ear. He where no fees his sordid pen invite. Sports with their tears, too indolent to write ; Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain To hear more helpless animals complain. But chief thy notice shall one monster claim ; A monster furnished with a human frame — The parish-officer! — though verse disdain Terms that deform the splendour of the strain. It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe On the sly, pilfering, cruel overseer ; The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust, lluthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust 1 When the jioor hind, with length of years decayed, Leans feebly on his once-subduing spade. Forgot the service of his abler days. His profitable toil, and hone.st praise. Shall tins low wretch abridge his scanty bread. This slave, whose board his former labours sjircad I When harvest’s burning suns and sickening air From labour’s unbraced hand the grasped hook tear, Where shall the helpless family be fed. That vainly languish for a father’s bread ? See the inile mother, sunk with grief and care, To the proud farmer fearfully repair; Soon to be sent with insolence away. Referred to vestries, and a distant day ! Referree.’ ‘ Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more. Men w'ere deceivers ever ; One foot on sea, and one on land. To one thing constant never. Hadst thou been fond, he had been false. And left thee sad and heavy ; For young men ever were fickle found. Since summer trees were leafy.’ ‘ Now say not so, thou holy friar, 1 pray thee say not so ; My love he had the truest heart — 0 he was ever true ! And art thou de.ad, thou much-loved youth ! And didst thou die for me? Then farewell home ; for evermore A pilgrim I will be. But first upon my true love’s grave My weary limbs I’ll lay. And thrice I’ll kiss the green grass turf That wraps his breathless clay.’ ‘ Yet stay, fair lady, rest a while Beneath this cloister wall ; The cold wind through the hawthorn blows. And drizzly rain doth fall.’ ‘ 0 stay me not, thou holy friar, 0 stay me not, 1 pray ; No drizzly rain that falls on me. Can wash my fault aw'ay.’ ‘ Yet stay, fair lady, turn again. And dry those pearly tears ; For see, beneath this gown of gray. Thy own true love appears. Here, forced by grief and hopeless love. These holy weeds I sought ; And here, amid these lonely walls. To end ray days I thought. 7S rOKTS. ENOLISII LITEUATUUE. jamus maci'iif.usob. But Imply, fagcs, en- titled Fragments of Ancient Poetry; translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language. The publication iit- tracted universal attention, and a subscriittion was made to enable Macpherson to make :i tour in the Highlands to collect other pieces. His journey proved to be highly successful. In 1762 he pre- sented the world with Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, in Six Books; and in 1763 Teinora, another epic poem, in eight books. The sale of these works was immense. The possibility that, in the third or fourth century, among the wild retnote mountains of Scotland, there e.xisted a people exhibiting all the high and chivalrous feelings of refined valour, gene- rosity, magnanimity, and virtue, was eminentlj' cal- culated to excite astonishment ; while the idea of the poems being handed down by tradition through so many' centuries among rude, savage, and bar- barous tribes, Avas no less astounding. IMany doubted — others disbelieved — but a still greater number ‘ indulged the pleasing supposition that Fingal fought and Ossian sung.’ Macpherson reali.sed £1200, it is said, by these productions. In 1764 the poet accompanied Governor Johnston to Pen- sacola as his secretary, but quarrelling with his patron, he returned, and fixed his residence in London. He became one of the literary suppor- ters of the administration, imblished some histo- rical works, and was a copious pamphleteer. In 1773 he published a translation of the Iii;id in the same style of poetical i>rose as Ossian, which was a complete failure, unless as a source of ridicule .and personal opi)robrium to the translator. He Avas more successful as a politiiaan. A ])ami)hlet of his in defence of the tiixation of America, and another on the opposition in parliament in 1779, were much applauded. He attempted (as Ave have seen from his manuscripts) to combat the Letters of Junius, Avriting under the signatures of ‘ Jlusatus,’ ‘ ScsBA'ola,’ &c. He Avas appointed agent for the Nabob of Arcot, and obtained a seat in ]iarliament as representative for the borough of Camelford. It does not appear, hoAvever, that, Avith all his ambi- tion and political zeal, Macpherson ever attempted to speak in the House of Commons. In 1789 the poet, having realised a handsotne fortune, purchased the property of Raitts, in his native p.irish, and having changed its name to the more euphonious and sounding one of Belleville, he built upon it a splendid residence, designed by the Adelphi Adams, in the style of an Italian villa, in Avliicli he hoiiej to spend an old age of ease and dignity. He died at Belleville on the 17th of February 1796. leaving a handsome fortune, Avhich is still enjoyed by his fa- mily. His eldest daughter. Miss Macjiher.son, is at present (1842) proprietrix of the estate, and another daughter of the poet is the Avife of the distinguished n.atural philosopher. Sir David BrcAvster. 'The eager- ness of Macpherson for the admiration of his ftlloAv- creatures Avas seen by some of the bciiucsts of his Avill. He ordered that his body should ne interred in Westminster Abbey, and that a sum of £301) should be laid out in erecting a monument to his memory in some conspioious situation at Belleville. Both injunctions Avere duly fulfilled : the body Avas interred in Poets’ Corner, and a marble obelisk, con- taining a medallion portrait of the poet, may be seen gleaming amidst a clump of trees by the road-side near Kingussie The fierce controversy Avhich raged for some time 77 FiWM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1780. as to the autlionticity of the poems of Ossian, tlie incredulity of Jolinson, and the obstinate sileiu^c of Maepherson, a>-e cireuinstances well known. 'J'here seems to he no doubt that a great body of tradi- tional poetry was floating over the Highlands, whieh Maepher.son collected and wrought ui> into regular poems. It would seem also that Gaelic manuscripts were in existence, whieh he received from different families to aid in his translation. How much of the published work is ancient, and how much fabricated, cannot now be a.scertained. 'J'he Highland Society instituted a regular inquiry into the subject; and in their report, the comndttee state that they ‘ have not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems published.’ Detached passages, the names of characters and places, with : some of the wild imagery characteristic of the country, and of the attributes of Celtic imagination, undoubtedly existed. The ancient tribes of the Celts had their regular bards, even dowm to a com- paratively late period. A people like the natives of the Highlands, leading an idle inactive life, and doomed from their climate to a severe protracted winter, were also well adajited to transmit from one generation to another the fragments of ancient song which had beguiled their infancy and youth, and whieh flattered their love of their ancestors. No person, however, now believes that Maepherson found entire ejiic poems in the Highlands. The origin materials were probably as scanty as those on which Shakspeare founded the marvellous super- structures of his genius ; and he himself has not scrupled to state (in the preface to his last edition of Ossian) that ‘ a translator who cannot equal his original is incapable of expressing its beauties.’ Sir James Mackintosh has suggested, as a s\ipposition countenanced by many circumstances, that, after enjoying the pleasure of duping so many critics, Maepherson intended one day to claim the poems as his own. ‘ If he had such a design, considerable obstacles to its execution arose around him. He was loaded wdth so much praise, that he seemed bound in honour to his admirers not to desert them. The support of his own country appeared to render adherence to those poems, which Scotland incon- siderately sanctioned, a sort of national obligation. Exasperated, on the other hand, by the perhaps unduly vehement, and sometimes very coarse attacks made on him, he was unwilling to surrender to such opponents. He involved himself at last so deeply, as to leave him no decent retreat.’ A somewhat sudden and premature death closed the scene on Maepherson ; nor is there among the papers which he left behind him a single line that throws any light upon the controversy. Mr Wordsworth has condemned the imagery of Ossian as spurious. ‘ In nature everything is dis- tinct, j'et nothing defined into absolute independent singleness. In ilacpherson’s work it is exactly the reverse ; everything (that is not stolen) is in this manner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadened — I yet nothing distinct. It wdll always be so w'hen I words are substituted for things.’ Part of this cen- sure may perhaps be owing to the style and diction of Maepherson, which have a broken abrupt appear- ance and sound. The imagery is drawn from the natural appearances of a rude mountainous coun- try. The grass of the rock, the flower of the heath, the thistle with its be.ard, are (as Blair observes) the chief ornaments of his landscapes. The desert, with all its woods and deer, was enough for Fin- gal. We suspect it is the sameness — the perpetual recurrence of the same images — which fatigues the reader, and gives a misty confusion to the objects «nd incidents of the poem. That there i.s some- thing i)oeticid and striking in Ossian— a wild soli- tary magnificence, pathos, and tenderness — i.s un- deniable. 'I’lie Desolation of Balclutha, and tbe lamentations in the Song of Selma, are conceived with true feeling and poetical power. The battles of the car-borne heroes are, we confess, much less to our taste, and seem stilted and unnatural. 'I'hey are like the Quixotic encounters of knightly romance, anil want the air of remote antiquity, of dim and .solitary grandeur, and of shadowy superstitious fear, which shrouds the wild heaths, lakes, and mountains of Ossian. [Oman’s Address to the The sign-post of an alehouse. The satirical and town effusions of Chatterton are often in bad taste, yet display a wonderful com- mand of easy language and lively sportive allusion. They have no traces of juvenility, unless it be in adopting the vulgar scandals of the day, unworthy his original genius. In bis satire of Kew Gardens are the following lines, .alluding to the poet laureate and the proverbial poverty of poets : — Though sing-song Whitehead ushers in the year. With joy to Britain’s king and sovereign dear. And, in compliance to an ancient mode. Measures his syllables into an ode ; Yet such the scurvy merit of his muse. He bows to deans, and licks his lordship’s shoes; Then leave the wicked barren way of rhyme. Fly far from poverty, be wise in time : Regard the office more, Parnassus less. Put your religion in a decent dress : Then may j'our interest in the town advance, Above the reach of muses or romance. In a poem entitled The Prophecy are some vigorous stanzas, in a different measure, and remarkable for maturity and freedom of style : — This truth of old was sorrow’s friend — ‘ Times at the worst will surely mend.’ The difficulty’s then to know How long Oppression’s clock can go ; When Britain’s sons may cease to sigh. And hope that their redemption’s nigh. When vile Corruption’s brazen face At council-board shall take her place ; And lords-commissioners resort To welcome her at Britain’s court ; Look up, ye Britons ! cease to sigh. For your redemption draweth nigh. See Pension’s harbour, large and clear, Defended by St Stephen’s pier ! The entrance safe, by current led. Tiding round G — ’s jetty head ; Look up, ye Britons ! cease to sigh, For your redemption dr.aweth nigh. When civil power shall snore at ease ; While soldiers fire — to keep the peace; When murders sanctuary find. And petticoats can Justice blind ;• Look up, ye Britons ! cease to sigh. For your redemption draweth nigh. Commerce o’er Bondage will prevail. Free as the wind that fills her sail. When she complains of vile restraint. And Power is deaf to her complaint; Look up, ye Britons ! cease to sigh. For your redemption draweth nigh. When at Bute’s feet poor Freedom lies. Marked by the priest for sacrifice. And doomed a victim for the sins Of half the ouU .and all the insj Look up, ye Britons I cease to sigh. For your redemption draweth nigh. When time shall bring your wish about. Or, seven-years lease, you sold, is out ; No future contract to fulfil ; Your tenants holding at your will ; Raise up your heads ! your idght demand— For your redemption’s in your hand. Then is your time to strike the blow. And let the slaves of Mammon know, Britain’s true sons a bribe can scorn. And die as free as they were born. Virtue again shall take her seat. And your redemption stand complete. S3 - 1 1 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1780. The boy who could thus write at sixteen, might soon have proved a Swift or a Dryden. Yet in satire, Chatterton evinced but a small part of his power. His Kowleian poems have a compass of invention, and a luxuriance of fancy, that promised a great chivalrous or allegorical poet of the stamp of Spenser. Briatow Tragedy, or the Death of Sir Charles Bawdin* The feathered songster chanticleer Had wound his bugle-horn, And told the early villager The coming of the morn : King Edward saw the ruddy streaks Of light eclipse the gray. And heard the raven’s croaking throat, Proclaim the fated day. ‘ Thou’rt right,’ quoth he, ‘ for by the God That sits enthroned on high 1 Charles Bawdin, and his fellows twain. To-day shall surely die.’ Then with a jug of nappy ale His knights did on him wait ; ‘ Go tell the traitor, that to-day He leaves this mortal state.’ Sir Canterlone then bended low, With heart brimful of wo ; He journied to the castle-gate. And to Sir Charles did go. But when he came, his children twain. And eke his loving wife. With briny tears did wet the floor. For good Sir Charles’s life. ‘ Oh good Sir Charles !’ said Canterlone, ‘ Bad tidings I do bring.’ ‘ Speak boldly, man,’ said brave Sir Charles ; ‘ What says the traitor king V ‘ I grieve to tell : before yon sun Does from the welkin fly. He hath upon his honour sworn, That thou shalt surely die.’ ‘ We all must die,’ said brave Sir Charles ; ‘ Of that I’m not afraid ; What boots to live a little space ? Thank Jesus, I’m prepared. But tell thy king, for mine he’s not, I’d sooner die to-day. Than live his slave, as many are. Though I should live for aye.’ Then Canterlone he did go out. To tell the mayor straight To get all things in readiness For good Sir Charles’s fate. Then Mr Canynge sought the king. And fell down on his knee ; ‘ I’m come,’ quoth he, ‘ unto your grace. To move your clemency.’ ‘ Then,’ quoth the king, ‘ your tale speak out. You have been much our friend ; Whatever your request may be. We will to it attend.’ * The antiquated orthography affected by Chatterton being evidently no advantage to his poems, hut rather an impedi- ment to their being generally read, we dismiss it in t’ais and other specimens. The diction is, in reality, almost purely mo- dem, and Chatterton's spelling in a great measure aihitrary, BO that there seems no longer any reason for retaining what was only designed at first as a means of supporting a deception. ‘ My noble liege ! all my request Is for a noble knight. Who, thougli mayhap he has done wrong. He thought it still was right. He has a spouse and children twain ; All ruined are for aye. If that you are resolved to let Charles Bawdin die to-day.’ ‘ Speak not of such a traitor vile,’ The king in fury said ; ‘ Before the evening star doth shine, Bawdin shall lose his head : Justice does loudly for him call. And he shall have his meed : Speak, Mr Canynge ! what thing else At present do you need 1’ ‘ My noble liege !’ good Canynge said, ‘ Leave justice to our God, And lay the iron rule aside ; Be thine the olive rod. Was God to search our hearts and reins. The best were sinners great ; Christ’s vicar only knows no sin. In all this mortal state. Let mercy rule thine infant reign, ’Twill fix thy crown full sure ; From race to race thy family All sovereigns shall endure : But if with blood and slaughter thou Begin thy infant reign. Thy crown upon thy children’s brows Will never long remain.’ ‘ Canynge, away ! this traitor vile Has scorned my power and me ; How canst thou then for such a man Intreat my clemency V ‘ My noble liege ! the truly brave Will valorous actions prize; Respect a brave and noble mind. Although in enemies.’ ‘ Canynge, away ! By God in heaven That did me being give, I will not taste a bit of bread Whilst this Sir Charles doth live ! By Mary, and all saints in heaven, This sun shall be his last !’ Then Canynge dropped a briny tear. And from the presence passed. With heart brimful of gnawing grief. He to Sir Charles did go. And sat him down upon a stool. And tears began to flow. ‘ We all must die,’ said brave Sir Charles ; ‘ What boots it how or when ? Death is the sure, the certain fate. Of all we mortal men. Say why, my friend, thy honest soul Runs over at thine eye ; Is it for my most welcome doom That thou dost child-like cry ?’ Saith godly Canynge, ‘ I do weep. That thou so soon must die. And leave thy sons and helple.ss wife ; ’Tis this that wets mine eye.’ ‘ Then dry the tears that out thine eye From godly fountains spring ; Death I despise, and all the power Of Edward, traitor king. When through the tyrant’s welcome means I shall resign iny life, The God I serve will soon provide For both my sons and wife. Before I saw the lightsome sun. This was appointed me ; Shall mortal man repine or grudge What God ordains to be ? How oft in battle have I stood. When thousands died around ; When smoking streams of crimson blood Imbrued the fattened ground : How did I know that every dart That cut the airy way, Might not find passage to my heart, And close mine eyes for aye 1 And shall I now, for fear of death. Look wan and be dismayed ? No ! from my heart fly childish fear; Be all the man displayed. Ah, godlike Henry ! God forefend. And guard thee and thy son. If ’tis his will ; but if ’tis not. Why, then his will be done. My honest friend, my fault has been To serve God and my prince ; And that I no time-server am. My death will soon convince. In London city was I bom. Of parents of great note ; My father did a noble arms Emblazon on his coat : I make no doubt but he is gone Where soon I hope to go. Where we for ever shall be blest, From out the reach of wo. He taught me justice and the laws With pity to unite ; And eke he taught me how to know The wrong cause from the right : He taught me with a prudent hand To feed the hungry poor. Nor let my servants drive away Th hungry from my door : And none can say but all my life I have his wordis kept ; And summed the actions of the day Each night before I slept. I have a spouse, go ask of her If I defiled her bed ? I have a king, and none can lay Black treason on my head. In Lent, and on the holy eve. From flesh I did refrain ; Why should I then appear dismayed To leave this world of pain I No, hapless Henry ! I rejoice I shall not see thy death ; Most willingly in thy just cause Do I resign my breath. Oh, fickle people ! ruined land ! Thou wilt ken peace no raoe ; While Richard’s sons exalt themselve*, Thy brooks with blood will flow. Say, were ye tired of godly peace. And godly Henry’s reign. That you did chop* your easy days For those of blood and pain 1 * Exchange. What though I on a sledge be drawn. And mangled by a hind, I do defy the traitor’s power. He cannot harm my mind ; What though, ujihoisted on a pole. My limbs shall rot in air. And no rich monument of brass Charles Bawd in’s name shall bear; Yet in the holy book above. Which time can’t eat away, 4 There with the servants of the Lord My name shall live for aye. Then welcome death ! for life eteme I leave this mortal life ; Farewell vain world, and all that’s dear. My sons and loving wife ! Now death as welcome to me comes As e’er the month of May ; Nor would I even wish to live. With my dear wife to stay.’ Saith Canynge, ‘ ’Tis a goodly thing To be prepared to die ; And from this world of pain and grief To God in Heaven to fly.’ And now the bell began to toll. And clarions to sound ; Sir Charles he heard the horses’ feet A-prancing on the ground. And just before the officers His loving wife came in. Weeping unfeigned tears of wo With loud and dismal din. ‘ Sweet Florence ! now I pray forbear, In quiet let me die ; Pray God that every Christian soul May look on death as I. Sweet Florence ! why these briny tears t They wash my soul away. And almost make me wish for life. With thee, sweet dame, to stay, ’Tis but a journey I shall go Unto the land of bliss ; Now, as a proof of husband’s love Receive this holy kiss.’ Then Florence, faltering in her say. Trembling these wordis spoke : ‘ Ah, cruel Edward ! bloody king ! My heart is well nigh broke. Ah, sweet Sir Charles ! why wilt thou go Without thy loving wife ? The cruel axe that cuts thy neck, It eke shall end my life.’ And now the officers came iii To bring Sir Charles away. Who turned to his loving wife. And thus to her did say : ‘ I go to life, and not to death. Trust thou in God above. And teach thy sons to fear the Lord, And in their hearts him love. Teach them to run the noble race That I their father run, Florence ! should death thee take — adieu! Ye officers lead on.’ Then Florence raved as any mad. And did her tresses tear ; * Oh stay, my husband, lord, and life!’ — Sir Charles then dropped a tear. 8S FROM 1727 CYCL0P^:DIA of to 1730. ’Till tired out with raving loud, She fell upon the floor; Sir Charles exerted all his might, And marched from out the door. Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few years, Shalt rule this fickle land. To let tliem know how wide the rule ’Twlxt king and tyrant hand. Upon a sledge he mounted then. With looks full brave and sweet ; Looks that enshone no more concern Than any in the street. Thy power unjust, thou traitor slave I Shall fall on thy own head’ — From out of hearing of the king Departed then the sledde. 1 Before him went the council-men. In scarlet robes and gold, And tassels spangling in the sun. Much glorious to behold : King Edward’s soul rushed to his face, He tunied his head away. And to his brother Gloucester He Xius did speak and say : The friars of Saint Augustine next Appeared to the sight. All clad in homely russet weeds, Of godly monkish plight : ‘ To him that so-much-drcaded death ! No ghastly terrors bring ; 1 Behold the man! he spake the truth; j He’s greater than a king!’ In different p.arts a godly psalm Most sweetly they did chant ; Behind their back six minstrels came. Who tuned tiie strange bataunt. ‘ So let him die!’ Duke Richard said ; ‘ And may each one our foes Bend down their necks to bloody axe. And feed the carrion crows.’ Then five-and-twenty archers came; Each one the bow did bend, From rescue of King Henry’s friends Sir Charles for to defend. And now the horses gently drew Sir Charles up the high hill ; The axe did glister in the sun, Ilis precious blood to spill. Bold as a lion came Sir Charles, Drawn on a cloth-laid sledde. By two black steeds in traj.pings white. With plumes upon their head. Sir Charles did up the scaffold go, As up a gilded car Of victory, by valorous chiefs Gained in the bloody war. Behind him five-and-twenty more Of archers strong and stout. With bended bow each one in hand. Marched in goodly rout. And to the people he did say : ‘ Behold you see me die. For serving loyally my king. My king most rightfully. Saint James’s friars marched next. Each one his part did chant ; Behind their backs six minstrels came. Who tuned the strange bataunt. As long as Edward rules this land. No quiet you will know; Your sons and husbands shall be slain. And brooks with blood shall flow. Then came the mayor and aldermen. In cloth of scarlet decked ; And their attending men each one. Like eastern princes tricked. You leave your good and lawful king. When in adversity ; Like me, unto the true cause stick, And for the true cause die.’ And after them a multitude Of citizens did throng ; The windows were all full of heads. As he did pass along. Then he, with j)riests, upon his knees, A prayer to God did make. Beseeching him unto himself His parting soul to take. j And when he came to the high cross. Sir Charles did turn and say, ‘ 0 thou tLat savest man from sin, Wash my soul clean this day.’ Then, kneeling down, he laid his head Most seemly on the block ; j Which from his body fair at once i The able headsman stroke : | At the great minster window sat The king in mickle state. To see Charles Bawdin go along To his most welcome fate. And out the blood began to flow, ' And round the scaffold twine ; 1 And tears, enough to wash’t away, : Did flow from each man’s eyne. ! Soon as the sledde drew nigh enough. That Edward he might hear. The brave Sir Ctiarles he did stand up. And thus his words declare : The bloody axe his body fair i Into four partis cut ; j And every part, and eke his head. Upon a pole was put. 1 ‘ Tliou seest me, Edward 1 traitor vile 1 Exposed to infamy ; But be assured, disloyal man, I’m greater now than thee. One part did rot on Kinwulph-hill, | One on the minster-tower. And one from off the castle-gate \ The crowen did devour. I By foul proceedings, murder, blood, Thou wearest now a crown ; And hast appointed me to die By power not thine own. The other on Saint Paul’s good gate, [ A dreary speetacle ; • His head was placed on the high cross. In high street most noble. Thou thinkest I shall die to-day ; I have been dead till now, \nd soon shall live to wear a crown For aye upon my brow ; Thus was the end of Bawdin’s fate; God prosper long our king. And grant he may with Bawdin’s soul. In heaven God’s mercy sing! 86 ENGLISH LITERATURE. rcSTS. WILL'AM F4LC0NKE. {The Minstrel's Song in Ella.li O ! sing unto my roundelay ; 0 1 drop the briny tear with me ; Dance no more at holiday, Like a running river be ; My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. Black his hair as the winter night. White his neck as summer snow. Ruddy his face as the morning light. Cold he lies in the grave below : My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. The mystic mazes of thy will, The shadows of celestial light. Are past the power of human skill — But what the Eternal acts is right. O teach ma in the trying hour. When anguish swells the dewy tear. To still my sorrows, own thy power. Thy goodness love, thy justice fear. If in this bosom aught but Thee Encroaching sought a boundless sway. Omniscience could the danger see. And Mercy look the cause away. Then why, my soul, dost thou complain ? Why drooping seek the dark recess ? Shake off the melancholy chain. For God created all to bless. Sweet his tongue as throstle’s note. Quick in dance as thought was he ; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout ; Oh ! he lies by the willow tree. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. Hark ! the raven flaps his wing. In the briered dell below ; Hark ! the death-owl loud doth sing, ; To the nightmares as they go. My love is dead, i Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. 1 See ! the white moon shines on high ; Whiter is my true-love’s shroud ; Whiter than the morning sky. Whiter than the evening cloud. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. Here, upon my true-love’s grave, j Shall the garish flowers be laid. Nor one holy saint to save All the sorrows of a maid. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. With my hands I’ll bind the briers. Bound his holy corse to gre Elfin-fairy, light your fires. Here my body still shall be. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. Come with acorn cup and thorn. Drain my heart’s blood all away ; Life and all its good I scorn. Dance by night, or feast by day. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed. All under the willow tree. Water-witches, crowned with reytes,2 Bear me to your deadly tide. I die — I come — my true-love waits, j Thus the damsel spake, and died. j Resignation. I O God, whose thunder shakes the sky, j Whose eye this atom globe surveys ; To Thee, my only rock, I fly, I Thy mercy in thy justice praise. Grow. * Water flag*. But ah ! my breast is human still — The rising sigh, the falling tear. My languid vitals’ feeble rill. The sickness of my soul declare. But yet, with fortitude resigned. I’ll thank the inflicter of the blow; Forbid the sigh, compose my mind. Nor let the gush of misery flow. The gloomy mantle of the night, which on my sinking spirits steals. Will vanish at the morning light. Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals. WII.LIAM FALCONER. The terrors and circumstances of a Shipwreck ha:i been often described by poets, ancient and modern, but never with any attempt at professional accuracy or minuteness of detail, before the poem of that name by Falconer. It was reserved for a genuine sailor to disclose, in correct and harmonious verse, the ‘ secrets of the deej),’ and to enlist the sympathies of the general reader in favour of the daily life and occupations of his brother seamen, and in all the movements, the equipage, and tracery of those mag- nificent vessels which have carried the British name and enterprise to the i-emotest corners of the world. Poetical associations — a feeling of boundlessness and sublimity — obviously belonged to the scene of the poem — the ocean ; but its interest soon wanders from this source, and centres in the stately ship and its crew — the gallant resistance which the men made to the fury of the storm — their calm and deliberate courage — the various resources of their skill and ingenuity — their consultations and resolutions as the ship labours in distress — and the brave unselfish piety and generosity with which they meet their fate, when at last The crashing ribs divide — She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o’er the tide. Such a subject Falconer justly considered as ‘ new to epic lore,’ but it possessed strong recommendations to the British public, w’hose national pride and honour are so closely identified with the sea, and so many of whom have ‘ some friend, some brother there.’ William Falconer was born in Edinburgh in 17.30, and was the son of a poor barber, who had two other children, both of whom were deaf and dumb. He went early to sea, on board a Leith mer- chant ship, and w’as afterwards in the royal navy. Before he was eighteen years of age, he was second mate in the Britannia, a vessel in the Levant trade, which was shipwrecked off Cape Colonn.o, as de- scribed in his poem. In 1751 he w'as living in Edin- burgh, where he published his first poetical attempt, 87 PROM 1727 CYCLOPiEDIA OF n monody on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The choice of such a subject by a young friendless Scottisli sailor, was as singular as the depth of grief he describes in Ids poem; for Falconer, on tliis occa- sion, wished, with a zeal worthy of ancient Pistol, To assist the pouring rains with brimful eyes, And aid hoarse howling Boreas with his sighs ! In 17.57 he was promoted to the quarter-deck of the Kamilies, and l)eing now in a superior situation for cultivating his taste for learning, he was an assi- duous student. Three 3 ’ears afterwards. Falconer suffered a sectond shipwreck ; the Ilamilies stnick on the shore in the Channel while making for Ply- mouth, and of 7.'i4 of a crew, the poet and 25 others oidy escaped. In 17G2 appeared his poem of The Shipwreck (which he afterwards greatly enlarged and improved), preceded by a dedication to the Duke of York. Tlie work was eminently successful, and his royiil highness procured him the appoint- ment of midshipman on board the Royal George, whence he was subsequently transferred to the Glory, a frigate of 32 guns, on board which he held the situation of purser. After the peace, he resided in London, wrote a poor satire on Wilkes, Churchill, &c., and compiled a useful marine dic- tionary. In Septendrer 1769, the poet again took to the sea, and sailed from England as purser of the Aurora frigate, bound for India. The vessel reached the Cape of Good Hope in December, but afterwards perished at sea, having foundered, as is supposed, in the Mosambique Channel. No ‘ tune- ful Arion’ was left to commemorate this calamity, the poet having died under the eircumstances he had formerly described in the case of his youthful associates of the Britannia. ‘ The Shipwreck’ has the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and a safe guide to practical seamen. Its nautical rules and direc- tions are approved of by all experienced naval officers. At first, the poet does not seem to have done more than describe in n.autical phrase and simple narrative the melancholy disaster he had witnessed. The characters of Albert, Kodmond, Palemon, and Anna, were added in the second edi- tion of the work. By choosing the shipwreck of the Britannia, Falconer imparted a train of inte- resting recollections and images to his poem. The wreck occurred off Cape Colonna — one of the fairest portions of the beautiful shores of Greece. ‘ In all Attica,’ says Lord Byron, ‘ if we except Athens itself and JIarathon, there is no scene more inte- resting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design ; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato’s conversations will not be unwelcome ; and the traveller will be struck with the beauD' of the prospect over “ isles that crown the jEgean deep but for an Englishman, Colonna has j-et an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer’s Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Camp- beU— Here in the dead of night by Lonna’s steep. The seaman’s cry was heard along the deej).’ * Fiilconer w-as not insensible to the charms of these historical and classic associations, and he was still more alive to tlie impressions of romantic scenery and a genial climate. Some of the descriptive and episodical parts of the poem are, however, drawn out to too great a length, as they interrupt the nar- rative where its interest is most engrossing, besides being occasionally feeble and affected. The eha- * riea.siires of Hope. TO 1780. racters of his naval officers are finely discriminated Albert, the commander, is brave, liberal, and just softened and refined by domestic ties and superioi information ; Rodmond, the next in rank, is coarse i and boisterous, a hardy weather-beaten son of Northumberland, yet of a kind comiiassionate na- ture, as is evinced by one striking incident : — And now, while winged with ruin from on high. Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly, A flash quick glancing on the nerves of light. Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night : Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind. Touched with compassion, gazed upon the blind ; And while around his sad companions crowd. He guides the unhappy victim to a shroud. ‘ Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend,’ he cries, ‘ Thy only succour on the mast relies.’ Palemon, ‘charged with the commerce,’ is perhaps too effeminate for the rough sea : he is the lover of the poem, and his passion for Albert’s daughter is drawn with truth and delicacy — ’Twas genuine passion. Nature’s elde.st horn. The truth of the whole poem is indeed one of its i greatest attractions. We feel that it is a passage of real life ; and even where the poet seems to violate the canons of taste and criticism, allowance is libe- rally made for the peculiar situation of the author, j while he rivets our attention to the scenes of trial ; and distress which he so fortunately survived to \ describe. 1 i I I [From the ShipiorecTc.'\ I The sun’s bright orb, declining all serene, ! Now glanced obliquely o’er the woodland scene. i Creation smiles around ; on every spray [ The warbling birds exalt their evening lay. | Blithe skipping o’er yon hill, the fleecy train ! .loin the deep chorus of the lowing plain ; f The golden lime and orange there were seen, ‘ On fragrant branches of perpetual green. . The crystal streams, that velvet meadows lave, i To the green ocean roll with chiding wave. ( j The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar, ' j But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore: j And lo ! his surface, lovely to behold ! ; Glows in the west, a sea of living gold ! While, all above, a thousand liveries gay The skies with pomp ineffable array. Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains : Above, beneath, around enchantment reigns! While yet the shades, on time’s eternal scale, With long vibration deepen o’er the vale ; While yet the songsters of the vocal grove With dying numbers tune the soul to love. With joyful eyes the attentive master sees The auspicious omens of an eastern breeze. Now radiant Vesper leads the starry train. And night slow draws her veil o’er land and main ; Round the charged bowl the sailors form a ring ; By turns recount the wondrous tale, or sing ; As love or battle, hardships of the main, I Or genial wine, awake their homely strain : Then some the watch of night alternate keep, j The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep. Deep midnight now involves the livid skies. While infant breezes from the shore arise. The W'aning moon, behind a watery shroud. Pale-glimmered o’er the loTig-protracted cloud. A mighty ring around her silver throne, * With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone. This in the troubled sky full oft prevails ; Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales. 88 POETS. WILLIAM FALCONEB. ENGLISH LITERATURE. While young Arion sleeps, before his sight Tumultuous swim the visions of the night. Now blooming Anna, with her happy swain, Approached the sacred hymeneal fane ; Anon tremendous lightnings flash between ; And funeral pomp, and weeping loves are seen! Now with I’aleinon up a rocky steep. Whose summit trembles o’er the roaring deep. With painful step he climbed ; while far above, Sweet Anna charmed them with the voice of love. Then sudden from the slippery height they fell, ^^■hile dreadful yawned beneath the jaws of hell. Amid this fearful trance, a thundering sound He hears — and thrice the hollow decks rebound. Upstarting from his couch, on deck he sprung; Thrice with shrill note the boatswain’s whistle rung ; ‘ All hands unmoor!’ proclaims a boistrous cry : ‘ All hands unmoor !’ the cavern rocks reply. Roused from repose, aloft the sailors swarm. And with their levers soon the windlass arm. The order given, upspringing with a bound They lodge their bars, and wheel their engine round : At every turn the clanging pauls resound. Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave. The pondrous anchor rises o’er the wave. Along their slippery masts the yards ascend. And high in air the canvass wings extend : Redoubling cords the lofty canvass guide, And through inextricable mazes glide. The lunar rays with long reflection gleam. To light the vessel o’er the silver stream : Along the glassy plain serene she glides. While azure radiance trembles on her sides. From east to north the transient breezes play; And in the Egyptian quarter soon decay. A calm ensues ; they dread the adjacent shore; The boats with rowers armed are sent before ; With cordage fastened to the lofty prow. Aloof to sea the stately ship they tow. The nervous crew their sweeping oars extend ; And pealing shouts the shore of Candia rend. Success attends their skill ; the danger’s o’er ; The port is doubled, and beheld no more. Now morn, her lamp pale glimmering on the sight. Scattered before her van reluctant night. She comes not in refulgent pomp arrayed. But sternly frowning, wrapt in sullen shade. Above incumbent vapours, Ida’s height. Tremendous rock ! emerges on the sight. North-east the guardian isle of Standia lies. And westward Freschin’s woody capes arise. With winning postures, now the wanton sails Spread all their snares to charm the inconstant gales. The swelling stu’n-sails' now their wings extend. Then stay-sails sidelong to the breeze ascend : tVhile all to court the wandering breeze are placed ; tt'ith yards now thwarting, now obliquely l)raced. The dim horizon lowering vapours shroud. And blot the sun, yet struggling in the cloud ; Through the wide atmosphere, condensed with haze. His glaring orb emits a sanguine blaze. The pilots now tlieir rules of art apply. The mystic needle’s devious aim to ti-y. The compass placed to catch the rising ray ,2 The quadrant’s shadows studious they survey ! Along the arch the gradual index slides, tN'hile Phoehus down the vertic circle glides. Now, seen on ocean’s utmost verge to swim. He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb. ■ Studding-sails are long narrow sails, which are only used in fine weather and fair winds, on the outside of the larger square-sails, otay-sails are three-cornered sails, which are hoisted up on the stays, v/hen the wind crosses the ship’s course either directly or obliquely. * The operation of taking the sun’s azimuth, in order to dis- cover the eastern or western variation of the niagnetical needle. Their sago experience thus ex]dores the height. And polar distance of the source of light ; Then through the chiliad’s triple maze they trace The analogy tliat proves the magnet’s place. The wayward steel, to truth thus reconciled, No more the attentive pilot’s eye leguiicd. The natives, while the ship departs the land, Ashore with admiration gazing stand. Majestically slow, before the breeze, In silent pomp she marches on the seas. Her milk-white bottom cast a softer gleam. While trembling through the green translucent stream. The wales,* tliat close above in contrast shone. Clasp tlie long fabric with a jetty zone. Britannia, riding awful on the prow. Gazed o’er the vassal-w’ave that rolled below : Whei'c’er she moved, the vassal-waves were seen To yield obsequious, and confe.ss their queen. * • High o’er the poop, the flattering winds unfurled The imperial flag that rules the watery world. Deep-blushing armors all the tops invest ; And warlike trophies either quarter drest: Then towered the ma.sts ; the canvass swelled on highj And waving streamers floated in the sky. Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array. Like some fair virgin on her bridal day. Thus like a swan she cleaves the watery plain, The pride and wonder of the zEgean main ! [The ship, having been driven out of her course from Candia, is overtaken by a storm.] As yet amid this elemental war. That scatters desolation from afar. Nor toil, nor hazard, nor distress appear To sink the seamen with unmanly fear. Though their firm hearts no pageant honour boast. They scorn the wretch that trembles in his post ; Who from the face of danger strives to turn. Indignant from the social hour they spurn. Though now full oft they felt the raging tide. In proud rebellion climb the vessel’s side. No future ills unknorvn their souls appal ; They know no danger, or they scorn it all! But even the generous spirits of the brave, Subdued by toil, a friendly respite crave ; A short repose alone their thoughts implore. Their harassed powers by slumber to restore. Far other cares the master’s mind employ; Approaching perils all his hopes destroy. In vain he spreads the graduated chart. And bounds the distance by the rules of art ; In vain athwart the mimic seas expands The compasses to circumjacent lands. Ungrateful task! for no asylum traced, A passage opened from the watery waste. Fate seemed to guard with adamantine mound. The path to every friendly port around. While Albert thus, with secret doubts dismayed, The geometric distances surveyed ; On deck the watchful Rodmond cries aloud. Secure your lives — grasp every man a shroud ! Roused from his trance he mounts with eyes aghast, When o’er the ship in undulation vast, A giant surge down-rushes from on high. And fore and aft dissevered ruins lie. * * * the torn vessel felt the enormous stroke ; The boats beneath the thundering deluge broke ; Forth started from their planks the bursting rings. The extended cordage all asunder springs. The pilot’s fair machinery strews the deck. And cards and needles swim in floating vvTeck. ■ The wales here alluded to are an assemblage of stroiii planks which envelope the lower part of the ship’s side, where, in they are 'oroader and thicker than the rest, and appeas somewhat like a range of hoops, which separates the bottom from the upper works. 89 «'«>« 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. Tlic balanced niizen, rending to the head, In streaming ruins from tlie margin fled. The sides convulsive shook on groaning beams, And, rent with labour, yawned the pitchy seams. 'I'hey sound the well,* and terrible to hearl Five feet immersed along the line appear. At either pump they ply the clanking brake,2 And turn by turn the ungrateful office take. Itodmond, Avion, and Palemon, here. At this sad task all diligent appear. As soma fair castle, shook by rude alarms. Opposes long the approach of hostile arms ; Grim war around her plants his black array. And deal', and sorrow mark his horrid way ; Till in some destined hour, against her wall. In tenfold rage the fatal thunders fall ; The ramparts crack, the solid bulwarks rend. And hostile troops the shattered breach ascend ; Her valiant inmates still the foe retard, Re.solved till death their sacred charge to guard : So the brave mariners their pumps attend. And help incessant by rotation lend ; But all in vain — for now the sounding cord, Updrawm, an undiminished depth explored. Nor this severe distress is found alone ; The ribs oppressed by ponderous cannon groan. Deep rolling from the watery volume’s height, The tortured sides seem bursting with their weight. So reels Pelorus, with convulsive throes. When in his veins the burning earthquake glows ; Hoarse through his entrails roars the infernal flame ; And central thunders rend his groaning frame; Accumulated mischiefs thus arise. And fate vindictive all their skill defies ; One only remedy the season gave — To plunge the nerves of battle in the wave. From their high platforms thus the artillery thrown. Eased of their load, the timbers less shall groan ; But arduous is the task their lot requires; A task that hovering fate alone inspires ! For, while intent the yawning decks to ease. That ever and anon are drenched with seas. Some fatal billow, with recoiling sweep. May whirl the helpless wretches in the deep. No season this for counsel or delay! Too soon the eventful moments haste away ; Here perseverance, with each help of art, Must join the boldest efforts of the heart. These only now their misery can relieve ; These only now a dawn of safety give ; While o’er the quivering deck, from van to rear. Broad surges roll in terrible career ; Rodmond, Arion, and a chosen crew, This office in the face of death pursue. The wheeled artillery o'er the deck to guide, Rodmond descending claimed the weather-side. Fearless of heart, the chief his orders gave. Fronting the rude assaults of every wave. Like some strong watch-tower nodding o’er the deep. Whose rocky base the foaming waters sweep. Untamed he stood ; the stern aerial war Had marked his honest face with many a scar. Meanwhile Arion, traversing the waist, 3 The cordage of the leeward guns unbraced. And pointed crows beneath the metal placed. * The well is an apartment in the ship’s hold, serving to in- close the pumps. It is sounded by dropping a graduated iron rod down into it by a long line. Hence the increase or diminu- tion of the ieaks are easily discovered. s The brake is the lever or handle of the pump, by which it Is wrought. s The waist of a ship of this kind is a hollow space of about five feet in depth, contained between the elevations of the quarter deck and forecastle, and havhig the upper deck for its base or platform. 1 Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew. And from their beds the reeling cannon threw ; Then, from the windward battlements unbound, Redmond’s as.sociates wheel the artillery round; Pointed with iron fang.s, their bars beguile The ponderous arms aeross the steep defile ; Then hurled from sounding hinges o’er the side. Thundering, they plunge into the flashing tide. [The tempest increases, but the dismantled ship passes the island of St George.] But now Athenian mountains they descry. And o’er the surge Colonna frowns on high. Beside the cape’s projecting verge is placed A range of columns long by time defaced ; First planted by devotion to sustain, In elder times, Tritonia’s sacred fane. Foams the wild beach below with maddening rage, Where waves and rocks a dreadful combat wage. The sickly heaven, fermenting with its freight. Still vomits o’er the main the feverish weight : And now while winged with ruin from on high. Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly, A flash quick glancing on the nerves of light. Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night; Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind. Touched with compassion, gazed upon the blind ; And while around his sad companions crowd. He guides the unhappy victim to the shroud. Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend, he cries ; Thy only succour on the mast relies ! The helm, bereft of half its vital force, Now scarce subdued the wild unbridled course ; Quick to the abandoned wheel Arion came. The ship’s tempestuous sallies to reclaim. Amazed he saw her, o’er the sounding foam Upborne, to right and left distracted roam. So gazed young Phaeton, with pale dismay. When, mounted on the flaming car of day. With rash and impious hand the stripling tried The immortal coursers of the sun to guide. The vessel, while the dread event draws nigh. Seems more impatient o’er the waves to fly : Fate spurs her on. Thus, issuing from afar, Advances to the sun some blazing star ; And, as it feels the attraction’s kindling force. Springs onward with accelerated force. With mournful look the seamen eyed the strand, Where death’s inexorable jaws expand ; Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past, As, dumb with terror, they beheld the last. Now on the trembling shrouds, before, behind. In mute suspense they mount into the wind. The genius of the deep, on rapid wing. The black eventful moment seemed to bring. The fatal sisters, on the surge before. Yoked their infernal horses to the prove. The steersmen now received their last command To wheel the vessel sidelong to the strand. Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend. High on the platform of the top ascend : Fatal retreat ! for while the plunging prow Immerges headlong in the wave below, Down-pressed by watery weight the bowsprit bends, And from above the stem deep crashing rends. Beneath her beak the floating ruins lie ; The foremast totters, unsustained on high ; And now the ship, fore-lifted by the sea, | Hurls the tall fabric backward o’er her lee : I While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay ' Drags the maintop-mast from its post away. [ Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain Through hostile floods their vessel to regain. | The waves they buffet, till, bereft of strength, , O’erpowered, they yield to cruel fate at length. 90 1 1 ENGLISH LITERATURE. KOBEBT LLOTD. POETS. The hostile waters close around their head, They sink for ever, numbered with the dead 1 Those who remain their fearful doom await, Nor longer mourn their lost companions’ fate. The heart that bleeds with sorrows all its own, Forgets the pangs of friendship to bemoan. Albert and Rodmond and Palemon here, With young Arion, on the mast appear ; Even they, amid the unspeakable distress. In every look distracting thoughts confess ; In every vein the refluent blood congeals, And every bosom fatal terror feels. Inclosed with all the demons of the main. They viewed the adjacent shore, but viewed in vain. Such torments in the drear abodes of hell. Where sad despair laments with rueful yell ; Such torments agonize the damned breast. While fancy views the mansions of the blest. For Heaven’s sweet help their suppliant cries implore; But Heaven, relentless, deigns to help no more ! And now, lashed on by destiny severe. With horror fraught the dreadful scene drew nearl The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death. Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath! In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore. Would arm the mind with philosophic lore ; In vain they’d teach us, at the latest breath. To smile serene amid the pangs of death. Even Zeno’s self, and Epictetus old. This fell abyss had shuddered to behold. Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed. And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed. Beheld this scene of frenzy and distress. His soul had trembled to its last recess! O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above. This last tremendous shock of fate to prove ! The tottering frame of reason yet sustain ! Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain ! In vain the cords and axes were prepared. For now the audacious seas insult the yard ; High o’er the ship they throw a horrid shade. And o’er her burst, in terrible cascade. Uplifted on the surge, to heaven .she flies. Her shattered top half buried in the skies. Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground. Earth groans, air trembles, and the deeps resound! Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels. And quivering with the wound, in torment reels ; So reels, convulsed with agonizing throes. The bleeding bull beneath the murderer’s blows. Again she plunges ; hark! a second shock Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock! Doivn on the vale of death, with dismal cries. The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes In wild despair ; w'hile yet another stroke. With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak : Till, like the mine, in whose infernal cell The lurking demons of destruction dwell. At length asunder torn her frame divides. And crashing spreads in ruin o’er the tides. 0 were it mine with tuneful Maro’s art, To wake to sympathy the feeling heart ; Like him the smooth and mournful verse to dress In all the pomp of exquisite distress! Then, too severely taught by cruel fate To share in all the perils I relate. Then might I with unrivalled strains deplore The impervious horrors of a leeward shore. As o’er the surf the bending mainmast hung, Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung ; Some on a broken crag were struggling cast, And there by oozy tangles grappled fast ; Awhile they bore the o’erwhelming billow’s rage. Unequal combat with their fate to wage ; Till all benumbed and feeble, they forego Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below ; Some, from the main yard-arm impetuous thrown On marble ridges, die without a groan ; Three with I’alemon on their skill depend. And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend ; Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride. Then downward plunge beneath the involving tide ; Till one, who seems in agony to strive. The whirling breakers heave on shore alive : The rest a speedier end of anguish knew. And pressed the stony beach — a lifeless crew ! Next, O unhappy chief! the eternal doom Of heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb ; What scenes of misery torment thy view I What painful struggles of thy dying crew ! Thy perished hopes all buried in the flood, O’erspread with corses, red with human blood ! So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed. When Troy’s imperial domes in ruin blazed; AVhile he, severest sorrow doomed to feel. Expired beneath the victor’s murdering steel — Thus with his helpless partners to the last. Sad refuge ! Albert grasps the floating mast. His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow. But droops, alas ! beneath superior wo ; For now strong nature’s sympathetic chain Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain ; His faithful wife, for ever doomed to mourn For him, alas! who never shall return ; To black adversity’s approach exposed. With want, and hardships unforeseen enclosed • His lovely daughter, left without a friend Her innocence to succour and defend. By youth and indigence set forth a prey To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray— While these reflections rack his feeling mind, Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resigned. And, as the tumbling waters o’er him rolled. His outstretched arms the master’s legs infold: Sad Albert feels their dissolution near. And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear. For death bids every clinching joint adhere. All faint, to heaven he throws his dying eyes. And ‘Oh protect my wife and child!’ he cries — The gushing streams roll back the unfinished sound ; He gasps ! and sinks amid the vast profound. BOBERT LLOYD. Robert Lloyd, the friend of Cowper and Chur- chill, was born in London in 1733. His father was under-master at Westminster school. He distin- guished himself by his talents at Cambridge, but was irregular in his habits. After completing his education, he became an usher under his father. The wearisome routine of this life soon disgusted him, and he attempted to earn a subsistence by his literary talents. His poem called The Actor attracted some notice, and was the precursor of Churchill’s ‘Rosciad.’ The style is light and easy, and the observations generally correct and spirited. By contributing to periodical works as an essayist, a poet, and stage critic, Lloyd picked up a precarious subsistence, but his means were thoughtlessly squan- dered in company with Churchill and other wits ‘ upon town.’ He brought out two indifferent thea- trical pieces, published his poems by subscription, and edited the ‘ St James’s Magazine,’ to which Colman, Bonnel Thornton, and others, contributed. The magazine failed, and Lloyd was cast into prison for debt. Churchill generously allowed him a guinea a-week, as well as a servant ; and endeavoured to raise a subscription for the purpose of extricating him from his embarrassments. Churchill died in November 1764. ‘Lloyd,’ says Mr Southey, ‘had been apprised of his danger; but when the news of 91 PROM 1727 CYCLOPililDrA OF TO 1780, Ills (Iciitli was somewhat abruptly announced to him, as he was sitting at dinner, lie was seized with a sudden siekjiess, and saying, “I shall follow poor Charles,” took to his bed, from which he never rose again ; dying, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here : Churehill’s favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother’s sense, and spirit, and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness ; and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave.’ Lloyd, in conjunction with Cohnan, parodied the Odes of Gray and Mason, and the humour of their burlesques is not tinctured with malignity. Indeed, this unfortunate young poet seems to have been one of the gentlest of witty observers and lively sati- rists ; he was ruined by the friendship of Churchill and the Nonsense Club, and not by the force of an evil nature. The vivacity of his style (which both Churchill and Cowper copied) may be seen from the following short extract on [TliC Miseiies of a Poet’s Life.'] The harlot muse, so passing gay, Bewitches only to betray. Though for a while with easy air She smooths the rugged brow of care, And laps the mind in flowery dreams, With Fancy’s transitory gleams ; Fond of the nothings she bestows. We wake at last to real woes. Through every age, in every place. Consider well the poet’s case ; By turps protected and caressed. Defamed, dependent, and distre.ssed. The joke of wits, the bane of slaves. The curse of fools, the butt of knaves ; Too proud to stoop for servile ends. To lacquey rogues or flatter friends ; With prodigality to give. Too careless of the means to live; The bubble fame intent to gain. And yet too lazy to maintain ; He quits the world he never prized, Pitied by few, by more despised. And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes. Sinks to the nothing whence he rose. 0 glorious trade ! for wit’s a trade. Where men are ruined more than made ! Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay, The shabby Otway, Dryden gray. Those tuneful servants of the Nine, (Not that I blend their names with mine), Re])eat their lives, their works, their fame. And teach the world some useful shame. But bad as the life of a hackney poet and critic seems to have been in Lloyd’s estimation, the situation of a school-usher was as little to his mind : — [Wretchedness of a School-Usher.] Were I at once empowered to show My utmost vengeance on my foe. To punish with extremes! rigour, I could inflict no penance bigger. Than, using him as learning’s tool, To make him usher of a school. For, not to dwell upon the toil Of working on a barren soil. And labouring with incessant pains, To cultivate a blockhead’s brains, The duties there but ill befit The love of letters, arts, or wit. For one, it hurts me to the soul. To brook confinement or control ; Still to be pinioned down to teach The syntax and the parts of speech ; Or, wliat perhaps is drudgery worse. The links, and points, and rules of verse; To deal out authors by retail. Like penny pots of Oxford ale ; Oh ’tis a service irksome more. Than tugging at the slavish oar ! Y et such his task, a dismal truth. Who watches o’er the bent of youth, And while a paltry stipend earning. He sows the richest seeds of learning. And tills their minds with proper care. And sees them their due produce bear; No joys, alas! his toil beguile, His own lies fallow all the while. ‘ y et still he’s on the road,’ you say, ‘ Of learning.’ Why, jierhaps he may, But turns like horses in a mill. Nor getting on, nor standing still ; For little way his learning reaches. Who reads no more than what he teaches. CHARLES CHURCHILL. A second Dryden was supposed to have arisen in Churchill, when he published his satirical poem, i The liosciad, in 17G1. The impression w'as con- tinued by his reply to the critical reviewers, shortly afterwards ; and his Epistle to Hogarth, The Prophecy of Famine, Night, and passages in his other poems — all thrown olF in haste to serve the purpose of the day — evinced great facility of versification, and a breadth and boldness of personal invective that drew instant attention to their author. Though Cowper, from early predilections, had a high opinion of Chur- chill, and thought he was ‘ indeed a poet,’ we cannot now consider the author of the ‘ Rosciad’ as more | than a special pleader or pamphleteer in verse. He I seldom reaches the heart— except in some few lines | of penitential fervour — and he never ascended to the higher regions of imagination, then trod by Col- lins, Gray, and Akenside. With the beauties of external nature he had not the slightest sympathy. He died before he had well attained the prime of life ; yet there is no youthful enthusiasm about his works, nor any indications that he sighed for a higher fame than that of being the terror of actors and artists, noted for his libertine eccentricities, and distin- guished for his devotion to Wilkes. That he mis- applied strong original talents in following out these ! pitiful or unworthy objects of his ambition, is unde- I niable ; but as a satirical poet — the only character I in which he appears as an author — he is immeasur- | ably inferior to Pope or Dryden. The ‘ fatal faci- ! lity’ of his verse, and his unscrupulous satire of liv- ing individuals and passing events, had, however, ) the effect of making all London ‘ ring from side j to side’ with his applause, at a time when the real | poetry of the age could hardly obtain either publishers | or readers. Excepting Marlow, the dramatic poet, i scarcely any English author of reputation has been ' more unhappy in his life and end than Charles Churchill. He was the son of a clergyman in West- minster, where he was born in 1741. After attend- ing Westminster school and Trinity college. Cam- j bridge (which he quitted abruptly), he made a elan- | destine marriage with a young lady in Westminster, I and was assisted by his father, till he was ordained ' and settled in the curacy of Rainham, in Essex. I His father died in 1758, and the poet was appointed his successor in the curacy and lectureship of St ; I John’s at Westminster. This transition, which pro I 93 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ciuri.es ciiurcr.i.l. miscd an accession of comfort and respectability, proved the bane of poor Cbnrehill. He was in liis twenty-seventh year, and his conduct had been up to this period irreproachable. He now, however, renewed his intiniacj’ with Lloyd and other school companions, and launched into a career of dissipa- tion and extravagance. His poetry drew him into notice ; and he not only disregarded his lectureship, but he laid aside the clerical costume, and appeared in the extreme of ftishion, with a blue coat, gold- laced hat, and ruffles. The dean of Westminster re- monstrated with him against this breach of clerical propriety, and his animadversions were seconded by the poet’s parishioners. Cliurehill affected to ridicule this prudery, and Lloyd made it the subject of an epigram : — To Churchill, the bard, cries the Westminster dean, Leather breeches, white stockings ! pray what do you mean 1 1 ’Tis shameful, irreverent — you must keep to church I rules. I If wise ones I will ; and if not they’re for fools. If reason don’t bind me. I’ll shake off all fetters. To be black and all black I shall leave to my betters. The dean and the congregation were, however, too powerful, and Churchill found it necessary to resign the lectureship. His ready pen still threw off at will his popular satires, and he plunged into the grossest debaucheries. These excesses he attempted to justify in a poetical epistle to Lloyd, entitled ‘ Night,’ in which he revenges himself on prudence and the wmrld by railing at them in good set terms. ‘ This vindication proceeded,’ says his biographer, ‘ on the exploded doctrine, that the barefaced avowal of vice is less culpable than the practice of it under a hypocritical assumption of virtue. The measure of guilt in the individual is, we conceive, tolerably equal ; but the sanction and dangerous examjile afforded in the former case, renders it, in a public point of view, an evil of tenfold magnitude.’ The poet’s irregularities affected his powers of composi-^ tion, and his poem of The Ghost, published at this time, was an incoherent and tiresome production. A greater evil, too, was his acquaintance with Wilkes, unfortunately equally conspicuous for public faction and private debauchery. Churchill assisted his new associate in the North Briton, and received the profit .arising from its sale. ‘ This circumstance rendered him of importance enough to be included with Wilkes in the list of those whom the mes- sengers had verbal instructions to apprehend under the general warrant issued for that purpose, the execution of which gave rise to the most popular and only beneficial part of the Svarm contest that ensued with government. Churchill was with Wilkes at the time the latter was apprehended, and himself only escaped owing to the messenger’s ignorance of his person, and to the presence of mind with which Wilkes addressed him by the name of Thomson.’ * The poet now set about his satire, the Propheexj of Famine, which, like Wilkes’s North Briton, was specially directed against the Scottish nation. The outlawry of Wilkes separated the friends, but they kept up a correspondence, and Churchill continued * Life of ChurchiU prefixed to works. London : 1804. When Churchill entered the room, Wilkes was in custody of the messenger. * Good morning, Mr Thomson,’ said Wilkes to him. * IIow does Mrs Thomson do ? Does she dine in the country V Churchill toolc the l.int as readily as it had been given. lie replied that Mrs Thomson W'as waiting for him, and that he only came, for a moment, to ask him how he did. Then almost directly he took his leave, hastened home, secured bia papers, retired into the country, and eluded all search. to be a keen political satirist. The excesses of his daily life remained equally conspicuous. Hogarth, who was opposed to Churchill for being a friend of Wilkes, characteristically exposed his habits by caricaturing the satirist in the form of a bear dressed canonically, with ruffles at his paws, and holding a pot of porter. Churchill took revenge in a fierce and sweeping ‘epistle’ to Hogarth, which is said to h.ave caused him the most exquisite pain. After separating from his wife, and forming an un- happy connexion with another female, the daugh- ter of a Westminster tradesman, whom he had seduced, Churchill’s career drew to a sad and pre- mature close. In October 1764 he went to France to pay a visit to his friend Wilkes, and was seized at Boulogne with a fever, which proved fatal on the 4th of November. With his clerical profession Churchill had thrown off his belief in Christianity, and Mr Southey mentions, that though he made his will only the d.ay before his death, there is in it not the slightest expression of religious faith or hope. So highly popular and productive had his satires proved, that he was enabled to bequeath an annuity of sixty pounds to his widow, and fifty to the more unhappy woman whom he had seduced, and some surplus remained to his sons. The poet was buried at Dover, and some of his gay associates placed over his grave a stone on which was engraved a line from one of his own poems — Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies. Tlie enjoyment may be doubted, hardly less than the taste of the inscription. It is certain that Churchill expressed his compunction for p.arts of his conduct, in verses that evidently came from the heart : — Look back ! a thought which borders on despair, Which human nature must, yet cannot bear. ’Tis not the babbling of a busy world, ' M’here praise or censure are at random hurled. Which can the meanest of my thoughts control, Or shake one settled purpose of my soul ; Free and at large might their wild curses roam, If all, if all, alas ! were well at home. No ; ’tis the tale, which angry conscience tells, When she with more than tragic horror swells Each circumstance of guilt ; when stern, but true, She brings bad actions forth into review. And, like the dread handwriting on the wall. Bids late remorse awake at reason’s call ; Armed at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass, And to the mind holds up reflection’s glass — The mind which starting heaves the heart-felt groan. And hates that form she knows to be her own. The Conference. The most ludicrous, and, on the whole, the best of ChurchUl’s satires, is his Propheaj of tumine, a Scots pastonal, inscribed to Wilkes. The Earl of Bute’s administration had directed the enmity of all disappointed patriots and keen partisans against the Scottish nation. Even Johnson and Junius des- cended to this petty national prejudice, and Churchill revelled in it with such undisguised exaggeration and broad humour, that the most saturnine or sensi- tive of our countrymen must have laughed at its absurdity. This unique pastoral opens as follows : — Two boys whose birth, beyond all question, springs From great and glorious, though forgotten kings. Shepherds of Scottish lineage, born and bred On the same bleak and barren mountain’s head. By niggard nature doomed on the same rocks To spin out life, and starve themselves and flocks. Fresh as the morning, which, enrobed in misv. The mountain’s top with usual dulness kissed, 13 PROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. Jockey and Sawney to their labours rose ; Soon clad I ween, where nature needs no clothes ; Where from their youth inured to winter skies, Dress and her vain refinements they despise. Jockey, whose manly high cheek bones to crown, With freckles spotted flamed the golden down. With mcikle art could on the bagpipes play, Kven from the rising to the setting day ; Sawney as long without remorse could bawl Home’s madrigals, and ditties from Fingal : Oft at his strains, all natural though rude. The llighlaml lass forgot her want of food, And, whilst she scratched her lover into rest, Sunk pleased, though hungry, on her Sawney’s breast. Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen, Karth, clad in russet, scorned the lively green : The plague of locusts they secure defy, For in three hours a grasshopper must die : [ No living thing, whate’er its food, feasts there, I Hut the chameleon who can feast on air. No birds, except as birds of passage flew; No bee was known to hum, no dove to coo : No streams, as amber smooth, as amber clear, , Were seen to glide, or heard to warble here : Uebellion’s spring, which through the country ran. Furnished with bitter draughts the steady clan : No flowers embalmed the air, but one white rose, Which, on the tenth of June,” by instinct blows ; I’.v instinct blows at morn, and, when the shades Of drizzly eve prevail, by instinct fades. In the same poem Churchill thus alludes to himself: Me, whom no muse of heavenly birth inspires. No judgment tempers, when rash genius fires ; Who boast no merit but mere knack of rhyme. Short gleams of sense and satire out of time ; Who cannot follow where trim fancy leads Hy prattling streams, o’er flower-impurpled meads ; W'ho often, but without success, have prayed For apt Alliteration’s artful aid ; Who would, but cannot, with a master’s skill. Coin fine new epithets which mean no ill ; Me, thus uncouth, thus every way unfit For pacing poesy, and ambling wit, Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place Amongst the lowest of her favoured race. The characters of Garrick, &c., in the Bosciad, have now ceased to interest ; but some of these rough pen-and-ink sketches of Churchill are happily exe- cuted. Smollett, who he believed had attacked him in the Critical Review, he alludes to with mingled approbation and ridicule — Whence could arise this mighty critic spleen. The muse a trifler, and her theme so mean I ^Vh.^t had I done that angry heaven should send The bitterest foe where most I wished a friend ? Oft hath my tongue been wanton at thy name. And hailed the honours of thy matchless fame. For me let hoary Fielding bite the ground. So nobler Pickle stands superbly bound ; From Livy’s temples tear the historic croTO, Which with more j^istice blooms upon thine own. Compared with thee, be all life-vTiters dumb. Hut he who wrote the Life of Tommy Thumb. Whoever read the Regicide but swore The author wrote as man ne’er wrote before 1 Others for plots and under plots may call. Here’s the right method — have no plot at all ! I Of Hogarth— In walks of humour, in that cast of style. Which, probing to the quick, yet makes us smile; * The birth-day of the old Chevalier. It used to he a great object with the gardener of a Scottish Jacobite family of those •lays to have the Stuart emblem in blow by the tenth of June. In comedy, his natural road to fame. Nor let me call it by a meaner name, Where a beginning, middle, and an end Are aptly joined ; where parts on parts depend. Each made for each, as bodies for their soul. So as to form one true and perfect whole. Where a plain story to the eye is told, Which we conceive the moment we behold, Hogarth unrivalled stands, and shall engage Unrivalled praise to the most distant age. In ‘Night,’ Churchill thus gaily addressed his friend Lloyd on the proverbial poverty of poets ; — AVhat is’t to us, if taxes rise or fall ? Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all. Let muckworms, who in dirty acres deal, Lament those hardships which we cannot feel. His Grace, who smarts, may bellow if he please. Hut must I bellow too, who sit at ease 1 By custom safe, the poet’s numbers flow Free as the light and air some years ago. No statesman e’er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains. Burthens like thc.se, vile earthly buildings bear; No tribute’s laid on castles in the air ! The reputation of Churchill was also an aerial struc- ture. ‘ No English poet,’ says Southey, ‘ had ever enjoyed so excessive and so short lived a popularity; and indeed no one seems more thoroughly to have understood his own powers ; there is no indication | in any of his pieces that he could have done any j thing better than the thing he did. To Wilkes he | said, that nothing came out till he began to be pleased j with it himself ; but, to the public, he boasted of the haste and carelessness with which his verses were poured forth. Had I the power, I could not have the time, While spirits flow, and life is in her prime. Without a sin ’gainst pleasure, to design A plan, to methodise each thought, each line, | Highly to finish, and make every grace ' In itself charming, take new charms from place. I Nothing of books, and little known of men, When the mad fit comes on I seize the pen ; I Rough as they run, the rapid thoughts set down, [ Rough as they run, discharge them on the town. , Popularity which is easily gained, is lost as easily ; ' such reputations resembling the lives of insects, whose shortness of existence is compensated by its proportion of enjoyment. He perhaps imagined that his genius would preserve his subjects, as sjiices preserve a mummy, and that the individuals whom he had eulogised or stigmatised would go down to posterity in his versp, as an old admiral comes home from the West Indies in a puncheon of rum : he did ■ not consider that the rum is rendered loathsome, and ! that the spices with which the Pharaohs and Poti- phars were embalmed, wasted their sweetness in the ! catacombs. But, in this part of his conduct, there 1 was no want of worldly prudence : he was enriching himself by hasty writings, for which the immediate sale was in proportion to the bitterness and perso- nality of the satire.’ MICHAEL BRUCE. Michael Bruce — a young and lamented Scottish poet of rich promise — was born at Kinnesswood, parish of Portmoak, county of Kinross, on the 27th of March 1746. His father was a humble trades- man, a weaver, who was burdened with a family of eight children, of whom the poet was the fifth. The dreariest poverty and obscurity hung over the poet’s infancy, but the elder Bruce was a good and pious !4 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MICHAEL BRUCE. nimi, anil traini'il all his children to a knowledge of their letters, and a deep sense of religious duty. In the summer months Michael was put out to herd cattle, llis education was retarded by this employ- ment ; but his training as a poet was benefited by solitary communion with nature, amidst scenery that overlooked Lochleven and its fine old ruined castle. When he had arrived at his fifteenth year, the poet was judged fit for college, and at this time a relation of his father died, leaving him a legacy of 200 merks Scots, or £1 1, 2s. 2d. sterling. This sum the old man piously devotea to the education of his favourite son, who proceeded with it to Edinburgh, and was enrolled a student of the university. Michael was soon distinguished for his proficiency, and for his taste for poetry. Having been three sessions at college, supported by his parents and some kind friends and neighbours, Bruce engaged to teach a school at Gairney Bridge, where he received for his labours about £11 per annum! He afterwards re- moved to Forest Hill, near Alloa, where he taught for some time with no better success. His school- room was low-roofcd and damp, and the poor 3 ’outh, confined for five or six hours a-day in this unwhole- some atmosphere, depressed by poverty and disap- pointment, soon lost health and spirits. He wrote ids poem of Lochleven at Forest Hill, but was at length forced to return to his father’s cottage, which he never again left. A pulmonary complaint had settled on him, and he was in the last stage of consumption. With death full in his view, he wrote his Ode to Spring, the finest of all his productions. He was pious and cheerful to the last, and died on the 5th of July 1767, aged twenty-one years and three months. His Bible ivas found upon his pillow, marked down at Jer. xxii. 10 , ‘ Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him.’ So blameless a life could not indeed be contemplated without pleasure, but its premature termination must have been a heavy blow to his aged parents, who had struggled in their poverty to nurture his youthful genius. Bruce’s Monument In Portmoak Churchyard. The poems of Bruce were first given to the world by his college friend John Logan, in 1770, who warmly eulogised the character and talents of his brother poet. They were reprinted in 1784, and afterwards included in Anderson’s edition of the poets. The late venerable and benevolent Principal Baird, in 1807, published an edition by sub.scription for the benefit of Bruce’s mother, then a widow. In 1837, a complete edition of the poems was brought out, with a life of the author from original sources, by the Rev. William Mackelvie, Balgedie, Kinros.s- shire. In this full and interesting memoir ample reparation is made to the injured shade of Michael Bruce for any neglect or injustice done to his poetical fame by his early friend Logan. Had Bruce lived, it is probable he would have taken a high place among our national poets. He was gifted with the requisite enthusiasm, fancy, and love of nature. There was a moral beauty in his life and character which would naturally have expanded itself in poetical composition. The pieces he has left have all the marks of youth ; a style only half-formed and immature, and resemblances to other poets, so close and frequent, that the reader is constantly stumbling on some familiar image or expression. In * Lochleven,’ a descriptive poem in blank verse, he has taken Thomson as his model. The opening is a paraphrase of the commencement of Thomson’s Spring, and epithets taken from the Seasons occur throughout the whole poem, with traces of ^Milton, Ossian &c. The following passage is the most ori- ginal and pleasing in the poem : — [A Rural Picture.} Now sober Industry, illustrious power ! Hath raised the peaceful cottage, calm abode Of innocence and joy : now, sweating, guides The shining j)loughshare ; tames the stubborn soil ; Leads the long drain along the unfertile marsh ; Bids the bleak hill with vernal verdure bloom, The haunt of flocks ; and clothes the barren heath With waving harvests and the golden grain. Fair from his hand behold the village rise, In rural pride, ’mong intermingled trees ! Above whose aged tops the joyful swains, At even-tide descending from the hill. With eye enamoured, mark the many wi-eaths Of pillared smoke, high curling to the clouds. The streets resound with Labour’s various voice. Who whistles at his work. Gay on the green. Young blooming boys, and girls with golden hair. Trip, nimble-footed, wanton in their play. The village hope. All in a reverend row. Their gray-haired grandsires, sitting in the sun. Before the gate, and leaning on the staff. The well-remembered stories of their youth Recount, and shake their aged locks with joy. How fair a prospect rises to the eye. Where Beauty vies in all her vernal forms. For ever pleasant, and for ever new ! Swells the exulting thought, expands the soul. Drowning each ruder care : a blooming train Of bright ideas rushes on the mind. Imagination rouses at the scene ; And backward, through the gloom of ages past. Beholds Arcadia, like a rural queen. Encircled with her swains and rosy nymphs. The mazy dance conducting on the green. Nor yield to old Arcadia’s blissful vales Thine, gentle Leven I Green on either hand Thy meadows spread, unbroken of the plough. With beauty all their own. Thy fields rejoice With all the riches of the golden year. Fat on the plain, and mountain’s sunny side, I.arge droves of oxen, and the fleecy flocks. Feed undisturbed ; and fill the echoing air With music, grateful to the master’s car. The traveller stops, and gazes round and rounu O’er all the scenes, that animate his heart 95 FROM 1727 CYCLOF^'IDIA OF «X) 1780. W'itli mirth and music. Kveri the mendicant, liowbent with age, that on tlie old gray stone, Sole sitting, suns him in the public way. Feels his heart leap, and to himself he sings. 'I'lie conclusion of the poem gives us another picture of rural life, with a pathetic glance at the poet’s own condition : — [ Virtue and Ilappineea in the Country. How blest the man who, in these peaceful plains. Ploughs his paternal field ; far from the noise. The care, and bustle of a busy world! All in the sacred, sweet, sequestered vale Ot solitude, the secret primrose-path Of rural life, he dwells ; and with him dwells Peace and content, twins of the sylvan shade. And all the graces of the golden age. Such is Agricola, the wise, the good ; By nature formed for the calm retreat, The silent path of life. Learned, but not fraught AVith self-importance, as the starched fool, ^Vho challenges respect by solemn face. By studied accent, and high-sounding phrase. Enamoured of the shade, but not morose, Politeness, raised in courts by frigid rules. With him spontaneous grows. Not books alone. But man his study, and the better part; To tread the ways of virtue, and to act The various scenes of life with God’s applause. Deep in the bottom of the flowery vale. With blooming .sallows and the leafy twine Of verdant alders fenced, his dwelling stands Complete in rural elegance. The door. By which the poor or pilgrim never pas.sed, Still open, speaks the master’s bounteous heart. There, 0 how sweet! amid the fragrant shrubs. At evening cool to sit ; while, on their boughs, The nested songsters twitter o’er their young ; And the hoarse low of folded cattle breaks The silence, wafted o’er the sleeping lake. Whose waters glow beneath the purple tinge Of western cloud ; while converse sweet deceives The stealing foot of time ! Or where the ground, Mounded irregular, points out the graves Of our forefathers, and the hallowed fane. Where swains assembling worship, let us walk, In softly-soothing melancholy thought. As night’s seraphic bard, immortal Young, Or sweet-complaining Gray ; there see the goal Of human life, where drooping, faint, and tired. Oft missed the prize, the weary racer rests. Thus sung the youth, amid unfertile wilds And nameless deserts, unpoetic ground! Far from his friends he strayed, recording thus The dear remembrance of his native fields. To cheer the tedious night ; while slow disease Pre 3 'ed on his pining vitals, and the blasts Of dark December shook his humble cot. The Last Day is another poem by Bruce in blank verse, but is inferior to ‘ Lochleven.’ The want of originality is more felt on a subject exhausted by Milton, Young, and Blair; but even in this, as in his other works, the warmth of feeling and graceful freedom of e.xpression which characterise Bruce are seen and felt. In poetical beauty' and energy, as in biographical interest, his latest effort, the Elegy, must ever rank the first in his productions. With some weak lines and borrow’ed ideas, this poem has an air of strength and ripened maturity that power- fully impresses the reader, and leaves him to wonder at the fortitude of the youth, who, in strains of such sensibility and genius, could describe the cheerful appearances of nature, and the certainty of his own speedy dissolution. Elegy — Written in Sirring. ’Tis past: the iron North has spent his rage ; Stern Winter now resigns the lengthening day; The stormy bowlings of the winds assuage. And warm o’er ether western breezes play. Of genial heat and cheerful light the source. From southern climes, beneath another sky. The sun, returning, wheels his golden cour.se: Before his beams all noxious vapours fly. Far to the north grim Winter draws his train. To his own clime, to Zembla’s frozen .shore ; Where, throned on ice, he holds eternal reign ; Where whirlwinds madden, and where tempests roar. Loosed from the bands of frost, the verdant ground Again puts on her robe of cheerful green. Again puts forth her flowers ; and all around Smiling, the cheerful face of spring is seen. Behold ! the trees new deck their withered boughs ; Their ample leaves, the hospitable plane, The taper elm, ami lofty ash disclose ; The blooming hawthorn variegates the scene. The lily of the vale, of flowers the queen. Puts on the robe she neither sewed nor spun ; The birds on ground, or on the branches green, Hop to and fro, and glitter in the sun. Soon as o’er eastern hills the morning peers. From her low nest the tufted lark upsprings ; And, cheerful singing, up the air she steers ; Still high she mounts, still loud and sweet she sings On the green furze, clothed o’er with golden blooms That fill the air with fragrance all around. The linnet sitf, and tricks his glossy plumes. While o’er the wild his broken notes resound. While the sun journeys down the western .sky. Along the green sward, marked with Roman mound. Beneath the blithsome shepherd’s watchful eye. The cheerful lambkins dance and frisk around. Now is the time for those who wisdom love. Who love to walk in Virtue’s flowery road. Along the lovely paths of spring to rove. And follow Nature up to Nature’s God. Thus Zoroaster studied Nature’s laws ; Thus Socrates, the wisest of mankind ; Thus heaven-taught Plato traced the Almighty cause. And left the wondering multitude behind. Thus Ashley gathered academic bays ; Thus gentle Thomson, as the seasons roll, Taught t£era to sing the great Creator’s praise. And bear their poet’s name from pole to pole. Thus have I walked along the dewy lawn ; My frequent foot the blooming wild hath worn ; Before the lark I’ve sung the beauteous dawn. And gathered health from all the gales of mom. And, even when winter chilled the aged year, I wandered lonely o’er the hoary plain : Though frosty Boreas warned me to forbear, Boreas, with all his tempests, warned in vain. Then, sleep my nights, and quiet blessed my days ; I feared no loss, my mind was all my store ; No anxious wishes e’er disturbed my ease ; Heaven gave content and health — I asked no more, Now, Spring returns: but not to me returns The vernal joy my better years have known ; Dim in my breast life’s dying taper burns. And all the joys. of life with health are flown. 96 ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOHN LOOAN. POETS. Starting and shivering in the inconstant wind, Meagre and pale, the ghost of what 1 was. Beneath some blasted tree 1 lie reclined. And count the silent moments as they pass: The winged moments, whose unstaying speed No art can stop, or in their course arrest ; Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead. And lay me down in peace with them at rest. Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate ; And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true. Led by pale ghosts, I enter Death’s dark gate. And bid the realms of light and life adieu. I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of wo ; I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore. The sluggish streams that slowly creep below, Which mortals visit, and return no more. Farewell, ye blooming fields ! ye cheerful plains ! Enough for me the churchyard’s lonely mound. Where melancholy with still silence reigns. And the rank grass waves o’er the cheerless ground. There let me wander at the shut of eve, When sleep sits dewy on the labourer’s eyes ; The world and all its busy follies leave. And talk with Wisdom where my Daphnis lies. There let me sleep, forgotten in the clay. When death shall shut these weary aching eyes ; Rest in the hopes of an eternal day. Till the long night is gone, and the last mom arise. JOHN LOGAN. Mr D’lsraeli, in his ‘ Calamities of Authors,’ has included the name of John Logan as one of those unfortunate men of genius whose life has been marked by disappointment and misfortune. He ha 1 undoubtedly formed to himself a high standard of literary excellence and ambition, to which he never attained; but there is no evidence to warrant the assertion that Logan died of a broken heart. From one source of depression and misery he was happily exempt : though he died at the early age of forty, he left behind him a sum of £600. Logan was born at Soutra, in the parish of Fala, Mid- Lothian, in 1748. His father, a small farmer, edu- cated him for the church, and, after he had obtained a license to preach, he distinguished himself so much by his pulpit eloquence, that he was appointed one of the ministers of South Leith. He after- wards read a course of lectures on the Philosophy of History in Edinburgh, the substance of which he published in 1781 ; and next year he gave to the public one of his lectures entire on the Government of Asia. The same year he published his poems, which were well received; and in 1783 he produced a tragedy called Ruitnimede, founded on the signing of Magna Charta. His parishioners were opposed to such an exercise of his talents, and unfortunately Logan had lapsed into irregular and dissipated habits. The consequence was, that he resigned his charge on receiving a small annuity, and proceeded to London, where he resided till his death in De- cember 1788. During his residence in London, Logan was a contributor to the English Review, and wrote a pamphlet on the Charges Against War- ren Hastings, which attracted some notice. Among his manuscripts were found several unfinished tra- gedies, thirty lectures on Roman history, portions of a periodical work, and a collection of sermons, from which two volumes were selected and pub- lished by his executors. The sermons are warm and passionate, full of piety and fervour, and must have been highly impressive when delivered. One act in tlie literary life of Logan we have already adverted to — his publication of the poem? of Michael Bruce. His conduct as an editor cannot be justified. He left out several pieces by Bruce, and, as he states in his preface, ‘ to make up a mis- cellany,’ poems by different authors were inserted. The best of these he claimed, and published after- wards as his own. The friends of Bruce, indignant at his conduct, have since endeavoured to snatch this laurel from his brow's, and considerable uncer- tainty hangs over the question. With respect to the most valuable piece in the collection, the Ode to the Cuckoo — ‘ magical stanzas,’ says D’lsraeli, and all will echo the praise, ‘of picture, melody, and sentiment,’ and which Burke admired so much, that on visiting Edinburgh, he sought out Logan to compliment him — w'ith respect to this beautiful effusion of fancy and feeling, the evidence seems to be as follows : — In favour of Logan, there is the open publication of the ode under his own name ; the fact of his having shown it in manuscript to several friends before its publication, and declared it to be his composition ; and that, during the whole of his life, his claim to be the author was not disputed. On the other hand, in favour of Bruce, there is the oral testimony of his relations and friends, that they always understood him to be the author ; and the written evidence of Dr Davidson, Professor of Na- tural and Civil History, Aberdeen, that he saw a copy of the ode in the possession of a friend of Bruce, Mr Bickerton, who assured him it was in the handwrit- ing of Bruce ; that this copy was signed ‘ Michael Bruce,’ and below it were written the words, ‘You will think I might have been better employed than writing about a gowk’ — [Anglice, cuckoo.] It is unfavourable to the case of Logan, that he retained some of the manuscripts of Bruce, and his conduct throughout the whole affair was careless and unsa- tisfactory. Bruce’s friends also claim for him some of the hymns published by Logan as his own, and they show that the unfortunate young bard had applied himself to compositions of this kind, though none appeared in his works as published by Logan. The truth here seems to be, that Bruce was the founder, and Logan the perfecter, of tliese exquisite devotional strains : the former supplied stanzas which the latter extended into poems, imi)arting to the whole a finished elegance and beauty of diction which certainly Bruce does not seem to have been capable of giving. Without adverting to the dis- puted ode, the best of Logan’s productions are his verses on a Visit to the Country in Autumn, his half dramatic poem of The Lovers, and his ballad stanzas on the Braes of Yarrow. A vein of tenderness and moral sentiment runs through the' whole, and his language is select and poetical. In some lines Oit the Death of a Young Lady, we have the following true and touching exclamation : — What tragic tears bedew the eye ! What deaths we suffer ere we die ! Our broken friendships we deplore. And loves of youth that are no more ! No after-friendships e’er can raise The endearments of our early days. And ne’er the heart such fondness prove. As when it first began to love. To the Cuckoo. Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove I Thou messenger of Spring ! Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat. And woods thy welcome sing. 49 97 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. What time the daisy decks the green, Thy certain voice we hear ; Hast thou a star to guide thy path, Or mark the rolling year 1 Delightful visitant ! with thee I hail the time of flowers, And hear the sound of music sweet From birds among the bowers. The schoolboy, wandering through the wood To pull the primrose gay. Starts, the new voice of spring to hear,* And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom. Thou fliest thy vocal vale. An annual guest in other lands. Another Spring to hail. Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green. Thy sky is ever clear ; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song. No Winter in thy year ! 0 could I fly, I’d fly with thee 1 We’d make, with joyful wing, Dur annual visit o’er the globe. Companions of the Spring. [ Written in a Visit to the Country in Autumn.1 *Tis past ! no more the Summer blooms ! Ascending in the rear. Behold congenial Autumn comes. The Sabbath of the year ! What time thy holy whispers breathe. The pensive evening shade beneath. And twilight consecrates the floods ; While nature strips her garment gay. And wears the vesture of decay, 0 let me wander through the sounding woods Ah ! well-known streams ! — ah ! wonted groves. Still pictured in my mind ! Oh ! sacred scene of youthful loves. Whose image lives behind ! While sad I ponder on the past, The joys that must no longer last ; The wild-flower strown on Summer’s bier. The dying music of the grove. And the last elegies of love, ' Dissolve the soul, and draw the tender tear ! Alas ! the hospitable hall. Where youth and friendship played. Wide to the winds a ruined wall Projects a death-like shade! The charm is vanished from the vales ; No voice with virgin-whisper hails A stranger to his native bowers : No more Arcadian mountains bloom. Nor Enna valleys breathe perfume ; The fancied Eden fades with all its flowers I Companions of the youthful scene. Endeared from earliest days 1 With whom I sported on the green. Or roved the woodland maze 1 ♦ This lino originally stood— • Starts thy curious voice to hear,' which was probably altered by Logan as defective in quantity. ‘ Curious may be a Scotticism, but it is felicitous. It marks the unusual resemblance of the note of the cuckoo to the human voice, the cause of ihe start and imitation which follow. Whereas the “ new voice of spring" is not true ; for many voices in spring precede that of the cuckoo, and it is not peculiar or striking, nor does it connect either with the start or imitation.' —Note bp Lord Mackenzie {son of the * Man of Feeling’) in Bruce's ’’oems, by Rev. IT. Mackelvie. Long-exiled from your native clime. Or by the thunder stroke of time Snatched to the shadows of despair; I hear your voices in the wind, Your forms in every walk I find ; I stretch my arms : ye vanish into airl My steps, when innocent and young. These fairy paths pursued ; And wandering o’er the wild, I sung My fancies to the wood. I mourned the linnet-lover’s fate. Or turtle from her murdered mate. Condemned the widowed hours to wail: Or while the mournful vision rose, I sought to weep for imaged woes. Nor real life believed a tragic tale I Alas ! misfortune’s cloud unkind May summer soon o’ercast ! And cruel fate’s untimely wind All human beauty blast ! The wrath of nature smites our bowers. And promised fruits and cherished flowers. The hopes of life in embryo sweeps; Pale o’er the ruins of his prime, And desolate before his time. In silence sad the mourner walks and weeps 1 Relentless power ! whose fated stroke O’er wretched man prevails ! Ha ! love’s eternal chain is broke. And friendship’s covenant fails! Upbraiding forms ! a moment’s ease — 0 memory ! how shall I appease The bleeding sh.de, the unlaid ghost! What charm can bind the gushing eye. What voice console the incessant sigh. And everlasting longings for the lost ! Yet not unwelcome waves the wood That hides me in its gloom, While lost in melancholy mood I muse upon the tomb. Their chequered leaves the branches shed ; Whirling in eddies o’er my head. They sadly sigh that Winter’s near; The warning voice I hear behind. That shakes the wood without a wind. And solemn sounds the death-bell of the year. Nor will I court Lethean streams. The sorrowing sense to steep ; Nor drink oblivion of the themes [ On which I love to weep. Belated oft by fabled rill. While nightly o’er the hallowed hill Aerial music seems to mourn ; I’ll listen Autumn’s closing strain ; Then woo the walks of youth again. And pour my sorrows o’er the untimely urn 1 Complaint of Nature. Few are thy days and full of wo, 0 man of woman bom ! Thy doom is written, dust thou art. And shalt to dust return. Determined are the days that fly Successive o’er thy head ; The numbered hour is on the wing That lays thee with the dead. Alas ! the little day of life Is shorter than a span ; Y et black with thousand hidden ills To miserable man. 98 lix-IGLISlI LITERATURE. THOMAS WARTON. Gay is thy morning, flattering hope Thy sprightly step attends ; But soon the tempest howls behind, And the dark night descends. Before its splendid hour the cloud Comes o’er the beam of light ; A pilgrim in a weary land, Man tarries but a night. Behold ! sad emblem of thy state, The flowers that paint the field ; Or trees that crown the mountain’s brow. And boughs and blossoms yield. When chill the blast of Winter blows. Away the Summer flies. The flowers resign their sunny robes. And all their beauty dies. Nipt by the year the forest fades ; And shaking to the wind. The leaves toss to and fro, and streak The mldemess behind. The Winter past, reviving flowers Anew shall paint the plain. The woods shall hear the voice of Spring, And flourish green again. But man departs this earthly scene. Ah ' never to return ! No second Spring shall e’er revive The ashes of the urn. The inexorable doors of death What hand can e’er unfold? Who from the cerements of the tomb Can raise the human mould ? The mighty flood that rolls along Its torrents to the main. The waters lost can ne’er recall From that abyss again. The days, the years, the ages, dark Descending down to night, Can never, never be redeemed Back to the gates of light. So man departs the living scene. To night’s perpetual gloom ; The voice of morning ne’er shall break The slumbers of the tomb. Where are our fathers ! Whither gone The mighty men of old ? ‘ The patriarchs, prophets, princes, kings. In sacred books enrolled ? Gone to the resting-place of man, The everlasting home. Where ages past have gone before, Where future ages come.’ Thus nature poured the wail of wo, And urged her earnest cry ; Her voice, in agony extreme, Ascended to the sky. The Almighty heard : then from his throne In majesty he rose ; And from the Heaven, that opened wide, His voice in mercy flows. * When mortal man resigns his breath. And falls a clod of clay. The soul immortal wings its flight To never-setting day. Prepared of old for wicked men The bed of torment lies ; The just shall enter into bliss Immortal in the skies.’ The above hymn has been claimed for Michael Bruce by Mr Mackelvie, his biographer, on the faith of ‘internal evidence,’ because two of the stanzas resemble a fragment in the handwriting of Bruce. We subjoin the stanzas and the fragment: — When chill the blast of winter blows. Away the summer flies. The flowers resign their sunny robes. And all their beauty dies. Nipt by the year the forest fades. And, shaking to the wind. The leaves toss to and fro, and streak The wilderness behind. ‘ The hoar-frost glitters on the ground, the frequent leaf falls from the wood, and tosses to and fro down on the wind. The summer is gone with all his flowers ; summer, the season of the muses ; yet not the more cease I to wander where the muses haunt near spring or shadowy grove, or sunny hill. It was on a calm morning, while yet the darkness strove with the doubtful twilight, I rose and walked out under the opening eyelids of the morn.’ If the originality of a poet is to be questioned on the ground of such resemblances as the above, what modern is safe? The images in both pieces are common to all descriptive poets. Bruce’s Ossianic fragment is patched with expressions from Milton, which are neither marked as quotations nor printed as poetry. The reader will easily recollect the fol- lowing : — Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring or shady grove, or sunny hill. Par. Lost, Book Ui Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn. We drove afield. Lycidat. THOMAS WARTON. The Wartons, like the Beaumonts, were a poeti- cal race. Thomas, the historian of English poetry, was the second son of Ur Warton of Magdalen college, Oxford, who was twice chosen Professor of Poetry by his university, and who wrote some pleas- ing verses, half scholastic and half sentimental. A sonnet by the elder Warton is worthy being tran- scribed, for its strong family likeness : — [ Written after seeing Windsor C'ustle.] From beauteous Windsor’s high and storied halls. Where Euward’s chiefs start from the glowing walls. To my low cot from ivory beds of state. Pleased I return unenvious of the great. So the bee ranges o’er the varied scenes Of corn, of heaths, of fallows, and of greens. Pervades the thicket, soars above the hill. Or murmurs to the meadow’s murmuring rill : Now haunts old hollowed oaks, deserted cells. Now seeks the low vale lily’s silver bells ; Sips the warm fragrance of the greenhouse bowers. And tastes the myrtle and the citron’s flo>vers ; At length returning to the wonted comb. Prefers to all his little straw-built home. The poetry-professor died in 1745. His tastes, his love of poetry, and of the university, were continued by his son Thomas, born in 1728. At sixteen, Thomas Warton was entered of Trinity college. He began early to write verses, and his Pleasures oj Melancholy, published wlien he was nineteen, gave a promise of excellence which his riper productions did not fuML Having taken his degree, Warton 99 PROM 1727 CYCLOP^IDIA OF to i78t obtaimil a fellowship, and in 1757 was appointed l’rofi;ssor‘of Poetry. lie was also curate of Wood- stock, and rector of Kiddington, a small living near Oxford. The even tenor of his life was only varied hv Ins occasional i)ublieations, one of which was an clahorate Essay on Spenser’s Faery Queen. He also edited the minor poems of Milton, an edition whieli Leigli H\int says is a wilderness of sweets, and is the only one in which a true lover of the original can pardon an exuberance of annotation. Some of the notes are highly poetical, while others display War- ton’s taste for antiipiities, for architecture, super- stition, and his intimate acquaintance with the old Elizaheth.an writers. A still more important w'ork, the History of English Poetry, forms the basis of his reputation. In this history Warton poured out in profusion the treasures of a full mind. His antiqua- rian lore, his love of antique manners, and his chi- valrous feelings, found appropriate exercise in tracing the stream of our poetry from its first fountain- springs, down to the luxuriant reign of Elizabeth, which he justly styled ‘ the most poetical age of our annals.’ Pope and Gray had planned schemes of a history of English poetry, in which the authors were to he arranged according to their style and merits. Warton adopted the chronological arrangement, as giving freer exertion for research, and as enabling him to exhibit, without transposition, the gradual improvements of our poetry, and the progression of our language. The untiring industry and learning of the poet-historian accumulated a mass of ma- terials equally valuable and curious. His work is a vast store-house of facts connected with onr early literature ; and if he sometimes wanders from his subject, or overlays it with extraneous details, it should be remembered, as his latest editor, Mr Price, remarks, that new matter was constantly arising, and that Warton ‘was the first adventurer in the extensive region through which he journied, and into which the usual pioneers of literature had scarcely penetrated.’ It is to be regretted that Warton’s plan excluded the dram.a, which forms so ricli a source of our early imaginative literature; hut this defect has been partly supplied by Mr Collier’s Annals of the Stage. On the death of Whitehead in 1785, Warton was appointed poet-laureate. His learning gave dignity to an office usually held in small esteem, and xvhich in our day has been wisely converted into a sinecure. The same j’ear he was made Camden Professor of History. While pursu- ing his antiquarian and literary researches, Warton was attacked with gout, and his enfeebled health yielded to a stroke of paralysis in 1790. Notwith- standing the classic stiffness of his poetry, and his full-blown academical honours, Warton appears to have been an easy companionable man, who de- lighted to unbend in common society, and especially with boys. ‘ During his visits to his brother. Dr J. Warton (master of Winchester school), the reve- rend professor became an associate and confidant in all the sports of the schoolboys. When engaged with them in some culinary occupation, and wiien alarmed by the sudden approach of the master, he has been known to hide himself in a dark corner of the kitchen ; and has been dragged from thence by the doctor, who had taken him for some great boy. He also used to help the boys in their exercises, generally putting in as many faults as would dis- guise the assistance.”’*' If there was little dignity in this, there was something better — a kindliness of dis- position and freshness of feeling which all would wish to retain. The poetry of Warton is deficient in natural ex- * Vide Campbell’s Specimens, second edition, p. 620. pression and general interest, but some of his longer pieces, by their m.artial spirit and Gothic fancy, are calculated to awaken a stirring and romantic enthu- siasm. Hazlitt considered some of his sonnets the finest in the language, and they seem to have caught the fancy of Coleridge and Bowles. The following are picturesque and graceful : — Written in a BlarJc Leaf of Dugdale’s Mcmnsticon. Deem not devoid of elegance the sage, By Fancy’s genuine feelings uiibeguiled Of painful pedantry, the poring child, W’ho turns of these proud domes the historic pagi , Now sunk by Time, and Henry’s fiercer rage. Think’st thou the warbling muses never smiled On his lone hours ? Ingenious views engage His thoughts on themes unclassic falsely styled, Intent. While cloistered piety displays Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores New manners, and the pomp of elder days. Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores. Not rough n.or barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers. On Bevisiting tJie River Loddon. Ah ! what a weary race my feet have run Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned. And thought my way was all through fairy groui d. Beneath the azure sky and golden sun — When first my muse to lisp her notes begun ! While pensive memory traces back the round Which fills the varied interval between ; Much pleasure, more of sorrow marks the scene. Sweet native stream ! those skies and suns so pure, No more return to cheer my evening road! Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure Nor useless, all my vacant days have floned From youth’s gay dawn to manhood’s prime mature, Nor with the muse’s laurel unbestowed. On Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Painted Windoio at Orford Ye brawny Prophets, that in robes so rich. At distance due, pos.sess the crisped niche ; Ye rows of Patriarchs that, sublimely reared, Diffuse a proud primeval length of beard : Ye Saints, who, clad in crimson’s bright array, More pride than humble poverty display: Ye Virgins meek, that wear the palmy crown Of jiatient faith, and yet so fiercely frown : Ye Angels, that from clouds of gold recline, But boast no semblance to a race divine : Ye tragic Tales of legendary lore. That draw devotion’s ready tear no more ; Ye Martyrdoms of unenlightened days, Ye Miracles that now no wonder raise; Shapes, that with one broad glare the gazer strike. Kings, bishops, nuns, apostles, all alike ! Ye Colours, that the univary sight amaze. And only dazzle in the noontide blaze ! No more the sacred window’s round disgrace. But yield to Grecian groups the shining space. Lo ! from the canvass Beauty shifts her throne; Lo ! Picture’s powers a new formation own ! Behold, she prints upon the crystal plain. With her own energy, the expressive stain ! The mighty Master spreads his mimic toil More wide, nor only blends the breathing oil ; But calls the lineaments of life complete From genial alchymy’s creative heat ; Obedient forms to the bright fusion gives. While in the warm enamel Nature lives Reynolds, ’tis thine, from the broad window’s height, To add new lustre to religious light : 100 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOSEPH WARTOH. Not of its pomp to strip this ancient shrine. Rut hid that pomp with purer radiance shine : With arts unknown before, to reconcile The willing Graces to the Gothic pile. Tht Hamlet. — An Ode. The hinds how blest, who, ne’er beguiled To quit their hamlet’s hawthorn wild. Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main. For splendid care, and guilty gain! When morning’s twilight-tinctured beam Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam. They rove abroad in ether blue. To dip the scythe in fragrant dew ; The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell. That nodding shades a craggy dell. Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear. Wild nature’s sweetest notes they hear : On green untrodden banks they view The hyacinth’s neglected hue : In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds. They spy the squirrel’s airy bounds ; And startle from her ashen spray. Across the glen the screaming jay ; Each native charm their steps explore Of Solitude’s sequestered store. For them the moon with cloudless ray Mounts to illume their homeward way : Their weary spirits to relieve. The meadows incense breathe at eve. No riot mars the simple fare. That o’er a glimmering hearth they share : But when the curfew’s measured roar Duly, the darkening valleys o’er. Has echoed from the distant town. They wish no beds of cygnet-down, No trophied canopies, to close Their drooping eyes in quick repose. Their little sons, who spread the bloom Of health around the clay-built room. Or through the primrosed coppice stray, Or gambol in the new-mown hay ; Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine, Or drive afield the tardy kine ; Or hasten from the sultry hill, To loiter at the shady rill ; Or climb the tall pine’s gloomy-crest. To rob the raven’s ancient nest. Their humble porch with honied flowers. The curling woodbine’s shade embowers ; From the small garden’s thymy mound Their bees in busy swarms resound : Nor fell disease before his time. Hastes to consume life’s golden prime : But when their temples long have wore The silver crown of tresses hoar ; As studious still calm peace to keep, Beneath a flowery turf they sleep. j j JOSEPH WARTON. The elder brother of Thomas Warton closely re- I sembled him in character and attainments. He ! was born in 1722, and was the schoolfellow of Col- I lins at Winchester. He was afterwards a commoner j of Oriel college, Oxford, and ordained on his father’s I curacy at Basingstoke. He was also rector of Tam- 1 worth. In 1766 he was appointed head master of I Winchester school, to which vi'ere subsequently j added a prebend of St Paul’s and of Winchester, j ■ He survived his brother ten years, dying in 1800. ' ' Dr Joseph Warton early appeared as a poet, but is considered by Mr Campbell as inferior to his brother in the graphic and romantic style of composition at which he aimed. His Ode to Fancy seems, however, to be equal to all but a few pieces of Thomas War- ton’s. He was also editor of an edition of Pope’s works, which was favourably reviewed by Johnson. Warton was long intimate with Johnson, and a member of his literary club. To Fancy. 0 parent of each lovely muse ! Thy spirit o’er my soul diffuse. O’er all my artless songs preside, My footsteps to thy temple guide. To offer at thy turf-built shrine In golden cups no costly wine. No murdered fatling of the flock. But flowers and honey from the rock. 0 nymph with loosely-flowing hair. With buskined leg, and bosom bare. Thy waist with myrtle-girdle bound. Thy brows with Indian featliers crowned. Waving in thy snowy hand An all-commanding magic wand. Of power to bid fresh gardens grow ’Mid cheerless Lapland’s barren snow. Whose rapid wings thy flight convey Through air, and over earth and sea. While the various landscape lies Conspicuous to thy piercing eyes ! O lover of the desert, hail ! Say in what deep and pathless vale. Or on what hoary mountain’s side, ’Midst falls of water, you reside ; ’Midst broken rocks a rugged scene. With green and grassy dales between ; ’Midst forests dark of aged oak. Ne’er echoing with the woodman’s stroke. Where never human heart appeared. Nor e’er one straw-roofed cot was reared. Where Nature seemed to sit alone. Majestic on a craggy throne ; Tell me the path, sweet wanderer tell. To thy unknown sequestered cell. Where woodbines cluster round the door. Where shells and moss o’erlay the floor. And on whose top a hawthorn blows, Amid whose thickly-woven boughs Some nightingale .still builds her nest. Each evening warbling thee to rest ; Then lay me by the haunted stream. Wrapt in some wild poetic dream. In converse while methinks I rove W’ith Spenser through a fairy grove, Till suddenly awaked, I hear Strange whispered music in my ear. And my glad soul in bliss is drowned By the sweetly-soothing sound I Me, goddess, by the right-hand lead, Sometimes through the yellow mead. Where Joy and white-robed Peace resort, And Venus keeps her festive court ; Where Mirth and Y outh each evening meet, And lightly trip with nimble feet. Nodding their lily-cro\vned heads. Where Laughter rose-liped Hebe leads ; Where Echo walks steep hills among. Listening to the shepherd’s song. Yet not these flowery fields of joy Can long my pensive mind employ ; Haste, Fancy, from these scenes of folly. To meet the matron Melancholy, Goddess of the tearful eye. That loves to fold her arms and sigh ! Let us with silent footsteps go To charnels and the house of wo. 101 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 178tf To Gothic churches, vaults, and tombs. Where each sad night some virgin comes, With throbbing breast, and faded cheek, Her jiromised bridegroom’s urn to seek; Or to some abbey’s mouldering towers. Where to avoid cold winter’s showers. The naked beggar shivering lies. Whilst whistling tempests round her rise. And trembles lest the tottering wall Should on her sleeping infants fall. Now let us louder strike the lyre. For my heart glows with martial fire ; 1 feel, I feel, with sudden heat. My big tumultuous bosom beatl The trumpet’s clangours pierce mine ear, A thousand widows’ shrieks I hear ; ‘ Give me another horse,’ I cry, Lo ! the base Gallic squadrons fly. AVhence is this rage I What spirit, say. To battle hurries me away 1 ’Tis Fanev, in her fiery car. Transports me to the thickest war. There whirls me o’er the hills of slain. Where Tumult and Destruction reign ; M'here, mad with pain, the wounded steed Tramples the dying and the dead ; Where giant Terror stalks around. With sullen joy surveys the ground. And, pointing to the ensanguined field. Shakes his dreadful Gorgon shield ! 0 ! guide me from this horrid scene To high-arched walks and alleys green. Which lovely Laura seeks, to shun The fervours of the mid-day sun ! The pangs of absence, 0 ! remove. For thou canst place me near my love, Canst fold in visionary bliss. And let me think 1 steal a kiss. When young-eyed Spring profusely throws From her green lap the pink and rose ; When the soft turtle of the dale To Summer tells her tender tale : When Autumn cooling caverns seeks. And stains with wine his jolly cheeks; When Winter, like poor pilgrim old. Shakes his silver beard with cold ; At every season let my ear Thy solemn whispers. Fancy, hear. THOMAS BLACKLOCK. A blind descriptive poet seems such an anomaly in nature, that the case of Dr Blacklock has engaged the attention of the learned and curious in no ordi- nary degree. We read all concerning him with strong interest, except his poetry, for this is generally tame, languid, and commonplace, lie was an ami- able and excellent man, of warm and generous sensibilities, eager for knowledge, and proud to communicate it. Thomas Blacklock was the son of a Cumberland bricklayer, who had settled in the towm of Annan, Dumfriesshire. When about six months old, the child was totally deprived of sight by the small-pox ; but his worthy father, assisted by his neighbours, amused his solitary boyhood by reivding to him ; .and before he had reached the age of twenty, he was familiar with Spenser, Milton, Pope, and Addison. He was enthusiastically fond of poetry, particularly of the works of Thomson and Allan Kamsay. From these he must, in a great degree, have derived his images and impressions of nature .and natural objects ; but in after-life the classic poets were .added to his store of intellectual enjoyment. Ills father was accidentally killed when the poet was about the age of nineteen; but some of his at- tempts at verse having been seen by Dr Stevensom Edinburgh, this benevolent gentleman took their blind author to the Scottish metropolis, where he was enrolled as a student of divinity. In 1746 he published a Tolumeofhis poems, which was reprinted i with additions in 1754 and 1756. He was licensed a preacher of the gospel in 1759, and three years afterwards, married the daughter of Mr Johnston, a surgeon in Dumfries. At the same time, through the patronage of the Earl of Selkirk, Blacklock w'as appointed minister of Kirkcudbright. The parishioners, however, were ojiposed both to church patronage in the abstract, and to this exercise of it in favour of a blind man, and the poet relinquished the appointment on receiving in lieu of it a mode- rate annuity. He now resided in Edinburgh, and took boarders into his house. His family was a scene of peace and happiness. To liis literary pur- suits Blacklock added a taste for music, and played on the flute and flageolet. Latterly, he suffered from depression of spirits, and supposed that his imaginative powers were failing him; yet the gene- rous ardour he evinced in 1786, in the case of Burns, shows no diminution of sensibility or taste in the appreciation of genius. In one of his later poems, the blind bard thus pathetically alludes to the sup- posed decay of his faculties : — Excursive on the gentle gales of spring. He roved, whilst favour imped his timid wing. Exhausted genius now no more inspires. But mourns abortive hopes and faded fires ; The short-lived wreath, which once his temples graced. Fades at the sickly breath of squeamish taste; Whilst darker days his fainting flames immure In cheerless gloom and winter premature. He died on the 7th of July 1791, at the age of seventy. Besides his poems, Blacklock wrote some sermons and theological treatises, an article on Blindness for the Encyclopmdia Britannica (which is ingenious and elegant), and two dissertations entitled Paraclesis ; or Consolations Deduced from Natural and Revealed Religion, one of them original, and the other translated from a work ascribed to Cicero. Apart from the circumstances under which they were produced, the poems of Blacklock offer little room or temptation to criticism. He has no new imagery, no commanding power of sentiment, re- flection, or imagination. Still he was a fluent and correct versifier, and his familiarity with the visible objects of nature — with trees, streams, the rocks, and sky, and even with different orders of flowers and plants — is a w'onderful phenomenon hi one blind from infancy. He could distinguish colours by touch ; but this could only apply to objects at hand, not to the features of a landscape, or to the appear- ances of storm or sunshine, sunrise or sunset, or the variation in the seasons, all of which he has de- scribed. Images of this kind he had at will Thus, he exclaims — Ye vales, which to the raptured eye Disclosed the flowery pride of May ; Ye circling hills, whose summits high Blushed with the morning’s earliest ray Or he paints flowers with artist-like precision — Let long-lived pansies here their scents bestow, The violet languish, and the roses glow ; In yellow glory let the crocus shine. Narcissus here his love-sick head recline: Here hyacinths in purple sweetness rise. And tulips tinged with beauty’s fairest dyes. In a man to whom all external phenomena were, and had ever been, one ‘universal blank,’ this union of t.aste and memory was certainly remarkable. Poeti- 102 ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES KEATTI&. POETS. cal feeling lie must have inherited from nature, which led him to take pleasure even from his in- fancy in descriptive poetry j and the language, ex- pressions, and pictures thus imprinted on his mind by habitual acquaintance with tlie best authors, and in literary conversation, seem to have risen sponta- csiously in the moment of composition. Terrors of a Guilty Conscience, Cursed with unnumbered groundless fears, How pale yon shivering wretch appears ! For him the daylight shines in vain, For him the fields no joys contain ; Nature’s whole charms to him are lost, No more the woods their music boast ; No more the meads their vernal bloom. No more the gales their rich perfume : Impending mists deform the sky. And beauty withers in his eye. In hopes his terrors to elude. By day he mingles with the crowd, Y et finds his soul to fears a prey. In busy crowds and open day. If night his lonely walks surprise, AVhat horrid visions round him rise ! The blasted oak which meets his way. Shown by the meteor’s sudden ray. The midnight murderer’s lone retreat Felt heaven’s avengeful bolt of late ; The clashing chain, the groan profound. Loud from yon ruined tower resound ; And now the spot he seems to tread. Where some self-slaughtered corse was laid ; He feels fixed earth beneath him bend. Deep murmurs from her caves ascend ; Till all his soul, by fancy swayed. Sees livid phantoms crowd the shade. Ode to Aurora on Melissa’s Birthday. A compliment and tribute of affection to the tender assi- duity of an excellent wife, which I have not anywhere seen more happily conceived or more elegantly expressed.' — Henry llackenzie.'] Of time and nature eldest bom. Emerge, thou rosy-fingered morn ; Emerge, in purest dress arrayed. And chase from heaven night’s envious shade. That 1 once more may pleased survey. And hail Melissa’s natal day. Of time and nature eldest born. Emerge, thou rosy-fingered mom ; In order at the eastern gate The hours to draw thy chariot wait ; Whilst Zephyr on his balmy wings. Mild nature’s fragrant tribute brings. With odours sweet to strew thy way, And grace the bland revolving day. But, as thou lead’st the radiant sphere. That gilds its birth and marks the year. And as his stronger glories rise, Diffused around the expanded skies. Till clothed with beams serenely bright. All heaven’s vast concave flames with light ; So when through life’s protracted day, Melissa still pursues her way. Her virtues with thy splendour vie. Increasing to the mental eye ; Though less conspicuous, not less dear, Long may they Bion’s prospect cheer ; So shall his heart no more repine, 81 ‘ssed with her ravs, though robbed of thine. The Potirait. Straight is my person, but of little size ; Lean are my cheeks, and hollow are my eyes : My youthful down is, like my talents, rare ; Politely distant stands each single hair. My voice too rough to charm a lady’s ear ; So smooth, a child may listen without fear ; Not formed in cadence soft and warbling lays. To soothe the fair through pleasure’s wanton ways. My form so fine, so regular, so new. My port so manly, and so fresh my hue ; Oft, as I meet the crowd, they, laughing, say, ‘ See, see Memento Mori cross the way.’ The ravished Proserpine at last, we know. Grew fondly jealous of her sable beau ; But, thanks to Nature ! none from me need fly. One heart the devil could wound — so cannot I. Yet though my person fearless may be seen. There is some danger in my graceful mien : For, as some vessel, tossed by wind and tide. Bounds o’er the waves, and rocks from side to side. In just vibration thus I always move : This who can view and not be forced to love 1 Hail, charming self! by whose propitious aid My form in all its glory stands displayed : Be present still ; with inspiration kind. Let the same faithful colours paint the mind. Like all mankind, with vanity I’m blessed. Conscious of wit I never yet possessed. To strong desires my heart an easy prey. Oft feels their force, but never owns their sway. This hour, perhaps, as death I hate my foe ; The next I wonder why I should do so. Though poor, the rich I view with careless eye ; Scorn a vain oath, and hate a serious lie. I ne’er for satire torture common sense ; Nor show my wit at God’s nor man’s expense. Harmless I live, unknowing and unknown ; Wish well to all, and yet do good to none. Unmerited contempt I hate to bear ; Y et on ray faults, like others, am severe. Dishonest flames my bosom never fire ; The bad I pity, and the good admire : Fond of the Muse, to her devote my days. And scribble, not for pudding, but for praise. JAMES BEATTIE. James Beattie was the son of a small farmer and shopkeeper at Laurencekirk, county of Kincardine, where he was born October 25, 1735. His father died while he w'as a child, but an elder brother, see- ing signs of talent in the bo}', assisted him in pro- curing a good education ; and in his fourteenth year he obtained a bursary or exhibition (always indicat- ing some proficiency in Latin) in hlarischal college, Aberdeen. His habits and views were scholastic, and four years afterwards, Beattie was appointed schoolmaster of the parish of Fordoun. He was now situated .amidst interesting and romantic scenery, which increased his passion for nature and poetry. The scenes which he afterwards delineated in his Minstrel were (as Mr Southey has justly remarked) those in which he had grown up, and the feelings and aspirations therein expressed, were those of his own boyhood and youth. He became a poet at For- doun ; and, strange to say, his poetry, poor as it was, procured his appointment as usher of Aberdeen grammar school, and subsequently that of professor of natural philosophy in Marischal college. This distinction he obtained in his twenty -fifth year. At the same time, lie published in London a collec- tion of his poems, with some translations. One piece. Retirement, displays poetical feeling and taste ; but 103 FROM 1727 CYCLOP-i^ilDIA OF to 1780. tlie collection, as a whole, gave little indication of ‘ The Minstrel.’ The poems, without the transla- tions, were reprinted in 1766, and a copy of verses James Beattie* on the Death of Churchill were added. The latter are mean and reprehensible in spirit, as Churchill had expiated his early follies by an untimely death. Beattie was a sincere lover of truth and virtue, but his ardour led him at times into intolerance, and he was too fond of courting the notice and approbation of the great. In 1770 the poet appeared as a meta- physician, by his Essay on Truth, in which good principles were advanced, though with an unphiloso- phical spirit, and in langu.age which suffered greatly from comparison with tliat of his illustrious oppo- nent, David Hume. Next year Beattie appeared in his true character as a poet. The first part of ‘ The Minstrel’ was published, and was received with uni- versal approbation. Honours flowed in on the for- tunate author. He visited London, and was ad- mitted to all its brilliant and distinguished circles. Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, and Reynolds, were numbered among his friends. On a second visit in 177.3, he had an interview with the king and queen, which resulted in a pension of £200 per annum. The university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. and Reynolds painted his portrait in an allegorical picture, in which Beattie was seen by the side of an angel pushing down Prejudice, Scepticism, and Folly! Need we wonder that poor Goldsmith was envious of his brother poet? To the honour of Beattie, it must be recorded, that he de- clined entering the church of England, in which preferment was promised him, and no doubt would liave been readily granted. The second part of the ‘Minstrel’ was published in 1774. Domestic circum- stances marred the felicity of Beattie’s otherwise happy and prosperous lot. His wife (the daughter of Dr Dun, Aberdeen) became insane, and was ob- liged to be confined in an asylum. He had two sons. Doth amiable and accomplished youths. The eldest lived till he was twenty-two, and was associated with his father in the professorship : he died in 1790, and the afflicted parent soothed his grief by writing his life, and publishing some specimens of his composition in prose and verse. The second son died in 1796, aged eighteen ; and the only consola- tion of the now lonely poet was, that he could not nave borne to see their ‘ elegant minds mangled with madness’ — an allusion to the hereditary in- sanity of their mother. By nature, Beattie was a man of quick and tender sensibilities. A fine land- scape or music (in which he was a proficient), aflected him even to tears. He had a sort of hysterical dread of meeting with his metaphysical opponents, which was an unmanly weakness. When he saw Garrick perform Macbeth, he had aln)ost thrown himself, from nervous excitement, over the front of the two-shilling gallery ; and he seriously contended for the grotesque mixture of tragedy and comedy in Shakspeare, as introduced by the great dramatist to save the auditors from ‘ a disordered head or a broken heart!’ This is ‘parmaceti for an inward bruise’ with a vengeance! He had, among his other idiosyncrasies, a n)orbid aversion to that cheer- ful household and rural sound — the crowing of a cock ; and in his ‘ Minstrel,’ he anathematises ‘ fell chanticleer’ with burlesque fury — O to thy cursed scream, discordant still, Let harmony aye shut her gentle ear : Thy boastful mirth let jealous rivals spill. Insult thy cre.st, and glossy pinions tear. And ever in thy dreams the ruthless fox appear. Such an organisation, physical and moral, was ill fitted to insure happiness or fortitude in adversity. When his second son died, he said he had dune with the world. He ceased to correspond with his friends, or to continue his studies. Shattered by a long train of nervous complaints, in April 1799 the poet had a stroke of palsy, and after dift'erent returns of the same malady, which excluded him from all society, he died on the 18th of August 1803. In the early training of his eldest and beloved son. Dr Beattie adopted an expedient of a romantic and interesting description. His object was to give him the first idea of a Supreme Being; and his method, as Dr Porteous, bishop of London, remarked, * had all the imagination of Rousseau, without his folly and extravagance.’ ‘ He had,’ says Beattie, ‘ reached his fifth (or sixth) year, knew the alphabet, and could read a little ; but had received no particular information with respect to the author of his being because I thought he could not yet understand sui h informa- tion, and because I had learned, from my own ex- perience, that to be made to repeat words not un- derstood, is extremely detrimental to the faculties of a young mind. In a comer of a little garden, without informing any person of the circumstance, I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the three ini- tial letters of his name, and sowing garden cresses in the furrows, covered up the seed, and smoothed the ground. Ten days after he came running to me, and with astonishment in his countenance, tild me that his name was growing in the garden. I smiled at the report, and seemed inclined to disregard it ; but he insisted on my going to see what had hap- pened. “Yes,” said I carelessly, on coming to the place ; “ I see it is so ; but there is nothing in this worth notice ; it is mere chance,” and I went away. He followed me, and taking hold of my coat, saiil with some earnestness, “ It could not be mere chance, for that somebody must have contrived matters so iis to produce it.” I pretend not to give his words or my own, for I have forgotten both, but I give the sub- stance of what passed between us in such language as we both understood. “ So you think,” I said, “ that what appears so regular as the letters of your name cannot be by chance?” “Yes,” said he with firmness, “ I think so !” “ Look at yourself,” I replied, “ and consider your hands and fingers, your legs and feet, and other limbs ; are they not regular in their appearance, and useful to you?” He said thev wer(x 104 JAMR9 b^ATTIB. pom. ENGLISH LITERATURE. “ Clime you then liither,” said I, “ by ehanee ?” “ No,” he answered, “ tliat cannot be ; sonietliing must liave made me.” “ And wlio is that something ?” I asked. He said lie did not know. (I took particular notice that he did not say, as Rousseau fancies a child in like circumstances would say, that his parents made him.) I had now gained the point I aimed at ; and saw that his reason taught him (though he could not so e.\prcss it) tliat what begins to be, must have a cause, and that what is formed with regularity, must have an intelligent cause. I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who made him and all the world, concerning whose adorable nature I gave him such information as I thought he could in some measure comprehend. The lesson alfected him deeply, and he never forgot either it or the circumstance that introduced it’ ‘ The Minstrel,’ on which Beattie’s fame now rests, is a didactic poem, in the Spenserian stanza, de- signed to ‘ trace the progress of a poetical genius, born in a rude age, from the first dawning of fancy and reason till that period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a minstrel.’ The idea was suggested by Percy’s pre- liminary Dissertation to his Reliques — one other benefit which that collection has conferred upon the lovers of poetry. The character of Edwin, the minstrel (in which Beattie embodied his own early feelings and poetical aspirations), is very finely drawn. The romantic seclusion of his youth, and his ardour for knowledge, find a response in all young and generous minds ; while the calm philo- sophy and reflection of the poet, interest the more mature and experienced reader. The poem was left unfinished, and this is scarcely to be regretted. Beattie had not strength of pinion to keep long on the wing in the same lofty region ; and Edwin would hai e contracted some earthly taint in his descent. Gray thought there was too much description in the first part of the ‘ Minstrel,’ but who would ex- change it for the philosophy of the second part? The poet intended to have carried his hero into a life of variety and action, but he certainly would not have succeeded. As it is, when he finds it necessary to continue Edwin beyond the ‘ flowery path’ of childhood, and to explore the shades of life, he calls in the aid of a hermit, who schools the young enthusiast on virtue, knowledge, and the dignity of man. The appearance of this sage is happily de- scribed — At early dawn the youth his journey took. And many a mountain passed and valley wide. Then reached the wild where, in a flowery nook, And seated on a mossy stone, he spied An ancient man ; his harp lay him beside. A stag sprung from the pasture at his call. And, kneeling, licked the withered hand that tied A wreath of woodbine round his antlers tall. And hung his lofty neck with many a floweret small. [Opening of the Minstrel.^ Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar; Ah ! who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, And waged with Fortune an eternal war ; Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy’s frown. And Poverty’s unconquerable bar. In life’s low vale remote has pined alone. Then dropped into the grave, unpitied and unknown ! And yet the languor of inglorious day Not equally oppressive is to all ; Him, who ne’er listened to the voice of praise, The silence of neglect can ne’er appal. There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition’s call. Would shrink to hear the obstreperous trump of Fame; Supremely blest, if to their portion fall Health, competence, and peace. Nor higher aim Had he, whose simple tale these artless lines proclaim. The rolls of fame I will not now exjilore ; Nor need I here describe, in learned lay. How forth the Minstrel fared in days of yore. Right glad of heart, though homely in array ; His Waving locks and beard all hoary gray ; While from his bending shoulder, decent hung His harp, the sole companion of his way. Which to the whistling wind responsive rung : And ever as he went some merry lay he sung. Fret not thyself, thou glittering child of pride. That a poor villager inspires my strain ; With thee let Pageantry and Power abide ; The gentle Muses haunt the sylvan reign ; Where through wild groves at eve the lonely .swain Enraptured roams, to gaze on Nature’s charms. They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain ; The parasite their influence never warms. Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms. Though richest hues the peacock’s plumes adorn, y et horror screams from his discordant throat. Rise, sons of harmony, and hail the morn. While warbling larks on russet pinions float : Or seek at noon the woodland scene remote. Where the gray linnets carol from the hill, 0 let them ne’er, with artificial note. To please a tyrant, strain the little bill, [wilL But sing what Heaven inspires, and wander where they Liberal, not lavi.sh, is kind Nature’s hand ; Nor was perfection made for man below. Yet all her schemes with nicest art are planned. Good counteracting ill, and gladness wo. With gold and gems if Chilian mountains glow; If bleak and barren Scotia’s hills arise ; There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow; Here peaceful are the vales, and pure the skies. And freedom fires the soul, and sparkles in the eyes. Then grieve not thou, to whom the indulgent Muse Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire : Nor blame the partial Fates, if they refuse The imperial banquet and the rich attire. Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre. Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined ? No ; let thy heaven-taught soul to Heaven aspire. To fancy, freedom, harmony, resigned ; Ambition’s grovelling crew for ever left behind. Canst thou forego the pure ethereal soul. In each fine sense so exquisitely keen. On the dull couch of Luxury to loll. Stung with disease, and stupified with spleen ; Fain to implore the aid of Flattery’s screen. Even from thyself thy loathsome heart to hide (The mansion then no more of joy serene). Where fear, distrust, malevolence abide. And impotent desire, and disappointed pride 1 0 how canst thou renounce the boundless store Of charms which Nature to her votary yields ! The warbling woodland, the resounding shore. The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; All that the genial ray of morning gilds. And all that echoes to the song of even. All that the mountain’s sheltering bosom shields. And all the dread magnificence of heaven, 0 how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forg. veu ! * * * There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell, A shepherd-swain, a man of low degree, Who.se sires, perchance, in Fairyland might dwell, Sicilian groves, or vales of Arcadv : FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF ^780. But he, I ween, was of the north countrie ; A nation famed for song, and beauty’s charms ; Zealous, yet modest ; innocent, though free; Patient of toil ; serene amidst alarms ; Inflexible in faith ; invincible in arms. The shepherd swain of whom I mention made, On Scotia’s mountains fed his little flock ; The sickle, scythe, or plough he never swayed ; An honest heart was almost all his stock ; His drink the living water from the rock: The milky dams supplied his board, and lent Their kindly fleece to baffle winter’s shock ; And he, though oft with dust and sweat besprent. Did guide and guard their wanderings, whereso’er they went. \_Descripiion of Edwin.l And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy. Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye. Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy. Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy ; Silent when glad ; affectionate, though shy ; And now his look was most demurely sad. And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbours stared and sighed, yet blessed the lad ; Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad. But why should I his childish feats display ? Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled ; Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray Of squabbling imps ; but to the forest sped. Or roamed at large the lonely mountain’s head. Or where the maze of some bewildered stream To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led. There would he wander wild, till Pheebus’ beam. Shot from the western cliff, released the weary team. The exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed. To him nor vanity nor joy could bring: His heart, from cruel sport estranged, would bleed To work the wo of any living thing. By trap or net, by arrow or by sling ; These he detested ; those he scorned to wield : He wished to be the guardian, not the king. Tyrant far less, or traitor of the field. And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy might yield. Lo ! where the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves Beneath the precipice o’erhung with pine ; And sees on high, amidst the encircling groves. From cliff to cliff the foaming torrents shine ; While waters, woods, and winds, in concert join. And echo swells the chorus to the skies. Would Edwin this majestic scene resign For aught the huntsman’s puny craft supplies ? Ah, no ! he better knows great Nature’s charms to prize. And oft he traced the uplands to survey. When o’er the sky advanced the kindling dawn, The crimson cloud, blue main, and mountain gray. And lake, dim-gleaming on the smoky lawn : Far to the west the long long vale withdrawn. Where twilight loves to linger for a while ; And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn. And villager abroad at early toil : But, lo ! the sun appears 1 and heaven, earth, ocean, smile. And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb, When all in mist the world below was lost — What dreadful pleasure ! there to stand sublime. Like shipwrecked mariner on desert coast, And view the enormous waste of vapour, tost In billows, lengthening to the horizon round. Now scooped in gulfs, with mountains now embo.ssed! And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound. Flocks, herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar pro- found ! In truth he was a strange and wayward wight, Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene. In darkness and in storm he found delight; Nor less than when on ocean-wave serene. The southern sun diffused his dazzling shene. Even sad vicissitude amused his soul ; And if a sigh would sometimes intervene. And down his cheek a tear of pity roll, A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wished not to controL * ♦ * Oft when the winter storm had ceased to rave. He roamed the snowy waste at even, to view The cloud stupendous, from the Atlantic wave High-towering, sail along the horizon blue ; where, ’midst the changeful scenery, ever new. Fancy a thousand wondrous forms descries, More wildly great than ever pencil drew ; Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size, And glittering cliffs on cliffs, and fiery ramparts rise. Thence musing onward to the sounding shore, The lone enthusiast oft would take his way. Listening, with pleasing dread, to the deep roar Of the wide-weltering waves. In black array When sulphurous clouds rolled on the autumnal day. Even then he hastened from the haunt of man, Along the trembling wilderness to stray, What time the lightning’s fierce career began. And o’er heaven’s rending arch the rattling thunder ran. Responsive to the sprightly pipe, when all In sprightly dance the village youth were joined, Edwin, of melody aye held in thrall, From the rude gambol far remote reclined. Soothed with the soft notes warbling in the wind. Ah then, all jollity seemed noise and folly 1 To the pure soul by Fancy’s fire refined. Ah, what is mirth but turbulence unholy, when with the charm compared of heavenly racial* choly 1 Is there a heart that music cannot melt ? Alas 1 how is that rugged heart forlorn ; Is there, who ne’er those mystic transports felt Of solitude and melancholy born ? He needs not woo the Muse ; he is her scorn. The sophist’s rope of cobweb he shall twiae ; Mope o’er the schoolman’s peevish rage ; or mourn. And delve for life in Mammon’s dirty m.ne ; Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine. For Edwin, Fate a nobler doom had planned ; Song was his favourite and first pursuit. The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand. And languished to his breath the plaintive flute. His infant muse, though artless, was not mute. Of elegance as yet he took no care ; ' For this of time and culture is the fruit ; And Edwin gained at last this fruit so rare : As in some future verse I purpose to declare. Meanwhile, whate’er of beautiful or new, Sublime, or dreadful, in earth, sea, or sky, By chance, or search, was off ered to his view, He scanned with curious and romantic eye. Whate’er of lore tradition could supply From Gothic tale, or song, or fable old. Roused him, still keen to listen and to pty. At last, though long by penury controlled. And solitude, his soul her graces ’gan unfold. 106 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES BEATTIB. Thus on the chill Lapponian’s dreary land, For many a long month lost in snow profound, When Sol from Cancer sends the season bland. And in their northern cave the storms are bound ; From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound. Torrents are hurled ; green hills emerge ; and lo ! The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crowned ; Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go ; And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant’s heart o’erflow. [Morning Landscape.'] Even now his eyes with smiles of rapture glow, As on he wanders through the scenes of morn. Where the fresh flowers in living lustre blow, W'here thousand pearls the dewy lawns adorn, A thousand notes of joy in every breeze are borne. But who the melodies of morn can tell ? The wild brook babbling down the mountain side ; The lowing herd ; the sheepfold’s simple bell ; The pipe of early shepherd dim descried In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ; The holjow murmur of the ocean-tide ; The hum of bees, the linnet’s lay of love. And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. The cottage-curs at early pilgrim bark ; Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings ; The whistling ploughman stalks afield ; and, hark ! Dorvn the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings ; Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs ; Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour ; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings ; Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower. And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower. [Life and Immortality.] 0 ye wild groves, 0 where is now your bloom ! (The Muse interprets thus his tender thought) Your flowers, your verdure, and your balmy gloom. Of late so grateful in the hour of drought ? Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake ? Ah ! why has fickle chance this ruin wrought ! For now the storm howls mournful through the brake. And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake. Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool. And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty crowned? Ah ! see, the unsightly slime, and sluggish pool, Have all the solitary vale embrowned ; Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound. The raven croaks forlorn on naked spray. And hark : the river, bursting every mound, Down the vale thunders, and with wasteful sway Uproots the grove, and rolls the shattered rocks away. Yet such the destiny of all on earth : So flouri.shes and fades majestic man. Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth, And fostering gales a while the nursling fan. O smile, ye heaven.s, serene ; ye mildews wan. Ye blighting whirlwinds, .spare his balmy prime. Nor lessen of his life the little span. Borne on the swift, though silent wings of Time, Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime. And be it so. Let those deplore their doom Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn ; But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb. Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn. Shall Spring to these sad scenes no more return? Is yonder wave the Sun’s eternal bed ? Soon shall the orient with new lustre bum. And Spring shall soon her vital influence shed. Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead. Shall I be left forgotten in the dust. When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive? Shalt Nature’s voice, to man alone unjust. Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live ? Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive With disappointment, penury, and pain ? No : Heaven’s immortal spring shall yet arrive. And man’s majestic beauty bloom again. Bright through the eternal year of Love’s triumphant reign. Retirement. — 1758. When in the crimson cloud of even The lingering light decays. And Hesper on the front of heaven His glittering gem displays ; Deep in the silent vale, unseen. Beside a lulling stream, A pensive youth, of placid mien^ Indulged this tender theme. ‘Ye cliffs, in hoary grandeur piled High o’er the glimmering dale ; Ye woods, along who.se windings wild Murmurs the solemn gale : Where Melancholy strays forlorn. And Wo retires to weep. What time the wan moon’s yellow horn Gleams on the western deep ; To you, ye wastes, whose artless charms Ne’er drew Ambition’s eye, ’Scaped a tumultuous world’s alarms. To your retreats I fly. Deep in your most sequestered bower Let me at last recline. Where Solitude, mild, modest power. Leans on her ivied shrine. How shall I woo thee, matchless fair ? Thy heavenly smile how win ? Thy smile that smooths the brow of Care, And stills the storm within. O wilt thou to thy favourite grove Thine ardent votary bring. And bless his hours, and bid them move Serene, on silent wing ? Oft let Remembrance soothe his mind With dreams of former days. When in the lap of Peace reclined. He framed his infant lays ; When Fancy roved at large, nor Care Nor cold Distrust alarmed. Nor Envy, with malignant glare. His simple youth had harmed. ’Twas then, 0 Solitude ! to thee His early vows were paid. From heart sincere, and warm, and free. Devoted to the shade. Ah why did Fate his steps decoy In stormy paths to roam, Remote from all congenial joy ! — 0 take the wanderer home. Thy shades, thy silence now be mine. Thy charms my only theme ; My haunt the hollow cliff, whose pine Waves o’er the gloomy stream. Whence the scared owl on pinions gray Breaks from the rustling boughs. And down the lone vale sails away To more profound repose. 0, while to thee the woodland pours Its wildly warbling song. And balmy from the bank of flowers The zephyr breathes along ; 10< CYCLOPEDIA OF ro 1780. TKOIff 17‘27 Let no rude sound invade from far, No vagrant foot be nigh, No ray from (irandeur’s gilded car Flash on tlie startled eye. But if some pilgrim through the glade Thy hallowed bowers explore, O guard from barm liis hoary head, And listen to liis lore; For he of joys divine shall tell, That wean from earthly wo. And triumph o’er the mighty spell That chains his heart below. For me, no more the path invites Ambition loves to tread ; No more I climb those toilsome heights. By guileful Hope misled ; Leaps my fond fluttering heart no more To Mirth’s enlivening strain ; For present pleasure soon is o’er, And all the past is vain.’ The Hermit. At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still. And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill, And nought but the nightingale’s song in the grove : ’Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar. While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began : No more with himself or with nature at war. He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man. ‘ Ah ! why, all abandoned to darlcness and wo. Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall ? For spring shall return, and a lover bestow. And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthral : But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay. Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn; 0 soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away : Full quickly they pass — but they never return. Now gliding remote on the verge of the sky. The moon half extinguished her crescent displays : But lately I marked, when majestic on high She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendour again ; But man’s faded glory what change shall renew? Ah fool ! to exult in a glory so vain ! ’Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more ; 1 mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you ; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore. Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew: Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn ; Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save. But when shall spring visit the mouldering um ! 0 when shall it dawn on the night of the grave ! Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed. That leads, to bewilder ; and dazzles, to blind ; My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade. Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. “ 0 pity, great Father of Light,” then I cried, “ Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee; Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride : From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free !” And darkness and doubt are now flying away. No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn. So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray, The bright and the balmy effulgence of mom. See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, And Nature all glowing in Eden’s first bloom ! On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending. And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.’ CHRISTOPHER SMART. Christopher Smart, an unfortunate and irre- gular man of genius, was born in 1722 at Ship- bourne in Kent. liis father was steward to Lord | Barnard (afterwards Earl of Darlington), and dying when his son was eleven years of age, tlie patronage of Lord Barnard was generously eontinued to his family. Through the influence of this nobleman, ! Christopher procured from the Duchess of Cleve- I land an allowance of £40 per annum. He was ad- mitted of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 17.39, 1 elected a fellow of Pembroke in 1745, and took his [ degree of M.A. in 1747. At college. Smart was j remarkable for folly and extravagance, and his I distinguished contemporary Gray prophesied truly that the result of his conduct would be a jail or I bedlam. In 1747, he wrote a comedy called a 2'rip to Cambridge, or The Grateful Fair, w'hich was acted in Pembroke College Hall, the parlour of which was made the green-room. No remains of this play have been found, excepting a few songs and a mock- heroic soliloquy, the latter containing the following humorous simile : — Thus when a barber and a collier fight. The barber beats the luckless collier white; The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack. And, big with vengeance, beats the barber black. In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o’erspread. And beats the collier and the barber red ; Black, red, and white, in various clouds are tossed. And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost. From the correspondence of Gray, it appears that Smart’s income at Cambridge was about £140 per annum, and of this his creditors compelled him to assign over to them £50 a-year till his debts were paid. Notwithstanding his irregularities. Smart cultivated his talents, and was distinguished both for his Latin and English verse. His manners were agreeable, though his misconduct appears to have worn out the indulgence of all his college friends. Having written several pieces for periodicals pub- ! lished by Newberry, Smart became acquainted ■ with the bookseller’s family, and married his step- daughter, Miss Carnan, in the year 1753. He now removed to London, and endeavoured to subsist by his pen. The notorious Sir John Hill — whose w.ars with the Royal Society, with Fielding, &c., are well- known, and who closed his life by becoming a quack i doctor — having insidiously attacked Smart, the j latter replied by a spirited satire entitled The llil- i Had. Among his various tasks was a metrical translation of the Fables of Pha»drus. He also translated the psalms and parables into verse, but the version is destitute of talent. He had, how- I ever, in his better days, translated with success, and to Pope’s satisfaction, the Ode on St Cecilia’s Day. In 1756 Smart was one of the conductors of a monthly periodical called The Universal Visiter; and to assist him, Johnson (who sincerely sympathised, as Boswell relates, with Smart’s unhappy vacilla- tion of mind) contributed a few essays. In 1763 we find the poor poet confined in a mad-house. ‘ He has partly as much exercise,’ said Johnson, ‘ as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house ; but he was carried back again. I ■ did not think he ought to be shut up. His infir- • mities were not noxious to society. He insisted on ^ people praying with him (also falling upon his I knees and saying his prayers in the street, or in any ! other unusual place) ; and I’d as lief pray with Kit j Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that i 108 POSTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHBISTOPHSR SMART. he did not love clean linen ; and I have no p.assion for it.’ During his confinement, it is said, writing materials were denied him, and Smart used to indent his poetical thoughts with a key on the wainscot of his walls. A religious poem, the Song to David, written at this time in his saner intervals, pos- sesses passages of considerable power and sublimity, and must be considered as one of the greatest curiosities of our literature. What the unfortu- nate poet did not write down (and the whole could not possibly have been committed to the walls of his apartment) must have been composed and re- tained from memory alone. Smart was afterwards released from his confinement ; but his ill fortune (following, we suppose, his intemperate habits) again pursued him. He was committed to the King’s Bench prison for debt, and died there, after a short illness, in 1770. Song to David. 0 thou, that sit’st upon a throne. With harp of high, majestic tone, To praise the King of kings : And voice of heaven, ascending swell, Which, while its deeper notes excel. Clear as a clarion rings : To bless each valley, grove, and coast. And charm the cherubs to the post Of gratitude in throngs ; To keep the days on Zion’s Mount, And send the year to his account. With dances and with songs: 0 servant of God’s holiest charge. The minister of praise at large. Which thou mayst now receive ; From thy blest mansion hail and hear. From topmost eminence appear To this the wreath I weave. Great, valiant, pious, good, and clean. Sublime, contemplative, serene. Strong, constant, pleasant, wise! Bright effluence of exceeding grace ; Best man ! the swiftness and the race, The peril and the prize ! Great— from the lustre of his crorvn. From Samuel’s horn, and God’s renown. Which is the people’s voice ; For all the host, from rear to van. Applauded and embraced the man — The man of God’s own choice. Valiant — the word, and up he rose ; The fight — he triumphed o’er the foes Whom God’s just laws abhor ; And, armed in gallant faith, he took Against the boaster, from the brook, The weapons of the war. Pious — magnificent and grand, ’Twas he the famous temple planned, (The seraph in his soul :) Foremost to give the Lord his dues. Foremost to bless the welcome news. And foremost to condole. Good — from Jehudah’s genuine vein. From God’s best nature, good in grain. His aspect and his heart : To pity, to forgive, to save. Witness En-gedi’s conscious cave. And Shimei’s blunted dart. Clean — if perpetual prayer be pure, And love, which could itself inure To fasting and to fear — Clean in his gestures, hands, and feet. To smite the lyre, the dance complete. To play the sword and spear. Sublime — injention ever young. Of vast conception, towering tongue. To God the eternal theme; Notes from yon exaltations caught. Unrivalled royalty of thought. O’er meaner strains supreme. Contemplative — on God to fix His musings, and above the six The Sabbath-day he blest ; ’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest prune 1 , And heavenly melancholy tuned. To bless and bear the rest. Serene — to sow the seeds of peace. Remembering when he watched the fleece. How sweetly Kidron purled — To further knowledge, silence vice. And plant perpetual paradise. When God had calmed the world. Strong — in the Lord, who could defy Satan, and all his powers that lie In sempiternal night ; And hell, and horror, and despair Were as the lion and the bear To his undaunted might. Constant — in love to God, the Truth, Age, manhood, infancy, and youth — To Jonathan his friend Constant, beyond the verge of death ; And Ziba, and Mephibosheth, His endless fame attend. Pleasant — and various as the year ; Man, soul, and angel without peer. Priest, champion, sage, and boy ; In armour, or in ephod clad. His pomp, his piety was glad ; Majestic was his joy. Wise — in recovery from his fall, Whence rose his eminence o’er all, Of all the most reviled ; The light of Israel in his ways. Wise are his precepts, prayer, and praise^ And counsel to his child. His muse, bright angel of his verse. Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce. For all the pangs that rage; Blest light, still gaining on the gloom. The more than Michal of his bloom. The Abishag of his age. He sang of God — the mighty source Of all things — the stupendous force On which all strength depends ; From whose right arm, beneath whose eyet. All period, power, and enterprise Commences, reigns, and ends. Angels — their ministry and meed. Which to and fro with blessings speed. Or with their citterns wait ; Where Michael, with his millions, bows. Where dwells the seraph and his spouse. The cherub and her mate. Of man — the semblance and effect Of God and love — the saint elect For infinite applause— To rule the land, and briny broad. To be laborious in his laud. And heroes in his cause. 109 FROM 17-7 CYCLOPEDIA OF TO 1780. 'J'lie world — the clustering spheres he made, The glorious light, the soothing shade, Dale, champaign, grove, and hill; The multitudinous ahyss, Where secrecy remains in bliss. And wisdom hides her skill. Trees, plants, and flowers — of virtuous root; Gem yielding blossom, yielding fruit. Choice gums and precious balm; Bless ye the nosegay in the vale. And with the sweetness of the gale Enrich the thankful psalm. Of fowl— e’en every beak and wing Which cheer the winter, hail the spring. That live in peace, or prey ; They that make music, or that mock, The quail, the brave domestic cock. The raven, swan, and jay. Of fishes — every size and shape. Which nature frames of light escape. Devouring man to shun : The shells are in the wealthy deep. The shoals upon the surface leap, And love the glaneing sun. Of beasts — the beaver plods his task ; While the sleek tigers roll and bask, Nor yet the shades arouse; Her cave the mining eoney scoops ; Where o’er the mead the mountain stoops. The kids exult and browse. Of gems — their virtue and their price, Which, hid in earth from man’s device. Their darts of lustre sheath ; The jasper of the master’s stamp. The topaz blazing like a lamp. Among the mines beneath. Blest was the tenderness he felt. When to his graceful harp he knelt, And did for audience call ; When Satan with his hand he quelled. And in serene suspense he held The frantic throes of Saul. His furious foes no more maligned As he such melody divined. And sense and soul detained ; Now striking strong, now soothing soft. He sent the godly sounds aloft. Or in delight refrained. When up to heaven his thoughts he piled, From fervent lips fair Michal smiled. As blush to blush she stood ; And chose herself the queen, and gave Her utmost from her heart — ‘ so brave. And plays his hymns so good.’ The pillars of the Lord are seven. Which stand from earth to topmost heaven ; His wisdom drew the plan ; His Word accomplished the design, from brightest gem to deepest mine. From Christ enthroned to man. Alpha, the cause of causes, first In station, fountain, whence the burst Of light and blaze of day ; Whence bold attempt, and brave advance, Have motion, life, and ordinance. And heaven itself its stay. Gamma supports the glorious arch On which angelic legions march. And is with sapphires paved ; Thence the fleet clouds are sent adrift. And thence the painted folds that lift The crimson veil, are waved. Eta with living sculpture breathes. With verdant carvings, flowery wreathes Of never-wasting bloom ; In strong relief his goodly base All instruments of labour grace. The trowel, spade, and loom. Next Theta stands to the supreme — Who formed in number, sign, and scheme. The illustrious lights that are ; And one addressed his safiron robe. And one, clad in a silver globe. Held rule with every star. lota’s tuned to choral hymns Of those that fly, while he that swims In thankful safety lurks ; And foot, and chapitre, and niche. The various histories enrich Of God’s recorded works. Sigma presents the social droves With him that solitary roves. And man of all the chief ; Fair on whose face, and stately frame. Did God impress his hallowed name. For ocular belief. Omega ! greatest and the best. Stands sacred to the day of rest. For gratitude and thought ; Which blessed the world upon his pole. And gave the universe his goal, And closed the infernal draught. 0 David, scholar of the Lord ! Such is thy science, whence reward. And infinite degree ; 0 strength, 0 sweetness, lasting ripe I God's harp thy symbol, and thy type The lion and the bee ! There is but One who ne’er rebelled. But One by passion unimpelled. By pleasures unenticed ; He from himself his semblance sent. Grand object of his own content. And saw the God in Christ. Tell them, I Am, Jehovah said To Moses ; while earth heard in dread, And, smitten to the heart. At once above, beneath, around, All nature, without voice or sound. Replied, 0 Lord, Thou Art. Thou art — to give and to confirm. For each his talent and his term ; All flesh thy bounties share : Thou shalt not call thy brother fool ; The porches of the Christian school Are meekness, peace, and prayer. Open and naked of offence, Man’s made of mercy, soul, and sense: God armed the snail and wilk ; Be good to him that pulls thy plough ; Due food and care, due rest allow For her that yields thee milk. Rise up before the hoary head. And God’s benign commandment dread. Which says thou shalt not die : ‘ Not as I will, but as thou wilt,’ Prayed He, whose conscience knew no guilt ; With whose blessed pattern vie. no ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. Use all thy passions 1 — love is thine, And joy and jealousy divine ; Thine liope’s eternal fort. And care thy leisure to disturb. With fear concupiscence to curb, And rapture to transport. ,A.ct simply, as occasion asks ; Put mellow wine in seasoned casks ; Till not with ass and bull : Remember thy baptismal bond ; Keep from commixtures foul and fond, Nor work thy flax with wool. Distribute ; pay the Lord his tithe. And make the widow’s heart-strings blithe ; Resort with those that weep: As you from all and each expect. For all and each thy love direct. And render as you reap. The slander and its bearer spurn, And propagating praise sojourn To make thy welcome last ; Turn from old Adam to the New: By hope futurity pursue : Look upwards to the past. Control thine eye, salute success. Honour the wiser, happier bless, And for thy neighbour feel ; Grutch not of mammon and his leaven, W'ork emulation up to heaven By knowledge and by zeal. O David, highest in the list Of worthies, on God’s ways insist, The genuine word repeat 1 Vain are the documents of men. And vain the flourish of the pen That keeps the fool’s conceit. Praise above all — for praise prevails ; Heap up the measure, load the scales. And good to goodness add : The generous soul her Saviour aids, But peevish obloquy degrades ; The Lord is great and glad. For Adoration all the ranks Of angels yield eternal thanks. And David in the midst ; With God’s good poor, which, last and least In man’s esteem, thou to thy feast, 0 blessed bridegroom, bidst. For Adoration seasons change. And order, truth, and beauty range. Adjust, attract, and fill : The grass the polyanthus checks ; And polished porphyry reflects, By the descending rill. Rich almonds colour to the prime For Adoration ; tendrils climb. And fruit-trees pledge their gems ; And Ivis, with her gorgeous vest. Builds for her eggs her cunning nest. And bell-flowers bow their stems. With vinous syrup cedars spout ; From rocks pure honey gushing out. For Adoration springs : All scenes of painting crowd the map Of nature ; to the mermaid’s pap The scaled infant clings. The spotted ounce and playsome cubs Run rustling ’mougst the flowering shrubs. CURISTOPHEB SM4BI. And lizards feed the moss ; For Adoration beasts embark. While waves upholding halcyon’s ark No longer roar and toss. While Israel sits beneath his fig. With coral root and amber sprig The weaned adventurer sports ; Where to the palm the jasmine cleaves. For Adoration ’mong the leaves The gale his peace reports. Increasing days their reign exalt. Nor in the pink and mottled vault The opposing spirits tilt ; And by the coasting reader spied. The silverlings and crusions glide For Adoration gilt. For Adoration ripening canes. And cocoa’s purest milk detains The western pilgrim’s staff ; Where rain in clasping boughs enclosed. And vines with oranges disposed. Embower the social laugh. Now labour his reward receives. For Adoration counts his sheaves To peace, her bounteous prince ; The nect’rine his strong tint imbibes. And apples of ten thousand tribes. And quick peculiar quince. The wealthy crops of whitening rice ’Mongst thyine woods and groves of spice For Adoration grow ; And, marshalled in the fenced land. The peaches and pomegranates stand. Where wild carnations blow. The laurels with the winter strive ; The crocus burnishes alive Upon the snow-clad earth : For Adoration myrtles stay To keep the garden from dismay. And bless the sight from dearth. The pheasant shows his pompous neck ; And ermine, jealous of a speck. With fear eludes offence : The sable, with his glossy pride. For Adoration is descried, W'here frosts the wave condense. The cheerful holly, pensive yew. And holy thorn, their trim renew ; The squirrel hoards his nuts : All creatures batten o’er their stores. And careful nature all her doors For Adoration shuts. For Adoration, David’s Psalms Lift up the heart to deeds of alms ; And he, who kneels and chants. Prevails his passions to control. Finds meat and medicine to the soul. Which for translation pants. For Adoration, beyond match. The scholar bulfinch aims to catch The soft flute’s ivory touch ; And, careless, on the hazel spray The daring redbreast keeps at bay The damsel’s greedy clutch. For Adoration, in the skies. The Lord’s philosopher espies The dog, the ram, and rose ; The planets ring, Orion’s sword ; Nor is his greatness less adored In the vile worm that glows. .11 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 178ft Hanked arm«, and crested heads ; Beauteous the garden’s umbrage mild, Walk, water, meditated wild. Ami all the bloomy beds. For Adoration, on the strings The western breezes work their wings. The captive car to soothe — Hark 1 ’tis a voice — how still, and small — That makes the cataracts to fall. Or bids the sea be smooth 1 For Adoration, incense comes From bezoar, and Arabian gums. And from the civet’s fur : But as for prayer, or e’er it faints, h'ar better is the breath of saints Than galbanum or myrrh. For Adoration, from the down Of damsons to the anana’s crown, God sends to tempt the taste ; And while the luscious zest invites The sense, that in the scene delights. Commands desire be chaste. For Adoration, all the paths Of grace are open, all the baths Of purity refresh ; ' And all the rays of glory beam To deck the man of God’s esteem. Who triumphs o’er the flesh. For Adoration, in the dome Of Christ, the sparrows find a home ; And on his olives perch : The swallow also dwells with thee, 0 man of God’s humility. Within his Saviour’s Church. Sweet is the dew that falls betimes. And drops upon the leafy limes ; Sweet Hermon’s fragrant air: Sweet is the lily’s silver bell. And sweet the wakeful tapers smell That watch for early prayer. Sweet the young nurse, with love intense. Which smiles o’er sleeping innocence ; Sweet when the lost arrive : Sweet the musician’s ardour beats. While his vague mind’s in quest of sweets. The choicest flowers to hive. Sweeter, in all the strains of love. The language of thy turtle-dove. Paired to thy swelling chord ; Sweeter, with every grace endued. The glory of thy gratitude. Respired unto the Lord. Strong is the horse upon his speed ; Strong in pursuit the rapid glede. Which makes at once his game : Strong the tall ostrich on the ground ; Strong through the turbulent profound Shoots xiphias to his aim. Strong is the lion — like a coal His eyeball — like a bastion’s mole His chest against the foes : Strong the gier-eagle on his sail. Strong against tide the enormous whale Emerges as he goes. But stronger still in earth and air. And in the sea the man of prayer. And far beneath the tide : And in the seat to faith assigned. Where ask is have, where Seek is find. Where knock is open wide. Beauteous the fleet before the gale ; Beauteous the multitudes in mail. Beauteous the moon full on the lawn ; And beauteous when the veil’s withdrawn, The virgin to her spouse : Beauteous the temple, decked and filled. When to the heaven of heavens they build Their heart-directed vows. Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these. The Shepherd King upon his knees. For his momentous trust ; With wish of infinite conceit. For man, beast, mute, the small and great. And prostrate dust to dust. Precious the bounteous widow’s mite ; And precious, for extreme delight. The largess from the churl : Precious the ruby’s blushing blaze. And alba’s blest imperial rays. And pure cerulean pearl. Precious the penitential tear ; And precious is the sigh sincere ; Acceptable to God : And precious are the winning flowers. In gladsome Israel’s feast of bowers. Bound on the hallowed sod. More precious that diviner part Of David, e’en the Lord’s own heart. Great, beautiful, and new : In all things where it was intent. In all extremes, in each event. Proof — answering true to true. Glorious the sun in mid career ; Glorious the assembled fires appear ; Glorious the comet’s train : Glorious the trumpet and alarm ; Glorious the Almighty’s stretched-out arm ; Glorious the enraptured main : Glorious the northern lights astream j Glorious the song, when God’s the theme ; Glorious the thunder’s roar : Glorious hosannah from the den ; Glorious the catholic amen ; Glorious the martyr’s gore : Glorious — more glorious is the crown Of Him that brought salvation down. By meekness called thy Son ; Thou that stupendous truth believed. And now the matchless deed’s achieved. Determined, Dared, and Done. RICHARD GLOVER. Richard Glover (1712-1785), a London mer- chant, who sat several years in parliament as member for Weymouth, was distinguished in pri- vate life for his spirit and independence. He pub- lished two elaborate poems in blank verse, Leonidas and The Athenais, the former bearing reference to the memorable defence of Thermopylae, and the latter continuing the war between the Greeks and Persians. The length of these poems, their want of sustained interest, and lesser peculiarities not suited to the existing poetical taste, render I them next to unknown in the present day. Yet there is smoothness and even vigour, a calm moral 112 poBn. ENGLISH LITERATURE. biciiard oi,ovp,r. diRnity and patriotic elevation in ‘ Ia;onidas,’ which might even yet find admirers. Thomson is said to liave exclaimed, when he heard of the work of Glover, ‘He write an epic poem, whenever saw a mountain!’ Yet Thomson himself, familiar as he was in his youth with mountain scenery, was tame and commonplace when he ventured on classic or epic subjects. The following passage is lofty and energetic — \ Address of Leonidas."] He alone Remains unshal en. Rising, he displays His godlike presence. Dignity and grace Adorn his frame, and manly beauty, joined With strength Herculean. On his aspect shines Subliinest virtue and desire of fame. Where justice gives the laurel ; in his eye The inextinguishable spark, which fires The souls of patriots ; while his brow supports Undaunted valour, and contempt of death. Serene he rose, and thus addressed the throng : ‘ Why this astonishment on every face, Ye men of Sparta? Does the name of death Create this fear and wonder? 0 my friends ! M’hy do we labour through the arduous paths Which lead to virtue? Fruitless were the toil. Above the reach of human feet were placed The distant summit, if the fear of death Could intercept our passage. But in vain His blackest frowns and terrors he assumes To shake the firmness of the mind which knows That, wanting virtue, life is pain and wo ; That, wanting liberty, even virtue mourns. And looks around for happiness in vain. Then speak, 0 Sparta ! and demand my life ; My heart, exulting, answers to thy call. And smiles on glorious fate. To live with fame The gods allow to many ; but to die With equal lustre is a blessing Heaven Selects from all the choicest boons of fate, And with a sparing hand on few bestows.’ Salvation thus to Sparta he proclaimed. Joy, wrapt awhile in admiration, paused. Suspending praise ; nor praise at last resounds In high acclaim to rend the arch of heaven ; A reverential murmur breathes applause. The nature of the poem affords scope for interesting situations and descriptions of natural objects in a romantic country, which Glover occasionally avails himself of with good effect. There is great beauty and classic elegance in this sketch of the fountain at the dwelling of Oileus : — Beside the public way an oval fount Of marble sparkled with a silver spray Of falling rills, collected from above. The army halted, and their hollow casques Dipped in the limpid stream. Behind it rose An edifice, composed of native roots. And oaken trunks of knotted girth umvrought. IVithin were beds of moss. Old battered arms Hung from the roof. The curious chiefs approach. 1’hese words, engraven on a tablet rude, Megistias reads ; the rest in silence hear: ‘ Y on marble fountain, by Oileus placed. To thirsty lips in living water flows ; For weary steps he framed this cool retreat} A grateful offering here to rural peace. His dinted shield, his helmet he resigned. 0 passenger ! if bom to noble deeds. Thou would’st obtain perpetual grace from Jove, Devote thy vigour to heroic toils, 1 nd thy decline to hospitable cares, dest here } then seek Oileus in his vale.’ 1 In the ‘ Atlienais’ we have a continuation of the same classic story and landscape. Tlie following is an e.xquisite description of a night scene : — Silver Phoebe spreads A light, reposing on the quiet lake. Save where the snowy rival of her hue. The gliding swan, behind him leaves a trail In luminous vibration. Lo ! an isle Swells on the surface. Marble structures there New gloss of beauty borrow from the moon To deck the shore. Now silence gently yields To measured strokes of oars. The orange groves, In rich profusion round the fertile verge. Impart to fanning breezes fresh perfumes Exhaustless, visiting the scene with sw'eets. Which soften even Briareus; but the son Of Gobiyas, heavy with devouring care. Uncharmed, unheeding sits. The scene presented by the shores of Salamis on the morning of the battle is thus strikingly depicted. The poet gives no burst of enthusiasm to kindle up his page, and his versification retains most of its usual hardness and wan't of flow and cadence ; yet the assemblage described is so vast and magnificent, and his enumeration is so varied, that the picture carries with it a host of spirit-stirring associations: — [The Ai'mies at Salamis.] 0 sun ! thou o’er Athenian towers. The citadel and fanes in ruin huge. Dost, rising now, illuminate a scone More new, more w'ondrous to thy piercing eye Than ever time disclo.sed. Phaleron’s wave Presents three thousand barks in pendants rich ; Spectators, clustering like Hymettian bees. Hang on the burdened shrouds, the bending yards, The reeling masts ; the whole Cecropian strand. Far as Eleusis, seat of mystic rites. Is thronged with millions, male and female race, Of Asia and of Libya, ranked on foot. On horses, camels, cars. A?galeos tall. Half down his long declivity, wdiere spreads A mossy level, on a throne of gold. Displays the king, environed by his court, In oriental pomp ; the hill behind By warriors covered, like some trophy huge. Ascends in varied arms and banners clad ; Below the monarch’s feet the immortal guard. Line under line, erect their gaudy spears ; The arrangement, shelving downward to the beach, Is edged by chosen horse. With blazing steel Of Attic arms encircled, from the deep Psyttalia lifts her surface to the sight. Like Ariadne’s heaven-bespangling crown, A wreath of stars ; beyond, in dread array. The Grecian fleet, four hundred galleys, fill The Salaminian Straits ; barbarian prows In two divisions point to either mouth Six hundred brazen beaks of tower-like ships, Unwieldy bulks ; the gently-swelling soil Of Salamis, rich island, bounds the view. Along her silver-sanded verge arrayed. The men-at-arms exalt their naval spears, Of length terrific. All the tender sex. Ranked by Timothea, from a green ascent, Look down in beauteous order on their sires. Their husbands, lovers, brothers, sons, prepared To mount the rolling deck. The younger dames In bridal robes are clad ; the matrons sage, In solemn raiment, worn on sacred days ; But white in vesture, like their maiden breasts. Where Zephyr plays, uplifting with his breath The loosely-waving folds, a cho.sen line Of Attic graces in the front is placed ; From each fair head the tresses fall, entwined 113 FROM 1727 CYCLOPillDIA OF to 1780. With newly-fathered flowerets ; chaplets gay The snowy hand sustains ; the native curls, O’ershading half, augment their powerful charms ; While Venus, tempered by Minerva, fills Their eyes with ardour, pointing every glance To animate, not soften. From on high Her large controlling orbs Timothea rolls. Surpassing all in stature, not unlike In majesty of shape the wife of Jove, Presiding o’er the empyreal fair. A popular vitality has been awarded to a ballad of Glover’s, while his epics bave sunk into obli- vion : — Mark those numbers, pale and horrid. Who were once my sailors bold ; Lo I each hangs his drooping forehead. While his dismal tale is told. I, by twenty sail attended, Did this Spanish town affright ; Nothing then its wealth defended But my orders — not to fight 1 Oh ! that in this rolling ocean I had cast them with disdain. And obeyed my heart’s warm motion, To have quelled the pride of Spain 9 Admiral Iloaicr's Ghost. [Written on tho taking of Carthagena from the Spaniards, 1739 .] For resistance I could fear none ; But with twenty ships had done What thou, brave and happy Vernon, Hast achieved with six alone. [The caj»e of ITosier, which is hero so pathetically repre- sented, was briefly this : — In April 1726, that commander was sent witli a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies, to block up the galleons in the ports of that country; or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them into England. He accordingly arrived at the Bastimentoa near Portobello ; but being restricted by his orders from obeying the dictates of his courage, lay inactive on that station until he became the jest of the Spaniards. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and continued cruising in those seas until the far greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart.] Then the Bastimentos never Had our foul dl.shonour seen, Nor the seas the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been. Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismayiag, And her galleons leading home. Though condemned for disobeying, I had met a traitor’s doom : To have fallen, my country crying, ‘ He has played an English part,* Had been better far than dying Of a grieved and broken hejiit. As near Portobello lying On the gentle-swelling flood. At midnight, with streamers flying. Our triumphant navy rode ; Unrepining at thy glory, Thy successful arms we hail ; But remember our sad story. And let Hosier’s wrongs prevail. There while Vernon sat all glorious From the Spaniards’ late defeat. And his crews, with shouts victorious. Drank success to England’s fleet : Sent in this foul clime to languish. Think what thousands fell in vain. Wasted with disease and anguish. Not in glorious battle slain. On a sudden, shrilly sounding. Hideous yells and shrieks were heard ; Then, each heart with fear confounding, A sad troop of ghosts appeared ; Hence with all my train attending. From their oozy tombs below. Through the hoary foam ascending. Here I feed my constant wo. . All in dreary hammocks shrouded. Which for winding-sheets they wore. And, with looks hy sorrow clouded, Frowning on that hostile shore. Here the Bastimentos viewing. We recall our shameful doom. And, our plaintive cries renewing. Wander through the midnight gloonu j On them gleamed the moon’s wan lustre. When the shade of Hosier brave. His pale bands were seen to muster. Rising from their watery grave : O’er these waves forever mourning Shall we roam, deprived of rest. If, to Britain’s shores returning. You neglect my just request; O’er the glimmering wave he hied him. Where the Burford reared her sail. With three thousand ghosts beside him, And in groans did Vernon hail. After this proud foe subduing, When your patriot friends you see, Think on vengeance for my ruin, And for England — shamed in me. Heed, oh, heed our fatal story! I am Hosier’s injured ghost; You who now have purchased glory At this place where I was lost : The poets who follow are a secondary class, few \ of whom are now noted for more than one or two favourite pieces. Though in Portobello’s ruin. You now triumph free from fears. When you think on my undoing. You will mix your joys with tears. See these ni vumful spectres sweeping Ghastly o’er this hated wave. Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping ; These were English captair.s brave. ROBERT DODSLEY. Robert Dodsley (1703-1764) was an able and spirited publisher of his day, the friend of literature and of literary men. He projected the Annual JRe- gister, in which Burke was engaged, and he was the first to collect and republish the ‘ Old English Plays,’ which form the foundation of our national drama. Dodsley wrote an excellent little moral treatise, Tht 114 \ roRT3. ENGLISH LITERATURE. siu william jones. I r ' Economy of Human Life, which was attributed to ! ’ lOrJ Ciiesterfield, and he was autlior of some dra- Dodsley’s House and Shop in Pall Mall. matic pieces and poetical effusions. He was always attached to literature, and tliis, aided by his excel- lent conduct, raised him from the low condition of a livery servant, to be one of the most influential j and respectable men of the times in which he lived. j [Sony — The Parting Kiss.] I One liiiul wish before we part, Drop a tear, and bid adieu : Though we sever, ray fond heart. Till we meet, shall pant for you. Y et, yet weep not so, my love, Let me kiss that falling tear ; i Though my body must remove, I All ray soul will still be here. i All my soul, and all my heart. And every wish shall pant for you ; One kind kiss, then, ere we part. Drop a tear, and bid adieu. \ SAMUEL BISHOP. j Samuel Bishop (1731-1795) was an English I clergyman. Master of Merchant Tailors’ School, 1 London, and author of some miscellaneous essays and poems. The best of his poetry was devoted to the praise of his wife ; and few can read such lines as the following without believing that Bishop ivas an amiable and happy man : — To Mrs Bishop, on the Anniversary of her Wedding- Day, which was also her Birth-Day, with a Ring. I ‘ Thee, Mary, with this ring I wed’ — j So, fourteen years ago, I said. Behold another ring ! — ‘ For what V ‘ To wed thee o’er again 1’ Why not ! With that first ring I married youth, Grace, beauty, innocence, and truth ; Taste long admired, sense long revered, And all my Molly then appeared. If she, by merit since disclosed, Prove twice the woman I supposed, I plead that double merit now. To justify a double vow. Here, then, to-day (with faith as sure. With ardour as intense, as pure, As when, amidst the rites divine, I took thy troth, and plighted mine), To thee, sweet girl, my second ring A token and a pledge 1 bring : AVith this I wed, till death us part. Thy riper virtues to my heart ; Those virtues which, before untried, The wife has added to the bride ; Those virtues, whose progressive claim. Endearing wedlock’s very name. My soul enjoys, my song approves. For conscience’ sake as well as love’s. And why V — They show me every hour Honour’s high thought. Affection’s power. Discretion’s deed, sound .Judgment’s sentence. And teach me all things — but repentance. SIR WILLIAM JONES. ‘ It is not Sir William Jones’s poetry,’ says Mr Southey, ‘that can perpetuate his name.’ 'I’liis is true : it was as an oriental scholar and legislator, an enlightened lawyer and patriot, that lie earned his laurels. His profound learning and philological researches (he was master of twenty-eight languages) were the wonder and admiration of his contempo- raries. Sir William was born in London in 1746. Sir William Jonea. His father was an eminent mathematician, but died w'hen his son was only three years of age. The care of educating young Jones devolved upon Ids mother, who was well qualified for the duty by her | virtues and extensive learning. AA’hen in his fifth j year, the imagination of the young scliolar was caught by the sublime description of the angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and the im- pression was never effaceiL In 1753 he was placed Ua prom 1727 CYCLOI’7I<;i)IA OF to 17Ko at Harrow sclioo), where lie continued nearly ten years, and became an accomplished and critical clas- sical scholar. He did not confine himself merely to the ancient authors usually studied, hut added a knowlcdj;e of the Arabic characters, and acquired suflicicnt Hebrew to read the Psalms. In 17G4 he was entered of University college, Oxford. Here his taste for oriental literature continued, and he engaged a native of Aleppo, whom he had discovered in London, to act as his preceptor. He also assidu- ously perused the Greek poets and historians. In his nineteenth year, Jones accepted an offer to be private tutor to Lord Althorp, afterwards Earl Spencer. A fellowship at Oxford was also cotiferred upon him, and thus the scholar was relieved from the fear of want, and enabled to pursue his favou- rite and unremitting studies. An opportunity of displaying one branch of his acquirements was afforded in 17G8. The king of Denmark in that year visited England, and brought with him an eastern manuscript, containing the life of Nadir Shah, which he wished translated into French. Jones executed this arduous task, being, as Lord Teignmouth, his biographer, remarks, the only ori- ental scholar in England adequate to the performance. He still continued in the noble family of Spencer, and in 1769 accompanied his pupil to the continent. Next year, feeling anxious to attain an independent station in life, he entered himself a student of the Temple, and, applying himself with his characteristic ardour to his new profession, he contemplated with pleasure the ‘ stately edifice of the laws of England,’ and mastered their most important principles and detaihs. In 1774 he published Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry, but finding that jurisprudence was a jealous mistress, and would not admit the eastern muses to participate in his attentions, he devoted himself for some years exclusively to his legal studies. A patriotic feeling was mingled with this resolution. ‘ Had I lived at Rome or Athens,’ he said, ‘ I should liave preferred the labours, studies, and dangers of their orators and illustrious citizens — connected as they were with banishment and even death — to tlie groves of the poets or the gardens of the philosophers. Here I adopt the same resolution. The constitution of England is in no respect inferior to that of Rome or Athens.’ Jones now practised at the bar, and was appointed one of the Commis- sioners of Bankrupts. In 1778, he published a translation of the speeches of Isaeus, in causes con- cerning the law of succession to property at Athens, to which he added notes and a commentary. The stirring events of the time in which he lived were not beheld without strong interest by this accom- jilished scholar. He was decidedly opposed to the American war and to the slave trade, then so pre- valent, and in 1781 he produced his noble Alcaic Ode, animated by the purest spirit of patriotism, and a high strain of poetical enthusiasm. He also joined in representing the necessity that existed for a reform of the electoral system in England. But though he made speeches and wrote pamphlets in favour of liberty and pure government, Jones was no party man, and was desirous, he said, of being transported to the distance of five thousand leagues from all the fatal discord of contending politicians. His wishes were soon accomplished. He was ap- pointed one of the judges of the supreme court at Fort William, in Bengal, and the honour of knight- hood was conferred upon him. He married the daughter of Dr Shipley, bishop of St Asaph ; and in April 1783, la his thirty-seventh year, he em- barked for India, never to return. Sir William Jones entered upon his judicial functions with all the advantages of a high reputation, imsullied in- tegrity, disinterested benevolence, and unwearied j)erseverance. In the intervals of leisure from his duties, he directed his attention to scientific objects, and established a society in Calcutta to pro- mote inquiries by the ingenious, and to concentrate the knowledge to be collected ih Asia. In 1784, his health being affected by the climate and the close- ness of his application, he made a tour through various parts of India, in the course of which he wrote The Enchanted Fruit, or Hindoo Wife, a poeti- cal tale, and a Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India. He also studied the Sanscrit language, being unwilling to continue at the mercy of tlie Pundits, who dealt out Hindoo law as they pleased. Some translations from oriental authors, and origi- nal poems and essays, he contributed to a periodical established at Calcutta, entitled The Asiatic Mis- cellany. He meditated an epic poem on the Dis- covery of England by Brutus, to which his knowledge of Hindoo mythology suggested a new machinery, the agency of Hindoo deities. To soften the violence of the fiction into harmony with jjrobability, the poet conceived the future eomprehension of Ilindo- stan within the circle of British dominion, as pro- spectively visible in the age of Brutus, to the guar- dian angels of the Indian iieninsula. This gorgeous design he had matured so far as to write tlie argu- ments of the intended books of his epic, but the poem itself he did not live to attempt. In 1789 Sir William translated an ancient Indian drama, Sacon- tala, or the Fatal Ring, which exhibits a picture of Hindoo manners in the century preceding the Chris- tian era. He engaged to compile a digest of Hindoo and Mahometan laws; and in 1794 he translated the Ordinances of Menu or the Hindoo system of duties, religious and civil. His motive to this task, like his inducement to the digest, was to aif the benevolent intentions of our legislature in s" curing to the natives, in a qualified degree, the administra- tion of justice by their own laws. Eager to accom- plish his digest. Sir William Jones remained in India after the delicate health of Lady Jones com- pelled her departure in December 1793. He pro- posed to follow her in the ensuing season, but in A[iril he was seized with inflammation of the liver, which terminated fatally, after an illness of one week, on the 27th of April 1794. Every honour was paid to his remains, and the East India Company erected a monument to his memory in St Paul’s Cathedral. The attainments of Sir William Jones were so pro- found and various, that it is difficult to conceive how he had comprised them in his short life of forty- eight years. As a linguist he has probably never been surpassed ; for his knowledge extended to a critical study of the literature and antiquities of various nations. As a lawyer he had attained to a high rank in England, and he was the Justinian of India. In general science there were few depart- ments of which he was ignorant: in chemistry, mathematics, botany, and music, he was equally pro- ficient. ‘He seems,’ says his biographer, ‘to have acted on this maxim, that whatever had been at- tained was attainable by him ; and he was never ob- served to overlook or to neglect any opportunity of adding to his accomplishments or to his knowledge. When in India, his studies began with the dawn; and in seasons of intermission from professional duty, continued throughout the day ; meditation retraced and confirmed what reading had collected or inves- tigation discovered. By a regular application of time to particular occupations, he pursued various objects without confusion ; and in undertakings which depended on his individual perseverance, he was never deterred by difficulties from proceeding to a successful teraination.’ With respect to the 116 i>i>ETs. ENGLISH LITERATURE. sin william jones. division of his time. Sir Wiiiiam Jones had written in India, on a small piece of paper, the following lines : — Sir Edward Coke : Six hours in sleep, in law’s grave study six. Four speud in prayer — the rest on nature fix. Rather : Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven. Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.* The poems of Sir William Jones have been collected and printed in two small volumes. An early collec- tion w'as published by himself, dedicated to the Countess Spencer, in 1772. They consist of a few original pieces in English and Latin, and transla- tions from Petrarch and Pindar ; paraphrases of Turkish and Chinese odes, hymns on subjects of Hindoo mythology, Indian Tales, and a few songs from the Persian. Of these the beautiful lyric from Hafiz is the most valuable. The taste of Sir William Jones was early turned towards eastern poetry, in which he was captivated with new images, expres- sions, and allegories, but there is a want of chaste- ness and simplicity in most of these productions. The name of their illustrious author ‘ reflects credit,’ as Campbell remarks, ‘ on poetical biography, but his secondary fame as a eomposer shows that the palm of poetry is not likely to be won, even by great genius, without exclusive devotion to the pur- suit.’ An Ode, in Imitation of Alcceus. What constitutes a state ? Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound, Thick wall or moated gate ; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ; Not bays and broad-armed ports. Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; Not starred and spangled courts. Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No : men, high-minded men. With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den, •\s beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; Men who their duties know. But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain. Prevent the long-aimed blow. And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : These constitute a state. And sovereign Law, that state’s collected will, O’er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill ; Smit by her sacred frown. The fiend Discretion like a vapour sinks. And e’en the all-dazzling Crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Such was this heaven-loved isle. Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore! No more shall Freedom smile ? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more i Since all must life resign. Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave, ’Tis folly to decline. And steal inglorious to the silent grave. * As respects sleep, the example of Sir Walter Scott may be adaed to that of Sir William Jones, for the great novelist has stated that he reqxiired seven hours of total unconsciousness to fit him for the duties of the day. A Persian Song of Ilafiz. Sweet maid, if thou would’st charm ray sight. And bid these arms thy neck enfold ; That rosy cheek, that lily hand. Would give thy poet more delight Than all Bocara’s vaunted gold. Than all the gems of Samarcand. Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow. And bid thy pensive heart be glad, Whate’er the frotvning zealots say ; Tell them, their Eden cannot show A stream so clear as Rocnabad, A bower so sweet as Mosellay. O! when these fair perfidious maids. Whose eyes our secret haunts infest. Their dear destructive charms display. Each glance my tender breast invades. And robs my wounded soul of rest. As Tartars seize their destined prey. In vain with love our bosoms glow : Can all our tears, can all our sighs. New lustre to those charms impart ? Can cheeks, where living roses blow. Where nature spreads her richest dyes. Require the borrowed gloss of art ? Speak not of fate : ah ! change the theme And talk of odours, talk of wine. Talk of the flowers that round us bloom , ’Tis all a cloud, ’tis all a dream ; To love and joy thy thoughts confine, Nor hope to pierce the sacred gloom. Beauty has such resistless power. That even the chaste Egyptian dame Sighed for the blooming Hebrew boy: For her how fatal was the hour. When to the banks of Nilus came A youth so lovely and so coy ! But ah 1 sweet maid, my counsel hear (Youth should attend when those adciso Whom long experience renders sage) : While music charms the ravished ear ; While sparkling cups delight our eyes. Be gay, and scorn the frowms of age. What cruel answer have I heard ? And yet, by Heaven, I love thee still : Can aught be cruel from thy lip 1 Yet say, how fell that bitter word From lips which streams of sweetness fill. Which nought but drops of honey sip ? Go boldly forth, my simple lay. Whose accents flow with artless ease. Like orient pearls at random strung ; Thy notes are sweet, the damsels say ; But oh ! far sweeter, if they please The nymph for whom these notes are sung ! The Conclvding Sentence of Berkeley’s Siris Imitates Before thy mystic altar, heavenly Truth, I kneel in manhood as I knelt in youth : Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay. And life’s last shade be brightened by thy ray : Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below. Soar without bound, without consuming glow.* * The following is the last sentthcc of the Siris : — ‘ He that would make a real progress in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as youth, the latter growth as well as the first fruits, at the altar of Truth.’ 117 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF TO 1'iat Tctrastic — From ihe 1‘ersian. On parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weepiii" thou sat’st while all around thee smiled ; So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep. Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep. FRANCIS FAWKES. Francis Fawkes (1721-1777) translated Ana- creon, Sappho, llion, and other classic poets, and wrote some jileasing original verses. lie was a clergyman, and died vicar of Ilayes, in Kent. Fawkes enjojfpd the friendship of Johnson and Warton ; but, however classic in his tastes and studies, he seems, like Oldys, to have relished a cup of English ale. The following song is still, and will always be, a favourite ; — 77ie Brown Jug. Dear Tom, thisbrown jug that now foams with mild ale, (In which 1 will drink to sweet Nan of the vale) Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul. As e’er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl ; In bousing about ’tivas his praise to excel. And among jolly topers he bore olF the bell. It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease. In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please. With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away. And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay. His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut. And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt. His body when long in the ground it had lain. And time into clay had resolved it again, A potter found out in its covert so snug. And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug; Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale, So here’s to my lovely sweet Nan of the vale 1 Johnson acknowledged that ‘ Frank Fawkes had done the Odes of Anacreon very finely.’ william whitehead. William Whitehead (1715-1785) succeeded to the office of poet-laureate, after it had been re- fused by Gray. He was the son of a baker in Cam- bridge, and distinguished himself at Winchester school, on leaving which he obtained a scholarship at Clare-hall, in the university of his native town. He was afterwards tutor to the son of the Earl of Jersey. Whitehead had a taste for the drama, and wrote The Roman Father, and Creusa, two indifferent plays. After he had received his appointment as laureate, he was attacked by Churchill, and a host of inferior satirists, but he wisely made no replJ^ In the family of Lord .Jersey he enjoyed comfort and happiness, till death, at seventy, put a period to his inoffensive life. Variety . [This easy and playful poem opens with the description of a rural pair of easy fortune, who live much apart from society.] Two smiling springs had waked the flowers That paint the meads, or fringe the bowers, (Ye lovers, lend your wondering ears. Who count by months, and not by years). Two smiling springs had chaplets wove To crotvn their solitude, and love : AVhen, lo ! they find, they can’t tell how, Their walks are not so pleasant now. The seasons sure were changed ; the place Had, somehow, got a different face. Some blast had struck the cheerful scene ; The lawns, the woods were not so green. The purling rill, which murmured by. And once was liquid harmony, Hccame a sluggish, reedy pool ; The days grew hot, the evenings cool. The moon, with all the starry reign. Were melancholy’s silent train. And then the tedious winter night — They could not read by candle-light. Full oft, unknowing why they did, They called in adventitious aid. A faithful favourite dog (’twas thus With Tobit and Telemachut) Amused their steps ; and for a while They viewed his gambols with a smile. The kitten, too, was comical. She played so oddly with her tail. Or in the glass was plea.sed to find Another cat, and peeped behind. A courteous neighbour at the door. Was deemed intrusive noi.se no more. For rural visits, now and then. Are right, as men must live with men. Then cousin Jenny, fresh from town, A new recruit, a dear delight ! Made many a heavy hour go down. At mom, at noon, at eve, at night : Sure they could hear her jokes forever. She was so sprightly and so clever! Yet neighbours were not quite the thing— What joy, alas! could converse bring With awkward creatures bred at home — The dog grew dull, or troublesome. The cat had spoiled the kitten’s merit. And, with her youth, had lost her spirit. And jokes rejieated o’er and o’er. Had quite exhausted Jenny’s store. • — ‘ And then, my dear, I can’t abide This always sauntering side by side.’ ‘ Enough!’ he cries, ‘ the reason’s plain : For causes never rack your brain. Our neighbours are like other folks ; Skip’s playful tricks, and Jenny’s jokes. Are still delightful, still would please, Were we, my dear, ourselves at ease. Look round, with an impartial eye, On yonder fields, on yonder sky; The azure cope, the flowers below. With all their wonted colours glow ; The rill still murmurs ; and the moon Shines, as she did, a softer sun. No change has made the seasons fail. No comet bru.shed us with his tail. The scene’s the same, the same the weather — We lire, my dear, too mveh together.' Agreed. A rich old uncle dies. And added wealth the means supplies. With eager haste to town they flew. Where all must please, for all was new. * * Why should we paint, in tedious song. How every day, and all day long. They drove at first with curious haste Through Lud’s vast town ; or, as they passed ’Midst risings, fallings, and repairs Of streets on streets, and squares on squares. Describe how strong their wonder grew At buildings — and at builders too » » * When Night her murky pinions spread. And sober folks retire to bed. To every public place they flew. Where Jenny told them who was who. Money was always at command. And tripped with pleasure hand in hand. Money was equipage, was show, Gallini’s, Almaek’s, and Soho ; 118 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. dr james urainosb. The pasie-partout through every vein Of (li.ssipatioii’s hydra reign. * * Sufiice it, that by just degrees They readied all heights, and rose with ease ; (For beauty wins its way uncalled. And ready dupes are ne’er black-balled.) Each gambling dame she knew, and he Knew every shark of quality ; From the grave cautious few who live On thoughtless youth, and living thrive, To the light train who mimic France, And the soft sons of nonchalance. While Jenny, now no more of use, Excuse succeeding to excuse. Grew piqued, and prudently withdrew 'I shilling whist, and chicken loo. Advanced to fashion’s wavering head. They now, where once they followed, led ; Devised new systems of delight, A-bed an day, and up all night. In different circles reigned supreme ; Wives copiei her, and husbands him ; Till so divinely life ran on. So separate, so quite bon-ton. That, meeting in a public place. They scarcely knew each other’s face. At last they met, by his desire, A tite-d-tite across the fire ; Looked in each other’s face awhile. With half a tear, and half a smile. The ruddy health, which wont to grace With manly glow his rural face. Now scarce retained its faintest streak. So sallow was his leathern cheek. She, lank and pale, and hollow-eyed. With rouge had striven in vain to hide What once was beauty, and repair The rapine of the midnight air. Silence is eloquence, ’tis said. Both wished to speak, both hung the head. At length it bur.st. ‘ ’Tis time,’ he cries, ‘ When tired of folly, to be wise. Are you too tired V - — then checked a groan. She wept consent, and he went on : ‘ How delicate the married life ! You love your husband, I my wife ; Not even satiety could tame. Nor dissipation quench the flame. True to the bias of our kind, Tis happiness we wish to find. In rural scenes retired we sought In vain the dear, delicious draught, Though blest with love’s indulgent store, We found we wanted something more. Twas company, ’twas friends to share The bliss we languished to declare ; ’Twas social converse, change of scene, To soothe the sullen hour of spleen ; Short absences to wake desire. And sweet regrets to fan the fire. We left the lonesome place, and found, In dissipation’s giddy round, A thousand novelties to wake The springs of life, and not to break. As, from the nest not wandering far. In light excursions through the air, The feathered tenants of the grove Around in mazy circles move, Sip the cool springs that murmuring flow. Or taste the blossom on the bough ; We sported freely with the rest ; And still, returning to the nest. In easy mirth we chatted o’er The trifles of the day before. Behold us now, dissolving quite In the full ocean of delight ; In pleasures every hour employ. Immersed in all the world calls joy ; Our affluence easing the expense Of splendour and magnificence ; Our company, the exalted set Of all that’s gay, and all that’s great : Nor happy yet ! and where’s the wonder ! We live, my dear, too much asunder J' The moral of my tale is this ; Variety’s the soul of bliss; But such variety alone As makes our home the more our own As from the heart’s impelling power The life-blood pours its genial store ; Though taking each a various way. The active streams meandering play Through every artery, every vein. All to the heart return again ; From thence resume their new career, But still return and centre there ; So real happiness below Must from the heart sincerely flow ; Nor, listening to the syren’s song. Must stray too far, or rest too long. All human pleasures thither tend ; Must there begin, and there must end ; Must there recruit their languid force, And gain fresh vigour from their source. DR JAMES GRAINGER. Dr James Grainger (1721-1766) was, according to his own statement, seen by Mr Prior, the bio- grapher of Goldsmith, ‘of a gentleman’s family in Cumberland.’ He studied medicine in Edinburgh, was in the army, and, on the peace, established him- self as a medical practitioner in London. His poem of Solitude appeared in 1755, and was praised by Johnson, who considered the opening ‘ very noble.’ Grainger wrote several other pieces, translated Tibullus, and was a critic in the Monthly Review. In 1759 he went to St Christophers, in the West Indies, commenced practising as a physician, and married a lady of fortune. During Ids residence there, he wrote liis poem of the Sugar-Cane, which Shenstone thought capable of being rendered a good poem ; and the arguments in which, Southey says, are ‘ ludicrously flat and formal.’ One point is cer- tainly ridiculous enough ; ‘ he very poetically,’ says Campbell, ‘ dignifies the poor negroes with the name of “ swains.” ’ Grainger died in the West Indies. Ode to Solitude. 0 Solitude, romantic maid ! Whether by nodding towers you tread. Or haunt the desert’s trackless gloom. Or hover o’er the yawning tomb. Or climb the Andes’ clifted side. Or by the Nile’s coy source abide. Or starting from your half-year’s sleep. From Hecla view the thawing deep. Or, at the purple dawn of day, Tadmor’s marble wastes survey. You, recluse, again, I woo. And again your steps pursue- Plumed Conceit himself surveying, Folly with her shadow playing. Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence, Bloated empiric, puffed Pretence, Noise that through a trumpet speaks. Laughter in loud peals that breaks. Intrusion with a fopling’s face, (Ignorant of time and place), 11» PROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1780. SpiirkH of fire Dissension blowing, Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing. Restraint’s stiff neck. Grimace’s leer. Squint-eyed Censure’s artful sneer. Ambition’s buskins, steeped in blood, Fly thy presence. Solitude. Sage Reflection, bent with years. Conscious Virtue void of fears, Wuflled Silence, wood-nymph shy, Meditation’s piercing eye. Halcyon Peace on moss reclined. Retrospect that scans the mind. Wrapt earth-gazing Reverie, Blushing artless Modesty, Health that snuffs the morning air. Full-eyed Tnith with bosom bare. Inspiration, Nature’s child. Seek the solitary wild. You, with the tragic mu.se retired. The wi.se Euripides inspired ; Y ou taught the sadly -pleasing air That Athens saved from ruins bare. You gave the Cean’s tears to flow. And unlocked the springs of wo ; You penned what exiled Naso thought, And poured the melancholy note. With Petrarch o’er Vaucluse you strayed. When death snatched his long-loved maid ; Y ou taught the rocks her loss to mourn, Y e strewed with flowers her virgin urn. And late in Hagley you were seen. With bloodshot eyes, and sombre mien; Hymen his yellow vestment tore. And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore. But chief your own the solemn lay That wept Narchssa young and gay ; Darkness clapped her sable wing. While you touched the mournful string; Anguish left the pathless wild. Grim-faced Melancholy smiled. Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn. The starry host put back the dawn ; Aside their harps even seraphs flung To hear thy sweet Complaint, 0 Young! When all nature’s hushed asleep. Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep. Soft you leave your cavemed den. And wander o’er the works of men ; But when Phosphor brings the dawn By her dappled coursers drawn, Again you to the wild retreat And the early huntsman meet. Where, as you pensive pace along. You catch the distant shepherd’s song. Or brush from herbs the pearly dew. Or the rising primrose view. Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings, Y ou mount, and nature with you sings. But when mid-day fervours glow. To upland airy shades you go. Where never sunburnt woodman came. Nor sportsman chased the timid game ; And there beneath an oak reclined. With drowsy waterfalls behind, Y ou sink to rest. Till the tuneful bird of night From the neighbouring poplar’s height. Wake you with her solemn strain. And teach pleased Echo to complain. With you roses brighter bloom. Sweeter every sweet perfume ; Purer every fountain flows. Stronger every wildling grows. Let those toil for gold who please, Or for fame renounce their ease. What is fame ? an empty bubble. Gold ? a transient shining trouble. Let them for their country bleed. What was Sidney’s, Raleigh’s meed! Man’s not worth a moment’s pain, Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain. Then let me, sequestered fair. To your sibyl grot repair ; On yon hanging cliff it stand.s, Scooped by nature’s salvage hands. Bosomed in the gloomy shade Of cypre.ss not with age decayed. Where the owl still-hooting sits. Where the bat incessant flits, There in loftier strains I’ll sing Whence the changing seasons spring; Tell how storms deform the skies. Whence the waves subside and rise. Trace the comet’s blazing tail. Weigh the planets in a scale ; Bend, great God, before thy shrine. The bournless macrocosm’s thine. * JAMES MERRICK. James Merrick (1720-17fifi) was a distinguished classical scholar, and tutor to Lord North at Oxford. He took orders, but was unable to do duty, from delicate health. Merrick wrote some hymns, ana attempted a version of the psalms, with no great success. We subjoin an amusing and instructive fable by this worthy divine : — The Chameleon. Oft has it been my lot to mark A proud, conceited, talking .spark. With eyes that hardly served at most To guard their master ’gainst a post ; Yet round the world the blade has been. To see whatever could be seen. Returning from his finished tour. Grown ten times perter than before ; Whatever word you chance to drop. The travelled fool your mouth will stop: ‘ Sir, if my judgment you’ll allow — I’ve seen — and sure I ought to know.’ — So begs you’d pay a due submission, And acquiesce in his decision. Two travellers of such a cast, As o’er Arabia’s wilds they passed. And on their way, in friendly chat. Now talked of this, and then of that ; Discoursed awhile, ’mongst other matter. Of the Chameleon’s form and nature. ‘ A stranger animal,’ cries one, ‘ Sure never lived beneath the sun : A lizard’s body lean and long, A fish’s head, a serpent’s tongue. Its foot with triple claw disjoined ; And what a length of tail behind ! How slow its pace ! and then its hue — Who ever saw so fine a blue V ‘ Hold there,’ the other quick replies, ‘ ’Tis green, I saw it with these eyes. As late with open mouth it lay. And warmed it in the sunny ray ; Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed. And saw it eat the air for food.’ ‘ I’ve seen it, sir, as well as you. And must again affirm it blue ; At leisure I the beast surveyed Extended in the cooling shade.’ ‘ ’Tis green, ’tis green, sir, I assure ye.* ‘ Green 1’ cries the other in a fury : 120 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOHN CUNNINOHAH. ‘ Why, air, d’ye think I’ve lost my eyes V ‘ ’Twere no great loss,’ the friend replies ; ‘ h'or if they always serve you thus, You’ll find them but of little use.’ So high at last the contest rose. From words they almost came to blows ; When luckily came by a third ; To him the question they referred : And begged he’d tell them, if he knew, Whether the thing was green or blue. ‘ Sir's,’ cries the umpire, ‘ cease your pother ; The creature’s neither one nor t’other. I caught the animal last night. And viewed it o’er by candle-light : I marked it well, ’twas black as jet — You stare — but sirs, I’ve got it yet. And can produce it.’ — ‘ Pray, sir, do ; I’ll lay my life the thing is blue.' ‘And I’ll be sworn, that when you’ve seen The reptile, you’ll pronounce him green.’ ‘ Well, then, at once to ease the doubt,’ Replies the man, ‘ I’ll turn him out : And when before your eyes I’ve set him. If you don’t find him black. I’ll eat him.’ He said ; and full before their sight Produced the beast, and lo !— ’twas white. Both stared, the man looked wondrous wise — ‘ My children,’ the Chameleon cries, (Then first the creature found a tongue) ‘You all are right, and all are wrong : When next you talk of what you view, Think others see as well as you: Nor wonder if you find that none Prefers your eye-sight to his own.’ pieces, of mediocre merit. The following seems to have been dictated by real feeling, as well as Quaker principle : — [Ode on Hearing the Drumi] I hate that drum’s discordant sound. Parading round, and round, and round: To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields, And lures from cities and from fields, To sell their liberty for charms Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms ; And when Ambition’s voice commands. To march, and fight, and fall in foreign lands. I hate that drum’s discordant sound. Parading round, and round, and round: To me it talks of ravaged plains. And burning towns, and ruined swains. And mangled limbs, and dying groans. And widows’ tears, and orphans’ moans ; And all that misery’s hand bestows To fill the catalogue of human woes. ■WILLIAM OLDTS. William Oldys (1696-1761) was a zealous lite- rary antiquary, and Norroy King-at-Arms. He wrote a Life of Raleigh, and assisted every author or bookseller who required a leaf from his volumin- ous collections. His obscure diligence amassed vari- ous interesting particulars of literary history. The following exquisite little Anacreontic was from the pen of Oldys, ■who occasionally indulged in deep potations of ale, for which he was caricatured by his friend and brother antiquary, Grose : — JOHN SCOTT. John Scott (1730-1783) was our only Quaker poet till Bernard Barton graced the order with a iprig of laurel Scott was the son of a draper in Boott’s Grotto, Amwell. London, who retired to Amwell. in Hertfordshire, and here the poet spent his days, improving his gar- den and grounds. He published several poetical Song, made Extempore hy a Gentleman, occasioned hy a Ely Drinking out of his Cup of Ale. Busy, curious, thirsty fly. Drink with me, and drink as I ; Freely welcome to my cup, Could’st thou sip and sip it up. Make the most of life you may. Life is short, and wears away. Both alike are mine and thine, Hastening quick to their decline : Thine’s a summer, mine no more. Though repeated to threescore ; Threescore summers, when they’re gone. Will appear as short as one.* JOHN CUNNINGHAM. John Cunningham (1729-1773), the son of a wine-cooper in Dublin, was a respectable actor, and performed several years in Digges’s company, Edin- burgh. In his latter years he resided in Newcastle- on-Tyne, in the house of a ‘ generous printer,’ whose hospitality for some time supported the poet. Cun- ningham’s pieces are full of pastoral simplicity and lyrical melody. He aimed at nothing high, and seldom failed. Song — May -Eve, or Kate of Aberdeen, The silver moon’s enamoured beam, Steals softly through the night. To wanton with the winding stream. And kiss reflected light. * Oldys’s song was included in a ‘ Select Coil x:tion of English Songs,* published by J. Johnson in 1703. Bums, the Scottish poet, had a copy of this work (one of the volumes of which is now before us), and we observe he has honoured tile extem- pore lyric of the old antiquary with pencil marks in the mar- gin. In his Lines written in l'*riars* Carso Hermitage, Bums has echoed some of Oldys’s thoughts and expressions. FnoM 1727 CYCLOP^ilDIA OF To beds of state po, balmy sleep, ("I'is where you’ve seldom been,) May’s vi"il while the shepherds keep With Kate of Aberdeen. Upon the green the virgins wait, In rosy chaplets gay. Till morn unbars her golden gate. And gives the promised May. Methinks I hear the maids declare, The promised May, when seen. Not half so fragrant, half so fair. As Kate of Aberdeen. Strike up the tabor’s boldest notes. We’ll rouse the nodding grove ; The nested birds shall raise their throats. And hail the maid I love. And see — the matin lark mistakes. He quits the tufted green : Fond bird ! ’tis not the morning breaks, ’Tis Kate of Aberdeen. Now lightsome o’er the level mead, Where midnight fairies rove. Like them the jocund dance we’ll lead. Or tune the reed to love: For see, the rosy May draws nigh ; She claims a virgin queen ; And hark! the happy shepherds cry, ’Tis Kate of Aberdeen. Content, a Pastoral. O’er moorlands and mountains, rude, barren, and bare, As wildered and wearied I roam, A gentle young shepherdess sees my despair. And leads me o’er lawns to her home. Yellow sheaves from rich Ceres her cottage had crowmed. Green rushes were strewed on her floor. Her casement sweet woodbines crept wantonly round. And decked the sod seats at her door. We sat ourselves down to a cooling repast. Fresh fruits, and she culled me the best ; While thrown from my guard by some glances she cast. Love slily stole into my breast! I told my soft wishes ; she sweetly replied (Ye virgins, her voice was divine!) Fve rich ones rejected, and great ones denied. But take me fond shepherd — I’m thine. Her air was so modest, her aspect so meek. So simple, yet sweet were her charms ! I kissed the ripe roses that glowed on her cheek. And locked the loved maid in my arms. Now jocund together we tend a few sheep. And if, by yon prattler, the stream. Reclined on her bosom, 1 sink into sleep. Her image still softens my dream. Together we range o’er the slow-rising hills. Delighted with pastoral views. Or rest on the rock whence the streamlet distils. And point out new themes for my muse. To pomp or proud titles she ne’er did aspire. The damsel’s of humble descent ; The cottager Peace is well-kno\vn for her sire. And shepherds have named her Content. NATHANIEL COTTON. Nathaniel Cotton (1721-1788), wrote Visions in Verse, for children, and a volume of poetical Miscellanies. He followed the medical profession in St Albans, and was distinguished for bis skill in the TO 1780. treatment of cases of insanity. Cowper, his patient, bears evidence to his ‘well-known humanity and sweetness of temper.’ The Fireside. Dear Chloe, while the busy crowd. The vain, the wealthy, and the proud. In folly’s maze advance ; Though singularity and pride Be called our choice, we’ll step aside. Nor join the giddy dance. From the gay world we’ll oft retire To our own family and fire. Where love our hours employs ; No noisy neighbour enters here ; Nor intermeddling stranger near. To spoil our heartfelt joys. If solid happiness we prize. Within our breast this jewel lies ; And they are fools who roam : The world has nothing to bestow ; From our own selves our joys must flow. And that dear hut — our home. Of rest was Noah’s dove bereft. When with impatient wing she left That safe retreat, the ark ; Giving her vain excursion o’er. The disappointed bird once more Explored the sacred bark. Though fools spurn Hymen’s gentle powers, We, who improve his golden hours. By sweet experience know. That marriage, rightly understood. Gives to the tender and the good A paradise below. Our babes shall richest comforts bring ; If tutored right, they’ll prove a spring Whence pleasures ever rise : We’ll form their minds, with studious care^ To all that’s manly, good, and fair. And train them for the skies. While they our wisest hours engage. They’ll joy our youth, support our age. And crown our hoary hairs : They’ll grow in virtue every day ; And thus our fondest loves repay. And recompense our cares. No borrowed joys, they’re all our own. While to the world we live unknown. Or by the world forgot : Monarchs! we envy not your state ; We look with pity on the great. And bless our humbler lot. Our portion is not large, indeed ; But then how little do we need ! For nature’s calls are few: In this the art of living lies. To want no more than may suffice. And make that little do. We’ll therefore relish with content . Whate’er kind Providence has sent. Nor aim beyond our power; For, if our stock be very small, ’Tis prudence to enjoy it all. Nor lose the present hour To be resigned when ills betide. Patient when favours are denied. And pleased with favours given ; Dear Chloe, this is wisdom’s part ; This is that incense of the heart. Whose fragrance smells to heaven. 122 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ciiristopheu AnsrKT. We’ll ask no long protracted treat, Since winter-life is seldom sweet ; ' Hut when our feast is o’er, Grateful from table we’ll arise, Nor grudge our sons with envious eyes The relics of our store. Thus, hand in hand, through life we’ll go; Its cheqiua-ed paths of joy and wo With cautious steps we’ll tread ; Quit its vain scenes without a tear. Without a trouble or a fear. And mingle with the dead: While conscience, like a faithful friend. Shall through the gloomy vale attend. And cheer our dying breath ; Shall, when all other comforts cease. Like a kind angel, whisper peace. And smooth the bed of death. CHRISTOPHER ANSTEV. Christopher Anstey (1724-1805) was author of The New Bath Guide, a light satirical and humorous poem, which appeared in 1766, and set an example in this description of composition, that has since been followed in ntunerous instances, and with great success. Smollett, in his Humphry Clinker, pub- lished five years later, may be almost said to Inave reduced the ‘ New Bath Guide’ to prose. IMany of the characters and situations are exactly the same as those of Anstey. This poem seldom rises above the tone of conversation, but is easy, sportive, and entertaining. The fashionable Fribbles of the day, the chat, scandal, and amusements of those attend- ing the wells, and the canting hypocrisy of some sectarians, are depicted, sometimes with indelicacy, but always with force and liveliness. Mr Anstey was son of the Rev. Dr Anstey, rector of Brinke- ley, in Cambridgeshire, a gentleman who possessed a considerable landed property, which tlie poet after- wards inherited. lie was educated at Eton school, and elected to King’s college, Cambridge, and in both places he distinguished himself as a classical scholar. In consequence of his refus,al to deliver certain declamations, Anstey quarrelled ivith the heads of the university, and was denied the usual degree. In the epilogue to the ‘ New Bath Guide,’ he alludes to this circumstance — Granta, sweet Granta, where studious of ease. Seven years did I sleep, and then .lost my degrees. He then went into the army, and married Miss Calvert, sister to his friend John Calvert, Esq., of Allbury Hall, in Hertfordshire, through whose in- fluence he was returned to parliament for the borough of Hertford. He was a frequent resident in the city of Bath, and a favourite in the fashionable and literary coteries of the place. In 1766 was pub- lished his celebrated poem, which instantly became popular. He wrote various other pieces — A Poem on the Death of the Marquis of Tavistock, 1767 ; An Election Ball, in Poetical Letters from Mr Inkle at Bath to his Wife at Gloucester ; a Paraphrase of the Thirteenth Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin- thians; a satire entitled The Priest Dissected; Specu- lation, or a Defence of Mankind (1780); Liberalih/, or Memoirs of a Decayed Macaroni (1788); The Farmer's Daughter, a Poetical Tale (1795); and various other copies of occasional verses. Anstey also translated Gray’s Elegy into Latin verse, and addressed an elegant Latin Ode to Dr Jenner. While the ‘ New Bath Guide’ was ‘ the only thing in fashion,’ and relished for its novel and original kind of humour, the other productions of Anstey ivere neglected by the public, and have never been revived. In the enjoyment of liis paternal estate, the poet, hoivevcr, was iudejiendent of the public support, and he took p.art in the sports of the field up to his eightieth year. While on a visit to his son-in-law, Mr Bosanquet, at Harnage, Wiltshire, he was taken ill, and died on the 3d of August 1805. The Public Breakfast. Now ray lord had the honour of coming down post, To pay his respects to so famous a toast ; In hopes he her ladyship’s favour might win, By playing the part of a host at an inn. I’m sure he’s a person of great resolution, Though delicate nerves, and a weak constitution ; For he carried us all to a place cross the river. And vowed that the rooms were too hot for his livei • He said it would greatly our pleasure promote. If we all for Spring Gardens set out in a boat : I never as yet could his reason explain. Why we all sallied forth in the wind and the rain } For sure such confusion was never yet known ; Here a cap and a hat, there a cardinal blown : While his lordship, embroidered and powdered all o’er, Was bowing, and handing the ladies ashore : How the Misses did huddle, and scuddle, and run ; One would think to be wet must be very good fun ; For by waggling their tails, they all seemed to take pains To moisten their pinions like ducks when it rains ; And ’twas pretty to see, how like birds of a feather. The people of quality flocked all together ; All pressing, addressing, caressing, and fond. Just the same as those animals are in a pond : Y ou’ve read all their names in the news, I suppose, But, for fear you have not, take the list as it goes ; There was Lady Grease^vTister, And Madam Van-Twister, Her ladyship’s sister : Lord Cram, and Lord Vulture, Sir Brandish O’Culter, W'ith Marshal Carouzer, And old Lady Mouzer, And the great Hanoverian Baron Panzmowzer ; Besides many others who all in the rain went. On purpose to honour this great entertainment : The company made a most brilliant appearance. And ate bread and butter with great perseverance ; All the chocolate too, that my lord set before ’em. The ladies despatched with the utmost decorum. Soft musical numbers were heard all around. The horns and the clarions echoing sound. Sweet were the strains, as odorous gales that blow O’er fragrant banks, where pinks and roses grow. The peer was quite ravished, while close to his side Sat Lady Bunbutter, in beautiful pride ! Oft turning his eyes, he with rapture surveyed All the powerful charms she so nobly displayed : As when at the feast of the great Alexander, Timotheus, the musical son of Thersander, Breathed heavenly measures. * « ♦ 0 ! had I a voice that was stronger than steel. With twice fifty tongues to express what I feel. And as many good mouths, yet I never could utter All the speeches my lord made to Lady Bunbutter! So polite all the time, that he ne’er touched a bit. While she ate up his rolls and applauded his wit ; For they tell me that men of time taste, when they treat, Should talk a great deal, but they never should eat : And if that be the fashion, I never will give Any grand entertainment as long as I live: For I’m of opinion, ’tis proper to cheer The stomach and bowels as well as the ear. Nor me did the charming concerto of Abel Regale like the breakfast I saw on the tabic : 123 FROM 1727 CYCL0P^:DIA of to 1780. I freely will own I the muffins ])icferrcd 'J'o !ill the genteel conversation 1 heard. K’en though I’d the honour of sitting between My Lady StuH’-dainask and I’eggy Moreen, Who both flew to Hath in the nightly machine. Cries I’eggy, ‘This place is enchantingly pretty; We never can see such a thing in the city. You may spend all your lifetime in Cateaton Street, And never so civil a gentleman meet ; Y ou may talk what you please ; you may search Lon- don through ; You may go to Carlisle’s, and to Almanac’s too ; And I’ll give you my head if you find such a host, for coffee, tea, chocolate, butter, and toast: How he welcomes at once all the world and his wife, And how civil to folk he ne’er saw in his life 1’ ‘ These horns,’ cries my lady, ‘ so tickle one’s ear. Lard ! what would 1 give that Sir Simon was here 1 To the next public breakfast Sir Simon shall go. For I find here are folks one may venture to know : Sir Simon would gladly his lordship attend, And my lord would be pileased with so cheerful a friend.’ So when we had wasted more bread at a breakfast Than the poor of our parish have ate for this week past, I saw, all at once, a prodigious great throng Come bustling, and rustling, and jostling along ; For his lordship was pleased that the company now To my Lady Bunbutter should curtsy and bow ; And iny lady was pleased too, and seemed vastly proud At once to receive all the thanks of a crowd. And when, like Chaldeans, we all had adored This beautiful image set up by my lord. Some few insignificant folk went away. Just to follow the employments and calls of the day; But those who knew better their time how to spend, The fiddling and dancing all chose to attend. Miss Clunch and Sir Toby performed a cotillon. Just the same as our Susan and Bob the postilion ; All the while her mamma was expressing her joy. That her daughter the morning so well could employ. Now, why should the Muse, my dear mother, relate The misfortunes that fall to the lot of the great 1 As homeward we came — ’tis with sorrow you’ll hear What a dreadful disaster attended the peer; For whether some envious god had decreed That a Naiad should long to ennoble her breed ; Or whether his lordship was charmed to behold Flis face in the stream, like Narcissus of old ; In handing old Lady Comefidget and daughter. This obsequious lord tumbled into the water; But a nymph of the flood brought him safe to the boat. And I left all the ladies a-cleaning his coat. MRS THRALE. Mrs Thrale (afterwards Mrs Piozzi), who lived for many years in terms of intimate friendship with Dr Johnson, is authoress of an interesting little moral poem. The Three Warnings, which is so superior to her other compositions, that it has been supposed to have been partly written, or at least corrected, by Johnson. This lady w'as a native of Wales, being born at Bodville, in Caernarvonshire, in 1740. In 1764 she was married to Mr Henry Thrale, an eminent brewer, who had taste enough to appreciate the rich and varied conversation of Johnson, and whose hospitality and wealth afforded the great moralist an asylum in his house. After the death of this excellent man, his widow married Signior Piozzi, an Italian music-master, a step which Johnson never could forgive. The lively lady proceeded with her husband on a continental tour, and they took up their abode for some time on the banks of the Arno. She afterwards published a volume of miscellaneous pieces, entitled The Flo- rence Miscelltiny, and afforded a subject for the Sivtire of Gifford, whose ‘Baviad and Mmviad’ was written to lash the Della Cruscan songsters with whom Mrs Piozzi was associated. The Anecdotes and Letters of Dr Johnson, by Mrs Piozzi, are the only valuable works which proceeded from her pen. She was a minute and clever observer of men and manners, but deficient in judgment, and not parti- cular as to the accuracy of her relations. Mrs Piozzi died at Clifton in 1822. T1i£ Three Warnings. The tree of deepest root is found Least willing still to quit the ground ; ’Twas therefore said by ancient sages. That love of life increased with years So much, that in our latter stages. When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages, The greatest love of life appears. This great affection to believe, Which all confess, but few perceive. If old assertions can’t prevail. Be pleased to hear a modern tale. When sports went round, and all were gay, On neighbour Dodson’s wedding-day. Death called aside the jocund groom With him into another room. And looking grave — ‘ You must,’ says he, ‘ Quit your sweet bride, and come with me.’ ‘ V/ith you ! and quit ray Susan’s side 2 With you 1’ the hapless husband cried ; ‘ Young as I am, ’tis monstrous hard! Besides, in truth, I’m not prepared : My thoughts on other matters go ; This is my wedding-day, you know.’ What more he urged I have not heard, His reasons could not well be stronger; So death the poor delinquent spared. And left to live a little longer. Yet calling up a serious look. His hour-glass trembled while he spoke — ‘Neighbour,’ he said, ‘ farewell ! no more Shall Death disturb your mirthful hour : And farther, to avoid all blame Of cruelty upon my name. To give you time for preparation. And fit you for your future station. Three several warnings you shall have. Before you’re summoned to the grave ; Willing for once ITl quit my prey. And grant a kind reprieve ; In hopes you’ll have no more to say ; But, when I call again this way. Well pleased the world will leave.’ To these conditions both consented. And parted perfectly contented. What next the hero of our tale befell. How long he lived, how wise, how well. How roundly he pursued his course. And smoked his pipe, and stroked his horse, The willing muse shall tell : He chaffered, then he bought and sold. Nor once perceived his growing old, Nor thought of Death as near : His friends not false, his wife no shrew. Many his gains, his children few. He passed his hours in peace. But while he viewed his wealth Increase, While thus along life’s dusty road. The beaten track content he trod. Old Time, whose haste no mortal spares. Uncalled, unheeded, unawares. Brought on his eightieth year. 124 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ALEXANDIR BOSS. And now, one night, in musing mood, As nil alone he sate, The unwelcome messenger of Fate Once more before him stood. Half-killed with anger and surprise, ‘ So soon returned 1’ old Dodson cries. ‘ So soon d’ye call it 1’ Death replies : ‘ Surely, my friend, you’re but in jest I Since I was here before ’Tis six-nnd-thirty years at least. And you are now fourscore.’ ‘ So much the worse,’ the clo^vn rejoined ; ‘ To spare the aged would be kind : However, see your search be legal; And your authority — is’t regal ? F.lse you are come on a fool’s errand, M’ith but a secretary’s warrant.* Beside, you promised me Three Warnings, M'hich 1 have looked for nights and mornings ; But for that loss of time and ease, I can recover damages.’ ‘ I know,’ cries Death, ‘ that at the best, I seldom am a welcome guest ; But don’t be captious, friend, at least ; I little thought you’d still be able To stump about your farm and stable : Y our years have run to a great length ; I wish you joy, though, of your strength 1’ ‘ Hold,’ says the farmer, ‘ not so fast ! 1 have been lame these four years past.’ ‘ And no great wonder,’ Death replies : ‘ However, you still keep your eyes ; And sure to see one’s loves and friends. For legs and arms would make amends,’ ‘ Perhaps,’ says Dodson, ‘ so it might. But latterly I’ve lost my sight.’ ‘ This is a shocking tale, ’tis true ; But still there’s comfort left for you : Each strives your sadness to amuse ; 1 warrant you hear all the news.’ ‘ There’s none,’ cries he ; ‘ and if there were, I’m grown so deaf, I could not hear.’ ‘ Nay, then,’ the spectre stern rejoined, These are unjustifiable yearnings ; If you are lame,»and deaf, and blind. You’ve had your Three sufficient Warnings; So come along, no more we’ll part ;’ He said, and touched him with his dart. And now Old Dodson, turning pale. Yields to his fate — so ends my tale. THOMAS MOSS. The Rev. Thomas Moss, who died in 1808, minis- ter of Brierly Hill, and of Trentham, in Staffordshire, published anonymously, in 1769, a collection of mis- cellaneous poems, forming a thin quarto, which he had printed at Wolverhampton. One piece was copied by' Dodsley into his ‘ Annual Register,’ and from thence has been transferred (different persons being assigned as the author) into almost every periodical and collection of fugitive verses. This poem is entitled The Beggar (sometimes called The Beggar’s Petition), and contains much pathetic and natural sentiment finely expressed. The Beggar. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man ! Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door. Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span. Oh 1 give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. * An allusion to the illegal warrant used against Wilkes, which was the c.ause of so much contention in its day. These tattered clothes my poverty bespeak. These hoary locks proclaim my lengthened years ; And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek. Has been the channel to a stream of tears. Yon house, erected on the rising ground. With tempting aspect drew me from my road. For plenty there a residence has found. And grandeur a magnificent abode. (Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor!) Here craving for a morsel of their bread, A pampered menial forced me from the door, To seek a sheltei in a humbler shed. Oh 1 take me to yo >r hospitable dome. Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold ! Short is my passage to the friendly tomb. For I am poor, and miserably old. Should I reveal the source of every grief. If soft humanity e’er touched your breast. Your hands would not withhold the kind relief. And tears of pity could not be repressed. Heaven sends misfortunes — why should we repine? ’Tis Heaven has brought me to the state you see : And your condition may be soon like mine. The child of sorrow, and of misery. A little farm was my paternal lot. Then, like the lark, I sprightly hailed the mom ; But ah ! oppression forced me from my cot ; My cattle died, and blighted was my corn. My daughter — once the comfort of my age 1 Lured by a villain from her native home. Is cast, abandoned, on the world’s wide stage. And doomed in scanty poverty to roam. My tender wife — sweet soother of my care! Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree. Fell — lingering fell, a victim to despair. And left the world to wretchedness and me. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man ! Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, AVhose days are dwindled to the shortest span. Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. SCOTTISH POETS. Though most Scottish authors at this time — as Thomson, Mallet, Hamilton, and Beattie — composed in the English language, a few, stimulated by the success of Allan Ramsay, cultivated their native tongue with considerable success. The popularity of Ramsay’s ‘Tea-Table Miscellany’ led to other collections and to new contributions to Scottish song. In 1751 appeared ‘Yair’s Charmer,’ and in 1769 David Herd published a more complete collec- tion of ‘ Scottish Songs and Ballads,’ which he re- printed, with additions, in 1776. ALEXANDER ROSS. Alexander Ross, a schoolmaster in Lochlee, in Angus, when nearly seventy years of age, in 1768 published at Aberdeen, b)' the advice of Dr Beattie, a volume entitled Ilelenore, or the Fortunate Shep- herdess, a Pastoral Tale in the Scottish Dialect, to which are added a few Songs by the Author. Ross was a good descriptive poet, and some of his songs — as Woo’d, and Married, and a’. The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow — are still popular in Scotland. Being chiefly written in the Kincardineshire dialect (w'hich differs in many expressions, and in pronunciation, from the Lowland Scotch of Burns), Ross is less known out of his native district than he ought to be. Beattie took a warm interest in the ‘ good- 12.5 PROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF liuin )\irc(i, social, happy old man’ — who was inde- pciulciit on £20 a-ycar — and to promote the sale of his volnnie. he addressed a letter and a poetical e[)istle in praise of it to the Aberdeen Journal. The c[)istle is remarkable as Beattie’s only attempt in Aberdeenshire Scotch ; one verse of it is equal to Burns : — 0 bonny arc our greensward hows, Where through tlie birks the burnie rows, And the bee bums, and the ox lows. And saft winds rustle. And shejiherd lads on sunny knowes Blaw the blytho whistle. Boss died in 1784, at the great age of eighty-six. IFoo’cZ, and Married, and o’. The bride cam’ out o’ the byre. And, O, as she dighted her cheeks 1 Sirs, I’m to be married the night. And have neither blankets nor sheets ; Have neither blankets nor sheet.s. Nor scarce a coverlet too ; The bride that has a’ thing to borrow. Has e’en right muckle ado. Woo’d, and married, and a’. Married, and woo’d, and a’ 1 And was she nae very weel off, I'hat was woo’d, and married, and a’ ? Out spake the bride’s father. As he cam’ in frae the pleugh : 0, haud your tongue my dochter. And ye’se get gear enough ; The stirk stands i’ the tether. And our braw bawsint yade. Will carry ye hame your corn — What wad ye be at, ye jade ? Out spake the bride’s mither. What deil needs a’ this pride? 1 had nae a plack in my pouch That night I was a bride ; My gown was linsy-woolsy. And ne’er a sark ava ; And ye hae ribbons and buskins, Mae than ane or twa. Out spake the bride’s brither. As he cam’ in wi’ the kye : Poor Willie wad ne’er hae ta’en ye. Had he kent ye as weel as I ; For ye’re baith proud and saucy, And no for a poor man’s wife ; Gin I canna get a better, I’se ne’er tak ane i’ my life. # * •» JOHN LOWE. John Lowe (1750-1798), a student of divinity', son of the gardener at Kenmore in G.alloway, was author of the fine pathetic lyric, Mary’s t)ream, which he wrote on the death of a gentleman named Miller, a surgeon at sea, who was attached to a Miss M'Ghie, Airds. The poet was tutor in the family of the lady’s father, and was betrothed to her sister. He emigrated to America, however, where he married another female, became dissi- pated, and died in great misery near Fredericks- burgh. Though Lowe wrote numerous other pieces, prompted by poetical feeling and the romantic scenery’ of his native glen, his ballad alone is worthy of preservation. TO 1780. Mary's Dream. The moon had climbed the highest hill Which rises o’er the source of Dee, And from the eastern summit shed Her silver light on tower and tree; When Mary laid her down to sleep. Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea, When, soft and low, a voice was heard, Saying, ‘ Mary, weep no more for me 1’ She from her pillow gently raised Her head, to ask who there might be, And saw young Sandy shivering stand. With visage pale, and hollow ee. ‘ 0 Mary dear, cold is my clay ; It lies beneath a stormy sea. Far, far from thee I sleep in death ; So, Mary, weep no more for me ! Three stormy nights and stormy days We tossed upon the raging main ; And long we strove our bark to save. But ail our striving was in vain. Even then, when horror chilled iiiy blood. My heart W’as filled with love for thee : The storm is past, and I at rest ; So, Mary, weep no more for me ! 0 maiden dear, thyself prepare ; We soon shall meet upon that shore. Where love is free from doubt and care. And thou and I shall part no more 1’ Loud crowed the cock, the shadow fled. No more of Sandy could she see ; But soft the passing spirit said, ‘ Sweet Mary, weep no more for me 1’ LADY ANNE BARNARD. Lady Anne Barnard was authoress of Aula Robin Gray, one of the most perfect, tender, and afiecting, of all our ballads or talcs of humble life. Balcarres HouBe, Fifeshire : where ‘ Auld Robin Gray' was composed. About the year 1771, Lady Anne composed the ballad to an ancient air. It instantly became po- ' 2 (> ENGLISH LITERATURE. rcETS. inilar, but tbe lady kept tbe secret of its author- ship for the long period of fifty years, when, in 1823, she acknowledged it in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, accompanying the disclosure with a full ac- count of tlie circumstances under which it was written. At the same time Lady Anne sent two continuations to the ballad, which, like all other continuations (Don Quixote, perhaps, excepted), are greatly inferior to the original. Indeed, the tale of sorrow is so complete in all its parts, that no addi- tions could be made without marring its simplicity or its pathos. Lady Anne was daughter of James Lindsay, fifth Earl of Balcarres ; she was born 8th December 1750, married in 1793 to Sir Andrew Barnard, librarian to George III., and died, without issue, on the 8th of May 1825. Auld Robin Gray. Wlien the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame. And a’ the warld to sleep are gane ; The waes o’ my heart fa’ in showers frae my ee, VV'hen my gudeman lies sound by me. Young Jamie loo’d me weel, and socht me for his bride ; But saving a croun, he had naething else beside : To mak that croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea ; A.nd the croun and the pund were baith for me. He hadna been awa a week but only twa, 'U'hen my mother she fell sick, and the cow was stown awa ; My father brak his arm, and young Jamie at the sea, And auld Robin Gray cam’ a-courtin’ me. My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin ; I toiled day and nicht, but their bread I couldna win ; Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi’ tears in his ee, Said, Jennie, for their sakes. Oh, marry me ! My heart it said nay, for I looked for Jamie back ; But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wreck : The ship it was a wreck — why didna Jamie dee ? Or why do I live to say, Wae’s me? My father argued sair ; my mother didna speak ; But she lookit in my face till my heart was like to break : Sae they gied him my hand, though my heart was in the sea ; And auld Robin Gray was gudeman to me. I hadna been a wife a week but only four. When, sitting sae mournfully at the door, I saw my Jamie’s wraith, for I couldna think it he. Till he said, I’m come back for to marry thee. Oh, sair did we greet, and muckle did we say ; We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves away : I wish I were dead ! but I’m no like to dee ; And why do I live to say, Wae’s me? I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin ; I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin ; But I’ll do my best a gude wife to be. For auld Robin Gray is kind unto me. MISS JANE ELLIOT AND MRS COCKBtJRN. Two versions of the national ballad, The Flowers of the Forest, continue to divide the favour of all lovers of song, and both are the composition of ladies. In minute observation of domestic life, traits of character and manners, and the softer lan- MISS ELLIOT AND MRS COCK3UBN. guage of the heart, ladies have often excelled the ‘ lords of tlie creation,’ and in music their triumphs are manifold. The first copy of verses, bewailing the losses Sustained at Flodden, was written by Miss Jane Elliot of Minto, sister to Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto. The second song, which appears to be on the same subject, but was in reality occa- sioned by the bankruptcy of a number of gentlemen in Selkirkshire, is by Alicia Rutherford of Fernilie, who was afterwards married to Mr Patrick Cock- burn, advocate, and died in Edinburgh in 1794. We agree with Mr Allan Cunningham in preferring Miss Elliot’s song; but both are beautiful, and in singing, the second is the most effective. The Flower'S of the Forest, [By Miss Jane Elliot.] I’ve heard the lilting at our yowe-milking. Lasses a-lilting before the dawn of day ; But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning — The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away. At buchts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning. The lasses are lonely, and dowie, and wae ; Nae daflin’, nae gabbin’, but sighing and sabbing. Ilk ane lifts her leglen and hies her away. In hairst, at the .shearing, nae youths now are jeering. The bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray ; At fair, or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching — The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away. At e’en, at the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming, ’Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play ; But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie — The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away. Dule and wae for the order, sent our lads to the Border I The English, for ance, by guile wan the day ; The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the fore- most. The prime o’ our land, aie cauld in the clay. We hear nae mair lilting at our yowe-milking. Women and bairns are heartless and wae; Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning — The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away. The Flowers of the Forest. [By Mrs Cockbum.] I’ve seen the smiling Of Fortune beguiling ; I’ve felt all its favours, and found its decay : Sweet was its blessing. Kind its caressing ; But now ’tis fled — fled far away. I’ve seen the forest Adorned the foremost With flowers of the fairest most plea.>ant and gay ; Sae bonnie was their blooming I Their scent the air perfuming ! But now they are withered and weeded away. I’ve seen the morning With gold the hills adorning. And loud tempest storming before the mieJ-day. I’ve seen Tweed’s silver streams. Shining in the sunny beams. Grow drumly and dark as he rowed on his way. Oh, fickle Fortune, Why this cruel sporting ? Oh, why still perplex us, poor sons of a day ? Nae mair your smiles can cheer me, Nae mair your frowns can fear me ; For the Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away. 127 FROM 1727 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 17PA. JOHN SKINNER. Somctliing of a national as well as a patriotic cha- racter may 1)C claimed for the lively song of TuUoch- gnrunt, the composition of the Kev. John Skinni;r (1721-1807), who inspired some of the strains of linrns, Jind who deli{{hted, in life as in his poetry, to dilfuse feelings of kindliness and ffood will among men. Mr Skinner officiated as Episcopal minister of Longside, Aberdeenshire, for sixty-five years. After the troubled period of the liebellion of 174,5, when the Episcopal clergy of Scotland laboured under the charge of disaffection, Skinner was im- prisoned six months for |)reaching to more than four persons! lie died in his son’s liouse at Aberdeen, having realised his wish of ‘seeing once more his children’s grandchildren, and j)eace upon Israel.’ Besides ‘ Tullochgorum,’ and other songs, Skinner wrote an Ecclesiustical History of Scotland, and some theological treatises. Tullochgorum. Come gie’s a sang, Montgomery cried, And lay your disputes all aside ; What signifies’t for folks to chide I’or wliat’s been done before them 1 Let Whig and Tory all agree. Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory, Let Whig and Tory all agree To drop their Whigmegmorum. Let Whig and Tory all agree To spend tliis night with mirth and glee. And cheerfu’ sing alang wi’ me The reel of Tullochgorum. 0, Tullochgorum’s my delight ; It gars us a’ in ane unite ; And ony sumph that keeps up spite. In conscience I abhor him. Blithe and merry we’s be a’. Blithe and merry, blithe and merry, Blithe and merry we’s be a’. And mak’ a cheerfu quorum. Blithe and merry we’s be a’. As lang as we hae breath to draw, And dance, till we be like to fa’. The reel of Tullochgorum. There need na be sae great a phrase Wi’ dringing dull Italian lays ; I wadna gie our ain strathspeys For half a hundred score o’ ’em. They’re douff and dowie at the best, Diuff and dowie, douff and dowie. They’re douff and dowie at the best, Wi’ a’ their variorums. They’re douff and dowie at the best, Their allegros, and a’ the rest. They canna please a Highland taste, Compared wi’ Tullochgorum. Let warldly minds themselves oppress Wi’ fear of want, and double cess. And sullen sots themselves distress Wi’ keeping up decorum. Shall we sae sour and sulky sit. Sour and sulky, sour and sulky. Shall we sae sour and sulky sit. Like auld Philosophorum 1 Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, Wi’ neither .sense, nor mirth, nor wit, And canna rise to shake a fit At the reel of Tullochgorum 1 May choicest blessings still attend Each honest-hearted open friend ; And calm and quiet be his end. And a’ that’s good watch o’er him ! May peace and plenty be his lot, Peace and plenty, peace and plenty. May peace and plenty be his lot. And daintie.s, a great store o’ ’em ! May peace and plenty be his lot. Unstained by any vicious blot ; And may he never want a groat. That’s fond of Tullochgorum. But for the discontented fool. Who wants to be op[>ression’s tool. May envy knaw his rotten soul. And discontent devour him ! May dool and sorrow be his chance, Uool and sorrow, dool and sorrow. May dool and sorrow be his chance. And nane say, Wae’s me for’im! May dool and sorrow be his chance. And a’ the ills that come frae France, Whae’er he be that winna dance The reel of Tullochgorum ! ROBERT CRAWFORD. Kobert Crawford, autlior of The Bush aboon Traquair, and the still finer lyric of Tweedside, was the brother of Colonel Crawford of Achinames. lie assisted Allan Ramsay in his ‘ Tea-Table Miscel- lany,’ and, according to information obtained by Burns, was drowned in coming from I'rance in the year 1733. Crawford had genuine poetical fancy and expression. ‘ The true muse of native pastoral,’ says Allan Cunningham, ‘seeks not to adorn herself with unnatural ornaments; her spirit is in homely love and fireside joy ; tender and simple, like the religion of the land, she utters nothing out of keeping with the character of her people, and the aspect of the soil ; and of this spirit, and of this feel* ing, Crawford is a large partaker.’ The Bush aboon Traquair. Hear me, ye nymphs, and every swain, I’ll tell how Peggy grieves me ; Though thus 1 languish and complain, Alas ! she ne’er believes me. My vows and sighs, like silent air. Unheeded, never move her ; At the bonnie Bush aboon Traquair, ’Twas there I first did love her. That day she smiled and made me glad. No maid seemed ever kinder ; I thought myself the luckiest lad. So sweetly there to find her ; I tried to soothe my amorous flame. In words that I thought tender ; If more there pas.sed, I’m not to blame — I meant not to offend her. Yet now she scornful flees the plain. The fields we then frequented ; If e’er we meet she shows disdain. She looks as ne’er acquainted. The bonnie bush bloomed fair in May, It’s sweets I’ll aye remember ; But now her frowns make it decay— It fades as in December. Ye rural powers, who hear my strains. Why thus should Peggy grieve me 1 0 make her partner in my pains. Then let her smiles relieve me ; If not, my love will turn de.spair. My passion no more tender ; I’ll leave the Bush aboon Traquair — To lonely wilds I’ll wander. 128 ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT FEROOSSON. Thvecdskle. What beauties docs Flora disclose ! How sweet are her smiles upon Twei'd 1 Yet Mary’s, still sweeter than those, Both nature and fancy exceed. No daisy, nor sweet blushing rose. Not all the g!iy flowers of the field, Not Tweed, gliding gently through those, Such beauty and pleasure does yield. The warblers are heard in the grove. The linnet, the lark, and the thrush ; The blackbird, and sweet cooing dove. With music enchant every bush. Come let us go forth to the mead ; Let us see how ‘he primroses spring ; We’ll lodge in some village on Tweed, And love while the feathered folk sing. How does my love pass the long day t Does Mary not tend a few sheep ? Do they never carelessly stray While happily she lies asleep ? Should Tweed’s murmurs lull her to rest. Kind nature indulging my bliss. To ease the soft pains of my breast, I’d steal an ambrosial kiss. Tis she does the virgins excel ; No beauty with her may compare ; Love’s graces around her do dwell ; She’s fairest where thousands are fair. Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray i Oh, tell me at morn w'here they feed? Shall I seek them on sweet-winding Tay? Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed ? SIR GILBERT ELLIOT. Sir Gilbf.rt Elliot, author of what Sir Walter Scott calls ‘ the beautiful pastoral song,’ beginning My sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep-hook, was father of the first Earl of !Minto, and was dis- tinguished as a speaker in parliament. He was in 1763 treasurer of the navy, and afterwmrds keeper of the signet in Scotland. He died in 1777. Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee says, that Sir Gilbert Elliot, who had been taught the German flute in France, was the first who introduced that instrument into Scotland, about the year 1725. [^AmyntaJ] My sheep I neglected, I broke my sheep-hook. And all the gay haunts of ray youth I forsook ; No more for Amynta fresh garlands 1 wove ; For ambition, 1 said, w'ould soon cure me of love. Oh, what had my youth with ambition to do ? Why left 1 Amynta? Why broke I my vow? Oh, give me my sheep, and my sheep-hook restore, -Vnd I’ll wander from love and Amynta no more. Through regions remote in vain do I rove. And bid the wide ocean secure me from love! Oh, fool ! to imagine that aught could subdue A love so well-founded, a passion so true ! Alas! ’tis too late at thy fate to repine ; Poor shepherd, Amynta can never be thine : Thy tears are all fruitless, thy wishes are vain, The moments neglected return not again. ROBERT FERGUSSON. Robert Fergusson was the poet of Scottish city- life, or rather the laureate of Edinburgh. A happy talent of portraying the peculiarities of local man- 61 ners, ii nice perception of the ludicrous, a vein of original comic humour, and language at once copious and expressive, form his cliief merits as a poet. He had not the invention or picturesque fancy of Allan Ramsay, nor the energy and passion of Burns. His mind was a liglit w'arni soil, that threw up early its native products, sown by chance or little exertion ; but it had not strength and tenacity to nurture any great or valuable production. A few short years, however, comprised his si>an of literature and of life; and criticism w'ould be ill employed in scrutinising with severity the occasional poems of a youth of twenty-three, written from momentary feelings and impulses, amidst professional drudgerj’ or midnight dissipation. That compositions produced under such circumstances should still exist and be read with pleasure, is sufiicient to show that Fergusson must have had the eye and fancy of a true poet. His observatien. too, for one so young, is as remarkable as his genius: he was an accurate painter of scenes of real life and traits of Scottish character, and his pictures are valuable for their truth, as well as for their liveliness and humour. If his habits had been different, we might have possessed more agreeable delineations, but none more graphic or faithful. Fergusson was born in Edinburgh on the 17th of October 1751. His father, who was an accountant in the British Linen Company’s bank, died early, but the poet received a university education, having ob- tained a bursary in St Andrews, where he continued from his thirteenth to his seventeenth I'car. On quitting college, he seems to have been truly ‘ un- fitted with an aim,’ and he was glad to take employ- ment as a copying clerk in a lawy'er’s office. In this mechanical and irksome duty his days were spent. His evenings were devoted to the tavern, where, over ‘caller oysters,’ with ale or whisky, the choice spirits of Edinburgh used to assemble. Fer- gusson had dangerous qualifications for such a life. His conversational powers were of a very superior description, and he could adapt them at will to humour, pathos, or sarcasm, as the occasion might require. He was well educated, had a fund of youthful gaiety, and sung Scottish songs with taste and effect. To these qualifications he soon added the reputation of a poet. Ruddiman’s ‘Weekly Magazine’ had been commenced in 1768, and was the chosen receptacle for the floating literature of that period in Scotland, particularly in Edinburgh. During the two last }’ears of his life, Fergusson was a constant contributor to this miscellany, and in 1773 he collected and published his pieces in one volume. Of the success of the publication in a pecuniary point of view, we have no information ; but that it was well received by the jiublic, there can be no doubt, from the popularity and fame of its author. His dissipations, however, were always on the increase. His tavern life and boon com- panions were hastening him on to a premature and painful death. His reason first gave way, and his widowed mother being unable to maintain him at home, he was sent to an asylum for the insane. The religious impressions of his youth returned at times to overwhelm him with dread, but his gentle and affectionate nature was easily soothed by the atten- tions of his relatives and friends. His recovery was anticipated, but after about two months’ confine • ment, he died in his cell on the 16th of October 1774. His remains were interred in the Canongate churchyard, where they lay unnoticed for twelve years, till Burns erected a simple stone to mark the poet’s grave. The heartlessness of convivial friend- ships is well known : they literally ‘ wither and die in a day.’ It is related, however, that a youthful companion of Fergusson, named Burnet, having 129 fRo.M i7->7 (;V(;Lory)iDIA OF TO 1780. gone to the Kast and inaile some money, in- vited over tlie poet, sending at tiie same time a drauglit for XlOO to defray Ids expenses. Tins in- stance of generosity came too late : the poor poet had died before the letter arrived. Fergnsson’s Tomb. Fergusson may be considered the poetical pro- genitor of Burns. Meeting with his poems in his youth, the latter ‘ strung his lyre anew,’ and copied I the style and subjects of his youthful prototype. The resemblance, however, was only temporary and incidental. Burns had a manner of his own, and though he sometimes condescended, like Shakspeare, to work after inferior models, all that was rich and valuable in the composition was original and un- borrowed. lie had an excessive admiration for the writings of Fergusson, and even preferred them to those of Ramsay, an opinion in which few will con- cur. The forte of Fergusson Lay, as we have stated, in his representations of town-life. The King's Birth- day, The Sitting of the Session, Leith Races, &c., are all excellent. Still better is his feeling description of the importance of Guid Braid Claith, and his Address to the Tron-Kirk Bell. In these we liave a current of humorous observations, poetical fancy, and genuine idiomatic Scottish expression. The Farmer's Ingle suggested ‘ The Cotter’s Saturday Night’ of Burns, and it is as faithful in its descrip- tions, though of a humbler class. Burns added passion, sentiment, and patriotism to the subject : Fergusson’s is a mere sketch, an inventory of a farm- house, unless we except the concluding stanza, which speaks to the heart : — Peace to the husbandman, and a’ his tribe, Whase care fells a’ our wants frae year to year ! Lang may his sock and cou’ter turn the glebe. And banks of corn bend down wi’ laded ear ! May Scotia’s simmers aye look gay and green ; Her yellow hairsts frae scowry blasts decreed ! May a’ her tenants sit fu’ snug and bien, Frae the hard grip o’ ails and poortith freed — And a lang lasting train o’ peacefu’ hours succeed ! In one department — lyrical poetry — whence Bums draws so much of his glory — Fergusson does not seem, though a singer, to have made any efforts to excel. In English poetry he utterly failed, and if we consider him in reference to his countrymen, Falconer or Logan (lie received the same education as the latter), his inferior rank as a general poet will be apparent. Braid Claith. Ye wha are fain to hae your name Wrote i’ the boiinie book o’ fame. Let merit iiac pretension claim To laurelled wreath. But hap ye weel, baith back and wame. In guid braid claith. He that some ells o’ this may fa’. And slae-black hat on pow like snaw, Bids bauld to bear the gree awa, Wi’ a’ this graith. When beinly clad wi’ shell fu’ braw O’ guid braid claith. Waefucks for him wha has nae feck o’tf For he’s a gowk they’re sure to geek at ; A chiel that ne’er will be res]>eckit While he draws breath, Till his four (jiiarters are bedeckit Wi’ guid braid claith. On Sabbath-days the barber spark. When he has done wi’ scrapin’ wark, Wi’ siller broachie in his sark. Gangs trigly, faith! Or to the Meadows, or the Park, In guid braid claith. Weel might ye trow, to see them theip. That they to shave your haffits bare. Or curl and sleek a pickle hair. Would be right laith, When pacin’ wi’ a gawsy air In guid braid claith. If ony mettled stirrah green > For favour frae a lady’s een, He maunna care for bein’ seen Before he sheath His body in a scabbard clean O’ guid braid claith. For, gin he come wi’ coat threadbare, A feg for him she winna care. But crook her bonny mou fou sair. And scauld him baith : Wooers should aye their travel spare. Without braid claith. Braid claith lends fouk an unca heeze ; Maks mony kail-worms butterflees ; Gies mony a doctor his degrees. For little skaith : In short, you may be what you please, Wi’ guid braid claith. For though ye had as wise a snout on. As Shakspeare or Sir Isaac Newton, Your judgment fouk would hae a doubt on, I’ll tak my aith, Till they could see ye wi’ a suit on O’ guid braid claith. To the Tron-Kirk Bell. Wanwordy, crazy, dinsorae thing. As e’er was framed to jow or ring ! What gar’d them sic in steeple hing. They ken themsel ; But weel wat I, they couldna bring Waur sounds frae hoU, • * * * Desire. 180 ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT FEROUSSOB. Fleece-merchants may look bauld, I trow, Sin’ a’ Auld Reekie’s ehilder now Maun stap their lugs wi’ teats o’ woo, Thy sound to bang, And keep it frae gaun through and through Wi’ jarrin’ twang. Your noisy tongue, there’s nae abidin’t ; Like scauldin’ wife’s, there is nae guidin’t ; When I’m ’bout ony business eident. It’s sair to thole ; To deare me, then, ye tak a pride in’t, Wi’ senseless knoll. Oh ! were I provost o’ the town, I swear by a’ the powers aboon, I’d bring ye wi’ a reesle down ; Nor should you think (Sae sair I’d crack and clour your crown) Again to clink. For, when I’ve toom’d the meikle cap. And fain wald fa’ owre in a nap. Troth, I could doze as sound’s a tap, Were’t no for thee. That gies the tither weary chap To wauken me. I dreamt ae nigh* I saw Auld Nick : Quo’ he — ‘ This bell o’ mine’s a trick, A wily piece o’ politic, A cunnin’ snare. To trap fouk in a cloven stick. Ere they’re aware. As lang’s my dautit bell hings there, A’ body at the kirk will skair; Quo’ they, if he that preaches there Like it can wound. We downa care a single hair For joyfu’ sound.’ If magistrates wi’ me would ’gree. For aye tongue-tackit should you be ; Nor fleg wi’ anti-melody Sic honest fouk, Whase lugs were never made to dree Thy dolefu’ shock. But far frae thee the bailies dwell. Or they would scunner at your knell ; Gie the foul thief his riven bell, ( And then, I trow. The byword bauds, ‘ The diel himsel Has got his due.’ Scottish Scenery and Music. [From ‘ Hame Content, a Satire.’] The Amo and the Tiber lang Hae run fell clear in Roman sang ; But, save the reverence o’ schools. They’re baith but lifeless, dowie pools. Bought they compare wi’ bonnie IVeed, As clear as ony lammer bead ? Or are their shores mair sweet and gay Than Fortha’s haughs or banks o’ Tay ? Though there the herds can jink the showers ’Mang thriving vines and myrtle bowers, And blaw the reed to kittle strains. While echo’s tongue commends their pains ; Like ours, they canna warm the heart Wi’ simple saft bewitching art. On Leader haughs and Y arrow braes, Arcadian herds wad tyne their lays. To hear the mair melodious sounds That live on our poetic grounds. Come, Fancy ! come, and let us tread The simmer’s flowery velvet bed. And a’ your springs delightful lowse On Tweeda’s bank or Cowdenknowes. That, ta’en wi’ thy enchanting sang. Our Scottish lads may round ye thrang, Sae pleased they’ll never fash again To court you on Italian plain ; Soon will they guess ye only wear The simple garb o’ nature here ; Mair comely far, and fair to sight. When in her easy deedin’ dight. Than in disguise ye was before On Tiber’s or on Arno’s shore. 0 Bangour !■ now the hills and dales Nae mair gie back thy tender tales ! The birks on Y arrow now deplore. Thy mournfu’ muse has left the shore. Near what bright bum or crystal spring. Did you your winsome whistle hing ? The muse shall there, wi’ watery ee, Gie the dunk swaird a tear for thee ; And Yarrow’s genius, dowie dame ! Shall there forget her bluid-stained stream, On thy sad grave to seek repose. Who mourned her fate, condoled her woes. Cauler Water. When father Adie first pat spade in The bonnie yard o’ ancient Eden, His amry had nae liquor laid in To fire his mou ; Nor did he thole his wife’s upbraidin’. For bein’ fou. A cauler burn o’ siller sheen, Ran cannily out-owre the green ; And when our gutcher’s drouth had been To bide right sair. He loutit down, and drank bedeen A dainty skair. His bairns had a’, before the flood, A langer tack o’ flesh and blood. And on mair pithy shanks they stood Than Noah’s line, Wha still hae been a feckless brood, Wi’ drinkin’ wine. The fuddlin’ bardies, now-a-days, Rin maukin-mad in Bacchus’ praise ; And limp and stoiter through their lays Anacreontic, While each his sea of wine displays As big’s the Pontic. My Muse will no gang far frae hame. Or scour a’ airths to hound for fame ; In troth, the jillet ye might blame For thinkin’ on’t. When elthly she can find the theme O’ aqua font. This is the name that doctors use. Their patients’ noddles to confuse ; Wi’ simples clad in terras abstruse. They labour still In kittle words to gar you roose Their want o’ skill. But we’ll hae nae sic clitter-clatter ; And, briefly to expound the matter. It shall be ca’d guid cauler water ; Than whilk, I trow. Few drugs in doctors’ shops are better For me or you. Though joints be stiff as ony mng. Your pith wi’ pain be sairly dung. Be you in cauler water flung Out-owre the lugs, ’Twill mak you souple, swack, and young, Withouten drugs. ’ Mr Hamilton of Bangour, author of the beautiful ballaa ‘ The Braes of Yarrow.’ , 131 paoM 1727 CYCLOPJ?vre the face ; Though you may see, if so inclined. The turning o’ the leg behind. Now, Comely-Garden and the Park Refresh them, after forenoon’s wark : • St Anthony’s Well, a beautiful small spring, on Artliur’s Beat, near Edinburgh. Thither it is still the practice of young Ed 'nburgh maidens to resort on May-day. Newhaven, Leith, or Canonmills, Supply them in their Sunday’s gills ; Where writers aften spend their pence. To stock their heads wi’ drink and sense. While danderin cits delight to stray To Castlehill or public way. Where they nae other purpose mean. Than that fool cause o’ being seen. Let me to Arthur’s Seat pursue, V here bonnie pastures meet the view. And mony a wild-lorn scene accrues. Befitting Willie Shakspeare’s muse. If Fancy there would join the thrang. The desert rocks and hills amang. To echoes we should lilt and play. And gle to mirth the live-lang day. Or should some cankered biting shower The day and a’ her sweets deflower. To Holyrood-house let me stray. And gie to musing a’ the day ; Lamenting what auld Scotland knew, Bein days for ever frae her view. O Hamilton, for shame ! the Muse Would pay to thee her couthy vows. Gin ye wad tent the humble strain. And gie’s our dignity again! For, oh, wae’s me! the thistle springs In domicile o’ ancient kings. Without a patriot to regret Our palace and our ancient state. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS OF THE PERIOD 1727 — 1780. Ad A micas. [By Richard West — written at the age of twenty. This amiable poet died in his twenty-sixth year, 1742.] Yes, happy youths, on Camus’ sedgy side. You feel each joy that friendship can divide; Each realm of science and of art explore. And with the ancient blend the modern lore. Studious alone to learn whate’er may tend To raise the genius, or the heart to mend ; Now pleased along the cloistered walk you rove. And trace the verdant mazes of the grove. Where social oft, and oft alone, ye choose. To catch the zephyr, and to court the muse. Meantime at me (while all devoid of art These lines give back the image of my heart). At me the power that comes or soon or late. Or aims, or seems to aim, the dart of fate ; From you remote, methinks, alone I stand. Like some sad exile in a desert land ; Around no friends their lenient care to join In mutual warmth, and mix their hearts with mine Or real pains, or those which fancy raise. For ever blot the sun.shine of my days ; To sickness still, and still to grief a prey. Health turns from me her rosy face away. Just Heaven! what sin ere life begins to bloom. Devotes my head untimely to the tomb ! Did e’er this hand against a brother’s life Drug the dire bowl, or point the murderous knife ! Did e’er this tongue the slanderer’s tale proclaim. Or madly violate my Maker’s name ! Did e’er this heart betray a friend or foe. Or know a thought but all the world might know! As yet just started from the lists of time. My growing years have scarcely told their prime ; Useless, as yet, through life I’ve idly run. No pleasures tasted, and few duties done. Ah, who, ere autumn’s mellowing .suns appear. Would pluck the promise of the vernal year ; Or, ere the grapes their purple hue betray. Tear the crude cluster from the mourning spray ! 132 ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES HAMMOND. Stem power of fate, whose ebon sceptre rules The Stygian deserts and Cimmerian pools, Forbear, nor rashly smite my youthful heart, A victim yet unworthy of thy dart ; Ah, stay till age shall blast my withering face, Shake in my head, and falter in my pace ; Then aim the shaft, then meditate the blow. And to the dead my willing shade shall go. Row weak is man to reason’s judging eyel Born in this moment, in the next we die ; Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire. Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire. In vain our plans of happiness we raise. Pain is our lot, and patience is our praise ; Wealth, lineage, honours, conquest, or a throne. Are what the wise would fear to call their own. Health is at best a vain precarious thing. And fair-faced youth is ever on the wing ; ’Tis like the stream beside whose watery bed. Some blooming plant exalts his flowery head ; Nursed by the wave the spreading branches rise. Shade all the ground and flourish to the skies ; The waves the while beneath in secret flow. And undermine the hollow bank below ; Wide and more wide the waters urge their way. Bare all the roots, and on their fibres prey. Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride. And sinks, untimely, in the whelming tide. But why repine ? Does life deserve my sigh ; Few will lament my loss whene’er I die. For those the wretches I despise or hate, I neither envy nor regard their fate. For me, whene’er all-conquering death shall spread His wings around my unrepining head, I care not ; though this face be seen no more. The world will pass as cheerful as before ; Bright as before the day-star will appear. The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear ; Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare. Nor signs on earth nor portents in the air ; Unknown and silent will depart my breath. Nor nature e’er take notice of my death. Yet some there are (ere spent my vital days) Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise. Loved in my life, lamented in my end. Their praise would crown me as their precepts mend : To them may these fond lines my name endear, Not from the Poet but the Friend sincere. Elegy. [By James Hammond, bom 1710, died 1742. This seems to be almost the only tolerable specimen of the once admired and highly-famed love elegies of Hammond. This poet, nephew to Sir Robert Walpole, and a man of fortune, bestowed his affec- tions on a Miss Dashwood, whose agreeable qualities and in- exorable rejection of his suit inspired the poetry by which his name has ^een handed do\vn to us. His verses are imitations of Tibullus — smooth, tame, and frigid. Miss Dashwood died unmarried— bedchamber-woman to ftueen Charlotte — in 1779. In the following elegy Hammond imagines himself married to his mistress (Delia), and that, content with each other, they are retired to the country.] Let others boast their heaps of shining gold. And view their fields, with waving plenty crowned, Whom neighbouring foes in constant terror hold. And trumpets break their slumbers, never sound : While calmly poor, I trifle life away. Enjoy sweet leisure by my cheerful fire. No wanton hope my quiet shall betray. But, cheaply blessed. I’ll scorn each vain desire. With timely care I’ll sow my little field. And plant my orchard with its masters hand. Nor blush to spread the hay, the hook to wield. Or range my sheaves along the sunny land. If late at dusk, while carelessly I roam, I meet a strolling kid, or bleating lamb. Under my arm I’ll bring the wanderer home. And not a little chide its thoughtless dam. What joy to hear the tempest howl in vain. And clasp a fearful mistress to my breast I Or, lulled to slumber by the beating rain, Secure and happy, sink at last to rest ! Or, if the sun in flaming Leo ride. By shady rivers indolently stray. And with my Delia, walking side by side. Hear how they murmur as they glide away ? What joy to wind along the cool retreat. To stop and gaze on Delia as I go ? To mingle sweet discourse with kisses sweet. And teach my lovely scholar all I know ? Thus pleased at heart, and not with fancy’s dream, In silent happiness I rest unknown ; Content with what I am, not what I seem, I live for Delia and myself alone. Ah, foolish man, who thus of her possessed. Could float and wander with ambition’s wind. And if his outward trappings spoke him blessed. Not heed the sickness of his conscious mind ! With her I scorn the idle breath of praise, Nor trust to happiness that’s not our own ; The smile of fortune might suspicion raise, But here I know that I am loved alone. * * Hers be the care of all my little train. While I with tender indolence am blest. The favourite subject of her gentle reign. By love alone distinguished from the rest. For her I’ll yoke my oxen to the plough. In gloomy forests tend iny lonely flock; For her a goat-herd climb the mountain’s brow, And sleep extended on the naked rock ; Ah, what avails to press the stately bed. And far from her ’midst tasteless grandeur weep. By marble fountains lay the pensive head. And, while they murmur, strive in vain to sleep J Delia alone can please, and never tire. Exceed the paint of thought in true delight ; With her, enjoyment wakens new desire. And equal rapture glows through every night . Beauty and worth in her alike contend. To charm the fancy, and to fix the mind ; In her, my wife, my mistress, and my friend, I taste the joys of sense and reason joined. On her I’ll gaze, when others loves are o’er. And dying press her with my clay-cold hand — Thou weep’st already, as I were no more. Nor can that gentle breast the thought withstand. Oh, when I die, my latest moments spare. Nor let thy grief with sharper torments kill. Wound not thy cheeks, nor hurt that flowing hair. Though I am dead, my soul shall love thee still : Oh, quit the room, oh, quit the deathful bed. Or thou wilt die, so tender is thy heart ; Oh, leave me, Delia, ere thou see me dead. These weeping friends will do thy mournful part ! Let them, extended on the decent bier. Convey the corse in melancholy state, Through all the village spread the tender tear. While pitying maids our wondrous loves relate. 133 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1780. Careless Content* [The following and euba^quent poems are by John Il^Tom, a native of Manchester, lie was well educated, but declined to take advantage of an o.KTS. JAMKS HAMMOND. ENGLISH LITERATURE. Her voice in tlio concert, as now I have found, Gave every thing else its agreeable sound. Rose, what is become of thy d dicate hue! And where is the violet’s beautiful blue? Docs ought of its sweetness the blossom beguile ? That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile ? Ah ! rivals, I see what it was that you drest. And made yourselves fine for — a place in her breast : You put on your colours to pleasure her eye. To be plucked by her hand, on her bosom to die. How slowly Time creeps till my Phoebe return! While amidst the soft zephyr’s cool breezes I burn : Methinks, if I knew whereabouts he would tread, I could breathe on his wings, and ’twould melt down the lead. Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear. And rest so much longer for’t when she is here. Ah Colin! old Time is full of delay. Nor will budge one foot faster for all thou canst say. Will no pitying power, that hears me complain, Or cure my disquiet, or soften my pain ? To be cured, thou must, Colin, thy passion remove ; But what swain is so silly to live without love! No, deit}’, bid the dear nymph to return. For ne’er was poor shepherd so sadly forlorn. Ah ! what shall I do ? I shall die with despair ; Take heed, all ye swains, how ye part with your fair. [Ode to a Tobacco Pipe.^ \_One of six imitations of Encrlish poets, written on the sub- ject of tobacco, by Isaac Hawkins Browne, a gentleman of fortune, bom 1705, died 1760. The present poem is the imita- tion of Ambrose Philips.] Little tube of mighty power. Charmer of an idle hour, Object of my warm desire. Lip of wax and eye of fire ; And thy snowy taper waist, With my finger gently braced; And thy pretty swelling crest. With my little stopper prest ; And the sweetest bliss of blisses, Breathing from thy balmy kisses. Happy thrice, and thrice again, Happiest he of happy men ; Who when again the night returns. When again the taper burns. When again the cricket’s gay (Little cricket full of play). Can afford his tube to feed With the fragrant Indian weed: Pleasure for a nose divine. Incense of the god of wine. Happy thrice, and thrice again. Happiest he of happy men. [iStmjr — Away I let nought to Love Displeasing. Away ! let nought to love displeasing. My Winifreda, move your care ; Let nought delay the heavenly blessing. Nor squeamish pride, nor gloomy fear. What though no grants of royal donors. With pompous titles grace our blood ; We’ll shine in more substantial honours. And, to be noble, we’ll be good. Our name while virtue thus we tender. Will sweetly sound where’er ’tis spoke ; And all the great ones, they shall wonder How they respect such little folk. V This beautiful piece has been erroneously ascribed to John Gilbert Cooper, author of a volume of poems, and some prose works, who died in I76d. What though, from fortune’s lavish bcunty. No mighty treasures we possess ; We’ll find, within our i>ittance, plenty. And be content without excess. Still shall each kind returning season Sufficient for our wishes give; For we will live a life of reason. And that’s the only life to live. Through youth and age, in love excelling. We’ll hand in hand together tread ; Sweet-smiling peace shall crown our dwelling. And babes, sweet-smiling babes, our bed. How should I love the pretty creatures. While round my knees they fondly clung 1 To see them look their mother’s features. To hear them lisp their mother’s tongue 1 And when with envy Time tran.sported. Shall think to rob us of our joys ; You’ll in your girls again be courted. And I’ll go wooing in my' boys. TRAGIC DRAMATISTS. The tragic drama of this period bore the impress of the French school, in which cold correctness or turgid declamation was more regarded than the natural delineation of character and the fire of genius. One improvement w’as the complete separation of tragedy and comedy. Otway and Southerne had marred the effect of some of their most pathetic and impressive dramas, by the intermixture of farcical and licentious scenes and characters, but they were the last who committed this inc jngruity. Public taste had become more critical, aided perhaps by the papers of Addison in the ‘ Spectator,’ and other essayists, as w'ell as by the general diffusion of lite- rature and knowledge. Great names were now en- listed in the service of the stage. I'asliion and interest combined to draw fouh dramatic talent. A writer for the stage, it has been justly remarked, like the public orator, has the gratification of ‘ wit- nessing his own triumphs ; of seeing in the plaudits, tears, or smiles of delighted spe< tators, the strongest testimony to his own powers.’ Tlie publication of his play may also insure him the fame and profit of authorship. If successful on the stage, the remu- neration was then considerable. Authors were ge- nerally allowed the profits of three nights’ perform- ances; and Goldsmith, we find, tiius derived between four and five hundred pounds b}' She Stoops to Conquer. The genius of Garrick may also be con- sidered as lending fiesh attract, on and popularity to the stage. Authors were ambitious of fame as well as profit by the exertions ot an actor so well fitted to portray the various passic is and emotions of human nature, and who partially succeeded in recalling the English taste to the genius of Shak- speare. One of the most successful and conspu uous of the tragic dramatists w'as the author of the ‘Night Thoughts,’ who, before he entered the church, pro- duced three tragedies, all having one peculiarity, that they ended in suicide. The Revenge, still a popul.ar acting play, contains, amidst some rant and hyperbole, passages of strong passion and eloquent declamation. Like Othello, ‘The Revenge’ is founded on jealousy, and the principal character, Zanga, is a kloor. The latter, son of the Moorish king Ab- dallah, is taken prisoner after a conquest by the Sp.aniards, in which his father fell, and is con demned to servitude by Don Alonz."'. In revenge, lie sows the seeds of jealousy in the mind of his 135 fivOm 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. conqiioror, Alonzo, and glories in the ruin of his vieliru : — Thou Hcest a prince, whose father thou hast slain, Whose native country thou hast laid in blood, VVTiose sacred person. Oh ! thou hast profaned, Whose reign extinguished — what was left to me, So higlily born ? No kingdom but revenge; No treasure but thy torture and thy groans. If men should ask who brought thee to thy end. Toll them the Moor, and they will not de.“pise thee. If cold white mortals censure this great deed. Warn them they judge not of superior beings. Souls made of fire, and children of the sun. With wliom revenge is virtue. Dr Johnson’s tragedy of Irene was performed in 1749, but met with little success, and has never since been revived. It is cold and stately, containing some admirable sentiments and maxims of morality, but destitute of elegance, simplicity, and pathos. At the conclusion of the piece, the heroine was to be strangled upon the stage, after speaking two lines with the bowstring round her neck. The audience cried out ‘Murder! murder!’ and compelled the actress to go off tlie stage alive, in defiance of the author. An English audience could not, as one of Johnson’s friends remarked, bear to witness a strangling scene on the stage, though a dramatic poet may stab or slay by hundreds. The following passage in ‘Irene’ was loudly applauded : — To-morrow ! That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy. The coward and the fool, condemned to lose A useless life in waiting for to-morrow — To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow. Till interposing death destroys the prospect ! Strange ! that this general fraud from day to day Should fill the world with wretches undetected. The soldier labouring through a winter’s march. Still sees to-moiTow dressed in robes of triumph ; Still to the lover’s long-expecting arms To-morrow brings the visionary bride. But thou, too old to bear another cheat. Learn that the present hour alone is man’s. Five tragedies were produced by Thomson be- twixt the years 1729 and the period of his death : these were Sophonisba, Apamemnon, Edward and Eleonora, Tancred and Siyismunda, and Coriolanus. None of them can be considered as worthy of the author of the Seasons: they exhibit the defects of his style without its virtues. He wanted the plastic powers of the dramatist, and though he could declaim forcibly on the moral virtues, and against corruption and oppression, he could not draw characters or invent scenes to lead captive the feelings and ima- gination. Two tragedies of a similar kind, but more ani- mated in expression, were produced — Gustavus Vasa by Brooke, and Barbarossa by Dr Brown, The act- ing of Garrick mainly contributed to the success of the latter, which had a great run. The sentiment at the conclusion of ‘ Barbarossa’ is finely ex- pressed Heaven but tries our virtue by afHiction, And oft the cloud which wraps the present hour Serves but to brighten all our future days. Aaron Hill translated some of Voltaire’s trage- dies with frigid accuracy, and they were performed with success. In 1753, The Gamester, an affecting domestic tragedy, was produced. Though wanting the merit of ornamented poetical language and blank verse, the vivid picture drawn by the author (Ed- ward Moore) of the evils of gambling, ending in de- spair and suicide, and the dramatic art evinced in the characters and incidents, drew loud applause. ‘The Gamester’ is still a popular play. Gamester's Last Stake.] Beverley. Why, there’s an end then. I have judged deliberately, and the result is death. How the self- murderer’s account may stand, I know not ; but this I know, the load of hateful life oppresses me too much. The horrors of my soul are more than I can bear. [Ojfcrs to kneel]. Father of Mercy! 1 cannot pray; despair has laid his iron hand upon me, and sealed me for perdition. Conscience ! conscience ! thy cla- mours are too loud : here’s that shall silence thee. [Takes a phial of poison out of his pocket.] Thou art most friendly to the miserable. Come, then, thou cordial for sick minds, come to my heart. [Drinks it.] Oh, that the grave would bury memory as well as body ! for, if the soul sees and feels the sufferings of those dear ones it leaves behind, the Everlasting has no vengeance to torment it deeper. I’ll think no more on it ; reflection comes too late ; once there was a time for it, but now ’tis past. Who’s there? Enter Jarvis. Jar. One that hoped to see you with better looks. Why do you turn so from me ! I have brought com- fort with me ; and see who comes to give it welcome. Bev. My wife and sister ! Why, ’tis but one pang more then, and farewell, world. Enter Mrs Bkteblev and Charlottb. Mrs B. Where is he? [Rum and embraces Mm.] 0, I have him ! I have him ! And now they shall never part us more. I have news, love, to make you happy for ever. Alas ! he hears us not. Speak to me, love ; I have no heart to see you thus. Bev. This is a sad place. Mrs B. We came to take you from it ; to tell you the world goes well again ; that Providence has seen our sorrows, and sent the means to help them ; your uncle died yesterday. Bev. My uncle ? No, do not say so. Oil am sick at heart ! Mrs B. Indeed, I meant to bring you comfort. Bev. Tell me he lives, then ; if you would bring me comfort, tell me he lives. Mrs B. And if I did, I have no power to raise tne dead. He died yesterday. Bev. And I am heir to him ? Jar. To his whole estate, sir. But bear it patiently, pray bear it patiently. Bev. Well, well. [Pausing.] Why, fame says I am rich then ? Mrs B. And truly so. Why do you look so wildly ? Bev. Do I ? The news was unexpected. But has he left me all ? Jar. All, all, sir ; he could not leave it from you. Bev. I am sorry for it. Mrs B. Why are you disturbed so ? Bev. Has death no terrors in it ! Mrs B. Not an old man’s death ; yet, if it trouble you, I wish him living. Bev. And I, with all my heart ; for 1 have a tale to tell, shall turn you into stone ; or if the power of speech remain, you shall kneel down and curse me. Mrs B. Alas ! Why are we to curse you ? I’ll bless you ever. Bev. No; I have deserved no blessings. All this large fortune, this second bounty of heaven, that might have healed our sorrows, and sati.sfied our utmost hopes, in a cursed hour I sold last night. Mrs B. Irapos.sible ! Bev. That devil Stukely, with all hell to aid him, tempted me to the deed. To pay false debts of honour, 136 TRAOIC HRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD MOORE. ami to redeem past errors, I sold the reversion, sold it for a scanty sum, and lost it among villains. Char. Why, farewell all then. Bcv. Liberty and life. Come, kneel and curse me. M)-3 B. Then hear me, heaven. [A'liceij.] Look down with mercy on his sorrows ! Give softness to his looks, and quiet to his heart ! On me, on me, if misery must be the lot of either, multiply misfortunes ! I’ll bear them patiently, so he be hai>py ! These hands shall te’d for his support ; those eyes be lifted up for hourly bleasings on him ; and every duty of a fond and faith- ful wife be doubly done to cheer and comfort him. So hear me ! so reward me ! [Rises. Bcv. I would kneel too, but that offended heaven would turn my prayers into curses ; for I have done a deed to make life horrible to you. Mrs B. What deed ? Jar. Ask him no questions, madam ; this last mis- fortune has hurt his brain. A little time will give him patience. Enter Stukelt. Bev. Why is this villain here ? Stuh. To give you liberty and safety. There, madam, is his discharge. [Gives a paper to Charlotte.'] The arrest last night was meant in friendship, but came too late. Char. What mean you, sir ? Stvk. The arrest was too late, I say ; I would have kept his hands from blood ; but was too late. Mrs B. His hands from blood ! Whose blood? Stuk. From Lewson’s blood. Cltar. No, villain! Yet what of Lewson ; speak quickly. Stuk. You are ignorant then; I thought I heard the murderer at confession. Char. What murderer? And who is murdered? Not Lewson? Say he lives, and I will kneel and worship you. Stuk. And so I would ; but that the tongues of all cry murder. I came in pity, not in malice ; to save the brother, not kill the sister. Your Lewson’s dead. Char. 0 horrible ! Bev. Silence, I charge you. Proceed, sir. Stuk. No ; justice may stop the tale ; and here’s an evidence. Enter Bates. Bates. The news, I see, has reached you. But take comfort, madam. [To Charlotte.] There’s one with- out inquiring for you ; go to him, and lose no time. Char. 0 misery! misery! [Exit. Mrs B. Follow her, Jarvis ; if it be true that Lew- son’s dead, her grief may kill her. Bates. Jarvis must stay here, madam ; I have some questions for him. Stuk. Rather let him fly ; his evidence may crush his master. Bev. Why, ay ; this looks like management. Bates. He found you quarrelling with Lewson in the street last night. [To Beverley. Mrs B. No ; 1 am sure he did not. Jar. Or if I did Mrs B. ’Tis false, old man ; they had no quarrel, there was no cause for quarrel. Bex. Let him proceed, I say. 0 ! I am sick ! sick ! Reach a chair. [Jarvis brings it, he sits down. Mrs B. You droop and tremble, love. Yet you are innocent. If Lewson’s dead, you killed him not. Enter Dawsok. Stuk. Who sent for Dawson? Bates. ’Twas I. We have a witness too, you little think of. Without there! Stvk. What witness ? Bates. A right one. Look at him. Enter Charlotte and Lewson. [Mrs B., on perceiving I.eioson, goes into a hysteric laugh, and sinks on Jarvis. Stuk. Lewson! 0 villains! villains! [ To Bates and Dawson. Mrs B. Risen from the dead ! Why, this is unex- pected happiness ! Char. Or is it his ghost? \To Stvkely.~\ That sight would please you, sir. Jar. What riddle is this? Bev. Be qiiick and tell it, my minutes are but few. Mrs B. Alas! why so? You shall live long and happily. Lew. While shame and punishment shall rack that viper. [Points to Stukely.] The tale is short ; 1 was too busy in his secrets, ai:d therefore doomed to die. Bates, to prevent the murder, undertook it ; I kept aloof to give it credit. Char. And give me pangs unutterable. Lav. I felt them all, and would have told you ; but vengeance wanted ripening. The villain's scheme was but half executed ; the arrest by Dawson followed the supposed murder, and now, depending on his once wicked associates, he comes to fix the guilt on Be- verley. Bates. Dawson and I are witnesses of this. Lvio. And of a thousand frauds; his fortune ruined by sharpers and false dice ; and Stukely sole contriver and possessor of all. Daw. Had he but stopped on this side murder, we had been villains still. Lew. {To Beverley.] How does my friend ? Bev. Why, well. Who’s he that asks me ? Mrs B. ’Tis Lewson, love. Why do you look so at him ? Bev. [ Wildly.] They told me he was murdered ! Mrs B. Ay ; but he lives to save us. Bev. Lend me your hand ; the room turns round. Lew. This villain here disturbs him. Remove him from his sight ; and on your lives see that you guard him. [Stukely is taken off by Dawson and Bates.] How is it, sir? Bev. ’Tis here, and here. {Pointing to his head and heart.'] And now it tears me ! Mrs B. You feel convulsed, too. What is it dis- turbs you ? Bcv. A furnace rages in this heart. [Laying his hand upon his heart.] Down, restless flames ! down to your native hell ; there you shall rack me ! Oh, for a pause from pain ! Where is my wife ? Can you for- give me, love ? Mrs B. Alas ! for what ? Bcv. For meanly dying. Mrs B. No ; do not say it. Bev. As truly as mv soul must answer it. Had Jarvis staid this morning, all had been well ; but, pressed by shame, pent in a prison, and tonnented with my pangs for you, driven to despair and mad- ness, I took the advantage of his absence, corrupted the poor wretch he left to guard me, and swallowed poison. Lew. Oh, fatal deed ! Bev. Ay, most accursed. And now I go to my ac- count. Bend me, and let me kneel. {They lift him from his chair, and support him on his knees.] I’ll pray for you too. Thou Power that mad’st me, hear me. If, for a life of frailty, and this too hasty deed of death, thy justice doom me, here I acquit the sen- tence ; but if, enthroned in mercy where thou sitt’st, thy pity hast beheld me, send me a gleam of hope, that in these last and bitter moments my soul may taste of comfort! And for these mourners here, 0 let their lives be peaceful, and their deaths happy. Mrs B. Restore him, heaven ! 0, sa,ve him, save him, or let me die too ! 137 PROM 1727 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1780. Ikv. No ; live, I charge you. We have a little one ; thougli I have left him, you will not leave him. To LewHon’s kindness I bequeath him. Is not this Charlotte! We have lived in love, though I have wronged you. Can you forgive me, Charlotte? Char. Forgive you ! 0, my poor brother ! Bev. Lend me your hand, love. So ; raise me — no ; it will not be ; iny life is finished. 0 for a few short moments to tell you how my heart bleeds for you ; that even now, thus dying as I am, dubious and fear- ful of a hereafter, my bo.som pang is for your mise- ries. Support her. Heaven ! And now I go. 0, mercy ! mercy ! [Dies. Lew. How is it, madam ? My poor Charlotte, too ! Char. Her grief is speechless. Lexo. Jarvis, remove her from this sight. [Jarvis and Charlotte lead Mrs Beverley aside.'] Some minis- tering angel bring her peace. And thou, poor breath- le.ss corpse, may thy departed soul have found the rest it prayed for. Save but one error, and this last fatal deed, thy life was lovely. Let frailer minds take warning ; and from example learn that want of pru- dence is want of virtue. [Exeunt. Of a more intellectual and scholar-like cast were the two dramas of Mason, Elfrida and Caractacus. They were brought on the stage by Colman (which Southey considers to have been a bold experiment in those diiys of sickly tragedy), and were well received. They are now known as dramatic poems, not as act- ing ])lays. Tlie most natural and affecting of all the tragic productions of the day, W'as the Douglas of Horae, founded on the old ballad of Gil Morrice, which Percy has preserved in his Keliques. ‘Douglas’ was rejected by Garrick, and was first performed in Edinburgh in 1756. Next year Lord Bute procured its representation at Covent Garden, where it drew tears and applause as copiously as in Edinburgh. The plot of this drama is pathetic and interesting. The dialogue is sometimes fiat and prosaic, but other parts are written with the liquid softness and moral beauty of Heywood or Dekker. Maternal affection is well depicted under novel and striking circumstances — the accidental discovery of a lost child — ‘ My beautiful ! my brave !’ — and Mr Mac- kenzie, the ‘ Man of Feeling,’ has given as his opi- nion that the chief scene between Lady Randolph and Old Norval, in which the preservation and existence of Douglas is discovered, has no equal in modern and scarcely a superior in the ancient drama. Douglas himself, the young hero, ‘enthusiastic, ro- mantic, desirous of honour, careless of life and every other advantage when glory lay in the b.alance,’ is beautifully drawn, and formed the schoolboy model of most of the Scottish youth ‘ si.xty years since.’ As a specimen of the style and diction of Home, we subjoin part of the discovery scene. Lord Ran- dolph is attacked by four men, and rescued by young Douglas. An old man is found in the woods, and is taken up as one of the assassins, some rich jewels being also in his possession. [Discovery of her Son ly Lady Randolph.] Prisoner— Lady Randolph — Anna, her maid. Lady R. Account for these ; thine own they cannot be : For these, I say : be steadfast to the truth ; Detected falsehood is most certain death. [Anna removes the servants and returns. Pris. Alas ! I’m sore beset ; let never man, For sake of lucre, sin against his soul ! Eternal justice is in this most just 1 I, guiltless now, must former guilt reveal. Lady R. 0, Anna, hear ! Once more I charge thee speak The truth direct ; for these to me foretell And certify a part of thy narration ; With which, if the remainder tallies not, An instant and a dreadful death abides thee. Pris. Then, thus adjured. I’ll sjieak to you as just As if you were the minister of heaven, Sent down to search the secret sins of men. Some eighteen years ago, 1 rented land Of brave Sir Malcolm, then lialarmo’s lord ; But falling to decay, his servants seized All that I had, and then turned me and mine (Four helpless infants and their weeping mother) Out to the mercy of the winter winds. A little hovel by the river side Received us : there hard labour, and the skill In fishing, which was formerly my sport. Supported life. Whilst thus we poorly lived, One stormy night, as I remember well. The wind and rain beat hard upon our roof; Red came the river down, and loud and oft The angry spirit of the water shrieked. At the dead hour of night was heard the cry Of one in jeopardy. I rose, and ran To where the circling eddy of a pool. Beneath the ford, used oft to bring within My reach whatever floating thing the stream Had caught. The voice was ceased ; the person lost: But, looking sad and earnest on the waters. By the moon’s light I saw, whirled round and round, A basket ; soon I drew it to the bank. And nestled curious there an infant lay. Lady R. Was he alive ? Pris. He was. Lady R. Inhuman that thou art ! How could’st thou kill what waves and tempests spared ? ^ Piis. I rvas not so inhuman. Lady R. Didst thou not ? Anna. My noble mistress, you are moved too much ; This man has not the aspect of stern murder; Let him go on, and you, I hope, will hear Good tidings of your kinsman’s long lost child. Pris. The needy man who has known better days. One whom distress has spited at the world. Is he whom tempting fiends would pitch upon To do such deeds, as make the prosperous men Lift up their hands, and wonder who could do them ; And such a man was I ; a man declined. Who saw no end of black adversity ; Yet, for the wealth of kingdoms, I would not Have touched that infant with a hand of harm. Lady R. Ha ! dost thou say so ? Then perhaps he lives! Pris. Not many days ago he was alive. LadxjR. 0, God of heaven ! Did hethen die so lately! Pns. I did not say he died ; I hope he lives. Not many days ago these eyes beheld Him, flourishing in youth, and health, and beauty. Lady R. Where is he now ? Pris. Alas ! I know not where. Lady R. 0, fate ! I fear thee still. Thou riddler speak Direct and clear, else I will search thy soul. Anna. Permit me, ever honoured! keen impatience. Though hard to be restrained, defeats itself. Pursue thy story with a faithful tongue. To the last hour that thou didst keep the child. Pris. Fear not my faith, though 1 must speak my shame. Within the cradle where the infant lay Was stowed a mighty store of gold and jewels ; Tempted by which, we did resolve to hide. From all the world, this wonderful event, And like a peasant breed the noble child. That none might mark the change of our estate. We left the country, travelled to the north, 138 TRAGIC PRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. Bought flock.s and herds, and gradually brought forth Our secret wealth. But God’s all-seeing eye Beheld our avarice, and sniote us sore ; For one by one all our own children died. And he, the stranger, sole remained the heir Of what indeed was his. Fain then would I, Who with a father’s fondness loved the boy. Have trusted him, now in the dawn of youth, With his oivn secret ; but my anxious wife. Foreboding evil, never would consent. Meanwhile the stripling grew in years and beauty; And, as we oft observed, he bore himself. Not as the offspring of our cottage blood. For nature will break out : mild with the mild, But with the froward he was fierce as fire. And night and day he talked of war and arms. I set myself against his warlike bent ; But all in vain ; for when a desperate band Of robbers from the savage mountains came Lady R. Eternal Providence ! What is thy name ? Pria. My name is Norval ; and my name he bears. Lady R. ’Tis he, ’tis he himself ! It is my son I 0, sovereign mercy ! ’Tw'as my child I saw! No wonder, Anna, that my bosom burned. Anna. Just are your transports : ne’er was woman’s heart Proved with such fierce extremes. High-fated dame ! But yet remember that you are beheld By servile eyes ; your gestures may be seen Impassioned, strange ; perhaps your words o’erheard. Lady R. Well dost thou counsel, Anna ; Heaven be- stow On me that wisdom which my state requires ! Anna. The moments of deliberation pass. And soon you must resolve. This useful man Must be dismissed in safety, ere my lord Shall with his brave deliverer return. Pris. If I, amidst astonishment and fear. Have of your words and gestures rightly judged. Thou art the daughter of my ancient master ; The child I rescued from the flood is thine. Lady R. With thee dissimulation now were vain. I am indeed the daughter of Sir Malcolm ; The child thou rescuedst from the flood is mine. Pris. Blessed be the hour that made me a poor man ! My poverty hath saved my master’s house. Lady R. Thy words surprise me ; sure thou dost not feign ! The tear stands in thine eye : such love from thee Sir Malcolm’s house deserved not, if aright Thou told’st the story of thy own distress. Pris. Sir Malcolm of our barons was the flower ; The fastest friend, the best, the kindest master; But ah I he knew not of my sad estate. After that battle, where his gallant son. Your own brave brother, fell, the good old lord Grew desperate and reckless of the world ; And never, as he erst was wont, went forth To overlook the conduct of his servants. By them I was thrust out, and them I blame ; May heaven so judge me as I judged my master. And God so love me as I love his race! Lady R. His race shall yet reward thee. On thy faith Depends the fate of thy loved master’s house. Rememberest thou a little lonely hut. That like a holy hermitage appears Among the cliffs of Carron? Pris. I remember The cottage of the cliffs. Lady R. ’Tis that I mean ; There dwells a man of venerable age. Who in my father’s service spent his youth : Tell him 1 sent thee, and with him remain, JOHN HOMB. Till I shall call upon thee to declare. Before the king and nobles, what thou now To me hast told. No more but this, and thou Shalt live in honour all thy future days ; Thy son so long shall call thee father still. And all the land shall bless the man who saved The son of Douglas, and Sir Malcolm’s heir. John Home, author of Doughs, was by birth con- nected with the family of the Earl of Home ; his father was town-clerk of Leith, where the poet was born in 1722. He entered the church, and suc- ceeded Blair, author of ‘The Grave,’ as minister of Athelstaneford. Previous to this, however, he had taken up arms as a volunteer in 1745 against the Chevalier, and after the defeat at Falkirk, was im- prisoned in the old castle of Doune, whence he effected his escape, with some of his associates, by cutting their blankets into shreds, and letting themselves down on the ground. The romantic poet soon found the church as severe and tyran- nical as the army of Charles Edward. So vio- lent a storm was raised by the fact that a Pres- byterian minister had written a play, that Home was forced to succumb to the presbytery, and re- sign his living. Lord Bute rewarded him with the sinecure office of conservator of Scots privileges at Campvere, and on the accession of George III. in 1760, when the influence of Bute was paramount, the poet received a pension of £300 per annum. He wrote various other tragedies, which soon passed into oblivion ; but with an income of about £600 per annum, with an easy, cheerful, and benevolent dis- position, and enjoying the friendship of David Hume, Blair, Robertson, and all the most distin- guished for rank or talents, John Home’s life glided on in happy tranquillity. He survived nearly all his associates, and died in 1808, aged eighty-six. Among the other tragic writers may be men- tioned Mallet, whose drama of Elvira was highly successful, and another drama by whom, Mustapha, enjoyed a factitious popularity by glancing at tlie characters of the king and Sir Robert Walpole. Glover, author of ‘ Leonidas,’ also produced a tragedy, Boadicea, but it was found deficient in interest for a mixed audience. In this play, Davies, the bio- grapher of Garrick, relates that Glover ‘ preserved a custom of the Druids, who enjoined the persons who drank their poison to turn their faces towards the wind, in order to facilitate the operation of the potion !’ Horace Walpole was author of a tragedy. The Mysterious Mother, which, though of a painful and revolting nature as to plot and incident, abounds in vigorous description and striking ima- gery. As Walpole had a strong predilection for Gothic romance, and had a dramatic turn of mind, it is to be regretted that he did not devote himself more to the service of the stage, in which he would have anticipated and rivalled the style of the Ger- man drama. The ‘ Mysterious Mother’ has never been ventured on the stage. The Grecian Daughter, by Murphy, produced in 1772, was a classic subject, treated in the French style, but not destitute of tenderness. [Against the Crusades ) I here attend him. In expeditions which I ne’er approve 1, In holy wars. Your pardon, reverend father. I must declare I think such wars the fruit Of idle courage, or mistaken zeal ; Sometimes of rapine, and religious rage. To every mischief prompt. * * * Sure I am, ’tis madness. Inhuman madness, thus from half the world 13S 4 from 1727 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1780 To drain its blood and treasure, to neglect Mach art of face, each care of government ; Arid all for what ? liy spreading desolation, Rapine, and slaughter o’er the other half, To gain a conquest we can never hold. I venerate this land. Those sacred hills. Those vales, those cities, trod by saints and prophets. By God himself, the scenes of heavenly wonders. Inspire me willi a certain awful joy. But the same God, my friend, pervades, sustains. Surrounds, and fills this universal frame ; And every land, where spreads his vital presence, llis all-enlivening breath, to me is holy. Excuse me, Theald, if 1 go too far : I meant alone to say, I think these wars A kind of persecution. And when that — That most absurd and cruel of all vices. Is once begun, where shall it find an end! Each in his turn, or has or claims a right To wield its dagger, to return its furies. And first or last they fall upon ourselves. Thomson's Edward and Eleonora, [Xore.] Why should we kill the best of passions. Love! It aids the hero, bids Ambition rise To nobler heights, inspires immortal deeds. Even softens brutes, and adds a grace to Virtue. Thomson’s Sophonisba. [^Miscalculations of Old Men.] Those old men, those plodding grave state pedants. Forget the course of youth ; their crooked prudence, To baseness verging still, forgets to take Into their fine-spun schemes the generous heart. That, through the cobweb system bursting, lays Their labours waste. Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda, [Awfulness of a Scene of Pagan Rites.] This is the secret centre of the isle : Here, Romans, pause, and let the eye of wonder Gaze on the solemn scene ; behold yon oak. How stern he frorvns, and with his broad brown arms Chills the pale plain beneath him : mark yon altar. The dark stream brawling round its rugged base ; These cliffs, these yawning caverns, this wide circus. Skirted with unhewn stone ; they awe my soul. As if the very genius of the place Himself appeared, and with terrific tread Stalked through his drear domain. And yet, my friends, If shapes like his be but the fancy’s coinage. Surely there is a hidden power that reigns 'Mid the lone majesty of untamed nature. Controlling sober reason ; tell me else, Why do these haunts of barbarous superstition O’ercome me thus ! I scorn them ; yet they awe me. Mason's Caractacus. [Against Homicide.] Think what a sea of deep perdition whelms The wretch’s trembling soul, who launches forth Unlicensed to eternity. Think, think. And let the thought restrain thy impious hand. The race of man is one vast marshalled army. Summoned to pass the spacious realms of Time, Their leader the Almighty. In that march Ah 1 who may quit his post ! when high in air The chosen archangel rides, whose right hand wields The imperial standard of Heaven’s providence. Which, dreadful sweeping through the vaulted sky. Overshadows all creation. Mason’s El/rida. [Solitude on a Battle Field.] I have been led by solitary care To yon dark branches, spreading o’er the brook. Which murmurs through the camp ; this mighty camp. Where once two hundred thousand sons of war. With restless dins awaked the midnight hour. Now horrid stillness in the vacant tents Sits undisturbed ; and these inces.sant rills. Whose pebbled channel breaks their shallow stream^ Fill with their melancholy sounds my ears. As if I wandered, like a lonely hind. O’er some dead fallow, far from all resort : Unless that ever and anon a groan Bursts from a soldier, pillowed on his shield In torment, or expiring with his wounds. And turns my fixed attention into horror. Glover’s Boadieea. [Foi-giveness.] So prone to error is our mortal frame. Time could not step without a trace of horror. If wary nature on the human heart. Amid its wild variety of passions. Had not impre.ssed a soft and yielding sense. That when offences give resentment birth. The kindly dews of penitence may raise The seeds of mutual mercy and forgivene.ss. Glover’s Boadieea. [Fortitude.] But, prince, remember then The vows, the noble uses of affliction ; Preserve the quick humanity it gives. The pitying, social sense of human weakness ; Yet keep thy stubborn fortitude entire. The manly heart that to another’s wo Is tender, but superior to its own. Learn to submit, yet learn to conquer fortune ; Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds And offices of life ; to life itself. With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose. Chief, let devotion to the sovereign mind, A steady, cheerful, absolute dependence In his best, wisest government, possess thee. In thoughtless gay prosperity, when all Attends our wish, when nought is seen around us But kneeling slavery, and obedient fortune ; Then are blind mortals apt, within themsehes To fly their stay, forgetful of the giver ; But when thus humbled, Alfred, as thou art. When to their feeble natui-al powers reduced, ’Tis then they feel this universal truth That Heaven is all in all, and man is nothing. Mallet’s Alfred. COMIC DRAMATISTS. The comic muse was, during this period, more successful than her tragic sister. In the reign of George II., the witty and artificial comedies of Vanbrugh and Farquliar began to lose their ground, both on account of their licentiousness, and the formal system on which they were constructed with regard to characters and expression. In their room, Garrick, Foote, and other writers, placed a set of dramatic compositions, which, though often of a humble and unpretending character, exercised great influence in introducing a taste for more natural portraitures and language ; and these again led the way to the higher productions, which we are still accustomed to refer to veneratively, as the legiti- mate English comedies. 140 COMIC DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Amonjist the first five-act plays in which this improvement was seen, was The Suspicious Husband of lloiully, in wliich there is but a slight dash of the license of Farquhar. Its leading character, liiinger, is still a favourite. George Colman, ma- nager of Covent Garden theatre, was an excellent comic writer, and produced above thirty pieces, a few of which deservedly keep possession of the stage. Ilis Jealous Wife, founded on Fielding’s ‘Tom Jones,’ has some highly efiective scenes and well-drawn cha- u'ters. It was produced in 1761 ; five years after- George Colman. wards, Colman joined with Garrick and brought out The Clandestine Marriage, in which the character of an aged beau, affecting gaiety and youth, is strik- ingly personified in Lord Ogleby. Arthur Murphy (1727-1805), a voluminous and miscellaneous writer, added comedies as well as tragedies to the stage, and his Way to Keep Him is still occasional!}' per- formed. Hugh Kelly, a scurrilous newspaper writer, surprised the public by producing a comedy. False Delicacy, which had remarkable success both on the fortunes and character of the author : the profits of his first third night realised £150 — the largest sum of money he had ever before seen — ‘ and from a low, petulant, absurd, and ill-bred censurer,’ says Davies, ‘ Kelly was transformed to the humane, affable, good-natured, well-bred man.’ The marked success of Kelly’s sentimental style gave the tone to a much more able dramatist, Richard Cumberland (1732- 1811). who, after two or three unsuccessful pieces, in 1771 brought out The West Indian, one of the best stage plays which English comedy can yet boast. The plot, incidents, and characters (includ- ing the first draught of an Irish gentleman which the theatre had witnessed), are all well sustained. Other dramas of Cumberland, as The Wheel of Fortune, The Fashionable Lover, &c., were also acted with applause, though now too stiff and sentimental for our audiences. Goldsmith thought that Cumber- land had carried the refinement of comedy to ex- cess, and he set himself to correct the fault. His first dramatic performance. The Good-Natured Man, presents one of the happiest of his delineations in the character of Croaker ; but as a whole, the play wants point and sprightliness. His second drama, She Stoops to Conquer, performed in 1773, has all the requisites for interesting and amusing an audi- ence ; and Johnson said, ‘ he knew of no comedy for many years that had answered so much the great end of comedy — making an audience merry.’ The plot turns on w'hat may be termed a far- cical incident — two parties mistaking a gentleman’s house for an inn. But the excellent discrimina- tion of character, and the humour and vivacity of the dialogue throughout the play, render this piece one of the richest contributions which have been made to modern comedy. The native plea- santry and originality of Goldsmith were never more happily displayed, and his success, as Davies records, ‘ revived fancy, wit, gaiety, humour, inci- dent, and character, in the place of sentiment and moral preachment.’ [A Deception.'] [From ‘ She Stoops to Conquer.’] Landlord and Tony Lumfein. Landlord. There be two gentlemen in a post-chaise at the door. They’ve lost their way upon the forest, and they are talking something about Mr Hardcastle. Tony. As sure as can be, one of them must be the gentleman that’s coming down to court my sister. Do they seem to be Londoners ? Land. I believe they may. They look woundily like Frenchmen. Tony. Then desire them to step this way, and I’ll set them right in a twinkling. [Exit Landlord.] Gentlemen, as they mayn’t be good enough company for you, step down for a moment, and I’ll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon. [Exeunt Mob.] Father- in-law has been calling me a whelp and hound this half-year. Now, if 1 pleased, I could be so revenged upon the old grumbletonian. But then I am afraid — afraid of what ? I shall soon be worth fifteen hun- dred a-year, and let him frighten me out of that if he can. Enter Landlord, conducting Marlow and Hastings. Mar. What a tedious uncomfortable day have we had of it! We were told it was but forty miles across the country, and we have come above threescore. Hast. And all, Marlow, from that unaccountable reserve of yours, that would not let us inquire more frequently on the way. Mar. I on-n, Hastings, I am unwilling to lay my- self under an obligation to every one 1 meet ; and often stand the chance of an unmannerly answer. Hast. At present, however, we are not likely to re- ceive any answer. Tony. No offence, gentlemen ; but I am toid you have been inquiring for one Mr Hardcastle in these parts. Do you know what part of the country you are ini Hast. Not in the least, sir ; but should thank yon for information. Tony. Nor the way you camel Hast. No, sir ; but if you can inform us Tony. Why, gentlemen, if you know neither the road you are going, nor where you are, nor the road you came, the first thing 1 have to inform you is that — you have lost your way. Mar. We wanted no ghost to tell us that. Tony. Pray, gentlemen, may 1 be so bold as to ask the place from whence you came 1 Mar. That’s not necessary towards directing us where we are to go. Tony. No offence ; but question for question is all fair, you know. Pray, gentlemen, is not this same Hardcastle a cross-grained, old-fashioned, whimsical fellow, with an ugly face, a daughter, and a pretty son 1 141 TKo* 1727 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1780. Hast. We have not seen the gentleman ; but he has the family you mention. Tony. The daughter a tall, trapesing, trolloping, talkative maypole ; the son a pretty, well-bred, agree- able youth, that everybody is fond of. Mar. Our information differs in this : the daughter is said to be well-bred and beautiful ; the son an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled at his mother’s apron-string. Tony. He-he-hem. Then, gentlemen, all I have to tell you is, that you won’t reach Mr Ilardcastle’s house this night, I believe. Hast. Unfortunate ! Tony. It’s a long, dark, boggy, dangerous way. Stingo, tell the gentlemen the way to Mr Ilardcastle’s [^toinJeing at the Landlord] — Mr Ilardcastle’s of Quag- mire-marsh. You understand me? Land. Master Ilardcastle’s 2 Lack-a-daisy 1 my masters you’re come a deadly deal wrong. When you came to the bottom of the hill you should have crossed down Squash-lane. Mar. Cross down Squash-lane ? Land. Then you were to keep straight forward till you came to four roads. Mar. Come to where four roads meet 2 Tmy. Ay ; but you must be sure to take only one. Mar. 0, sir ! you’re facetious. Tony. Then, keeping to the right, you are to go sideways till you come upon Crack-skull Common ; there you must look sharp for the track of the wheel, and go forward till you come to Farmer Mur- rain’s bam. Coming to the farmer’s bam, you are to turn to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right about again, till you find out the old mill Mar. Zounds ! man, we could as soon find out the longitude ! Hast. What’s to be done, Marlow 2 Mar. This house promises but a poor reception ; though perhaps the landlord can accommodate us. Land. Alack, master! we have but one spare bed in the whole house. Tony. And to my knowledge that’s taken up by three lodgers already. [After a pause, in which the rest seem disconcerted.] I have hit it : don’t you think. Stingo, our landlady would accommodate the gentle- men by the fireside with three chairs and a bol- ster 2 Hast. I hate sleeping by the fireside. Mar. And I detest your three chairs and a bol- ster. Tony. Y ou do, do you 2 Then let me see — what if you go on a mile farther to the Buck’s Head, the old Buck’s Head on the hill, one of the best inns in the whole country. Hast. 0 ho I so we have escaped an adventure for this night, however. Land. [Apart to Tony."] Sure you bean’t sending them to your father’s as an inn, be you 2 Tcmy Mum I you fool, you ; let them find that out. [To them.] You have only to keep on straightfor- ward till you come to a large house on the road-side : you’ll see a pair of large horns over the door ; that’s the sign. Drive up the yard, and call stoutly about you. Hast. Sir, we are obliged to you. The servants can’t miss the way. Tony. No, no : but I tell you though, the landlord is rich, and going to leave off business ; so he wants to 1. j thought a gentleman, saving your presence, he, he, he! He’ll be for giving you his company ; and, ecod ! if you mini him, he’ll persuade you that his mother was an alderman, and his aunt a justice of the teace. Land. A troublesome old blade, to be sure ; but a keeps as good wines and beds as any in the whole county. Mar. Well, if he supplies us with these, we shall want no further connexion. We are to turn to the right, did you say 2 Tony. No, no, straight forward. I’ll just step my- self and show you a piece of the way. [To the Land- lord.] Mum ! [Exeunt. [Arrival at the Supposed Inn."] Enter Marlow and Hastings. Hast. After the disappointments of the day, wel- come once more, Charles, to the comforts of a clean room and a good fire. Upon my word a very well- looking house ; antique, but creditable. Mar. The usual fate of a large mansion. Having first ruined the master by good house-keeping, it has at last come to levy contributions as an inn. Hast. As you say, we passengers are to be taxed to pay all these fineries. I have often seen a good side- hoard, or a marble chimney-piece, though not actually put in the bill, inflamfe the hill confoundedly. Mar. Travellers must pay in all places ; the only difference is, that in good inns you pay dearly for luxuries; in bad inns you are fleeced and starved. Enter Hardcastlb. Hard. Gentlemen, once more you are heartily wel- come. Which is Mr Marlow 2 [Mar. advances.'] Sir, you’re heartily welcome. It’s not my way, you see, to receive my friends with my back to the fire ! I like to give them a hearty reception, in the old style, at my gate ; I like to see their horses and trunks taken care of. Mar. [Aside.] He has got our names from the ser- vants already. [To Hard.] We approve your caution and hospitality, sir. [To Hast.] I have been think- ing, George, of changing our travelling dresses in the morning ; I am grown confoundedly ashamed of mine. Hard. I beg, Mr Marlow, you’ll use no ceremony in this hou.se. Hast. I fancy, you’re right : the first blow is half the battle. We must, however, open the campaign. Hard. Mr Marlow — Mr Hastings — gentlemen — pray be under no restraint in this house. This is Liberty-hall, gentlemen ; you may do just as you please here. Mar. Yet, George, if we open the campaign too fiercely at first, we may want ammunition before it is over. We must show our generalship by securing, if necessary, a retreat. Hard. Y our talking of a retreat, Mr Marlow, puts me in mind of the Duke of Marlborough when he went to besiege Denain. He first summoned the gar- rison — Alar. Ay, and we’ll summon your garrison, old boy. Hard. He first summoned the garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men Hast. Marlow, what’s o’clock 2 Hard. I say gentlemen, as I was telling you, he summoned the garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men Mar. Five minutes to seven. Hard. Which might consist of about five thousand men, well appointed with stores, ammunition, and other implements of war. Now, says the Duke of Marlborough to George Brooks, that stood next to him — ^you must have heard of George Brooks — I’ll pawn my dukedom, says he, but I take that garrison with- out spilling a drop of blood. So Mar. What* My good friend, if you give us a glass of punch in the meantime, it would help us to canr on the siege with vigour. Hard. Punch, sir! — This is the most unaccountable kind of modesty I ever met with. [Aside. 142 COMIC DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. Oliver goldsmith. Mar. Y es, sir, punch. A glass of warm punch after our journey will be comfortable. Enter Servant with a tankard. This is Liberty-hall, you know. Hard. Here’s a cup, sir. Mar. So this fellow, in his Liberty-hall, will only let us have just what he pleases. [Aside to Hast. Hard. ’^Taking the cup.] I hope you’ll find it to your mind. I have prepared it with my own hands, and I believe you’ll own the ingredients are tolerable. \^'ill you be so good as to pledge me, sir ? Here, Mr Marlow, here is to our better acquaintance. [Drinks, and gives the cup to Marlow. Mar. A very impudent fellow this ; but he’s a cha- racter, and I’ll humour him a little, [.dside.] Sir, my service to you. Hast. I see this fellow wants to give us his com- pany, and forgets that he’s an innkeeper before he has learned to be a gentleman. [Aside. Mar. From the excellence of your cup, my old friend, I suppose you liave a good deal of business in this part of the country. \Varm work now and then at elections, I suppose. [Gives the tankard to Hardcastle. Hard. No, sir; I have long given that work over. Since our betters have hit upon the expedient of elect- ing each other, there’s no business for us that sell ale. [Gives the tankard to Hastings. Hast. So, you have no turn for politics, I find. Hard. Not in the least. There was a time, indeed, I fretted myself about the mistakes of government, like other people ; but finding myself every day grow more angry, and the government growing no better, 1 left it to mend itself. Since that, I no more trouble my head about who’s in or who’s out than I do about John Nokes or Tom Stiles. So my service to you. Hast. So that, with eating above stairs and drink- ing below, with receiving your friends within and amusing them without, you lead a good, pleasant, bustling life of it. Hard. I do stir about a good deal, that’s certain. Half the dilFerences of the parish are adjusted in this very parlour. Mar. [After drinking.] And you have an argument in your cup, old gentleman, better than any in West- minster-hall. Hard. Ay, young gentleman, that, and a little philosophy. Mar. Well, this is the first time I ever heard of an innkeeper’s philosophy. [Aside. Hast. So then, like an experienced general, you at- tack them on every quarter. If you find their reason manageable, you attack them with your philosophy ; if you find they have no reason, you attack them with this. Here’s your health, my philosopher. [Drinks. Hard. Good, very good ; thank you ; ha! ha! Your generalship puts me in mind of Prince Eugene when he fought the Turks at the battle of Belgrade. You shall hear. Mar. Instead of the battle of Belgrade, I think it’s almost time to talk about supper. What has your philosophy got in the house for supper 1 Hard. For supper, sir? Was ever such a request to a man in his own house? [Aside. Mar. Y es, sir ; supper, sir ; I begin to feel an appe- tite. I shall make devilish work to-night in the lar- der, I promise you. Hard. Such a brazen dog sure never my eyes be- held. [Aside.] Why really, sir, as for supper I can’t well tell. My Dorothy and the cookmaid settle these things between them. I leave these kind of things entirely to them. Mar. Y ou do, do you ? Hard. Entirely. By the by, I believe they are in actual consultation upon what’s for supper this mo- ment in the kitchen. Mar. Then I beg they’ll admit me as one of their privy-eouncil. It’s a way 1 have got. When 1 travel, I always choose to regulate my own supper. Let the cook be called. No offence 1 hope, sir. Hard. 0 no, sir, none in the least : yet, 1 don’t know how, our Bridget, the eookmaid, is not very communicative upon these occasions. Should we send for her, she might scold us all out of the house. Hast. Let’s see the list of the larder, then. I al- ways match my appetite to my bill of fare. Mar. [To Hardcastle, who looks at them with, sur- prise.] Sir, he’s very right, and it’s my way too. Hard. Sir, you have a right to command here. Here, Roger, bring us the bill of fare for to-night’s supper: 1 believe it’s draivn out. Your manner, Mr Hastings, puts me in mind of my uncle. Colonel Wallop. It was a saying of his that no man was sure of his supper till he bad eaten it. [tServant brings in the bill of fare, and exit. Hast. All upon the high ropes ! His unele a colo- nel ! We shall soon hear of his mother being a justice of peace. [Aside.] But let’s hear the bill of fare. Mar. [Penising.] What’s here? For the first course ; for the second course ; for the dessert. The devil, sir ! Do you think we have brought down the whole Joiners’ Company, or the Corporation of Bed- ford, to eat up such a supper? Two or three little things, clean and comfortable, will do. Hast. But let’s hear it. Mar. [i?eadingi.] For the first course : at the top, a pig and prune sauce. * * Hard. And yet, gentlemen, to men that are hungry, pig, with prune sauce, is very good eating. Their im- pudence confounds me. [Aside.] Gentlemen, you are my guests, make what alterations you please. Is there any^^ing else you wish to retrench or alter, gentlemen T Mar. Item : a pork pie, a boiled rabbit and sau- sages, a florentine, a shaking-pudding, and a dish of tiff — taff — taffety cream. Hast. Confound your made dishes ! I shall be as much at a loss in this house as at a green and yellow dinner at the French ambassador’s table. I’m for plain eating. Hard. I’m sorry, gentlemen, that I have nothing you like ; but if there be any thing you have a par- ticular fancy to Mar. Why, really, sir, your bill of fare is so ex- quisite, that any one part of it is full as good as an- other. Send us what you please. So much for supper : and now to see that our beds are aired, and properly taken care of. Hard. I intreat you’ll leave all that to me. Y ou shall not stir a step. Mar. Leave that to you ! I protest, sir, you must excuse me ; I always look to these things myself. Hard. I must insist, sir, you’ll make ycurself easy on that head. Mar. Y ou see I’m resolved on it. A veiy trouble- some fellow, as ever I met with. [Aside. Hard. Well, sir, I’m resolved at least to attend you. This may be modem modesty, but I never saw anything look so like old-fashioned impudence. [Aside. [Exeunt Mar. and Hard. Hast. So, I find this fellow’s civilities begin to grow troublesome. But who can be angry with those assi- duities which are meant to please him? Ha! what do I see ? Miss Neville, by all that’s happy ! Two years after Goldsmith’s dramatic triumph, a still greater in legitimate comedy arose in the per- son of that remarkable man, who survived down to our own day, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. On the 1 7th of January 1775, liis play of The Rivals was 143 FuoM 17-27 CYCLOPiKDIA OF to 1780. hroiifflit out at Covcnt Garden. In tins first effort of Slieridao (who was tlien in his twenty-fourth year), there is more humour than wit. He had copied some of his eliaraeters from ‘ Humphry CImUer,’ as the testy hut generous Captain Ahso- lute, evidently borrowed from Matthew Hramhle, and Mrs Mahiprop, whose mistakes in words are the echoes of Mrs Winifred Jenkins’s blunders. Some of these are farcical enough ; hut as Mr Moore observes (and no man has made more use of similes than himself), the luckiness of Mrs Malaprop’s simile — ‘ as headstrong as an allegory on the hanks of the Nile’ — will he acknowledged as long as there are writers to he run away with by the w'ilfulness of this truly headstrong species of composition. In the same year, St Patrick's Day and The Duenna were i)rodueed; the hitter had a run of seventy-five nights! It certainly is greatly superior to ‘The Beggar’s 0[iera,’ though not so general in its satire. In 1777, Sheridan had other two plays. The Trip to Scarborough and The School for Scandal. In plot, character, and incident, dialogue, humour, and wit, ‘ The School for Scandal’ is acknowledged to siu-pass any comedy of modern times. It was care- fully prepared by the author, who selected, arranged, and moulded his language w'ith consummate taste, so as to form it into a transparent channel of his thoughts. Mr Moore, in his ‘ Life of Sheridan,’ gives some amusing instances of the various forms which a witticism or pointed remark assumed before its final adojition. As in his first comedy Sheridan had taken hints from Smollett; in this, his last, he had recourse to Smollett’s rival, or rather twin novelist. Fielding. The characters of Charles and Joseph Surface are evidently copies from those of Tom Jones and Blifil. Nor is the moral of the play an improvement on that of the novel. The care- less extravagant rake is generous, warm-hearted, and fascinating; seriousness and gravity are ren- dered odious by being united to meanness and hypo- crisy. The dramatic art of Sheridan is evinced in the ludicrous incidents and situations with which ‘ The School for Scandal’ abounds : his genius shines forth in its witty dialogues. ‘ The entire comedy,’ says Moore, ‘ is an El Dorado of wit, where the precious metal is thrown about by all classes as careles.sly as if they had not the least idea of its value.’ This fault is one not likely to be often committed! Some shorter pieces were afterwards written by Sheridan : The Camp, a musical opera, and The Critic, a witty afterpiece, in the manner of ‘The Rehearsal’ The character of Sir Fretful Plagiary, intended, it is said, for Cumberland the dramatist, is one of the author’s happiest efforts ; and the schemes and contrivances of Puff the ma- nager — such as making his theatrical clock strike four in a morning scene, ‘to beget an awful atten- tion’ in the audience, and to ‘ save a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere’ — are a felicitous combination of humour and satire. The scene in which Sneer mortifies the vanity of Sir Fretful, and Puff" s de- scription of his own mode of life by his proficiency in the art of puffing, are perhaps the best that She- ridan ever wrote. lA Sensitive Author.^ [From ‘ The Critic.’] Enter Servant to Dangle and Sneer. Servant. Sir Fretful Plagiary, sir. Dangle Beg him to walk up. [Exit servant.] Now, Mrs Dangle, S^ir Fretful Plagiary is an author to your 3wn taste. A/rs D. I confe.ss he is a favourite of mine, because every body else abuses him. Sneer. Very much to the credit of your charity, madam, if not of your judgment. Dan. But, egad ! he allows no merit to any author but himself; tliat’s the truth on’t, though he’s my friend. Sneer. Never. He is as envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six-and-thirty ; and then the insidious humility with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works, can be ex- ceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations. Dan. Very true, egad! though he’s my friend. Sncei'. Then his affected contempt of all newspaper strictures ; though, at the same time, he is the sorest man alive, and shrinks like scorched parchment fi»m the fiery ordeal of true criticism : yet is he so covetous of popularity, that he had rather be abused than not mentioned at all. Dan. There’s no denying it ; though he’s my friend. Sneer. You have read the tragedy he has just finished, haven’t you ? Dan. 0 yes ; he sent it to me yesterday. Sneer. Well, and you think it execrable, don’t you 1 Dan. Why, between ourselves, egad ! I must own — though he’s my friend — that it is one of the most — he’s here! — [Jsii/e] — finished and mo.st admirable perform Sir F. [ WithoiU] Mr Sneer with him, did you say ? Enter Sir Fretful Plagiary. Dan. Ah, my dear friend ! Egad ! we were just speaking of your tragedy. Admirable, Sir Fretful, | admirable ! Sneer. You never did anything beyond it. Sir Fret- ful ; never in your life. Sir F. You make me extremely happy ; for, with- out a compliment, my dear Sneer, there isn’t a man in the world whose judgment I value as I do yours; and Mr Bangle’s. Mrs D. They are only laughing at you. Sir Fretful , for it was but just now that Dan. Mrs Dangle ! — Ah ! Sir Fretful, you know Mrs Dangle. My friend Sneer was rallying just now. He knows how she admires you, and Sir F. 0 Lord! I am sure hlr Sneer has more taste and sincerity than to A double-faced fel- low! [Aside. Dan. Yes, yes; Sneer will jest, but a better- humoured — Sir F. 0! I know. Dan. He has a ready turn for ridicule ; his wit costs him nothing. Sir F. No, egad! or I should wonder how he came by it. [Aside. Mrs D. Because his jest is always at the expense of his friend. Dan. But, Sir Fretful, have you sent your play to the managers yet 1 or can I be of any service to you ? Sir F. No, no, I thank you ; I believe the piece had sufficient recommendation with it. I thank you though. I sent it to the manager of Covent Garden theatre this morning. Sneer. I should have thought now, that it might have been cast (as the actors call it) better at Drury Lane. Sir F. 0 lud ! no — never send a play there while I live. Hark ye ! [ Whispers Sneer. Sneer. Writes himself I I know he does. Sir F. I say nothing — 1 take away from no man’s merit — am hurt at no man’s good fortune. I say no- thing; but this I will say ; through all my knowledge of life, I have observed that there is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy ! 144 COMIC DRAMATISTS. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. EN(5 r-ISII LITERATURE. Sneer. I believe you have reason for what you say, iieleed. Sir P. Resides, I can tell you, it Is not always so safe to leai e a play in the hands of those who write themselves. Sneer. What ! they may steal from them ! eh, my dear Plagiary ! Sir P. Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad I serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children, disfigure them to make ’em pass for their own. Snetr. Rut your present w'ork is a sacrifice to Mel- pomene ; and he, you know, never Sir P. That’s no security. A dexterous plagiarist may do anything. Why, sir, for aught I know he might take out some of the best things in my tragedy and put them into his own comedy. Siiea'. That might be done, I dare be sworn. Sir F. And then, if such a person gives you the least hint or assistance, he is devilish apt to take the merit of the whole. Dan. If it succeeds. Sir F. Ay ! but with regard to this piece, I think I can hit that gentleman, for I can safely swear he never read it. Sneer. I’ll tell you how you may hurt him more. Sir F. How? Sttea-. Swear he wrote it. Sir P. Plague on’t now. Sneer ; I shall take it ill. I believe you want to take away my character as an author ! Sneer. Then I am sure you ought to be very much obliged to me. Sir F. Eh ? sir ! Dan. 0 ! you know he never means what he says. Sir F. Sincerely, then, you do like the piece? Sneer. M'onderfully ! Sir F. Rut, come now, there must be something that you think might be mended, eh ? Mr Dangle, has notliing struck you ? Dan. M'hy, faith, it is but an ungracious thing for the most part to Sir F. With most authors it is just so, indeed ; they are in general strangely tenacious ; but, for my part, 1 am never so well pleased as when a judicious critic points out any defect to me ; for what is the purpose of showing a work to a friend if you don’t mean to profit by his opinion ? Sneer. Very true. Why then, though I seriously admire the piece upon the whole, yet there is one small objection which, if you’ll give me leave, I’ll mention. Sir P. Sir, you can’t oblige me more. Sneer. I think it wants incident. Sir P. Good God! you surprise me ! wants incident? Sneer. Yes ; I oivn I think the incidents are too few. Sir F. Good God ! Relieve me, Mr Sneer, there is no person for whose judgment I have a more implicit deference ; but I protest to you, Mr Sneer, I am only apprehensive that the incidents are too crowded. My dear Dangle, how does it strike you ? Dan. Really, I can’t agree with my friend Sneer. I think the plot quite sufficient ; and the four first acts by many degrees the best I ever read or saw in j my life. If I might venture to suggest anything, it is ! that the interest rather falls off in the fifth. Sir F. Rises, I believe you mean, sir. Dan. No ; I don’t, upon my word. Sir F. Yes, yes, you do, upon my soul ; it certainly don’t fall off, I assure you ; no, no, it don’t fall off. Dan. Now, Mrs Dangle, did’nt j'ou say it struck you in the same light ? Mrs D. No, indeed, I did not. I did not see a fault in any part of the play from the beginning to the end. Sir F. Upon my soul, the women are the best judges after all! 62 Mrs D. Or if 1 made any objection, I am sure it was to nothing in the piece ; but that I was afraid it was, on the whole, a little too long. Sir F. Pray, madam, do you speak as to duration of time : or do you mean that the story is tediously spun out ? Mrs D. 0 lud ! no. I speak only with reference to the usual length of acting plays. Sir F. Then I am very happy— very happy indeed ; because the play is a short play, a remarkably short play. I should not venture to differ with a lady on a point of taste ; but on these occasions the watch, you know, is the critic. Mrs D. Then, I suppose, it must have been Mr 1 Dangle’s drawling manner of reading it to me. Sir A". 0 ! if Mr Dangle read it, that’s quite another affair ; but I assure you, Mrs Dangle, the first evening you can spare me three hours and a half. I’ll under- ' take to read you the whole from beginning to end, with I the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the | music between the acts. | Mrs D. I hope to see it on the stage next. [Exis. \ Dan. Well, Sir Fretful, I wish you may be able to | get rid as easily of the newspaper criticisms as you I do of ours. Sir F. The newspapers! sir, they are the most villanous, licentious, abominable, infernal — not that I ever read them ; no, I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper. Dan. You are quite right; for it certainly must hurt an author of delicate feelings to see the liberties they take. Sir F. No ; quite the contrary ; their abuse is, in fact, the best panegyric; 1 like it of all things. An author’s reputation is only in danger from their sup- port. Sneer. Why, that’s true ; and that attack, now, on j you the other day | Sir F. What ? where ? j Dan. Ay ! you mean in a paper of Thursday ; it was completely ill-natured to be sure. Sir F. 0! so much the better; ha! ha! ha! I wouldn’t have it otherwise. Dan. Certainly, it is only to be laughed at, for Sir F. You don’t happen to recollect what the fellow said, do you ? Sneer. Pray, Dangle ; Sir Fretful seems a little anxious Sir F. 0 lud, no ! anxious, not I, not the least — I — but one may as well hear, you know. Dan. Sneer, do you recollect ? Make out some- thing. \_Aside. Sneer. I will. [To Dangle.'\ Yes, yes, I remember perfectly. ■ Sir F. Well, and pray now — not that it signifies — what might the gentleman say ? Sneer. Why, he roundly asserts that you have not the slightest invention or original genius whatever, though you are the greatest traducer of all other authors living. Sir P. Ha, ha, ha ! very good. Sneer. That as to comedy, you have not one idea of your own, he believes, even in your commonplace book, where stray jokes and pilfered witticisms are kept with as much method as the ledger of the lost and stolen office. Sir F. Ha, ha, ha ! very pleasant. Sneer. Nay, that you are so unlucky as not to have the skill even to steai with taste ; but that you glean from the refuse of obscure volumes, where more judi- cious plagiarists have been before you ; so that the body of your work is a composition of dregs and sedi* ments, like a bad tavern’s worst wine. Sir P. Ha, ha ! Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, youi bombast would be less intolerable if the thought! 145 PROM 1727 CYCLOP^IDIA OF TO 178U. wore ever suited to the expressions ; but the homeli- ness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic in- cumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms. Sir F. 11a, hal Sneer. Tliat your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would aground of linsey-woolsey; while your iniita- tions of Shakspeare resemble the mimicry of Fal- statTs page, and are about as near the standard of the original. Sir F, Ila ! Sneer. In short, that even the finest passages you steal are of no service to you ; for the poverty of your own language prevents their assimilating, so that they lie on the surface like lumps of marl on a barren moor, encumbering what it is not in their power to fertilize. Sir F. [^.Aftcr great agitation.^ Now, another person would be vexed at this. Sneer. Oh! but 1 wouldn’t have told you, only to divert you. Sir F. 1 know it. I am diverted — ha, ha, ha! not the least invention ! ha, ha, ha ! very good, very good ! Sneer. Yes; no genius! ha, ha, ha! Fan. A severe rogue, ha, ha, ha ! — but you are quite right. Sir Fretful, never to read such nonsense. Sir F. To be sure ; for if there is anything to one’s prai.se, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it ; and if it is abuse, why one is always sure to hear of it from some good-natured friend or other 1 [The Anatom/ of Character performed hy I Uncharitableness.'] [From ‘ The School for Scandal.’] Mariu enters to Lady Sneerwem. and Joseph Surface. Lady S. Maria, ray dear, how do you do 2 What’s the matter 2 Maria. Oh ! there is that disagreeable lover of mine. Sir Benjamin Backbite, has just called at my guardian’s with his odious uncle, Crabtree ; so I slipt out, and ran hither to avoid them. Lady S. 1s that all 2 Joseph S. If my brother Charles had been of the party, madam, perhaps you would not have been so much alarmed. Lady S. Nay, now you are severe ; for I dare swear the truth of the matter is, Maria heard you were here. But, my dear, what has Sir Benjamin done that you should avoid him sol Maria. Oh, he has done nothing — but ’tis for what he has said : his conversation is a perpetual libel on all his acquaintance. Joseph 8. Ay, and the worst of it is, there is no ad- I vantage in not knowing him — for he’ll abuse a stranger iust as soon as his best friend ; and his uncle Crab- tree’s as bad. Lady S. Nay, but we should make allowance. Sir Benjamin is a wit and a poet. Maria. F'or my part, I own, madam, wit loses its respect with me when I see it in company with malice. What do you think, Mr Surface! Joseph S. Certainly, madam ; to smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another’s breast is to become a principal in the mischief. Lady S. Pshaw! — there’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill nature : the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick. What’s your opinion, Mr Surface 2 Joseph S. To be sure, madam ; that conversation, where the spirit of raillery is suppressed, will ever ap- ( oar tedious and insipid. Maria. Well, I’ll not debate bow far scandal may be allowable ; but in a man, I am sure, it is always I contemptible. We have pride, envy, rivalship, and a I thousand little motives to depreciate each other; but the male slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before he can traduce one. Enter Servant. Serv. Madam, Mrs Candour is below, and if your ladyship’s at leisure, will leave her carriage. Jjady S. Beg her to walk in. [Fxit Servant.] Now, Maria, however, here is a character to your taste ; for though Mrs Candour is a little talkative, every body allows her to be the best natured and best sort of woman. Maria. Yes — with a very gross aflcctation of good nature and benevolence, she does more mischief than the direct malice of old Crabtree. Joseph S. 1 ’faith that’s true. Lady Sneerwell : whenever I hear the current running against the characters of my friend.s, 1 never think them in such danger as when Candour undertakes their defence. Lady S. Hush ! — here she i.s! Enter Mrs Candour. Mrs C. My dear Lady Sneerwell, how have you been this century 2 Mr Surface, what news do you hear 2 — though indeed it is no matter, for 1 think one hears nothing else but .scandal. Joseph S. Just so, indeed, ma’am. Mrs C. Oh, Maria ! child — what 1 is the whole affair off between you and Charles 2 His extrava- gance, I presume — the town talks of nothing else. Maria. I am very sorry, ma’am, the town has so little to do. Mrs C. True, true, child : but there’s no stopping people’s tongues. I own I was hurt to hear it, as 1 indeed was to learn, from the same quarter, that your guardian, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, have not agreed lately as well as could be wished. Maria. ’Tis strangely impertinent for people to busy themselves so. Mrs C. Very true, child: but what’s to be done! People will talk — there’s no preventing it. Why, it was but yesterday I was told that Miss Gadabout had eloped with Sir Filligree Flirt. But there’s no mind- ing what one hears ; though, to be sure, 1 had this from very good authority. Maria. Such reports are highly scandalous. Mrs C. So they are, child — shameful, shameful ! But the world is so censorious, no character escapes Well, now, who would have suspected your friend, Mi.ss Prim, of an indiscretion 2 Yet such is the ill- nature of people that they say her uncle stopt her last week, just as she was stepping into the York mail with her dancing-master. Maria. I’ll answer for’t there are no grounds for that report. Mrs C. Ah, no foundation in the world, I dare swear ; no more, probably, than for the story circulated last month of Mrs Festino’s affair with Colonel Cas- sino ; though, to be sure, that matter was never rightly cleared up. Joseph S. The license of invention some people take is monstrous indeed. Maria. ’Tis .so — but, in niy opinion, those who re- port such things are equally culpable. Mrs C. To be sure they are ; tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers — ’tis an old observation, and a very true one : but what’s to be done, as I said before 2 how will you prevent people from talking 2 To-day Mrs Clackitt assured me Mr and Mrs Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of tlieir acquaintance. * * No, no ! tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers. Joseph S. Ah ! Mrs Candour, if every body had your forbearance and good-nature ! 146 COMIC DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITEHATUKE. RICHARD imiNSi.Ey Sheridan. Mrs C. 1 confess, Mr Surface, I cannot bear to hear I people attacked behind their backs ; and when ugly ciiTunnstances come out against our acquaintance, I I own 1 always love to think the best. By the by, I hope I ’tis not true that your brother is absolutely ruined ? i Josfpl) S. I am afraid his circumstances are very ; bad inde. d, ma’am. I Mrs C. Ah ! I heard so — but you must tell him to I keep up his spirits ; everybody almost is in the same way — Lord Spindle, Sir Thomas Splint, and Mr Nickit — all up, I hear, within this week ; so, if Charles is undone, he’ll find h.alf his acquaintance ruined tooj and that, you know, is a consolation. Joseph, S. Dv vbtless, ma’am — a very great one. Enter Servant. Serv. Mr Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. [Exit Servant. Lady S. So, Maria, you see your lover pursues you ; positively you shan’t escape. Enter Crabtrek and Sir Benjamin Backbite. Crah. Lady Sneerwell, 1 kiss your hand. Mrs Can- dour, I don’t believe you are acquainted with my nephew. Sir Benjamin Backbite ? Egad ! ma’am, he has a pretty wit, and is a pretty poet, too ; isn’t he. Lady Sneerwell ? Sir B. 0 fie, uncle ! Crab. Nay, egad, it’s true ; I back him at a rebus or a charade against the best rhymer in the kingdom. Has your ladyship heard the epigram he wrote last week on Lady Frizzle’s feather catching fire ! Do, Benjamin, repeat it, or the charade you made last night extempore at Mrs Drowzie’s .conversazione. Come now ; your first is the name of a fish, your second a great naval commander, and Sir B. Uncle, now — prithee Crab. I’faith, ma’am, ’twould surprise you to hear how re.ady he is at these things. Lady S. I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything. Sir B. To say truth, ma’am, ’tis very vulgar to print ; and as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular people, I find they circu- late more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties. However, I have some love elegies, which, when favoured with this lady’s smiles, I mean to give the public. Crab. ’Fore heaven, ma’am, they’ll immortalise you ! you will be handed down to posterity, like Pe- trarch’s Laura, or Waller’s Sacharissa. Sir B. Yes, madam, I think you will like them, when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall murmur through a meadow of margin. ’Fore gad they will be the most elegant things of their kind ! Crab. But, ladies, that’s true — have j'ou heard the news 1 Mrs C. WTiat, sir, do you mean the report of Crab. No, ma’am, that’s not it — Miss Nicely is going to be married to her own footman. Mrs C. Impossible! Crab. Ask Sir Benjamin. Sir B. ’Tis very true, ma’am ; everything is fixed, and the wedding liveries bespoke. Crab. Y es ; and they do say there were very press- ing reasons for it. Lady S. Why, I have heard something of this before. Mrs C. It can’t be ; and I wonder any one should believe such a story of so prudent a lady as Miss Nicely. Sir B. 0 lud ! ma’am, that’s the very reason ’twas I believed at once. She has always been so cautious I and so reserved that everybody was sure there was : some reason for it at bottom. j Mrs (7. Why, to be sure, a tale of scandal Is as fatal to the credit of a prudent lady of her stamp as a fever is generally to those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of puny sickly reputation that is always ailing, yet will outlive the robuster characters of a hundred prudes. Sir B. True, madam, there are valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution ; who, being con- scious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and cir- cumspection. Mrs C. Well, but this may be all a mistake. You know. Sir Benjamin, very trilling circumstances often give rise to the most injurious talcs. Crab. That they do. I’ll be sworn, ma’am. 0 lud I Mr Surface, pray is it true that your uncle. Sir Oliver, is coming home ? Joseph S. Not that I know of, indeed, sir. Crab. He has been in the East Indies a long time. You can scarcely remember him, I believe? Sad com- fort whenever he returns, to hear how your brother has gone on. Joseph S. Charles has been imprudent, sir, to be sure; but I hope no busy people have already preju- diced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform. Sir B. To be sure he may ; for my part I never be- lieved him to be so utterly void of principle as people say ; and though he has lost all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews. Crab. That’s true, egad, nephew. If the Old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman : no man more popular there ! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine ; and that, whenever he i is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in all the synagogues. Sir B. Yet no man lives in greater splendour. They tell me, when he entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the antechamber, and an officer behind every guest’s chair. Joseph S. This may be entertainment to you, gen- tlemen ; but you pay very little regard to the feelings of a brother. Maria. Their malice is intolerable. Lady Sneer- well, I must wish you a good morning : I’m not very well. [Exit Maria. Mrs C. 0 dear ! she changes colour very much. Lady S. Do, Mrs Candour, follow her: she may want your assistance. Mrs C. That I will, with all my soul, ma’am. Poor dear girl, who knows what her situation may be ! [Exit Mrs Candour. Lady S. ’Twas nothing but that she could not bear to hear Charles reflected on, notwithstanding their difference. Sir B. The young lady’s penchant is obvious Crab. But, Benjamin, you must not give u\ the pursuit for that ; follow her, and put her into good humour. Repeat her some of your own verses. Come, I’ll assist you. Sir B. Mr Surface, I did not mean to hurt you ; but, depend on’t, your brother is utterly undone. Crab. 0 lud, ay 1 undone as ever man was. Can’t raise a guinea! Sir B. And every thing sold. I’m told, that was I moveable. Crab. I have seen one that was at his house. Not I a thing left but some empty bottles that were over- \ looked, and the family pictures, which I believe are | framed in the wainscots. ! Sir B. And I’m very sorry, also, to hear some bad j stories against him. j Crab. Oh! he has done many mean things, that’s certain. Sir B. But, however, as he is your brother Crab. We’ll tell you all another opportunity. [ExemU Crabtree and Sir BmjamiK 147 I'KOM 1727 CYCI.()I'i^;i)IA OF ro i76u J.iulij S. lla ! ha ! ’tis very }iard for tliem to leave a Biihject tliey liave not quite run down. Jii.vjili -S’. And I believe the abune was no more aei;e( table to your ladyshi]) than Maria. IauUj -S’. 1 doubt her alfectioiiM are further engaged tlian we imagine. Hut the family are to be here tliis evening, so you may as well dine where you are, and we shall have an opportunity of observing farther; in the meantime I’ll go and plot misehief, and you shall study sentiment. \_Ejxunt. In the last year of this period (1780), Mrs Cow- 1, ky. a neglected poetess, produced her lively comedy, '( Ut HtUes iSlrntar/cm, which is still popular on the stage. In theatrical phrase, therefore, we may say that, with respect to comedy, the season closed well, anil was marked by unusual brilliancy. This period may be said to have given birth to the well-known species of sub-comedy entitled the Farce — a kind of entertainment more peculiarly Knglish than comedy itself, and in which the lite- rature of our country is surprisingly rich. As in- ferior in dignity, it is here jdaced after comedy ; but there are reasons why it might have been placed first, for some of its luminaries flourished early in the period, and by their productions exercised a con- siderable influence on the comedies which came after, and which have just been enumerated. Amongst the first who shone in this field was David Garrick Valet and Miss in her Teens, which are still favou- rites. I!ut, unquestionably, the chief strength of Garrick lay in his powers as an actor, by which he G.irrick’s Villa, near Hampton. David Garrick. (1716-1779), so eminent as an actor in both tragedy and comedy. Garrick was a native of Lichfield, and a pupil of Dr Johnson, with whom he came to London to push his fortune. His merits quickly raised him to the head of his profession. As the manager of one of the principal theatres for a long course of years, he banished from the stage many plays which had an immoral tendency ; and his personal character, though marked by excessive vanity and other foibles, gave a dignity and respec- tability to the profession of an actor. As an author he was more lively and various than vigorous or pro- found. He wrote some epigrams, and even ventured on an ode or two ; he succeeded in the composition of some dramatic pieces, and the adaptation of others fo tlie stage. His principal plays are, The Lying gave a popularity and importance to the drama that it had not jiossessed since its palmy days in the reigns of Klizabeth and .James. Sheridan ho- I nonred his memory with a florid sentimental mo- I nody, in which he invoked the ‘gentle muse’ to \ ‘guard his laurelled shrine’ — Ami with soft sighs disperse the irreverent du.st Which time may strew upon his sacred bust. Fielding was another distinguished writer in this w'alk, though of all his pieces oidy one, Tom Thumb, j has been able to keep possession of the stage. He ' threw' off these light plays to meet the demands of the town for amusement, and parry his own clamo- rous necessities, and they generally have tlie ap|iear- ance of much haste. Lojon him, but confined to bed two days with the new influenza. [Exit Servant. Char, y ou make light. Sir Luke, of these sort of engagements. Sir Luke. What can a man do? The.se fellows (when one has the misfortune to meet them) take scandalous advantage : when will you do me the honour, praj , Sir Luke, to take a hit of mutton with me ? Do you name the d.ay ? They are as bad as a beggar who attack.s your coach at the mounting of a hill ; there is no getting rid of them without a penny to one, and a promise to t’other. Say. True ; and then for such a time too — three weeks ! I wonder they expect folks to remember. It is like a retainer in Michaelmas term for the summer assizes. Sir Luke. Not but upon these occasions no man In England is more punctual than Enter a Servant, who gives Sir Luke a letter. From whom ? Serv. Earl of Brentford. The servant waits for an answer. Sir Luke. Answer ! By your leave, Mr Serjeant and Charlotte. [iJcaifs.] ‘ Taste for music — Mons. Duport- — fail— dinner upon table at five.’ Gadso! I hope Sir Gregory’s servant an’t gone. Serv. Immediately upon receiving the answer. Sir Luke. Run after him as fast as you can — tell him quite in despair — recollect an engagement that can’t in nature be missed, and return in an instant. [Exit Servant. Char. You see, sir, the knight must give way for my lord. Sir Luke. No, faith, it is not that, my dear Char- lotte ; you saw that was quite an extempore business. No, hang it, no, it is not for the title ; but, to tell you the truth, Brentford has more wit than any man in the world : it is tliat makes me fond of his house. Char. By the choice of his company he gives an unanswerable instance of that. Sir Luke. Y ou are right, my dear girl. But now to give you a proof of his wit : you know Brentford’s finances are a little out of repair, which procures him some visits that he would very gladly excuse. Serj. WTiat need he fear? His person is sacred; for by the tenth of William and Mary Sir Luke. He know’s that well enough ; but for all that Serj Indeed, by a late act of his own hou.se (which does them infinite honour), his goods or chattels may be Sir Luke. Seized upon when they can find them ; but lie lives in ready furnished lodgings, and hires his coach by the month. Setj. Nay, if the sheriff return ‘non inventus.’ Sir Luke. A plague o’ your law ; you make me lose sight of my story. One morning a Welsh coach- maker came with his bill to my lord, whose name was unluckily Lloyd. My lord had the man up. You •re called, I think, Mr Lloyd ? At your lordship’s service, my lord. What, Lloyd with an L! It was with an L, indeed, my lord. Beciiuse in your part of the world I have heard that Lloyd and Klloyd were synonymous, the very same nami!;i. Very often in- deed, my lord. But you always spell yours with an L ? Always. That, Mr Lloyd, is a little unlucky ; for you must know I am now paying my debts alpha- betically, and in four or five yea.m you migat have come in with an F ; but I am afraid I can give you no hopes for your L. Ha, ha, ha ! Enter a Servant. Serv. There was no overtaking the servant. Sir Ijuke. That is unlucky : tell my lord I’ll attend him. I’ll call on Sir Gregory myself. [Exit Seni. Serj. Why, you won’t leave us, Sir Luke ? Sir Luke. Pardon, dear Serjeant and Charlotte, have a thousand things to do for half a million of people, positively ; promised to procure a husband for Lady Cicely Sulky, and match a coach-horse for Bri- gadier Whip; after that, must run into the city to borrow a thousand for young At-all at Alniack’s ; send a Cheshire cheese by the stage to Sir Timothy Tankard in Suffolk ; and get at the Herald’s office a coat of arms to clap on the coach of Billy' Bengal, a nabob newly arrived ; so you see I have not a moment to lose. Serj. True, true. Sir Luke. At your toilet to-morrow you may [Enter a Servant abruptly, and runs against Sirlmke.] Can’t you see where you are running, you rascal. Serv. Sir, his grace the Duke of Sir Luke. Grace ! — Where is he ? Where Sa'V. In his coach at the door. If you an’t better engaged, would be glad of your company to go into the city, and take a dinner at Dolly’s. Sir Luke. In his own coach, did you say ? Serv. Y es, sir. Sir Luke. With the coronets — or Serv. I believe so. Sir Luke. There’s no resisting of that. Bid Joe run to Sir Gregory Goose’s. Serv. He is already gone to Alderman Inkle’s. Sir Luke. Then do you step to the knight — hey! — no — you must go to my lord’s — hold, hold, no — I have it — step first to .Sir Greg’s, then pop in at Lord Brentford’s, just as the company are going to dinner. Serv. What shall I say to Sir Gregory ? Sir Luke. Anything — what 1 told you before. Serv. And what to my lord ? Sir Luke. What ! — Why, toll him that my uncle from Epsom — no — that won’t do, for he knows I don’t care a farthing for him — hey ! Why, tell him — hold, I have it. Tell him that as I was going into my chair to obey his commands, I was arrested by a couple of bailiffs, forced into a hackney coach, and carried into the Pied Bull in the borough ; I beg ten thou- sand pardons for making his grace wait, hut his grace knows my misfor [Exeunt Sir Luke and Serv. Char. Well, sir, what d’ye think of th» proofs? I flatter myself I have pretty well established my la-se. Serj. Why, hussy, you have hit upon points ; but then they are but trifling flaws, they don’t, vitiate the title ; that stands unimpeached. The popularity of ‘ The Beggar’s Opera’ being partly owing to the excellent music which accom- panied the piece, we find in this period a number of comic operas, in which songs and dialogue alter- nate. Sheridan’s unexampled success has been already mentioned. The Devil to Pay, by C. Coffev, was long a favourite, chiefly for the female charac- ter, Nell, which m.ade tlie fortune of several actresses and among the best pieces of this description ara those by Isaac Bickerstaff, whose operas. The I-ROM 17J7 CYCLOril^DIA OF to 178it. Padtoch, Imvc in a Vilhuje., Lionel Clarissa, &e., j>re- sc’Mt ii pluiising union of lyricul ctiarms witli tliose of (Iriiniiitio incident and dialof'iie. Charles Diiidin was antlior and composer of a multitude of ir.usical operas and otlier dramatic trifles: Ids Qaalter, pro- duced in 1777, is distinguished for its excellent music. PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. An attempt was made at tliis period to revive the style of periodical literature, whieh had proved so successful in the hands of Addison and Steele. After tlie eessation of ‘ 'I’he Guardian,’ there was a long interval, during which perioilical writing was confined to party politics. An effi)rt was made to coniK'ct it again witli literature hy Dr Johnson, who published the first paper of The Rambler on the 20tli of March 17:>0, an- 15-J PF.RIOniCAL ESSAYISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. tain. Rut that pride wliicli manj', wlio presume to boast of jrenerous sentiments, allow to regulate tlieir nicasurcs, lias notliinn; nobler in view than the ap- probation of men ; of being:s whose superiority we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent re- ward ; of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, or partially determine what they have never examined ; and whose sentence is there- fore of no weight, till it has received the ratification of our own conscience. lie that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price of his innocence ; he that can suffer the delight of such acclamations to withhold his atten- tion from tlie commands of the uuiversid sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon the greatness of his mind ; whenever he awakes to seriousness and reflection, he must become despicable in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice and folly. Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispen- sably required that he forgive. It is therefore super- fluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended ; and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of tlie world has been born in vain.’ A still finer specimen of Johnson’s style is af- forded in an essay on retirement from the world : — ‘ On him,’ says the moralist, ‘ that appears to pass through things temporal with no other care than not to lose finally the things eternal, I look with such veneration as inclines me to approve his conduct in the whole, without a minute examina- tion of its parts ; yet I could never forbear to wish, that while Vice is every day multiplying seduce- nients, and stalking forth with more hardened effron- tery, Virtue would not withdraw the influence of her presence, or forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perseverance in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men ; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly be- ings, and, however free from t.aints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of beneficence.’ These sentences show the stately artificial style of Johnson, which, when supported by profound thought, or pointed morality, as in the foregoing ex- tracts, appears to groat advantage, but is unsuited to ordinary topics of life and conversation. Hence, he shines more in his colloquial displays, as recorded by Boswell, where much of this extraneous pomp was left off, while all the point and vigour of his understanding, and the powers of wit and imagi- nation, were retained. He is, in fact, a greater man in the pages of his biographer than in his own works: the intellectual gladiator of the club evinced a more powerful, ready, and various mind, than he could embody in his deliberate writings in the closet. Goldsmith was directly the reverse : he could argue best, as he said, with the pen in his hand. [Tale of Anningait and Ajut.^ [From ‘ The Rambler.'] Of the happiness and misery of our present state, part arises from our sensations, and part from our opinions ; part is distributed by nature, and part is in a great measure apportioned by ourselves. Positive pleasure we cannot always obtain, and positive pain we often cannot remove. No man can give to his oto plantations the fragrance of the Indian groves ; nor will any precepts of philosophy enable him to withdraw his attention from wounds or diseases. Rut the nega- tive infelicity which proceeds, not from the pressure of sufferings, but the absence of enjoyiueuts, will always yield to the remedies of reason. One of the great arts of escaping superfluous un- easiness, is to free our minds from the habit of com- paring our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security, perhaps un- attainable by mortals. Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distres.sful as not to .see every day beings yet more forlorn and miserable, from whom they may learn to rejoice in their ~'vn lot. No inconvenience is less superable by art or diligence than the inclemency of climates, and therefore none affords more proper exercise for this philosophical ab- straction. A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country by suffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among woods that are always green, and streams that always murmur ; but if he turns his thoughts towards the polar regions, and con- siders the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquillity ; and while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to providence that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia. The barrenness of the earth, and the severity of the skies in these dreary countries, are such as might be expected to confine the mind wholly to the contempla- tion of necessity and distress, so that the care of escap- ing death from cold and hunger should leave no room for those passions which, in lands of plenty, influence conduct, or diversify characters ; the summer should be spent only in providing for the winter, and the win- ter in longing for the summer. Yet learned curiosity is known to have found its way into those abodes of poverty and gloom : Lapland and Iceland have their historians, their critics, and their poets ; and Love, that extends his dominion wherever humanity can be found, perhaps exerts the same power in the Greenlander’s hut as in the palaces of eastern monarchs. In one of the large caves to which the families of Greenland retire together, to pass the cold months, and which may be termed their villages or cities, a youth and maid, who came from different parts of the country, were so much distinguished for their beauty, that they were called by the rest of the inhabitants, Anningait and Ajut, from a supposed resemblance to their ancestors of the same names, who had been trans- formed of old into the sun and moon. Anningait for some time heard the praises of Ajut with little emotion, but at last, by frequent interviews, became sensible of her charms, and first made a disco- very .if his affection by inviting her with her parents to a least, where he placed before Ajut the tail of a whale. Ajut seemed not much delighted by this gal- lantly ; yet, however, from that time was observed rarely to appear but in a vest made of the skin of a white deer ; she used frequently to renew the black dye upon her hands and forehead, to adorn her sleeves with coral and shells, and to braid her hair with great exactness. The elegance of her dress, and the judicious di.spo- sition of her ornaments, had such an effect upon An- ningait that he could no longer be restrained from a declaration of his love. He therefore composed a poem in her praise, in which, among other heroic and tender sentiments, he protested that ‘ She was beauti- ful as the vernal willow, and fragrant as thyme upon the mountains ; that her fingers were white as the teeth of the morse, and her smile grateful as the dis- solution of the ice ; that he would pursue her, though CYCLOPiKDIA OF TO . 780. FROM 17-7 bIic Kliould jiass the biiows of the midland cliffs, or Book sholtcr in the caves of the caBteni cannibals ; that he would tear her from the embraces of the genius of the rocks, snatch her from the jiaws of Amaroc, and rescue her from the ravine of llafgufa.’ He concluded with a wish, that, ‘whoever shall attempt to hinder his union with Ajut, might be buried without his bow, and that in the land of souls his skull might serve for no other use than to catch the drojipings of the starry lamps.’ Tills ode being universally applauded, it was ex- pected that AJut would soon yield to such fervour and accomplishments ; iut Ajut, with the natural haughtiness of beauty, cxp.'ctcd all the forms of court- ship ; and before she would confess herself conquered, the sun returned, the ice broke, and the season of labour called all to their employments. Anningait and Ajut for a tiii.c always went out in the same boat, and divided whatever was caught. Anningait, in the sight of his rnistrc.ss, lost no oppor- tunity of signalising his courage ; he attacked the sea-horses on the ice ; pursued the seals into the water ; and leaped upon the back of the whale while he was yet .struggling with the remains of life. Nor was his diligence less to accumulate all that could be necessary to make winter comfortable ; he dried the roe of fishes, and the flesh of seals ; he entrapped deer and foxes, and dressed their skins to .adorn his bride ; he feasted her with eggs from the rocks, and strewed her tent with flowers. It happened that a tempest drove the fish to a dis- tant part of the coast before Anningait had completed his store ; he therefore intreated Ajut that she would at last grant him her hand, and accompany him to that part of the country whither he was now sum- moned by necessity. Ajut thought him not yet en- titled to such conde.scension, but proposed, as a trial of his constancy, that he should return at the end of summer to the cavern where their acquaintance com- menced, and there expect the reward of his assiduities. ‘0 virgin, beautiful as the sun shining on the water, consider,’ said Anningait, ‘ what thou hast required. IIow easily may my return be precluded by a sudden frost or unexpected fogs ; then must the night be passed without my Ajut. We live not, my fair, in those fabled countries which lying strangers so wantonly describe ; where the whole year is divided into short davs and nights ; where the same habitation serves for summer and winter; where they raise houses in rows above the ground, dwell together from year to year, with flocks of tame animals grazing in the fields about them ; can travel at any time from one pliice to an- other, through -ways inclosed with trees, or over walls raised upon the inland waters ; and direct their course through wide countries, by the sight of green hills or scattered buildings. Even in summer we have no means of crossing the mountains, whose snows are never dissolved ; nor can remove to any distant resi- dence, but in our boats coasting the bays. Consider, Ajut ; a few summer days and a few winter-nights and the life of man is at an end. Night is the time of ease and festivity, of revels and gaiety ; but what will be the flaming lamp, the delicious seal, or the soft oil, without the smile of Ajut !’ The eloquence of Anningait was vain ; the maid eontlnued inexorable, and they parted with ardent promises to meet again before the night of winter. Anningait, however discomposed by the dilatory coyness of Ajut, was yet resolved to omit no tokens of amorous respect ; and therefore presented her at his departure with the skins of seven white fawns, of five swans, and eleven seals, with three marble lamps, ten vessels of seal oil, and a large kettle of bra,ss, which he had purchased from a ship at the price of naif a whale and two horns of sea-unicorns. Ajut was BO much affected by the fondness of her lover, or so much overpowered by his magnificence, that she followed him to the sea-side ; and when she saw him enter the boat, wished aloud that he might return with plenty of skins and oil ; that neither the mermaids miglit snatch him into the deeps, nor the spiritB of the rocks confine him in their caverns. She stood a while to gaze upon the departing vessel, and then returning to her hut, silent and dejected, laid aside from that hour her white deer skin, suf- fered her hair to spread unbraided on her shoulders, and forbore to mix in the dances of the maidens. She endeavoured to divert her thought by continual ap- plication to feminine employments, gathered moss for the winter lamps, and dried grass to line the boots of Anningait. Of the skins which he had bestowed upon her, she made a fi.shing-coat, a small boat, and tent, all of exqui.site manufacture ; and while she was thus busied, solaced her labours with a song, in which she prayed ‘ that her lover might have hands stronger than the paws of the bear, and feet swifter than the feet of the rein-deer ; that his dart might never err, and that his boat might never leak ; that he might never stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash the waves, in vain.’ The large boats in which the Greenlanders transport their families are always rowed by women ; for a man will not deba.se himself by work which requires neither skill nor courage. Anningait was therefore exposed by idleness to the ravages of passion. lie went thrice to the stem of the boat with an intent to leap into the water and swim back to his mistre.ss ; but re- collecting the misery which they must endure in the winter, without oil for the lamp, or skins for the bed, he resolved to employ the weeks of absence in provi- sion for a night of plenty and felicity, lie then com- posed his emotions as he could, and expressed in wild numbers and uncouth images his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears. ‘ 0 life,’ says he, ‘ frail and uncertain! where shall wretched man find thy re.semblance but in ice floating on the ocean ? It towers on high, it sparkles from afar, while the storms drive and the waters beat it, the sun melts it above and the rocks shatter it below. What art thou, deceitful pleasure ! but a sudden blaze streaming from the north, whici plays a moment on the eye, mocks the traveller with the hopes of light, and tlien vanishes for ever! What, love, art thou but a whirlpool, which we approach without knowledge of our danger, drawm on by imper- ceptible degrees till we have lost all power of resist- ance and escape 1 Till I fixed my eyes on the graces of Ajut, while I had yet not called her to the ban- quet, I was careless as the sleeping morse, I was merry as the singers in the stars. ^\’hy, Ajut, did I gaze upon thy graces? Why, my fair, did 1 call thee tc the banquet? Yet, be faithful, my love, remember Anningait, and meet my return with the smile of virginity. I will chase the deer, I will subdue the whale, resistless as the frost of darkness, and un- wearied as the summer sun. In .a few weeks 1 shall return prosperous and wealthy ; then shall the roe-fish and the porpoise feast thy kindred ; the fox and hare shall cover thy' couch ; the tough hide of the seal shall shelter thee from cold ; and the fat of the whale illu- minate thy dwelling.’ Anningait having with these sentiments consoled his grief and animated his industry, found that they had now coasted the headland, and saw the whales spouting at a distance. He therefore jilaced himself in his fishirg-boat, called his associates to their seve- ral employments, plied his oar and haipoon with in- credible courage and dexterity ; and, by dividing his time between the chase and fishery, suspended the miseries of absence and suspicion. Ajut, in the meantime, notwithstanding her ne- glected dress, happened, as she was drying some skins 154 PF.uioDic.vL ESSAYISTS. KNGLISII LITERATURK. joiin hawkkswouth. in the sun, to catch the eye of Norngsuk, on his return from hunting. N orngsuk was of birth truly illu.striou3. llis mother had died in childbirth, and his father, the most expert fi her of Greenland, had perished by too close pursuit of the whale. llis dignity was equalled by his riches ; he was master of four men’s and two women’s boats, had ninety tubs of oil in his winter habitation, and five-and-twenty seals buried I in the snow against tlie .season of darkness. When he .saw the beauty of .\jut, ho immediately threw over her the skin of a deer that he had taken, and soon after iircsented her with a branch of coral. Ajut re- fused his gifts, and determined to admit no lover in the place of .Vuningait. Norngsuk, thus rejected, had recourse to stratagem. He knew that .-Vjut would consult an Angekkok, or diviner, concerning the fate of her lover, and the feli- city of her future life. He therefore applied himself to the most celebrated Angekkok of that part of the country, and by a present of two seals and a marble kettle,. obtained a promise that when Ajut should consult him, he would declare that her lover was in the land of souls. Ajut, in a short time, brought him a coat made by herself, and inquired what events were to befiill lier, with assurances of a much larger reward at tlie return of Anningait if the prediction should flatter her desires. The Angekkok knew the way to riches, and foretold that Anningait, having alre.ady caught two whales, would soon return home with a large boat laden with jirovisions. This prognostication she was ordered to keep secret ; and Norngsuk, depending upon his artifice, renewed his addresses with greater confidence ; but finding his suit still unsuccessful, applied himself to her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of Greenland is too powerful for the virtue of a Greenlander ; they forgot the merit and the presents of Anninsait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of Norngsuk. She entreated; she remonstrated; she wept and raved; but finding riches irresi.stible, fled away into the up- lands, and lived in a cave upon such berries as she could gather, and the birds or hares which she had the fortune to insnare, taking care, at an hour when she was not likely to be found, to view the sea every day, that her lover might not miss her at his re- turn. At last she saw the great boat in which Anningait had departed, stealing slow and heavy laden along the coast. She ran with all the impatience of affec- tion to catch her lover in her arms, and relate her con- stancy and sufferings. When the company reached the land, they informed her that Anningait, after the fishery was ended, being unable to support the slow passage of the vessel of carriage, had set out before them in his fisliing-boat, and they expected at their arrival to have found him on shore. Ajut, distracted at this intelligence, was about to fly into the hills, without knowing why, though she was now in the hands of her parents, who forced her back to their own hut, and endeavoured to comfort her; but when at last they retired to rest, Ajut went down to the beach, where, finding a fishing-boat, she entered it without hesitation, and telling those who wondered at her rashness that she was going in search of Annin- gait, rowed away with great swiftness, and was seen no more. The fate of these lovers gave occasion to various fictions and conjectures. Some are of opinion that they were changed into stars ; others imagine that Anningait was seized in his passage by the genius of the rocks, and that Ajut was transformed into a mer- maid, and still continues to seek her lover in the de- serts of the sea. But the general persuasion is, that they are both in that part of the land of souls where the sun never sets, where oil is always fresh, and pro- visions always warm. The virgins sometimes throw a thimble and a needle into the bay from which the liapless maid departed ; and when a Greenlander would praise any couple for virtuous affection, he declares that they love like Anningait and Ajut. The Adventurer, by Dr Ilawkesworth, succeeded ‘ The Rambler,’ and was published twice a- week from 1752 to 1754. John Hawkeswoiith (1715-1773) rose from being a w'atchinaker to considerable lite- rary eminence by his talents and learning. He was employed to write the narrative of Captain Cook’s discoveries in the Pacific ocean, by xvhich he realised a large sum of money, and he made an ex- cellent translation of Telemachus. With the aid of I)r Johnson, Warton, and others, he carried on ‘The Adventurer’ with considerable success. It was more various than ‘The Rambler’ — more in the style of light reading. Hawkesworth, however, was an imi- tator of Johnson, and the conclusion of ‘The Ad- venturer’ has the Johnsonian swell and cast of ima- gination : — ‘ The hour is hastening in which whatever praise or censure I have acquired by these compositions, if they are remembered at all, will be remembered with equal indifference, and the tenor of them only will afford me comfort. Time, who is impatient to date my last paper, will shortly moulder the liand that is now writing it in the dust, and still this breast that now throbs at the reflection : but let not this be read as something that relates only to another ; for a few years only can divide the eye that is now reading from the hand that has written. This awful truth, however obvious, and however reiterated, is yet fre- quently forgotten ; for surely, if we did not lose our remembrance, or at least our sensibility, that view would always predominate in our lives which alone can afford us comfort when we die.’ Hawkesworth’s Monument, Bromley. The World was the next periodical of this class. It was edited by Dr Moore, author of the tragedy of ‘ The Gamester,’ and other works, and w'as dis- tinguished by contributions from Horace Walpole, Lord Lyttelton, Soame Jenyns, and the Earl of Chesterfield. ‘The World has the merit of being very readable : its contents are more lively than any of ISS CYCLOPiKDIA OF TO 1780. I's pl'clil’ccssors, iiml it is a better pieture of the tiTiie-i. It was puljlislied w'eekly, from January 175.3 to December 1750, and reached a sale of 2500 a- week. Another weekly miscellany • of the same kind, The Cunnolssciir, was commenced by George Col- man and liomiel Thornton — two professed wits, who ■wrote in mdson, so that, as they state, ‘ almost every single pai)cr is the joint product of both.’ Cowper the poet contrihuted a few essays to ‘ The Connoisseur,’ short hut lively, and in that easy style which marks his correspondence. One of them is on the subject of ‘ Conversation,’ and he afterwards extended it into an admirable poem. From another, on country ehurches, we give an extract which seems like a leaf from the note-hook of Washington Irving : — ‘ It is a difficult matter to decide which is looked upon as the greatest man in a country church — the parson or his clerk. The latter is most certainly held in higher veneration, when the former happens to be only a poor curate, who rides post every Sab- bath from village to village, and mounts and dis- mounts at the church door. The clerk’s office is not only to tag the prayers with an amen, or usher in the sermon with a stave : but he is also the univer- sal father to give away the brides, and the standing godfather to all the new-born bantlings. But in many places there is a still greater man belonging to the church than either the parson or the clerk himself. The person I mean is the squire ; who, like the king, may be styled head of the church in his own parish. If the benefice be in his own gift, the vicar is his creature, and of consequence entirely at his devotion ; or if the care of the churcli be left to a curate, the Sunday fees of roast-beef and plum- pudding, and a liberty to shoot in the manor, will bring him as much under the squire’s command as his dogs and horses. For this reason the bell is often kept tolling and the people waiting in the churchyard an hour longer than the usual time ; nor must the service begin till the squire has strutted up the aisle and seated himself in the great pew in the chancel. The length of the sermon is also mea- sured by the will of the squire, as formerly by the hour-glass ; and I know one parish where the preacher has always the complaisance to conclude his discourse, however abruptly, the minute that the squire gives the signal by rising up after his nap.’ ‘The Connoisseur’ was in existence from January 1754 to September 1756. In April 1758, Johnson (who thought there was ‘no matter’ in ‘The Connoisseur,’ and who had a very poor opinion of ‘The World’) entered again into this arena of light literature, and commenced his Idler. The example of his more mercurial pre- decessors had some effect on the moralist, for ‘The Idler’ is more gay and spirited than ‘ The Rambler.’ It lived through 103 numbers, twelve of which were contributed by his friends Thomas Warton, Langton. and Sir Joshua Reynolds. ‘The Idler’ was the last experiment on the public taste in England of perio- dical essays published separately. In the ‘ Town and Country Magazine,’ and other monthly miscel- lanies, essays were given along with other contribu- tions, and it was thus that Goldsmith published his compositions of this sort, as well as his Chinese Letters. Henceforward, politics engaged the public attention in a strong degree, and monopolised the weekly press of London. In Scotland, after an interval of twenty years. The Mirror, a series of periodical essays, made its appearance, and was continued weekly from January 1779 to the end of May 1780. Five years after- wards The Lounger was commenced and continued about two years, the number of ess.ays being 101. Both of these publications were sup])orted by the same author.s, namely, Mr Henry Alaekenzie (the Man of Feeling), Mr (afterwards Lord) Craig, Mr (afterwards Lord) Cullen, Mr (afterwards Lord) Bannatyne, Lord Hailes, Professor Richard.son of Glasgow, Lord Wedderburn, Mr (afterwards Lord) Abercromby, Mr Fra.ser Tytler, Baron Hume, &c. A few papers were suiiplied by volimteers, but the regular contributors were this band of friendly law- yers, whose literary talents were of no cotnnr.on order. Mr Mackenzie acted as editor of the niistel- lanies, and published in them some of his most admired minor productions, containing pathos, sen- timent, and a vein of delicate irony and humour. [Story of La Roche.'] [From ‘ The Mirror.’*] More than forty years ago, an English philosopher, whose works have since been read and admired by all Europe, resided at a little town in France. Some disappointments in his native country had first driven him abroad, and he was afterwards induced to remain there, from having found, in this retreat, where the connexions even of nation and language were avoided, a perfect .seclusion and retirement highly favourable to the develo])inent of abstract subjects, in wliich he excelled all the writers of his time. Perhaps in the structure of such a mind as Mr ’s, the finer and more delicate sensibilities are seldom known to have place ; or, if originally implanted there, are in a great measure extinguished by the exertions of intense study and profound investigation. Hence the idea of philosojdiy and unfeelingne.ss being united has become proverbial, and in common language the former word is often used to express the latter. Our philosopher h.as been censured by some as deficient in warmth and feeling ; but the mildne.ss of his manners has been allowed by all ; and it is certain that, it he was not easily melted into compassion, it was at least not difficult to awaken his benevolence. One morning, while he sat busied in those specula- tions which afterwards astonished the world, .an old female domestic, who served him for a housekeeper, brought him word that an elderly gentleman and his daughter had arrived in the village the preceding evening on their way to some dist.ant country, and that the father had been suddenly seized in the night with a dangerous disorder, which the people of the inn where they lodged feared would prove mortal ; that she had been sent for as having some knowledge in medicine, the village surgeon being then absent ; and that it was truly piteous to see the good old man, who seemed not so much afflicted by his own distre.ss as by that which it caused to his daughter. Her master laid aside the volume in his hand, and bi'oke off the chain of ideas it had inspired. His night-gown was exchanged for art. ‘ It has pleased God,’ said he ; and they saw he had settled the matter 157 FROM 1727 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1780. witli liimsclf. I’liilosophy could not have done so much with a thousand words. It was now evenin", and the good peasants were about to depart, wlicn a clock was heard to strike seven, and the hour was followed by a particular chime. The country folks who had come to welcome their pastor, turned their looks towards him at the sound ; he explained their meaning to his guest. ‘ That is the signal,’ said he, ‘ for our evening exercise ; this is one of the nights of the week in which some of my parishioners arc wont to join in it; a little rustic saloon serves for the chapel of our family, and such of the good people as are with us. If you choose rather to walk out, 1 will furnish you with an at- tendant ; or here are a few olil books that may afford you some entertainment within.’ ‘ l$y no means,’ an- swered the philosopher, ‘ I will attend Mademoiselle at her devotions.’ ‘ She is our organist,’ said La Roche ; ‘ our neighhourhood is the country of musical mechanism, and I have a small organ fitted up for the purpose of assisting our singing.’ ‘ ’Tis an addi- tional inducement,’ replied the other, and they walked into the room together. At the end stood the organ mentioned hy La Roche ; before it was a curtain, which his daughter drew aside, .and placing herself on a seat within, and raised the novel as likely to do more good than twenty volumes of sermons; and Dr Sherlock recommended it from the pulpit! In 1749 appeared Riehiirdson’s second and greatest work. The History of Clarissa Jlarluwe: and in 175.8 his novel, designed to repre- 160 (lOVF.LISTS. ENGUSri LITERATURE. HENRY riELDtNO. sont tbc' be;m ideal of a genticii'an and Christian, The llistoiy of Sir Chntles GratuUson. The almost ] unexampled success and popularity of Richardson’s life and writinjjs were to himself distnrheil ami I clouded by nervous attacks, which rendered him I delicate and feeble in health. He was flattered and I soothed by a number of female friends, in whose I society he spent most of his time, and after reachinemdless. He then renewed his legal studies, and qualified himself for the bar. His prac- tice, however, was insufiieient for the support of his family, and he continued to write pieces for the j stage, and pamphlets to suit the topics of the day. In polities he was an anti -Jacobite, and a steady supporter of the Hanoverian sueccssioTi. In 1742 | ajipeared his novel of Juneph A/nlmwii, which at once ' stamped him as a master, uniting to genuine English j humour the spirit of Cervantes and the mock heroic of Searron. There was a wicked wit in the choice of his subject. To ridicule iliehardson’s ‘ I’amela,’ Fielding made his hero a brother of that renowned and ])opular lady ; he quizzed Gammar Andrews and his wife, the rustic parents of Pamela, and in con- trast to the style of Richardson’s work, he made his hero and his friend Parson Adams, models of virtue and excellence, and his leading female characters (Lady Booby and Mrs Slipslop) of frail morals. Even Pamela is brought down from her high standing of moral perfection, and is represented as Mrs Booby, witli the airs of an upstart, whom the parson is com- pelled to reprove for laugliing in church. Richard- son’s vanity was deeply wounded by this insult, and he never forgave tlie desecration of his favourite jiroduction. The ridicule was certainly unju.stifi- able ; hut, as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, ‘ how can w'e wi.sh that undone without which Parson Adams would not have existed ?’ The burlesque portion of tlie work would not have caused its exten sive and abiding po])ularity. It heightened its hu- mour, and may have contributed at first to the num- ber of its readers, but ‘ Joseph Andrews’ possessed strong and original claims to public favour, and has found countless admirers among persons who knew nothing of ‘ Pamela.’ Setting aside some eiiliemerai essays and light pieces, Fielding’s next works were A Joxirni’>) from thin World to the Next, and The His- tory of Jonathan Wild. A vein of keen satire runs through the latter, but the hero and his companions are such callous rogues, and unsentimental ruffians, that we cannot take pleasure in their dexterity and j success. The ordinary of Newgate, who adminis- ters consolation to Wild before Ids execution, is the best character in the novel. The ordinary jireferred a howl of punch to any otlier liquor, as it is nowliere spoken against in Scripture ; and his ghostly admo- nitions to the malefactor are in harmony with this predilection. In 1749 Fielding was appointed one of the justices of Westminster and Middlesex, for which he was indebted to tlie services of Lyttel- ton. He was a zealous and active magistrate ; but the office of a trading justice, paid by fees, was as unworthy the genius of Fielding as Burns’s provi- sion as an exciseman. It appears, from a statement made by himself, that this appointment did not bring him in, ‘of the dirtiest money upon earth.’ £300 a-year. In the midst of his official drudgery and too frequent dissipations, our author produced Tom Jones, unquestionably the first of English novels. He received £600 for the copyright, and such was its success, that Milhar the publisher presented £100 more to the author. In 1751 appeared foi i which he received £1000. Jolinson was a great I admirer of this novel, and read it through without I stopping. Its domestic scenes moved him more I deeply than heroic or ambitious adventures ; hut the I conjugal tenderness and affection of Amelia arc hut ill requited by the conduct of Booth, her husband, who has the vices without the palliation of youth pos- sessed by Tom Jones, independently of his ties as a husband and father. The character of Amelia was drawn for Fielding’s wife, even down to the accident which disfigured her beauty; and the frailties of 1C2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. IIKNRY FIELDtNG. Pootli are saiil to liave shadowed fortli some of the author’s own hackslidiiiRS and experiences. Tlie lady whose amiable qualities he delighted to recount, ami wliom he passionately loved, died while they struggled on in their worldly dithculties. lie was almost broken-hearted for her loss, and found no relief, it is said, but in weeping, in concert with her servant maid, ‘ for the angel they mutually regretted.’ This made the maid his habitual contidential asso- ciate, anil in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. The maid accordingly became mistress of his household, and her conduct as liis wife fully jus- tified his good opinion. If there is little of romance, there is sound sense, affection, and gratitude in tliis step of Fielding, but it is probable the noble families to whom he was allied might regard it as a stain on his e.scutcheon. ‘Amelia’ was the last work of fic- tion that Fielding gave to the world. His last pub- lic act was an undertaking to extirpate several gangs of thieves and highwaymen that then infested Lon- don. The government employed him in this some- what perilous enterprise, placing a sum of £600 at his disposal, and he was completely successful. The vigour and sagacity of his mind still remained, but Fielding was paying, by a jiremature old age and decrepitude, for the follies and excesses of his youth. A complication of disorders weighed down his latter days, the most formidable of which was dropsy. As a last resource he was advised to try the effect of a milder climate, and departed for Lisbon in the spring of 1754. Nothing can be more touching than the description ho has given in his posthumous work, A Voyage to Lisbon, of this parting scene : — ‘ W ednesday, Jane 26, 1754. — On this day the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun I was, in my owm opinion, last to beliold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doted with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learned to bear pains and to despise death. In this situation, as I could not conquer nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman what- soever : under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer, the company of my little ones during eight hours ; and I doubt whether in that time I did not undergo more than in all my distemper. At twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which ■was no sooner told me, than I kissed my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. My wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter, fol- lowed me ; some friends went with us, and others here took their leave ; and I heard my behaviour applauded, with many murmurs and praises to which I well knew I had no title ; as all other such philo- sophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the like occasions.’ The great novelist reached Lisbon, and resided in that gcnHal climate for about two months. His health, however, gradually declined, and he died on the 8th of October 1754. It is pleasing to record that his family, about which he evinced so much tender solicitude in his last days, were sheltered from want by his brother and a private friend, Ralph Allen, Esq., whose character for worth and benevo- lence he had drawn in Allworthy, in ‘ Tom Jones.’ Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame. Do good by ste.alth, ai d blush to find it fame. Pope. The English factory at Lisbon erected a monument over his remains. The irregularities of Fielding’s life (however dearly he may have paid for fame) contributed to his riches as .an author. He had surveyed liuman nature in v.arious aspects, and experienced its storms and sun- shine. His kinswoman. Lady Mary Wortley Mon- tagu, assigns to him an enviable vivacity of tem- perament, though it is at the expense of Ids morality. ‘His happy constitution,’ she says, ‘even when he h.ad, with great pains, half demolished it, made him forget every evil when he w.as before a venison- pasty, or over a flask of champagne ; and 1 am per- suaded he has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. His natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was starving in a garret.’ Fielding’s expe- rience as a Middlesex justice was unfavourable to his personal respectability; but it must also have brought him into cont.actwith scenes and characters well fitted for his graphic delineations. On the other h.and, his birth and education as a gentleman, and his brief trial of the life of a rural squire, im- mersed in sports and pleasure, furnished materials for a Squire Western, an Allworthy, and other country characters, down to black George the game- keeper; while, as a man of wit and fashion on the town, and a gay dramatist, he must have known various prototypes of Lord Fellamar and his other city portraits. The profligacy of Lady Bcllaston, and tile meanness of Tom Jones in accepting support from such a source, are, we hope, circumstances which have rarely occurred even in fashionable life. The tone of mor.ality is never very high in Field- ing, but the ca.se we have cited is his lowest descent. Though written amidst discouraging circum stances and irksome duties, ‘Tom Jones’ bears no marks of haste. The author committed some errors as to time and place, but his fable is constructed with historical exactness and precision, and is a finished model of the comic romance. ‘ Since the days of Homer,’ says Dr Beattie,* ‘ the world has not seen a more artful epic fable. The characters and adventures are wonderfully diversified ; yet the circumstances are all so natural, and rise so easily from one another, and co-operate with so much re- gularity in bringing, or even while they seem to re- tard the c.atastrophe, that the curiosity of the reader is always kept awake, and, instead of flagging, grows more and more impatient as the story advances, till at last it becomes downright anxiety. And when we get to the end, and look back on the whole con- trivance, we are amazed to find that of so many in- cidents there shonld be so few superfluous ; that in such a variety of fiction there should be so great a probability, and that so complex a tale should be so perspicuously conducted, and with perfect unity of design.’ The only digression from the main story which is felt to be tedious is the episode of the Man of the Hill. In ‘ Don Qni.xote’ and ‘ Gil Bias’ we are re- conciled to such interpolations by the air of romance which pervades the whole, and which seems indige- nous to the soil of Spain. In Cervantes, too, these digressions are sometimes highly poetical and strik- ing tales. But in the plain life-like scenes of ‘ Tom Jones’ — English life in the eighteenth century, in the county of Somerset — such a tedious ‘ hermit of the vale’ is felt to be an unnatural incumbrance. Fkld- ing had little of the poetic.al or imaginative faculty. His study hay in real life and everyd.ay scenes, which he depicted with a truth and freshness, a buoyancy and vigour, and such an exuberance of practical * Byron has styled Fielding ‘ the prose Homer of human nature.’ 163 FUOM 1727 cyclopaedia of TO 1780. ! kii()wU'(l}{Ci easy satire, and lively faney, that in his OH M (lei)artrnent he stands unrivalled. Others have had holder invention, a higher east of thought, more poetical imagery, and i)rofounder passion (for Field- ing has little pathos or sentiment), hut in the perfect Tiatnre of his eharaeders, especially in low life, and in th(“ j)erfeet skill with which he comhined and wrought up his comic powers, seasoning the whole with wit and wisdom, tlie ripened fruit of genius and long experience, this great English author is still unapproached. A passage from Fielding or Smollett can convey no more idea of the work from which it is taken, or the manner of the author, than a single stone or hriek would of the architecture of a house. W'c are tempted, however, to extract the account of Par- tridge’s impressions on first visiting a playhouse, when he witnessed the rejjresentation of Hamlet. The faithful attendant of 'I’om .Jones was half- harher and lialf-schoohnaster, shrewd, yet simple as a eh ' 111 . [Partridr/e at the PlayhouseJ] In the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr Jones, Mrs Miller, her youngest daughter, and P.ar- tridge, take their i)laces. Partridge iininediately de- clared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said, ‘ It was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time without putting one another out.’ While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs Miller, ‘ Look, look, madam, the very picture of the man in the end of the common-prayer book, before the gunpowder treason service.’ Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, ‘ That here were candles enough burnt in one night to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelvemonth.’ .As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, I’artridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost ; upon which he asked Jones, ‘ What man that was in the strange dress ; something,’ said he, ‘ like what 1 have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armour, is it?’ .lones answered, ‘ That is the ghost.’ To which Partridge replied, with a smile, ‘ Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I can’t say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one if I saw him better than that comes to. No, no, sir ; ghosts don’t appear in such dresses as that neither.’ In this mistake, winch caused much laughter in the neighbourhood of Partridge, he was suftered to con- tinue till the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr Garrick which he had denied to Jones, and fell into .so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether lie was afraid of the tvarrior upon the stage ? ‘ 0 la ! sir,’ said he, ‘ I perceive now it is what you told me. 1 am not afraid of anything, for I know it is but a play ; and if it was really a ghost, it could do one no h.arm at such a distance, and in so much company ; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only person.’ ‘ JJ'hy, who,’ cries Jones, ‘ dost thou take to be such a coward here besides thyself?’ ‘ Nay, you may call me coward if you will ; but if th.at little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in ray life. Ay, ay ; go along with you ! Ay, to be sure ! Who’s fool then ? Will you ? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness 1 Whatever happens it is good enough for you. Follow you ! Pd follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is the devil ■ — for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases. Oh! here he is again. No farther! No, you have gone far enough already ; farther than I’d have gone for all the king’s dominions.’ Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, ‘ Hush, hush, dear sir, don’t you hear him?’ And during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes fixeil partly on the ghost, and [lartly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open ; the same ]>assions which succeeded each other in Hamlet succeeding likewise in him. When the scene was over, .Jones said, ‘ Why, Par- tridge, you exceed my expectations. You enjoy the ])lay more than I conceived possible.’ ‘ Nay, sir,’ answered Partridge, ‘ if you are not afraid of the devil, I can’t help it ; but, to be sure, it is natural to be surprised at such things, though 1 know there is nothing in them : not that it was the ghost that sur- prised me neither ; for 1 should have known that to have been only a man in a strange dress ; but when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me.’ ‘ And dost thou imagine then. Partridge,’ cries Jones, ‘ that he was really frightened ?’ ‘ Nay, sir,’ said Partridge, ‘ did not you your.self observe afterwards, when he found it was his own father’s s])irit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, 'ind he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, ju.st .as I should have been, had it been my own case. But hush ! 0 la ! what noise is that? There he is again. Well, to be certain, though I know there is nothing at all in it, I am glad I am not down yonder where tho.se men are.’ 'I hen turning his eyes again upon Hamlet, ‘ Ay, you m.ay draw your sword ; what signi- fies like some scattered hyacinths shooting up among ' the weeds of a ruined garden, that testify the for- i mer culture and amenity of the soil.’ In descrip- tions of this kind, Smollett evinces a grace and ' pathos which I’iclding did not possess. We trace 1 1 the mind of the poet in such conceptions, and in ^ ^ the language in which they are expressed. Few \ ( readers of ‘Peregrine Pickle’ can forget the allu- I; sion, so beautiful and pathetic, to the Scottish i I Jacobites at Boulogne, ‘ exiled from their native 1 1 homes in consequence of their adherence to an un- 1 1 fortunate and ruined eause,’ who went daily to the i sea-side in order to indulge their longing eyes with i ■ a prospect of the white cliffs of Albion, which they 1 j could never more approach. I ■ Sir Launcelot Greaves is a sort of travesty of I Don Quixote, in which the absurdity of the idea is 1 1 relieved hy the humour of some of the cbar,acters 1 1 and conversations. Butler’s Presbyteri.an Knight j | going ‘ ,a- coloneJIiug ’ as a redresser of wrongs in j merry England, is ridiculous enough ; but the chi valry of Sir Launcelot and his attendant. Captain , Crowe, outrages all sense and probability. Seeing j that his strength hay in humorous exaggeration, Smollett sought for scenes of bro.ad mirth. He fails ] as often as he succeeds in this work, and an author of such strong original powers slundd have been | above playing Pantaloon even to Cerv.antes. ' Humphry Clinker is the most easy, natural, and j delightful of all the novels of Smoih;tt. His love , of boyish mischief, tricks, and frolics, had not whollv 16 t: ENCJLISII Ll l imnioil out, for we have several sucli undignified pranks in this work; but tlie narrative is replete vitli grave, eanstiiv, and humorous observation, and possesses throughout a tone of manly feeling and iK-nevolence, and fine discrimination of character. Matthew Uramble is Roderick Random grown old, somawliat cynical by experience of the world, but vastly improved in taste. Smollett may have caught the idea, as he took some of the incidents of the family tour, from ‘ Anstey’s New Bath Guide;’ but the staple of the work is emphaticiilly his own. In the light sketching of scenery, the quick succession of incidents, the romance of Lismahago’s adventures among the American Indians, and the humour of the serving-men and maids, he seems to come into closer comj>etition with Le Sage or Cervantes than in any of his other works. The conversion of Humphry may have been suggested by Anstey, but the bad spelling of Tabitha and Mrs Winifred Jen- kins is an original device of Smollett, which aids Smollett's House, Chelsea. in the subordinate effects of the domestic drama. Lismahago’s love of disputation, his jealous sense of honour, and his national pride — characteristics of a poor Scottish officer, whose wealth and dignity lay in his sword — seem also purely original, and are highly diverting. The old lieutenant, as Mat- I thew Bramble says, is like a crab-apple in a hedge, which we are tempted to eat for its flavour, even while repelled by its austerity. The descriptions of rural scenery, society, and manners in England and Scotland, given under different aspects by the different letter-writers, are clear and sparkling — full of fancy and sound sense. Of the episodical part, the storj' of Mr Baynard and his vain and stately wife seems painfully true; and the incident witnessed in a small town near Lanark, where a successful soldier returns, after an absence of eigh- teen years, and finds his father at work paving the street, can hardly be read without tears. This affecting story is subjoined. [Scene at Lanark. We set out from Glasgow, by the way of Lanark, the county town of Clydesdale, in the neighbourhood of which tlie whole river Clyde, rushing down a steep TERATURF.. touias geouge smom.ett. rock, forms a very noble and stupendous cascade. Next (lay we were obliged to halt in a small borough, until the carriage, which liad received some damage, should be repaired ; and here we met with ai> inci- dent wliich warmly interested the benevolent s|iirit of Mr Bramble. As we stood at the window of an inn th.at fronted the public prison, a person arrived on horseback, genteely though plainly dressed in a blue frock, with his own hair cut short, and a gold-laced hat upon his head. Alighting, and giving his horse to tlie landlord, he advanced to an old man who was at work in paving the street, and accosted him in these words — ‘This is hard work for such an old man as you.’ So saying, he took the instrument out of liis liand, and began to thump the pavement. After a few strokes, ‘ Have you never a son,’ said he, ‘ to case you of this labour*’ ‘Yes, an’ please your honour,’ replied the senior, ‘ I have three hopeful lads, but at pre.sent they are out of the way.’ ‘ Honour not me,’ cried the stranger ; ‘ it more becomes me to honour your gray hairs. Where are those sons you talk of ?’ The ancient paviour said, his eldest son was a cap- tian in the East Indies, and the youngest had lately enlisted as a soldier, in hopes of prospering like his brother. The gentleman desiring to know what was become of the second, he wiped his eyes, and owned he had taken upon him his old father’s debts, for which he was now in the prison hard by. The traveller made three quick steps towards the jail ; then turning short, ‘ Tell me,’ said he, ‘ has that unnatural captain sent you nothing to relieve your distresses ?’ ‘ Call him not unnatural,’ replied the other, ‘ God’s blessing be upon him ! he sent me a great deal of money, but I made a bad use of it ; I lost it by being security for a gentleman that was my landlord, and was stripped of all I had in the world be- sides.’ At that instant a young man, thrusting out his head and neck between two iron bars in the prison- window, exclaimed, ‘Father! father! if my brother William is in life, that’s he.’ ‘ I am ! I am !’ cried the stranger, olasping the old man in his arms, and shedding a flood of tears, ‘ I am your son Willy, sure enough !’ Before the fatlier, who was quite confounded, could make any return to this tenderness, a decent old woman, bolting out from the door of a poor habi- tation, cried, ‘ ^Vhere is my bairn ? where is my dear Willy ?’ The captain no sooner beheld her than he quitted his father, and ran into her embrace. I can assure you, my uncle who saw and heard everything that passed, was as much moved as any one of the parties concerned in this pathetic recogni- tion. He sobbed, and wept, and clapp> d his hands, and hollowed, and finally ran down into the street. By this time the captain had retired with his parents, and all the inhabitants of the place were assem- bled at the door. Mr Bramble, nevertheless, pressed through the crowd, and entering the house, ‘Captain,’ said he, ‘ I beg the favour of your acquaintance. 1 would have travelled a hundred miles to see this af- fecting scene ; and I shall think myself happy if you and your parents will dine with me at the public house.’ The captain thanked him for his kiml invi- tation, which, he said, he would accept with pleasure ; but in the meantime he could not think of eating or drinking while his poor brother was in trouble. He forthwith deposited a sum equal to the debt in tlie hands of the magistrate, who ventured to set his bro ther at liberty without further proce.ss ; and then the whole family repaired to the inn with mj' uncle, attended by the crowd, the individuals of which shook their townsman b3' the hand, while he re- turned their carcs.ses without the lea.it sign of j.ride oi affectation. Tliis honest favourite of fortune, whose name na.- Brown, told my uncle that he had been lued a wea- ver, and about eighteen years ago had, from a spirii 167 FROM )7-’7 (;YCIX)1M‘:I)IA OF toUHO. of iillcijL'.ss iuiil ili.ssi)iaUoii, enlisted as a soldier in the service of the Hast India Company ; that in the course of duty he Iiad the good fortune to attract the notice and approbation of lresent occasions, over and above bank notes for one hundred, which he had depo- sited for his brother’s release. He brought along with him a ileed, ready executed, by which he settled a perpetuity of fourscore pounds upon his parents, to be inherited by the other two sons after their decease. He ]iromised to jiurchase a commission for his youngest brother ; to take the other as his own ])artner in a niiinufacture which he intends to set uii to give em- ployment and bread to the industrious ; and to give file hundred pounds, by way of dower to his sister, who had married a farmer in low circumstances, finally, he gave fifty pounds to the poor of the town where he wiis born, and feasted all the inhabitants without e.xception. My uncle was .so charmed with the character of Captain Hrown, that he drank his health three times successively at dinner. He said he was jiruud of his acquaintance; that he was an honour to his country, and had in some measure redeemed human nature from the reproach of [iride, selfishness, and ingratitude. For my part 1 was as much pleaseil with the modesty as with the filial virtue of this honest soldier, who assumed no merit from his success, and said very little of his own tran.saction.s, though the answers he made to our inquiries were equally sensible and laco- nic. Mrs Tabitha behaved very graciously to him, until she understood that he was going to make a ten- der of his hand to a person of low estate, who had been his sweetheart while he worked as a journeyman weaver. Our aunt was no sooner made acquainted with this design, than she starched up her beh.aviour with a double portion of reserve ; and wl’.en the com- pany broke up, she observed, with a toss of her nose, that Brown was a civil fellow enough, considering the lowness of his origin ; but that fortune, though she had mended his circumstances, was incapable to raise his ideas, which were still humble and plebeian.’*’ [Feast ill the Manner of the Anclents.'\ [From ‘ Peregrine Pickle.’] Our young gentleman, by his insinuating behaviour, acquired the full confidence of the doctor, who invited him to an entertainment, which he intended to j)re- pare in the manner of the ancients. Pickle, struck with this idea, eagerly embraced the propo.sal, which he honoured with many encomiums, as a plan in all respects worthy of his genius and apprehension ; and the day was appointed at some distance of time, that the treater might have leisure to compose certain pickles and confections, which were not to be found among the culinary preparations of these degenerate days. With a view of rendering the physician’s taste more conspicuous, and extracting from it the more diversion. Peregrine propo.sed that .some foreigners should partake of the banquet; and the task being * This is a true story, the only alteration being in the name 'f the iiero, which, in reality, w:is White.— ,Er>. 1 ^ left to his care and discretion, he actually bespoke the comiiany of a French marijuis, an Italian count, and a Herman baron, whom he knew to be egregious coxcombs, and therefore more likely to enhance the joy of the entertainment. Accordingly, the hour being arrived, he conducted them to the hotel where the i>hysician lodged, after having regaled their expectations with an elegant meal in the genuine old Homan taste ; and they were received by Mr Pallet, who did the honours of the house while his friend superintemlcd the cook below. By this communicative painter, the guests under.-tood that the doctor had met with numerous difficultie.s in the execution of his design ; that no fewer than five cooks had been dismissed, becau.se they could not jirev.ail upon their own consciences to obey his direc- tions in things that were contrary to the jucsent I>ractice of their art ; and that, although he had at last engageil a person, by an extraordinary iiremlum, to coinjily with his orders, the fellow Wius so astonished, mortified, and incen.sed at the commands he had received, that his hair stood on end, and he begged on his knees to be released from the agreement he had made; but finding that his emjiloyer insisted upon the performance of his contract, and threatened to introduce him to the commissaire if he .shoiild Hindi from the bargain, he had, in the discharge of his otfico, wept, sung, cursed, and capered, for two whole hours without intermission. tt'hile the company listened to this odd informa- tion, by which they were prepossessed with strange notions of the dinner, their ears were invaded by a piteous voice, that exclaimed in French, ‘ For the love of Hod ! dear sir, for the sake of all the .saints, .spare me the mortification of the honey and oil!’ Their ears still vibrated with the sound, when the doctor entering, was by Peregrine made acquainted with the strangers, to w’hom he, in the transports of his wrath, could not help complaining of the want of complai- sance he had found in the Parisian vulgar, by which his phan had been almost entirely ruined and .set aside. 'J'he FTench marquis, who thought the honour of his nation was concerned at this declaration, jirofessed his sorrow for what had happened, so contrary to the esta- blished character of the peojile, and undertook to see the delinquents severely ]iunished, provided he could be informed of their names or ])laces of abode. The mutual compliments that [>assed on this occasion were scarce finishe» NOVELISTS. EX(JI.1SH LITKUATUKK. tobias ghorge smollktt. ivith a view of profiting by the example of each other, for neither of them understood the manner in which they w-ere to loll ; and Peregrine, who enjoyed their confusion, handed the count to the other side, where, with the most mischievous politeness, he insisted upon his taking jiossession of the upper place. In this disagreeable and ludicrous suspense, they continued acting a pantomime of gesticulations, until the doctor e.arnestly entreated them to waive all com- I pliment and form, lest the dinner should be spoiled 1 before the ceremonial could be adjusted. Thus con- ! jured. Peregrine took the lower couch on the left-hand I side, laying himself gently down, with his face toivards I the table. The marquis, in imitation of this pattern I (though he would have much rather fasted three days I than run the risk of discomposing his dress by such an atti(ude), stretched himself upon the opposite place, I recli ling upon his elbow in a most painful and awk- I ward situation, with his head raised above the end of the ( ouch, that the economy of his hair might not suffer by the projection of his body. The Italian, being a thin limber creature, planted himself next to Pickle, without sustaining any misfortune but that of his stocking being torn by a ragged nail of the seat, as he raised his legs on a level with the rest of his limbs. But the baron, who was neither so wieldy nor supple in his joints as his companions, flounced him- self down with such precipitation, that his feet, sud- denly tilting up, came in furious contact ivith the head of the marquis, and demolished every curl in a twinkling, while his own skull, at the same instant, descended upon the side of his couch with such vio- lence, that his periwig was struck off, and the whole room filled with pulvilio. The drollery of distress that attended this disaster entirely vanquished the affected gravity of our young gentleman, who was obliged to suppress his laughter by cramming his handkerchief in his mouth ; for the bareheaded German asked pardon with such ridicu- lous confusion, and the marquis admitted his apology with such rueful complaisance, as were sufficient to awake the mirth of a Quietist. This misfortune being repaired, as well as the cir- cumst.ances of the occasion would permit, and every one settled according to the arrangement already de- scribed, the doctor graciously undertook to give some account of the dishes as they occurred, that the com- pany might be directed in their choice ; and, with an air of infinite satisfaction, thus began : — ‘ This here, gentlemen, is a boiled goose, served up in a sauce composed of pepper, lovage, coriander, mint, rue, an- chovies, and oil ! I wish, for your sakes, gentlemen, it was one of the geese of Ferrara, so much celebrated among the ancients for the magnitude of their livers, one of which is saiil to have weighed upwards of two pounds ; with this food, exquisite as it was, did the tyrant Ileliogabalus regale his hounds. But I beg pardon, I had almost forgot the soup, which I hear is so necessary an article at all tables in France. At each end there are dishes of the salacacabia of the Piomans ; one is made of parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pinetops, honey, vinegar, brine, eggs, cucumbers, onions, and hen livers ; the other is much the same as the soup-maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of boiled veal w’ith fennel and caraway seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey, and flour, and a curious hashis of the lights, liver, and blood of a hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Mon- sieur le Baron, shall I help you to a plate of this soup !’ The German, who did not at all disapprove of the ingredients, assented to the proposal, and seemed to relish the composition ; while the marquis, being asked by the painter which of the silly-kickabys he chose, was, in consequence of his desire, accommodated with a portion of the poup-maigre ; and the count, in lieu of spoon meat, of which he said he was no great admirer, supplied himself with a pigeon, therein con- forming to the choice of our young gentleman, whose example he determined to follow through the whole course of the entertainment. The Frenchman having swallowed the first spoonful, made a full pause ; his throat .swelled as if an egg had stuck in his gullet, his eyes rolled, and his mouth un- derwent a series of involuntary contractions and dila- tations. Pallet, who looked steadfastly at this con- noisseur, with a view of consulting his taste before he himself would venture upon the soup, began to be disturbed at these emotions, and observed, with some concern, that the poor gentleman seemed to be going into a fit ; when Peregrine assured him that these were symptoms of ecstacy, and, for further confir- mation, asked the marquis how he found the .soup. It was with infinite difficulty that his complaisance could so far master his disgust as to enable him to answer, ‘Altogether excellent, upon my honour!’ And the painter, being certified of his approbation, lifted the spoon to his mouth without scruple ; but far from justifying the eulogium of his taster, when this pre- cious composition diffused itself upon his palate, he seemed to be deprived of all sense and motion, and sat like the leaden statue of some river god, with the liquor flowing out at both sides of the mouth. The doctor, alarmed at this indecent phenomenon, earnestly inquired into the cau.se of it ; and when Pallet recovered his recollection, and swore that he would rather swallow porridge made of burning brim- stone than such an infernal mess as that which he h.ad tasted, the physician, in his own vindication, assured the company that, except the usual ingredi- ents, he had mixed nothing in the .soup but some sal- amoniao, instead of the ancient nicrum, which could not now be procured ; and appealed to the marquis whether such a succedaneum was not an improvement on the whole. The unfortunate petit-maitre, driven to the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to be a masterly refinement ; and deeming himself obliged, in point of honour, to evince his sentiments by his practice, forced a few more mouthfuls of this disagreeable potion down his throat, till his stomach was so much offended that he was compelled to start up of a sudden, and in the hurry of his elevation overturned his plate into the bosom of the baron. The emergency of his occasions would not permit him to stay and make apologies for this abrupt behaviour, so that he flew into another apartment, where Pickle found him puking and crossing himself with great devotion ; and a chair at his desire being brought to the door, he slipped into it more dead than alive, conjuring his friend Pickle to make his peace with the company, and in particular excuse him to the baron, on account of the violent fit of illness with which he had been seized. It was not without reason that he employed a mediator ; for when our hero re- turned to the dining-room, the German had got up, and was under the hands of his own lacquey, who wiped the grease from a rich embroidered waistcoat, while he, almost frantic with his misfortune, stamped upon the ground, and in high Dutch cursed the unlucky banquet, and the impertinent entertainer, who all this time, with great deliberation, consoled him for the disaster, by assuring him that the damage might be repaired with some oil of turpentine and a hot iron. Peregrine, who could scarce refrain from laugh- ing in his face, appeased his indignation by telling him how much the whole company, and e.specially the marquis, was mortified at the accident ; and the unhappy salacacabia being removed, the places were filled with two pies, one of dormice liquored with sirup of white poppies, which the doctor had substi- tuted in the room of toasted poppy-seed, formerly eaten with honey as a dessert ; and the other com- posed of a hock of pork baked in honey. 169 ! FROM 1727 CYCLOPi?^DIA OF to 1780. j Pallet, hearing the first of these dishes described, ; lifted up his hands and eyes, and witli signs of loath- ing and amazement, pronounced, ‘ A pie made of dor- mice and sirup of pojipies : Lord in heaven! what beastly fellows those Romans were !’ His friend checked liim for his irreverent exclamation with a severe look, and recommended the veal, of which he himself cheerfully ate with such encomiums to the 1 company that the baron resolved to imitate his ex- , ample, after having called for a bumper of Burgundy, I which the physician, for his sake, wished to have been the true wine of Falernum. The painter, seeing no- 1 thing else upon the table which he would venture to touch, made a merit of necessity, and had recourse to the veal also ; although he could not help saying, that he would not give one slice of the roast beef of Old England for all the dainties of a Roman em- peror’s table. But all the doctor’s invitations and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hashis and the goose ; and that course was suc- ceeded by another, in which he told them were divers of those dishes which among the ancients had ob- tained the appellation of puUtdcs, or magnificent. ‘ That which smokes in the middle,’ said he, ‘ is a sow’s stomach, filled with a composition of minced pork, hog’s brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlic, anni- seed, rue, ginger, oil, wine, and pickle. On the right- hand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just far- rowed, fried with sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed or rather purged with milk. At that end, next Mr Pal- let, are fritters of pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil ; and here are a couple of pullets, roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius.’ The painter, who had by wry faces testified his ab- horrence of the sow’s stomach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the .snails which had undergone pur- gation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pul- lets, than he eagerly solicited a wing of the fowl ; upon which the doctor desired he would take the trouble of cutting them up, and accordingly sent them round, while Mr Pallet tucked the tablecloth under his chin, and brandished his knife and fork with sin- gular address ; but scarce were they set down before him, when the tears ran dorni his cheeks, and he called aloud, in a manifest disorder, ‘Zounds! this is the essence of a whole bed of garlic !’ That he might not, however, disappoint or disgrace the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds ; and when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an irruption of intolerable smells, that, without stay- ing to disengage himself from the cloth, he sprung away with an exclamation of ‘ Lord Jesus !’ and in- volved the whole table in havoc, ruin, and confu- sion. Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with a sirup of the dormice pie, which went to pieces in the general wreck : and as for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow’s stomach, which, bursting in the fall, discharged its contents upon Ills leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect. The baron, who sat secure without the vortex of this tumult, was not at all displeased at seeing his com- panions involved in such a calamity as that which he had already shared ; but the doctor was confounded with shame and vexation. After having prc.scribed an application of oil to the count’s leg, he expressed his sorrow for the misadventure, which he openly ascribed to want of taste and prudence in the painter, who did not think proper to return and make an apology in person ; and protested that there was no- thing in the fowls which could give offence to a sen- sible nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, and assafoetida, and the sauce consisting of wine and herring-pickle, which he had used instead of the celebrated garum of the Romans; that famous jiickle having been prepared sometimes of the scombri, which were a sort of tunny fish, and sometimes of the silurus or shad fish ; nay, he observed, that there was a third kind called garum hoemation, made of the guts, gills, and blood of the thynnus. The physician, finding it would be impracticable to re-establish the order of the banf|uet by presenting again the dishes which had been discomposed, ordered everything to be removed, a clean cloth to be laid, and the dessert to be brought in. Meanwhile he regi'etted his incapacity to give them a specimen of the aliens or fish-meals of the ancients ; such as the jus diabaton, the conger eel, which, in Galen’s opinion, is hard of digestion ; the cornuta or gurnard, described by Pliny in his Natural History, who says the honis of many of them were a foot and a half in length ; the mullet and lamprey, that were in the highest estimation of old, of which last Julius Cmsar borrowed six thousand for one triumphal sup- per. He observed that the manner of dressing thenr was described by Horace, in the account he gives o\ the entertainment to which Maecenas was invited by the epicure Nasiedenus, Affertur squillos inter Murena natantes, &c. and told them, th.at they were commonly eaten with the thus Syriacum, a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which qualified the purgative nature of the fish. J’inally, this learned physician gave them to under- stand, that though this was reckoned a luxurious dish in the zenith of the Roman taste, it was by no means comparable in point of expense to some pre- parations in vogue about the time of that absurd voluptuary Heliogabalus, who ordered the brains of six hundred ostriches to be compounded in one mess. By this time the dessert appeared, and the company were not a little rejoiced to see plain olives in salt and water ; but what the master of the feast valued himself upon, was a sort of jelly, which he affirmed to be preferable to the hypotrimma of Hesychius, being a mixture of vinegar, pickle, and honey, boiled to a proper consistence, and candied assafoetida, which he asserted, in contradiction to Auraelbergius and Lister, was no other than the laser Syriacum, so precious as to be sold among the ancients to the weight of a sil- ver penny. The gentlemen took his word for the ex- cellency of this gum, but contented themselves with the olives, which gave such an agreeable relish to the wine that they seemed very well disposed to console themselves for the disgraces they had endured ; and Pickle, unwilling to lose the least circumstance of entertainment that could be enjoyed in their company, went in quest of the painter, who remained in his penitentials in another apartment, and could not be persuaded to re-enter the banqueting room, until Peregrine undertook to procure his pardon from those whom he had injured. Having assured him of this indulgence, our young gentleman led him in like a criminal, bowing on all hands with an air of humility and contrition ; and particularly addressing himself to the count, to whom he swore in English he had no intent to affront man, woman, or child, but was fain to make the best of his way, that he might not give the honourable company cause of offence by obeying the dictates of nature in their presence. When Pickle interpreted this apology to the Italian, Pallet was forgiven in very polite terms, and even re- ceived into favour by his friend the doctor in conse- quence of our hero’s interce-ssion ; so that all the guests forgot their chagrin, and paid their respects so | piously to the bottle, that in a short time the cham- j paigne produced very evident effects in the behaviour | of all present. iro 1 ENGLISH LITEUATUUE. LAURF.NCE STERM*. I.AURENCE STERNE. Noxt in order of time and genius, and not inferior in eoneeption of r’-eli eccentric comic character, was tlie witty, iiathctic, and sentimental autlior of Tris- tram Shamil/. Sterne was an original writer, though a jilagiarist of tlionghts and illustrations. Urotiier Shandy, my Uncle Toby, Trim, the Widow Wad- man, and ])r Slot), will go down to posterity with the kindred creations of Cervantes. This idol of Ills own day is now, liowever, but little read, except in ]iassages of pure sentiment. Ilis broad humour is not relished ; his oddities have not the gloss of novelty ; his indecencies startle the prudish and correct. The readers of this busy age will not hunt for his beauties amidst the blank and marbled leaves — the pages of no-meaning — the quiiint erudition, • , lien from forgotten folios — the abrupt transitions and discursive flights in which his Shakspeare.an touches of character, and his gems of fancy, judg- ment, and feeling, lie hid and embedded. His spark- ling polished diction luas even an air of false glitter, yet it is the weapon of a master — of one who can stir the heart to tears as well as laughter. The want of simplicity .and decency is his greatest fault. His whim and caprice, which he partly imitated from llabelais, and partly assumed for effect, come in sometimes with intrusive awkwardness to mar the touches of true genius, and the kindlings of en- thusiasm. He took as much pains to spoil his own natural powers by affectation, as Lady Mary says Fielding did to destroy his fine constitution. The life of Laurence Sterne was as little in keeping as his writings. A clergyman, he was dis- solute and licentious ; a sentimentiilist, who had, with his pen, tears for all animate and inanimate nature, he was hardhearted and selfish in his con- duct, Had he kept to his living in the country, going his daily round of pastoral duties, he would have been a better and wiser man. ‘ He degene- rated in London,’ s.ays David Garrick, ‘like an ill- transplanted shrub : the incense of the great spoiled his head, and their ragouts his stomach. He grew sickly and proud — an invalid in body and mind.’ Hard is the life of a wit when united to a suscep- tible temperament, and the cares and sensibilities of an author! Sterne was the son of an Irish lieu- tenant, and was born at Clonmel, November 24, 1713. He was educated by a relation, a cousin, and took his degree of M.A. at Cambridge in 1740. Having entered into orders, his uncle. Dr Sterne, a rich pluralist, presented him with the living of Sut- ton, to which was afterwards added a prebend of York. He married a York lady, and derived from the connexion another living in that county, the rectory of Stillington. He lived nearly twenty years at Sutton, reading, painting, fiddling, and shooting, with occasional quarrels with his brethren )f the cloth, with whom he was no favourite. He I left Yorkshire for London in 1759, to publish the two first volumes of ‘ Tristram Shandy. ’ Two others were published in 1761, and the same num- ber in 1762. He now took a tour to Fnance, which enriched some of his subsequent volumes of ‘ Tris- tram’ with his exquisite sketches of peasants and vine-dressers, the muleteer, the abbess and Mar- garita, Maria at Moulines — and not forgetting the poor ass with his heavy panniers at Lyons. In 1764 he took another continental tour, and pene- trated into It.aly, to which we are indebted for his Sentimental Journey. The latter work he composed on his return at Coxwould, the living of which h.ad been presented to him, on the first publication of ‘ Tristram,’ by Lord Falconbridge. Having com- pleted the first p.art of his ‘ Journey,’ Sterne went to London to see it published, and died in lodgings in Bond Street, March 18, 1768. There was nobody but a hired nurse by his death-bed. He had wished to die in an inn, where the few cold offices he wanted would be purchased with a few guineas, and paid to him with an undisturbed but punctual at- tention. His wish was realised almost to the letter. No one reads Sterne for the story : his great work is but a bundle of episodes and digressions, strung together without any attempt at order. The reader must ‘give up the reins of his imagination into his author’s hand — be pleased he knows not wh}', and cares not wherefore.’ Through the whole novel, however, over its mists and absurdities, shines his little family band of friends and relatives — that ini- mitable group of originals and humorists — which stand out from the canvass with the force and dis- tinctness of reality. This distinctness and separate identity is a proof of what Coleridge has termed the peculiar power of Sterne, of seizing on ,and bringing forward those points on which every man is a humorist, and of the msisterly manner in which he hiis brought out the characteristics of two beings of the most opposite natures — the elder Shandy lease your honour, to me, quoth the corporal. I’ll take my hat and stick and go to the hou.se and recon- noitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your honour a full account in an hour. Thou shalt go. Trim, said my uncle Toby; and here’s a shilling for thee to drink with his servjmt. I shall get it all out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door. My uncle Toby filled his second Jiipe ; and had it not been that he now and then wandereipe that Corporal Trim re- turned from the inn, and gave him the followin.' account. I despaired at fu'st, said the corponil, of being able to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence concerning tke poor sick lieutenant. Is he in the iirmy, then? said my uncle Toby. He is, said the corporal. And in what regiment ! said my uncle Toby. I’ll tell your honour, replied the cor- l) 0 ral, everything straightforwards as I lejirned it. Then, Trim, I’ll fill another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; .so sit down at thy ease. Trim, in the window' seat, and begin thy story again. The corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could speak it — Your honour is good. And having done that, he sat down, as he was ordered ; and begun the story to my uncle Toby over again in pretty near the same word.s. I despaired at first, .said the corporal, of being able to bring back any intelligence to your honour about the lieutenant and his son ; for when I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing everything which was proper to be asked — That’s .a right distinction. Trim, said my uncle Toby — I was answered, an’ please your honour, that he had no servant with him ; that he had come to the inn with hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, 1 suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he eame. If I get better, niy dear, said he, as he gave his ])urse to his son to pay the man, we can hire horses from hence. Hut, alas ! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to me ; for I heard the deathwatch all night long: and when he dies, the youth, his son, will eertainly die with him ; for he is broken-hearted already. I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of. But I will do it for my father myself, said the youth. Pray, let me save you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a fork for the purpo.se, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire whilst I did it. I believe, sir, said he, very modestly, 1 can pleas? him best myself. I .am sure, said I, his honour will not like the to.ast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier. The youth took hold of my hand, and insttuitly burst into tears. Poor youth ! said my uncle Toby ; he luis hecn bred up from an infant in the army, and the name of a soldier. Trim, sounded in his ears like the name of a friend ; I wish I had him here. I never, in the longest march, said the corporal had so great a mind to ii'y dinner, its I had to cry witli him fi>r comiiany. What cnubl be the mtitter with me, an’ please your honour! Noth ng in the world, 172 ENGLISH LITERATURE. LAUnENCK SrF.RNE. NOVEI.ISTS. Trim, saiil m_v uik-1o Toliy, Mowing his nose ; but tliat I thou art a good-naluml lellow. j Wlum I gave him tlie toast, continued the corporal, 1 thought it was proper to tell him 1 was Captain Shandv’s servant, and that your honour, though a stranger, was e.xtrcinely concerned for his father; and that, if there was anything in your house or cellar — And thou might’st have added my purse too, said my uncle Toby — he was heartily welcome to it. He rmule a very low bow, which was meant to your honour ; but no answer, for his heart was full ; so he went up stairs with the toast. 1 warrant you, my dear, said I, as I opened the kitchen door, your father will be well again. Mr Yorick’s curate was .smoking n pipe by the kitchen fire, but said not a word, good or had, to comfort the youth. I thought it wrong, added the corporal. 1 think so too, said my uncle Toby. When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast, he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up stairs. I believe, said the landlord, ho is going to say his jirayers, for there was a book laid upon the chair bv his bedside, and as 1 shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion. 1 thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of the army, !Mr Trim, never said your prayers at all. 1 heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with my own ears, or 1 could not have believed it. Are you sure of it? rejilied the curate. A soldier, an’ jdease your reverence, said 1, prays as often of his own accord as a parson ; and when he ’’s fighting for his king, and for his owm life, and for his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world. ’Twas well said of thee. Trim, said my uncle Toby. But when a soldier, said I, an’ please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the trenches up to his knees in cold water, or engaged, said I, for months together in long and dangerous marches ; harassed, perhaps, in his rear to-daj’ ; harassing others to-morrow ; detached here ; countermanded there ; resting this night out upon his arms ; beat up in his shirt the next ; benumbed in his joints ; perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on ; must say his prayers how and when he can. I believe, said I — for I was piqued, quoth the corporal, for the reputation of the army— I believe, an’ please your reverence, said I, that when a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson, though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. Thou shouldst not have said that. Trim, said my uncle Toby ; for God only know's who is a hypocrite and who is not. At the great and general review of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment, and not till then, it will be seen who has done their duties in this world and who has not ; and we shall be advanced. Trim, accordingly. I hope we shall, said Trim. It is in the Scripture, said my uncle Toby ; and I will show it thee to-mor- row. in the meantime, we may depend upon it. Trim, for our comfort, said my uncle Toby, that God Almighty is so good and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in it, it will never be inquired into vwiiether we have done them in a red voat or a black one. I hope not, said the corporal. But go on. Trim, said my uncle Toby, with thy story. When I went up, continued the corporal, into the lieutenant’s room, which I did not do till the expira- tion of the ten minutes, he was lying in his b*"! with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside t. 'file youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he nad been kneeling; the book was laid upon the bed ; and as he rose, in taking up the cushion with hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time. Let it remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant. He did not olFer to speak to me till I had walked up clo.se to his bedside. If you are Captain Shandy’s servant, said he, you must prc.sent my thanks to your m.aster, with my little boy’s thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me. If he was of Levens’s, said the lieutenant. I told him your honour was. Then, said he, I served three campaigns with him in Flanders, and remember him ; but ’tis most likely, as 1 had not the honour of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me. You will tell him, however, that the person his good-nature has laid under obli- g.ations to him is one Le Fevre, a lieutenant in Angus’s. But he knows me not, said he, a second time, musing. Possibly he may my story, added he. Pray, tell the captain, I was the ensign at Breda whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a musket shot as she lay in my arms in my tent. I remember the story, an’t please your honour, said I, very well. Do you so ? said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, then well m.ay I. In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which .seemed tied with a black ribband about his neck, and kissed it twice. Here, Billy, said he. The boy flew across the room to the bedside, and falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand, and kissed it too ; then kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept. I wi.sh, said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh — I wish. Trim, I was asleep. Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much concerned. Shall I pour your honour out a glass of sack to your pipe 2 Do, Trim, said my uncle Toby. I remember, said my uncle Toby, sighing again, the story of the ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted ; and particularly well that he, .as well as she, upon some account or other, I forget what, was universally pitied by the whole regiment ; but finish the story thou art upon. ’Tis finished already, said the corporal, for I could stay no longer; so wished his honour a good night. Young Le Fevre rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of the stairs ; and as we went down together, told me they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join the regiment in F'landers. But, alas ! said the corporal, the lieutenant’s last day’s march is over. Then what is to become of his poor boy* cried my uncle Toby. It was to my uncle Toby’s eternal honour — though I tell it only for the sake of those, who, when cooped in betwixt a natural and a positive law, know not for their souls which way in the world to turn themselves — that, notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege of Den- derraond, parallel with the allie.s, who pre.ssed theirs on .so vigorously that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner — that nevertheless he gave up Dender- inond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp — and bent his whole thoughts to- wards the private distresses at the inn ; and except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege ot Dendermond into a blockade, he left Dendermond to itself, to be relieved or not by the French king as the French king thought good, and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son. That kind Being, who i.s a friend to the friend- less, shall recompense thee for this. Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed ; and I will tell thee in what. Trim. In the first place, when thou mad.st an offer of my services to Le Fevre ■ — as sickness and travelling are both expensive, ard thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay — tha' 173 FROM 1727 CV(M.Or/h;i)IA OK TO 1780. thou didst not make an offer to liim of iny i)urso ; heeaiise. liad he stood in need, tiiou knowest, 'J'rim, he iiad i)ecn as weicoine to it as myself. Yoiir honour knows, said tlie corporal, I liad no orders. True, ped — went on — throbbed — stopped again — moved — stoj)ped. .Shall 1 go on? No. [ The Starllnr/ — Captirity.^ [From the * Bentirnental Journey.’] And as for the Rastile, the terror is in the word. Make the moat of it you ean, said I to myself, the Rastile is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out of. Mercy on the gouty ! for they are in it twice a-year ; but with nine livres a day, and pen, and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man can’t get out, he may do very well within, at least for a month or six weeks ; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in. I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court -yard as 1 settled this account ; and remember I walked down stairs in no small triumph with the con- ceit of my reasoning. Reshrew the sombre pencil ! said I vauntingly, for I envy not its powers wliich paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened : reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. ’Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition, the Rastile is not an evil to be despised ; but strip it of its towers, | fill u;> the fosse, unbarricade the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a dis- ' temper and not of a man which holds you in it, the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without com- plaint. I was interrupted in the heyday of this soli- loquy with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained ‘ it could not get out.’ I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without further attention. In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over ; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage ; ‘ I can’t get out, I can’t get out,’ said the starling. I stood looking at the bird ; and to every person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity — ‘ I can’t get out,’ .said the starling. God help thee! said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it , will ; so I turned about the cage to get the door. It was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire i there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the jilace where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pre.ssed his I breast against it as if imp.atient ; I fear, poor crea- | ture, said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. ‘ No,’ said j the starling, ‘ 1 can’t get out ; I can’t get out,’ said i the starling. I vow I never had my aflections more | tenderly awakened ; or do I remember an incident in i my life where the dissipated spirits, to which ray { reason had been a bubble, were so sudilenly called ' home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in [ tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my .systematic reasonings upon the Rastile ; and I heavily walked up stairs, un.saying everv word I had said in going down them. Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still Slavery, said I, still thou art a bitter draught ; and though thou- sands in all ages have been made to drinlc of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. ’Tis thou, thrice sweet ami gracious goddess, addressing myself to Libert}', whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself shall charig'e ; no tint of words can spot thv snowv mantle, or cheinic power turn thy sceptre into 174 NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LI iron ; with thee to smile upon him as lie eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art cxileJ. Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the hast step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion, and sliower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them. The bird in his cage jiursued me into my room. I sat down close to my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, 1 began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. 1 was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. 1 was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery ; but finding, however af- fecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture. I beheld his body half- wasted away with long expecta- tion and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish ; in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood ; he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice ; his children — but here my heart I began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another j part of the portrait. He was sitting upon the ground \ upon a little straw, in the furthest comer of his j dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed : I a little calendar of small sticks lay at the head, j notched all over with the dismal days and nights he I had passed there ; he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As 1 darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh : I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears ; I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. lA French Peasant's Supper."] A shoe coming loose from the fore-foot of the thill- horse, at the beginning of the ascent of Mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket. As the ascent was of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again as well as we could ; but the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise-box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go on. He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore-foot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest ; and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it. Tiie look of the house, and of everything about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much com ; and close to the house on one side was a potagerie of an acre and a-half, full of everything which could make plenty in a French peasant’s house ; and on the other side was a little wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in the evening when I got to the house ; so I left the postilion to manage his point as he could, and for mine, I walked directly into the house. TEllATURE. Dn savuel Johnson. The family consisted of an old grayheaded man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them. They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table ; and a flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the rejiast ; ’twas a feast of love. The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table ; my heart was set down the moment 1 entered the room, so I sat down at once like a son of the family ; and to invest myself in the character as speedily as 1 could, I instantly borrowed the old man’s knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon ; and as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks that I had not seemed to doubt it. Was it this, or tell me Nature what else it was, that made this morsel so sweet ; and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their flagon was so de- licious with it, that they remain upon iny palate to this hour? If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so. When supper was c ver, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots ; and in three minutes every soul was ready, upon a little esplanade before the house, to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door. The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle ; and at the age he was then of, touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her old man again as their children and grandchildren danced before them. It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, for some pauses in the movement, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance ; but as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as one of the illu.sions of an ima- gination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant way ; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice ; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate pea- sant could pay. Or a learned prelate either, said I. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. In 1759 Dr Johnson published his morai tale of Rassclas, which he wrote in the nights of one week to defray the expenses of his mother’s funeral. The scene is laid in the east, but the author makes no attempt to portray the minutite of eastern manners. It is in fact a series of essays on various subjects of morality and religion — on the efficacy of pilgrim- ages, the state of departed souls, the probability of the re-appearance of the dead, the dangers of soli- tude, &c., on all which the philosopher and pri ice of Abyssinia talk exactly as Johnson talked for more than twenty years in his house at Bolt Court, or in the club. Toung said ‘Rasselas’ was a ‘mass of sense,’ and its moral precepts are certainly conveyed in striking and happy language. The mad astrono- mer, who imagined that he possessed the regulation of the w'eather and the distribution of the seasons, is an original character in romance, and the happy 175 FROM 1727 CYCLOP7EDIA OF to 1780. vallc-y, ill wliicli ‘ llasscl.as’ resides, is sketehed witli I poetical feeliiif'. 'J'lie liabitiial imdanelioly of Jidm- Bon is apparent in this work — as wlien he nobly apostropliises the river Nile — ‘ Answer, great Fa- tlier of waters ! tium that rollest tliy floods through eighty nations, to tlie invocations of the daughter of tliy native king. Tell me if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou (lost not hear the murmurs of complaint.’ When Johnson afterwards penned his depreciatory criti- cism of Gray, and upbraided him for ai>ostrophising the Thames, adding coarsely, ‘Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself,’ he forgot that he had written ‘liasselas.’ CIIAIU.es JOHNSTONE. Tn 1700 The Adventures of a Guinea, by Charees Johnstone, .amused the towm by its sketches of contemporary satire. A second edition was pub- lished the same year, and a third in 1761, when the nuthor considerably augmented the work. John- stone published other novels, which are now utterly forgotten. He went to India in 1782, and was a jiro- prietor of one of the Bengal newspapers. lie died in 1800. As Dr Johnson (to whom the manuscript was shown by the bookseller) advised the publica- tion of ‘ The Adventures of a Guinea,’ and as it e.x- perienced considerable success, the novel may be presumed to have possessed superior merit. It e.xhi- bits a variety of incidents, related in the style of Le Sage and Smollett, hut the satirical portraits are over- charged, anil the author, like Juvena., was too fond of lashing anil exaggerating the vices of his age. One of the critics of the novel says, ‘ it leads us along all the'gloomy, and foul, and noisome passages of life, and we escape from it with the feeling of relief with which we would emerge from a vault in which the air was loaded with noxious vapours.’ To such satirists who only paint The baser sides of literature and life, may bo contrasted the healthy tone of feeling evinced by Fielding and Smollett, and the playful sarcastic wit of Sterne. HORACE WALPOLE. In 1764 Horace Walpole revived the Gothic romance in his interesting little story, The Castle of OtroHto, Avhich he at first published anonymously, as a work found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of Engl.and, and printed at Naples in the black letter in 1 529. ‘ I wished it to be believed ancient,’ he said, ‘ and almost everybody was im- posed upon.’ The tale was so well received by the public, that a second edition was soon called for, to wliicli tlie author prefixed his name. Though de- signed to blend the two kinds of romance — the an- cient. in which all was imagination and improb.abi- hty, and the modern, in which mature is copied, the [leciiliar taste of Walpole, who loved to ‘gaze on Gothic toys through Gothic glass,’ and the nature of his subject, led him to give the preponderance to the antique. The ancient romances have nothing more incredible than a sword which required a hundred men to lift it; a helmet, that by its own weight forces a passage through a court-yard into an \rcncd vault, big enough for a man to go through; a picture that walks out of its frame, or a skeleton'* ghost ill a hermit’s cowl. Where Walpole has iiii- [iroved on the incredible and mysterious, is in his dialogues and style, whi(!h are pure and dramatic in effect, and in the more delicate and picturesque tone which he has given to chivalrous manners. Wal- pole was the third son of the Whig minister. Sir llobert Wal[)ole; was born in 1717, became fourth Karl of Orford 1791, and died in 1797 ; having not only outlived most of his illustrious contemporaries, but recorded their weaknesses and failings, their private history and peculiarities, in his uiirivalle(j correspondence. Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham ; the residence of Horace Walpole. In the spring of 1766 c.ame out a tale of about equal dimensions with Walpole’s Gothic story, but as different in its nature as an English cottage or villa, with its honey-suckle hedge, wall-roses, neat garden, and general air of beauty and comfort, is from a gloomy feudal tower, with its dark walls, moat, and draMbridge. We allude to Gold.smith’s Vicar of Wakefield. Though written two years before, and sold for sixty guineas, the bookseller had kept it back, doubtful of success, till the publication of The Traveller had given Goldsmith a name. Its reception by the public must have been an agreeable surprise. The first edition was puldished on the 27th of March, a second was called for in May, and a third in August of the same year. AVhat reader could be insensible to the charms of a work so full of kindliness, benevolence, taste, and genius ? By that species of ment.al chemistry which he under- stood as well as Sterne, Goldsmith extracted the essence of character, separating from it what was trite and worthless, and presenting in incredibly small space a tinisbed representation, bland, humo- rous, siniide, absurd, or elevated, as the story might require. The passions were equally at his iiidding within that confined sphere to which he limited their range; and a life of observation and reading (though foolish in action) supplied him with a preg- nancy of thought and illustration, the full value of 176 HOTKtlSTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HENRY MACKENZIE. which is scarcely appreciated on account of tlie ex- treme simplicity of the language. Among tlie in- cidental remarks in the volume, for example, are some on the state of the criminal law of England, w'lich show how completely Goldsmith had autici- Oliver Goldsmith. pated and directed (in better language than any senator has since employed on the subject) all that parliament has effected in the reformation of our criminal code. These short, philosophical, and critical dissertations, always arise naturally out of the pro- gress of the tale. The character of the vicar gives the chief interest to the family group, though the peculiarities of Mrs Primrose, as her boasted skill in housewifery, her motlierly vanity and desire to ap- pear genteel, are finely brought out, and reproduced in her daughters. The vicar’s support of the Whistonian theory as to marriage, that it was un- lawful for a priest of the church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second, to illustrate which he had his wife’s epitaph written and placed over the chimney-piece, is a touch of humour and individuality that has never been excelled. Another weakness of the worthy vicar was the literary vanity which, notwithstanding his real learning, led him to be imposed upon by Jen- kinson in the affair of the cosmogony ; but these drawbacks only serve to endear him more closely to his readers ; and when distress falls upon the virtuous houseliold, the noble fortitude and resigna- tion of the principal sufferer, and the eflBcacy of his example, form one of the most affecting and even sublime moral pictures. The numberless little traits of character, patlietic and lively incidents, and sketches of manners — as the family of the Flam- boroughs, the quiet pedantry and simplicity of Moses, with his bargain of the shagreen spectacles ; the family picture, in which Mrs Primrose was painted as Venus, and the vicar, in gown and band, presenting to her his books on the Whistonian con- troversy, and which picture, when completed, was too large for the house, and like Robinson Crusoe’s longboat, could not be removed— all mark the per- fect art as well as nature of this domestic novel. That Goldsmith derived many of his incidents from actual occurrences which he had witnessed, is gene- rally admitted. The story of George Primrose, parti- cularly his gojng to Amsterdam to teach the Dutch- Si men English, without recollecting that he shoidd first know something of Dutch himself, seems an exact transcript of the author’s early adventures and blundering simplicity. Though Goldsmith carefully corrected tlie language of his miniature romance in the different editions, he did not meddle with the in- cidents, so that some improbabilities remain. These, however, have no effect on the reader, in diminish- ing for a moment the interest of the work, which must .always be considered one of the most chaste and beautiful offerings which the genius of fiction ever presented at the shrine of virtue. In the same year with the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ a domestic novel, in five volumes, The Fool of Quality, j was published by a countryman of Goldsmith, Henry Brooke (1706-1783), who was the author of several dramatic pieces, and of a poem on Universal Beauty, which anticipated the style of Darwin’s ‘ Botanic Garden.’ The poetry and prose of Brooke have both fallen into obscurity, but his novel was popular in its day, and contains several pleasing and instructive sketches, chiefly designed for the young. HENRY MACKENZIE. The most successful imitator of Sterne in senti- ment, pathos, and style ; his superior in taste and delicacy, but greatly inferior to him in originality, force, and humour, was Henry Mackenzie, long the ornament of the literary circles of Edinburgh. If Mackenzie was inferior to his prototype in the essentials of genius, he enjoyed an exemption from its follies and sufferings, and passed a tranquil and prosperous life, which was prolonged to far beyond the Psalmist’s cycle of threescore and ten. Mr Mackenzie was born in Edinburgh in August 1745, and was the son of Dr Joshua Mackenzie, a respect- able physician. He was educated at the High-schooi and university of Edinburgh, and afterwards studied the law in his native city. Tlie legal department i selected by Mackenzie was the business of the Ex- i chequer court, and to improve him in tliis he went ! to London in 1765, and studied the English Ex- | chequer practice. Returning to Edinburgh, he mixed in its hterary circles, which then numbered ; the great names of Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, ' Blair, &c. In 1771 appeared his novel, The Man \ of Feeling, which was afterwards followed by The | Man of the World, and Julia de Itoubigne. He was, ! as we have previously stated, the principal contri- butor to the ‘ Mirror’ and ‘ Lounger,’ and he wrote ' some dram.atic pieces, which were brouglit out at Edinburgh with but indifferent success. The style and diction of Mackenzie are always choice, elegant, and expressive, but he wanted power. It may seem strange that a novelist so eminently sentimental and refined should have ventured to write on poli- tical subjects, but Mackenzie supported the govern- ment of Mr Pitt with some pamphlets written with great acuteness and discrimination. In re.al life the novelist was shrewd and practical : he had early exhausted his vein of romance, and was an active man of business. In 1804 the government appointed him to the office of comptroller of taxes for Scotland, which entailed upon him considerable labour and drudgery, but was highly lucrative. In this situation, with a numerous family (Mr Mac- kenzie had married Miss Penuel Grant, daughter of Sir Ludovic Grant, of Grant), enjoying the society of his friends and his favourite sports of the field, writing occasionally on subjects of taste and litera- ture — ^for he said, ‘ the old stump would still occa- sionally send forth a few green shoots’ — the Man of Feeling lived to the advanced age of eighty-six, ' and died on the 14th of January 1831. ! 17 ’ ! FROM 1727 CYCLOl’JKDIA OF to 1780. Tlie first novel of Mackenzie is the best of his works, unless we excejit some of his short contribu- tions to the ‘ Mirror’ ami ‘ Lounger’ (as the tale of La Hoche), which fully supported his fame, 'fhere is no regular story in ‘ The Man of Feeling,’ but the character of Harley, his purity of mind, and his bashfulness, caused by excessive delicacy, interest the reader from the commencement of the tale. His adventures in London, the talk of club and park frequenters, his visit to bedlam, and his relief of the old soldier, Atkins, and his daughter, though partly formed on the affected sentimental style of the inferior romances, evince a facility in moral and pathetic painting that was then only surpassed by Richardson. His humour is chaste and natural. Harley fails, as might be expected from his diffident and retiring character, in securing the patronage of the great in London, and he returns to the coun- try, meeting with .some adventures by the way that illustrate his fine sensibility and benevolence. Though bashful, Harley is not effeminate, and there are bursts of manly feeling and generous sentiment throughout the work, which at once elevate the character of the hero, and relieve the prevailing tone of pathos in the novel. ‘ The Man of the World’ has less of the discursive manner of Sterne, but the character of Sir 'riiomas Sindall — the Love- lace of the novel — seems forced and unnatural. His plots against the family of Annesly, and his at- tempted seduction of Lucy (after an interval of some eighteen or twenty years), show a deliberate villany and disregard of public opinion, which, con- sidering his rank and position in the world, appears 1 improbable. His death-bed sensibility and penitence I are undoubtedly out of keeping with the rest of his character. The adventures of young Annesly among the Indians are interesting and romantic, and are described with much spirit : his narrative, indeed, is one of the freest and boldest of Mackenzie’s sketches. ‘ Julia de Roubigne’ is still more melan- choly than ‘ The Man of the World.’ It has no gorgeous descriptions or imaginative splendour to relieve the misery and desolation which overtake a group of innocent beings, whom for their virtues the reader would wish to see happy. It is a domestic tragedy of the deepest kind, without much discri- mination of character or skill in the plot, and oppressive from its scenes of unmerited and unmi- tigated distress. We wake from the perusal of the tale as from a painful dream, conscious that it has no reality, and thankful that its morbid excitement is over. It is worthy of remark that in this novel Mackenzie was one of the first to denounce the system of slave-labour in the West Indies. ‘ I have often been tempted to doubt,’ says one of ' the characters in Julia de Roubigne. ‘whether 1 there is not an error in the whole plan of negro servitude ; and whether whites or creoles born in the West Indies, or perhaps cattle, after the man- ner of European husbandry, would not do the busi- ness better and cheaper than the slaves do. The money which the tatter cost at first, the sickness (often owing to despondency of mind) to which they are liable after their arrival, and the proportion that die in consequence of it, make the machine, if it may be so called, of a plantation, extremely expen- sive in its operations. In the list of slaves belong- ing to a wealthy planter, it would astonish you to see the number unfit for service, pining under disease, a burden on their master. I am only talking as a merchant ; but as a man — good heavens ! when I think of the many thousands of my fellow-crea- tures groaning under servitude and misery ! — great God ! hast thou peopled those regiops of thy world fi'r the purpose of casting out their inhabitants to chains and torture ? No; tliou gavest them a land teeming with g(xal things, and ligbtedst up thy sun to bring forth si)ontaneous plenty ; but the refine- ments of man, ever at war with thy works, have changerofusion and luxuriance into a theatre of rapine, of slavery, and of murder ! Forgive the warmth of this apostrophe ! Here it would not be understood ; even my uncle, whose heart is far from a liard one, would smile at my romance, and tell me that tilings must be so. Habit, the tyrant of nature and of reason, is deaf to the voice of either ; here she stitles humanity and de- bases the species — for the master of slaves has sel- dom the soul of a man.’ We add a siiecimen of the humorous and the pathetic manner of Mackenzie from ‘ The Man of Feeling.’ [Harley Sets Out on his Journey — 7%e lieyyar and his Doy.'] He had taken leave of his aunt on the eve of his intended departure ; but the good lady’s affection for her nephew interrupted her sleep, and early as it was, next inoniing wiien Harley came down stairs to set out, he found her in the parlour with a tear on her cheek, and her caudle-cup in her hand. She knew enough of physic to pre.scribe against going abroad of a morning with an empty stomach. She gave her blessing with the draught ; her instructions | she had delivered the night before. They consisted ' mostly of negatives ; for London, in her idea, was so i replete with temptations, that it needed the whole j armour of her friendly cautions to repel their attacks. [ Peter stood at the door. We have mentioned this 1 faithful fellow formerly. Harley’s father had taken I him up an orphan, and saved him from being cast on the parish ; and he had ever since remained in the service of him and of his son. Harley shook him j by the hand as he passed, smiling, as if he had said, ‘ I will not weep.’ He sprung hastily into the chaise | that waited for him ; Peter folded up the step. ‘ hly | dear master,’ said he, shaking the .solitary lock that hung on either side of his head, ‘ I have been told as how London is a sad place.’ He was choked with the thought, and his benediction could not be heard. But it .shall be heard, honest Peter ! where these tears will add to its energy. In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed breakfasting ; but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to eat a morsel. He walked | out on the road, and gaining a little height, stood | gazing on the quarter he had left. He looked for his wonted prospect, his fields, his woods, and his liills : 1 they were lost in the distant clouds ! He pencilled them on the clouds, and bade them farewell with a sigh ! He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags, amongst which the blue and the russet were the predominant. He had a short knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram’s horn ; his knees (though he was no pilgrim) had worn the stuff of his breeches ; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which should have covered his feet 1 and ankles. In his face, however, was the plump | appearance of good humour : he walked a good round pace, and a crooked-legged dog trotted at his heels. ‘ Our delicacies,’ said Harley to himself, ‘ are fan- tastic : they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, while 1 have lost the most delightful dream in the world from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe.’ The beggar had by this time come up, 178 - ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ . ■ ■ KOTEUSTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HENRY MACKENZJH. and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too. It was iinpos- I Bible to resist both ; and, in truth, the want of shoes ' and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Har- ley had destined sixpence for him before. The ^ beggar, on receiving it, poured forth blessings with- ' out number ; and, with a sort of smile on his coun- . tcnancc, said to Harley, ‘ that if he wanted his for- tune told ’ Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar : it was an unpromising look for the subject I of a prediction, and silenced the prophet imme- ■ diately. ‘ I would much rather learn,’ said Harley, I ‘ what it is in your power to tell me : your trade must I be an entertaining one : sit down on this stone, and ! let me know something of your profession ; I have I often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or I I two myself.’ I ‘ Master,’ replied the beggar, ‘ I like your frankness I much ; God knows I had the humour of plain dealing j in me from a child ; but there is no doing with it in I I this world ; we must live as we can, and lying is, as I you call it, my profession : but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth. I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live : I never laid by indeed ; for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr Harley.’ ‘ So,’ said Harley, ‘ you seem to know rne.’ ‘ Ay, there are few folks in the countrj' that I don’t know something of ; how should I tell fortunes else V ‘ True ; but to go on with your j story : you were a labourer, you say, and a wag ; your ; industry, 1 suppose, you left with your old trade ; but I yoi r humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new.’ ‘What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on’t : but I was brought to my idleness by degrees ; first I could not work, and it went against my stomach to work ever after. I was seized with a jail fever at the time of the assizes being in the county where I I lived ; for I was always curious to get acquainted with ! the felons, because they are commonly fellows of much j mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an j esteem for. In the height of this fever, Mr Harley, the house where I lay took fire, and burnt to the ground ; I was carried out in that condition, and lay all the rest of my illness in a barn. 1 got the better of my disease, however, but I was so weak that I spit blood whenever I attempted to work. I had no rela- I tion living that 1 knew of, and I never kept a friend above a week when I was able to joke ; I seldom re- mained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died before 1 had found a settlement in any : thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I found it, Mr Harley. I told all my misfortunes I truly, but they were seldom believed ; and the few i who gave me a halfpenny as they passed, did it with I a shake of the head, and an injunction not to trouble ! them with a long story. In short, 1 found that people I do not care to give alms without some security for j their money ; a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort ! 1 of draught upon heaven for those who choose to have I their money placed to account there ; so I changed ; my plan, and, instead of telling my own misfortunes, began to prophesy happiness to others. This I found by much the better way : folks will always listen when the tale is their own ; and of many who say they do not believe in fortune-telling, I have known few on ! whom it had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the I names of their acquaintance; amours and little I squabbles are easily gleaned among servants and neighbours ; and indeed people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose ; they I dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for every one j is anxious to hear what they wish to believe; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have I done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerable goo the society of the blessed, wise as angels, with the simplicity of children.’ He had by this time clasped my hand, and found it wet by a tear which had just fallen upon it. His eye began to moisten too — we sat for some t; n.s silent. 179 FROM 1727 CYCLOI’TKDIA OF ro 1780, At lust, witli an attenii)t at a look of more composure, ‘ There are some retnembraiiceH,’ said Harley, ‘ which rise involuntarily on my heart, and make me almost wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends who redeem my opinion of ma^ikind. 1 recollect with the tenderest emotion the ftrnes of pleasure I have passed among them ; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feel- ings wliich perhaps are too tender to be suflered by the world. The worhl is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of ro- mance or melancholy on every temper more suscep- tible than its own. 1 cannot think but in those regions which 1 contemplate, if there is anything of mortality left about us, that these feelings will sub- sist ; they are called — perhaps they are — weaknesses here ; but tliere may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of vir- tues.’ He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had .scarcely finished them when the door opened, and his aunt ajtpeared leading in Miss Walton. ‘ My dear,’ says she, ‘ here is bliss Walton, who has been so kiinl as to come and inquire for you herself.’ 1 could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat. ‘ If to know Miss Walton’s goodness,’ said he, ‘ be a title to deserve it, I have some claim.’ She begged him to resume his seat, and placed her- self on the sofa be.side him. I took my leave. Mrs Margery accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. ‘ 1 believe,’ said he, ‘ from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hoj>es of my recovery.’ She started as he spoke ; but recollecting herself im- mediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. ‘ I know,’ said he, ‘ that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes which your kindness sug- gests, but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man is a privilege bestowed on few. I would endeavour to make it mine ; nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now ; it is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach.’ ‘ Those sentiments,’ answered bliss Walton, ‘areju-st; but your good sense, Mr Harley, will own that life has its proper value. As the pro- vince of virtue, life is ennobled ; as such, it is 'to be desired. To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards enough even here to fix its attachment.’ The subject began to overpower her. Harley lifted his eyes from the gi'ound, ‘ There are,’ said he, in a very low voice, ‘ there are attachments. Miss Wal- ton.’ His glance met hers. They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn. He paused some moments : ‘ I am in such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it — it is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections.’ He paused again. ‘ Let it not offend you to know their power over one so unworthy. It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest. To love bliss Walton could not be a crime ; if to declare it is one, the expiation will be made.’ Her tears were now flowing without control. ‘ I.ct me entreat you,’ said she, ‘ to have better hopes. Let not life be so indifferent to you, if my wishes can put any value on it. I will not pretend to misun- derstand you — I know your worth — I have known it long — I have esteemed it. What would you have me say? I have loved it as it deserved.’ He seized her hand, a languid colour reddened his cheek, a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed or> her it grew dim, it fixed, it closed. He sighed, and fell back on his seat. Miss Walton screamed at the sight. His aunt and the servants rushed into the room. They found them lying mo- tionless together. His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them. With Miss Walton they succeeded, but Harley was gone for ever! I entered the room where his body lay ; I approached it with reverence, not fear. I looked ; the recollec- tion of the past crowded upon me. I saw that form which, but a little before, was animated with a soul which did honour to humanity, stretched without sense or feeling before me. ’Tis a connexion we can- not easily forget. I took his hand in mine ; I repeated | his name involuntarily ; I felt a pulse in every vein at the sound. I looked earnestly in his face ; his eye was closed, his lip pale and motionless. There is an enthusiasm in sorrow that forgets impossibility ; I wondered that it was so. The sight drew a juayer from my heart ; it was the voice of frailty and of man ! The confusion of my mind began to subside into thought ; I had time to weep 1 I turned with the last farewell upon my lijis, whet I observed old Edwards standing behind me. 1 looked him full in the face, but his eye was fixed on another object. He pressed betw'een me and the bed, and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his bene- factor. I spoke to him I know not’what ; but he took no notice of what I said, and remained in the same attitude as before. He stood some minutes in that posture, then turned and walked towards the door. He paused as he went ; he returned a second time ; I could observe his lips move as he looked ; but the voice they would have uttered was lost. He attempted going again ; and a third time he returned | as before. I saw him wipe his cheek ; then, covering i his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the I most convulsive throbs, he flung out of the room. He had hinted that he should like to be buried in | a certain spot near the grave of his mother. This is | a weakness, but it is universally incident to huina- 1 nity ; it is at least a memorial for those who survive. For some, indeed, a slender memorial will serve; and 1 the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will I build their structures were it but on the paring of j a nail. 1 He was buried in the place he had desired. It was [ shaded by an old tree, the only one in the churchyard, in which was a cavity worn by time. I have sat with him in it, and counted the tombs. The last time we passed there, methought he looked wistfully on the tree ; there was a branch of it that bent towards us, waving in the wind ; he waved his hand, as if he mimicked its motion. There was something predic- tive in his look ! perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things. I sometimes visit his grave ; I sit in the hollow of the tree. It is worth a thousand homilies ; every noble feeling rises within me! Every beat of my heart awakens a virtue ; but it will make you hate the world. No ; there is such an air of gentleness around that I can hate nothing; but as to the world, I pity the men of it. The last of our novel writers of this period was Miss Clara Heeve, the daughter of a clergyman at ipswdeh, where she died in 1803, aged seventy- eight. An early admiration of Horace M'alpole’s romance, ‘The Castle of Otranto,’ induced Miss Keeve to imitate it in a Gothic story, entitled The Old English Baron, which was published in 1777. In some respects the lady has the advantage of Walpole; her supernatural machinery is better ma- naged, so as to jiroduce mysteriousness and effect ; but her style has not the point or elegance of that 180 HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. dr conyers midileton. of her jirototypc. Miss Reeve wrote several other novels, ‘ all marked,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘by e.x- cellent good sense, pure morality, and a competent command of those qualities which constitute a good romance.’ They have failed, however, to keep pos- session of public favour, and the fame of the author rests on her ‘ Old English Baron,’ which is now generally printed along with the story of Walpole. HISTORIANS. 1 A spirit of philosophical inquiry and reflection, j united to the graces of literary composition, can hardly be said to have been presented by any Eng- lish historian before the appearance of that illus- ! trious triumvirate — Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. I The e.orly annalists of Britain recorded mere fables [ and superstitions, with a slight admixture of truth. 1 The classic pen of Buchanan was guided by party rancour, undignified by research. Even Milton, when he set himself to compose a history of his native country, included the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The history of the Long Parliament Dy ilay is a valuable fragment, and the works of Clarendon and Burnet are interesting though pre- judiced pictures of the times. A taste for our na- tional annals soon began to call for more extensive compilations; and in 1706 a ‘Complete History of England’ was published, containing a collection of various works previous to the time of Charles I., 1 and a continuation by White Kennet, bishop of 1 Peterborough. M. Rapin, a French Protestant 1 (1661-1725), who had come over to England with the Prince of Orange, and resided here several years, seems to have been interested in our affairs ; for, on retiring to the Hague, he there composed a voluminous history of England, in French, which was speedily translated, and enjoyed great popu- larity. The work of Rapin is still considered valu- j able, and it possesses a property which no English [ author has yet been able to confer on a similar nar- ration, that of impartiality ; but it wants literary 1 attractions. A more laborious, exact, and original historian, appeared in Thomas Carte (1686-1754), 1 who meditated a complete domestic or civil history ! of England, for which he had made large collections, encouraged by public subscriptions. His work was projected in 1743, and four years afterwards the first volume appeared. Unfortunately Carte made allusion to a case, which he said had come under his own observation, of a person who had been cured of the king’s evil by the Pretender, then in exile in France ; and this Jacobite sally proved the ruin of his work. Subscribers withdrew their names, and the historian was ‘left forlorn and abandoned amid j his extensive collections.’ A second and third 1 volume, however, were published by the indefati- I gable collector, and a fourth, which he left incom- j plete, was published after his death. Carte w'as 1 author also of a Life of the Duke of Ormond, remark ■ j able for the fulness of its information, but disfigured ! by his Jacobite predilections. \ The Roman History by Hooke also belongs to this j period. It eommences with the building of Rome, and is continued to the downfall of the common- ! wealth. Hooke was patronised by Pope (to whom ' he dedicated his first volume), and he produced a ; usefid work, w'hich still maintains its place. The first volume of this history was published in 1733, : but it was not completed till 1771. ! DR CONYERS MIDDLETON 1 1 In 1741 Dr Conyers Middleton (1683-1750), ; an English clergyman, and librarian of the public library at Cambridge, produced his historical Life of Cicero, in tw'o volumes. Reviewing the whole of the eelebrated orator’s public career, and the princi- pal transactions of his times — mixing up questions of philosophy, government, and politics, with the details of biograjihy, Middleton compiled a highly interesting work, full of varied and important infor- mation, and wTitten with great eare and taste. An admiration of the rounded style and flowing periods of Cicero seems to have produeed in his biographer a desire to attain to similar excellence ; and perhaps no author, prior to Johnson’s great works, wrote English with the same careful finish and sustained dignity. The graees of Addison were wanting, but certainly no historical writings of the day were at all comparable to Middleton’s memoir. One or two sentenees from his summary of Cicero’s character will exemplify the author’s style : — He (Cicero) made a just distinction between bear- ing what we cannot help, and approving what we ought to condemn ; and submitted, therefore, yet never con- sented to those usurpations ; and when he was forced to comply with them, did it always with a reluctance that he expresses very keenly in his letters to his friends. But whenever that force was r-nioved, and he was at liberty to pursue his principles and act without control, as in his consulship, in his province, and after Caesar’s death — the only periods of his life in which he was truly master of himself — there we see him shilling out in his genuine character of an excel- lent citizen, a great magistrate, a glorious patriot ; there we could see the man who could declare of him- self with truth, in an appeal to Atticus, as to the best witness of his conscience, that he had always done the greatest services to his country when it was in his power ; or when it was not, had never harboured a thought of it but what was divine. If we must needs compare him, therefore, with Cato, as some writers affect to do, it is certain that if Cato’s virtue seem more splendid in theory, Cicero’s will be found supe- rior in practice ; the one was romantic, the other was natural ; the one drawn from the refinements of the schools, the other from nature and social life ; the one always unsuccessful, often hurtful ; the other always beneficial, often salutary to the republic. To conclude : Cicero’s death, though violent, cannot be called untimely, but was the proper end of such a life ; which must also have been rendered less glorious if it had owed its preservation to Antony. It was, t'..erefore, not only what he expected, but, in the cir- cumstances to which he was reduced, what he seems even to have wished. For he, who before had been timid in dangers, and desponding in distress, yet, from the time of Ceesar’s death, roused by the desperate state of the republic, assumed the fortitude of a hero ; dis- carded all fear ; despised all danger ; and when he could not free his country from a tyranny, provoked the tyrants to take that life which he no longer cared to preserve. Thus, like a great actor on the stage, he reserved himself, as it were, for the last act ; and after he had played his part with dignity, resolved to finish it with glory. Or the character of Julius Caesar — Ccesar was endowed with every great and noble quality that could exalt human nature, and give a man the a.scendant in society : formed to excel in peace, as well as in war ; provident in counsel ; fear- less in action ; and executing what he had resolved with amazing celerity ; generous beyond measure to his friends ; placable to his enemies ; and for parts, learning, eloquence, scarce inferior to any man. His orations were admired for two qualities whifti are seldom found together — strength and eleganoe. Cicero ranks him among the greatest orators that Rome ever bred ; and Quintilian says, that he spoke with t'le FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. bame force witli whicli lie fought; ami if he had de- voted hiiiiHolf to the bar, would have been the only tiiaii eapalde of rivalling Cicero. Nor was he a master only of the politer arts ; hut conversant also with the most abstruse and critical parts of learning; and, among other works which he published, addressed two books to Cicero on the analogy of language, or the art of speaking .and writing correctly. He was a most liberal jiatron of wit and learning wheresoever they were found ; and out of his love of those talents, would readily pardon tho.se who had employed them against himself ; rightly judging that by making ‘uch men his friends, he should draw praises from the same fountain from which he had been aspersed. His capital passioT/S were ambition and love of pleasure, which he indulg'id in their turns to the greatest ex- cess ; yet the lirst was always predominant, to which he could easily sacritice all the charms of the second, and draw pleasure even from toils and dangers w'hen they ministered to Ids glory, for he thought Tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of goddesses ; and had fre- quently in his month a verse of Euripides, which expressed the image of his soul, that, if right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to be vio- lated for th" sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose o,' his life ; the sxheme that he had formed from his early youth ; so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subversion of the- republic. He used to say that there j were two things necessary to acquire and to support I power — soldiers and money ; which yet depended mutually u])on each other. \Vith money, therefore, he provided .soldiers, and with soldiers extorted money ; and w.as of all men the most rapacious in plumlering both friends and foes, sparing neither prince, nor state, nor temple, nor even private per- sons who were known to possess any share of treasure. I His great abilities would neces.sarily have made him one of the first citizens of Rome ; but disdaining the condition of a suljject, he could never rest till he I made himself a monarch. In acting this last part, his usual prudence seemed to fail him, as if the height to which he w.as mounted had turned his head and made him giddy ; for, by a vain ostentation of his power, he destroyed the stability of it ; and as men shorten life by living too fast, so, by an intempe- rance of reigning, he brought his reign to a violent end. DAVID H0»IE. Relying on the valuable collections of Carte ; ani- mated by a strong love of literary fame, which he avowed to be his ruling passion ; desirous also of combating the popular prejudices in favour of Eliza- beth and against the Stuarts ; and master of a style singularly fascinating, simple, and graceful, the cele- bra^ed David Hume left his ]ihilosophical studies to embark in historical composition. This eminent person was a native of Scotland, born of a good famil}-, being the second son of Joseph Home (the historian first spedt the name Hume), laird of Nine- wells, near Dunse, in Berwickshire. David was horn in Edinburgh on the 26th of April 1711. After attending the university of Edirh. ”gh, his friends were anxious that he should comni, .. ■> the study of the law, but a love of literature rendered him averse to this profession. An attempt was then made to establish him in business, and he was placed in a mercantile house in Bristol. This employment was found equally uncongenial, and Hume removed to France, where he passed some years in literary re- tirement, living with the utmost frugality and care on the small allowance made him by his family. He returned in 17.87 to publish his first philosophical work, the Treatise on Human Nature, which he ac- knowledges ‘ fell dead-born from the press.’ A third part appeared in 1740; and in 1742 he pro- duced two volumes, entitled Essays Mora! and Phi- losophical. Some of these miscellaneous productions are remarkable for research and discrimination, and for elegance of style. In 1745 he undertook the charge of the Marquis of Annandale, a young noble- man of deranged intellects ; and in this humiliating employment the philosopher continued about a twelvemonth. He next made an unsuccessful at- tempt to be appointed professor of moral philosophy in his native university, after which he fortunately obtained the situation of secretary to Lieutenant- General St Clair, who was first appointed to the command of an expedition against Canada, and after- i wards ambassador to the courts of Vienna and ! | Turin. In the latter, Hume enjoyed congenial and j refined society. Having remodelled his ‘ Treatise on 1 David Hume. Human Nature,’ he repubhshed it in 1751 under the title of an Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, i Next year he issued two volumes of Political DLs- j courses, and, with a view to the promotion of his i studies, assumed gratuitously the oflSce of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. He now struck into the ! path of historical writing. In 1754 appeared the ^ first volume of his History of Great Britain, contain- j ing the reigns of James I. and Charles I. It was j assailed by the Whigs with unusual bitterness, and Hume was so disappointed, partly from the attacks | on him, and partly because of the slow sale of the i work, that he intended retiring to France, changing 1 his name, and never more returning to his native ! country. The breaking out of the war with France : prevented this step, but we suspect the complacency of Hume and his love of Scotland would otherwise | have frustrated his intention. A second volume of | the history was published, with more success, in 1757 ; a third and fourth in 1759 ; and the two last in 1762. The work became highly popular ; edition followed edition ; and by universal consent Hume j was placed at the head of English historians. In ' 176.3 our author accompanied the Earl of Hertford i on his embassy to Paris, where he was received with i marked distinction. In 1766 he returned to Scot- land, but was induced next year to accept the situa- 182 HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATUEE. DAVID HUMS. tion of under secretary of state, which he held for two years. With a revenue of £1000 a-year (whicli he considered opidence), the historian retired to his native city, wliere he continued to reside, in habits of intimacy with his literary friends, till his death, on the 25th of August 1776. His easy good-humoured disjKisition, his literary fame, his extensive know- ledge and respectable rank in society, rendered his company always agreeable and interesting, even to those who were most decidedly ojiposed to the tone of scepticism which pervades all his writings. His opinions were never obtruded on his friends: he thrcw out dogmas for the learned, not food for the multitude. The history of Hume is not a work of high au- thority, but it is one of the most easy, elegant, and interesting narratives in the language. The striking parts of his subject are related with a pic- turesque and dramatic force ; and his dissertations on the state of parties and the tendency of particu- lar events, are remarkable for the philosophical tone in which they are conceived and written. He was too indolent to be exact ; too indifferent to sympa- thise heartily with any political party ; too sceptical on matters of religion to appreciiite justly the full force of religious principles in directing the course of public events. An enemy to all turbulence and enthusiasm, he naturally leaned to the side of settled government, even when it was united to arbitrary power ; and though he could ‘ shed a generous tear \ for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford,’ ; the struggles of his poor countrymen for conscience’ i s.ake against the tyranny of the Stuarts, excited ■ with him no other feelings than those of ridicule I or contempt. He could even forget the merits I and exaggerate the faults of the accomplished and i chivalrous Raleigh, to shelter the sordid injustice ! of a weak and contemptible sovereign. No hatred i of oppression burns through his pages. The care- j less epicurean repose of the philosopher was not : disturbed by any visions of liberty, or any ardent i aspirations for the improvement of mankind. Yet Hume was not a slavish worshipper of power. In his personal character he was liberal and inde- ■ pendent : ‘ he had early in life,’ says Sir James [ Mackintosh, ‘ conceived an antipathy to the Cal- j vinistic divines, and his temperament led him at all times to regard with disgust and derision that religious enthusiasm or bigotry with which the spirit of English freedom was, in his opinion, inse- parably associated : his intellect was also perhaps too active and original to submit with sufficient patience to the preparatory toils and long suspended judgment of a historian, and led him to form pre- mature conclusions and precipitate theories, which it then became the pride of his ingenuity to justify.’ A love of paradox undoubtedly led to his formation of the theory that the English government was I purely despotic and absolute before the accession of [ the Stuarts. A love of effect, no less than his con- j stitutional indolence, may have betrayed the his- j torian into inconsistencies, and prompted some of his exaggeration and high colouring relative to the I unfortunate Charles L, his trial and execution. I Thus, in one page we are informed that ‘ the height of all iniquity and fanatical extravagance yet re- mained — the public trial and execution of the so- ( vereign.’ Three pages farther on, the historian j remarks — ‘ The pomp, the dignity, the ceremony of this transaction, corresponded to the greatest con- ception that is suggested in the annals of human- kind ; the delegates of a great people sitting in judg- ment upon their supreme magistrate, and trying him for his misgovernment and breach of trust.’ With similar inconsistency he in one part admits, and in another denies, that Charles was insincere in dealing with his opponents. To illustrate his theory of the sudden elevation of Cromwell into importance, the historian states that about the meeting of parlia- ment in 1040, the name of Oliver is not to be found oftener than twice upon any committee, whereas the journals of the House of Commons show that before the time specified, Cromwell was in forty-five com- mittees, and twelve special messages to the Lords. Careless as to facts of this kind (hundreds of which errors have been pointed out), we must look at the general character of Hume’s history ; at its clear and admirable narrative ; the philosophic composure and dignity of its style; the sagacity with which the views of conflicting sects and parties are esti- mated and developed ; the large admissions which the author makes to his opponents; and the high importance he everywhere assigns to the cultiva- tion of letters, and the interests of learning and literature. Judged by this elevated standard, the work of Hume must ever be regarded as an honour to British literature. It differs as widely from the previous annals and compilations as a finished por- trait by Reynolds differs from the rude draughts of a country artist. The latter may be the more faithful external likeness, but is wanting in all that gives grace and sentiment, sweetness or loftiness, to the general composition. [State of Parties at the Reformation in EnglandJ] The friends of the Reformation asserted that nothing could be more absurd than to conceal, in an unknown tongue, the word of God itself, and thus to counter- act the will of heaven, which, for the purpose of uni- versal salvation, had published that salutary doctrine to all nations ; that if this jiractice were not very ab- surd, the artifice at least was very gross, and proved a consciousness that the glosses and traditions of the clergy stood in direct opposition to the original text dictated by Supreme Intelligence ; that it was now necessary for the people, so long abused by interested pretensions, to see with their ovm eyes, and to examine whether the claims of the ecclesiastics w’ere founded on that charter which was on all hands acknowledged to he derived from heaven ; and that, as a spirit of research and curiosity was happily revived, and men were now obliged to make a choice among the con- tending doctrines of dift'erent sects, the proper mate- rials for decision, and, above all, the Holy Scriptures, should he set before them ; and the revealed will of God, which the change of language had somewhat obscured, be again by their means revealed to man- kind. The favourers of the ancient religion maintained, on the other hand, that the pretence of making the people see with their own eyes was a mere cheat, and was itself a very gross artifice, by which the new preachers hoped to obtain the guidance of them, and to seduce them from those pastors whom the laws of ancient establishments, whom Heaven itself, had ap- pointed for their spiritual direction ; that the people were, by their ignorance, their stupidity, their neces- sary avocations, totally unqualified to choose their owTi principles ; and it was a mockery to set materials before them of which they could not possibly make any proper use ; that even in the affairs of common life, and in their temporal concerns, which lay more within the compas-s of human reason, the laws had in a great measure deprived them of the right of private judgment, and had, happily for their own and the public interest, regulated their conduct and behaviour ; that theological que.stions were placed far beyond the sphere of vulgar comprehension ; and ecclesiastics themselves, though assisted by all the advantages of education, erudition, and an assiduous study of the 183 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO i780 Bciciice, could not be fully assured of a just decision ; except by the promise made them in Scripture, that God would be ever present with his church, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against her ; that the gross errors adopted by the wisest heathens prove how unfit men were to grope their own way through this ])rofound darkness ; nor would the Scriptures, if trusted to every man’s judgment, be able to remedy, on the contrary, they would much augment those fatal illusions ; that Sacred Writ itself was involved in so much obscurity, gave rise to so many difficulties, con- tained so many appearing contradictions, that it was the most dangerous weapon that could be intrusted into the hands of the ignorant and giddy multitude ; that the jioctical style in which a great part of it was com- posed, at the same time that it occasioned uncertainty in the sense by its multiplied tropes and figures, was sufficient to kindle the zeal of fanaticism, and thereby throw civil society into the most furious combustion ; that a thousand sects must arise, which would pretend, each of them, to ilerive its tenets from the Scrijitures ; ami would be able, by specious arguments, to seduce silly women and ignorant mechanics into a belief of the most monstrous principles ; and that if ever this disorder, dangerous to the magistrate himself, re- ceived a remedy, it must be from the tacit acquies- cence of the people in some new authority ; and it was evidently better, without further contest or in- quiry, to adhere peaceably to ancient, and therefore the more secure, establishments. [Tlie Middle Ayea — Progress of Freedom.'] Those who cast their eye on the general revolutions of society, will find that, as almost all improvements of the human mind had reached nearly to their state of perfection about the age of Augustus, there was a sensible decline from that point or period ; and men thenceforth gradually relapsed into ignorance and barbarism. The unlimited extent of the Roman em- pire, and the consequent despotism of its monarchs, extinguished all emulation, debased the generous spirits of men, and depressed the noble flame by which all the refined arts must be cherished and enlivened. The military government which soon succeeded, ren- dered even the lives and properties of men insecure and precarious ; and proved destructive to those vulgar and more necessary arts of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce ; and in the end, to the military art and genius itself, by which alone the immense fiibric of the empire could be suj>ported. The irruption of the barbarous nations which soon followed, overwhelmed all human knowledge, which was already far in its decline ; and men sunk every age deeper into igno- rance, stupidity, and superstition ; till the light of ancient science and history had very nearly suffered a total extinction in all the European nations. But there is a point of depression as well as of ex- altation, from which human affairs naturally return in a contrary direction, and beyond which they sel- dom pass, either in their advancement or decline. The period in which the people of Christendom were the lowest sunk in ignorance, and consequently in dis- orders of every kind, may justly be fixed at the eleventh century, about the age of William the Con- queror ; and from that era the sun of science, begin- ning to re-ascend, threw out many gleams of light, which preceded the full morning when letters were revived in the fifteenth century. The Danes and other northern people who had so long infested all the coasts, and even the inland parts of Europe, by their depredations, having now learned the arts of tillage and agriculture, found a certain subsistence at home, and were no longer tempted to desert their in- dustry in order to seek a precarious livelihood by rapine and by the plunder of their neighbours. The feudal governments also, among the more southern nations, were reduced to a kind of system ; and though that strange species of civil i>olity was ill fitted to in- sure either liberty or tranquillity, it was preferable to the universal license and disorder which had every where preceded it. It may appear strange that the progress of the arts, which seems, among the Greeks and Roman.s, to have daily incrca-sed the number of slaves, should in later times have proved so general a source of liberty ; but this difference in the events proceeded from a great difference in the circumstances which attended those institutions. The ancient barons, obliged to maintain themselves continually in a military posture, and little emulous of eloquence or splendour, employed not their villains as domestic servants, much less as manufacturers ; but composed their retinue of free- men, whose military spirit rendered the chieftain for- midable to his neighbours, and who were ready to attend him in every warlike enterpri.se. The villains were entirely occupied in the cultivation of their master’s land, and paid their rents either in com and cattle, and other produce of the farm, or in servile offices, which they performed about the baron’s family, and upon the farms which he retained in his own pos- session. In proportion as agriculture improved and money increased, it was found that these services, though extremely burdensome to the villain, were of little advantage to the master ; and that the produce of a large estate could be much more conve- niently disposed of by the peasants themselves, who raised it, than by the landlord or his bailiff, who were formerly accustomed to receive it. A commutation was therefore made of rents for services, and of money rents for those in kind ; and as men, in a subsequent age, discovered that farms were better cultivated where the farmer enjoyed a security in his possession, the practice of granting leases to the peasant began to prevail, which entirely broke the bonds of servitude, already much relaxed from the former practices. After this manner villanage went gradually into dis- use throughout the more civilised parts of Europe : the interest of the master as well as that of the slave concurred in this alteration. The late.st laws which we find in England for enforcing or regulating this species of servitude, were enacted in the reign of Henry VII. And though the ancient statutes on this head remain unrepealed by parliament, it appears that, before the end of Elizabeth, the distinction of villain and freeman was totally though insensibly abolished, and that no person remained in the state to whom the former laws could be applied. Thus personal freedom became almost general in Europe ; an advantage which paved the way for the increase of political or civil liberty, and which, even where it was not attended with this salutary effect, served to give the members of the community some of the most considerable advantages of it. \^Death and Character of Queen Elizabeth.] Some inciower, required the utmost vehemence of zeal, as well as a temper daring to excess. A gentle call would neither have reached nor have excited those to whom it ^vus ad- dressed. A spirit more amiable, but less vigorous than Luther’s, would have shrunk back from the dangers which he braved and surmounted. [Discovery of America.^ Next morning, being Friday the third day of August, in the year 1482, Columbus set sail, a little before sunrise, in presence of a vast crowd of spectators, who sent up their supplications to heaven for the prosperous issue of the voyage, which they wished rather than expected. Columbus steered directly for the Canary Islands, aiid arrived there without any occurrence that would have deserved notice on any other occasion. But in a voyage of such expectation and importance, every circumstance was the object of attention. * * Upon the 1st of October they were, according to the admiral’s reckoning, seven hundred and seventy leagues to the west of the Canaries ; but, lest his men should be intimidated by the prodigious length of the navigation, he gave out that they had f)roceeded only five hundred and eighty-four leagues ; and, fortu- nately for Columbus, neither his own pilot nor those of the other ships had skill sufficient to correct this error and discover the deceit. They had now been above three weeks at sea ; they had proceeded far be- yond what former navigators had attempted or deemed possible ; all their p)rognostics of discover^', drawn from the flight of birds and other circumstances, had proved fallacious; the appearances of land, with which their own credulity or the artifice of their commander had from time to time flattered and amused them, had been altogether illusive, and their prospect of \ success seemed now to be as distant as ever. These reflections occurred often to men who had no other object or occupation than to reason and discourse con- : corning the intention and circumstances of their ex- pedition. They made impression at first upon the j ignorant and timid, and extending by degrees to such ; as were better informed or more resolute, the con- | tagion spread at length from ship to sliip. From secret whispers or murmurings they proceeded to open cabals and public complaints. They taxeil their sovereign with inconsiderate credulity, in paying such regard to the vain promises and rash conjectures of an indigent foreigner, as to hazard the lives of so | many of her owm subjects in prosecuting a chimerical : scheme. They affirmed that they had fully peiformed their duty by venturing so far in an unknown and hopeless course, and couhl incur no blame for refusing to follow any longer a desperate adventurer to certain destruction. They contended that it was necessary to think of returning to Spain while their crazy vessels were still in a condition to kecji the sea, but expressed their fears that the attempt would prove vain, as the wind, which had hitherto been so favour- able to their course, must render it impossible to sail I in the opposite direction. All agreed that Columbus should be compelled by force to adopt a measure on which their common safety depended. Some of the more audacious proposed, as the most expeditious and certain method for getting rid at once of his remon- strances, to throw him into the sea, being persuaded that, upon their return to Spain, the death of an un- 188 HlSrOUI.VNS. EXGUSH LITERATURE. DR K'lLLIAM ROBERTSOK. snccps>fiil pro'cctor wouKl excite little concern, and be inquired ii. with no curio.sity. Columbus was fully sensible of bis perilous situa- tion. He had observed, with great uneasiness, the fatal I operation of ignorance and of fear in producing dis- I atiection among his crew, and saw that it was now I ready to burst out into open mutiny. He retained, j however, perfect presence of mind. He affected to I seem ignorant of their machinations. Notwithstand- j ing the agitation and solicitude of his own mind, he ■ appeared with a cheerful countenance, like a man satislied with the progress he had made, and confident i of success. Sometimes he employed all the arts of I insinuation to soothe his men. Sometimes he endea- : voured to work upon their ambition or avarice bv' ] magnificent descriptions of the fame and wealth which I they were about to acquire. On other occasions he I assumed a tone of authority, and threatened them with vengeance from their sovereign if, by their das- tardly behaviour, they should defeat this noble effort to pnmote the glory of God, and to exalt the Spanish name above that of every other nation. Even with seditious sailors, the words of a man whom they had been accustomed to reverence, were weighty and per- suasive, and not only restrained them from those violent excesses which they meditated, but prevailed with them to accompany their admiral for some time longer. As they proceeded, the indications of approaching land seemed to be more certain, and excited hope in proportion. The birds began to appear in flocks, making towards the south-west. Columbus, in imi- tation of the Portuguese navigators, who had been guided in several of their discoveries b^’ the motion of birds, altered his course from due west tow?.rds that quarter whither they pointed their flight. But, after holding on for several days in this new direction without any better success than formerly, having seen no object during thirty days but the sea and the sky, the hopes of his companions subsided faster than they had risen ; their fears revived with additional force ; impatience, rage, and despair appeared in every coun- tenance. All sense of subordination was lost. The officers, who had hitherto concurred with Columbus in opinion, and supported his authority, now took part with the private men ; they assembled tumultuously on the deck, expostulated with their commander, mingled threats with their expostulations, and re- quired him instantly to tack about and return to Europe. Columbus perceived that it would be of no avail to have recourse to any of his former arts, which, having been tried so often, had lost their effect ; and that it was impossible to rekindle any zeal for the success of the expedition among men in whose breasts fear had extinguished every generous sentiment. He saw that it was no less vain to think of employing either gentle or severe measures to quell a mutiny so general and so violent. It was necessary, on all these accounts, to soothe passions which he could no longer command, and to give way to a torrent too impetuous to be checked. He promised solemnly to his men that he would comply with their request, provided they would accompany him and obey his command for three days longer, and if, during that time, land were not discovered, he would then abandon the enterprise, and direct his course towards Spain. Enraged as the sailors were, and impatient to turn their faces again towards their native country, this proposition did not appear to them unreasonable ; nor did Columbus hazard much in confining himself to a term so short. The presages of discovering land were now so numerous and promising that he deemed them infallible. For some days the sounding line reached the bottom, and the soil which it brought up indicated land to be at no great distance. The flocks of birds increased, and were composed not only of sea-fowl, but of such land birds ns could not be supposed to fly far from the shore. The crew of the I’inta ob- served a cane floating, which .seemed to have been newly cut, and likewise a piece of timber artificially carved. The sailors aboard the Nigna took up the branch of a tree with red berries perfectly fresh. The clouds around the setting sun assumed a new appear- ance ; the air was more mild and warm, and during night the wind became unequal and variable. From all these symptoms Columbus was so confident of being near land, that on the evening of the eleventh of October, after public prayers for success, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the ships to lie to, keeping strict watch lest they should be driven ashore in the night. During this interval of suspense and expecta- tion, no man shut his eyes, all kept upon deck, gazing intently towards that quarter where they expected to discover the land, which had so long been the object of their wishes. About two hours before midnight, Columbus, stand- ing on the forecastle, observed a light at a distance, and privately pointed it out to Pedro Guttierez, a page of the queen’s wardrobe. Guttierez perceived it, and calling to Salcedo, comptroller of the fleet, all three saw it in motion, as if it were carried from place to place. A little after midnight, the joyful sound of land/ land! was heard from the Pinta, which kept always a-head of the other ships. But having been so often deceived by fallacious appearances, every man was now become slow of belief, and waited in all the anguish of uncertainty and impatience for the return of day. As soon as morning dawned, all doubts and fears were dispelled. From every ship an island was seen about two leagues to the north, whose flat and verdant fields, well stored with wood, and watered with many rivulets, presented the aspect of a delightful country. The crew of the Pinta instantly began the Tc Beurn, as a hymn of thanksgiving to God, and were joined by those of the other ships with tears of joy and transports of congratulation. This office of gratitude to Heaven was followed by an act of justice to their commander. They threw themselves at the feet of Columbus, with feelings of self-con- demnation, mingled with reverence. They implored him to pardon their ignorance, incredulity, and in- solence, which had created him so much unnecessary disquiet, and had so often obstructed the prosecution of his well-concerted plan ; and passing, in the warmth of their admiration, from one extreme to another, they now pronounced the man whom they had so lately reviled and threatened, to be a person inspired by Heaven with sagacity and fortitude more than human, in order to accomplish a design so far beyond the ideas and conception of all former ages. As soon as the sun arose, all their boats were manned and armed. They rowed towards the island with their colours displayed, with warlike music, and other martial pomp. As they approached the coast, they saw it covered with a multitude of people, whom the novelty of the spectacle had drawn together, whose attitudes and gestures expressed wonder and astonish- ment at the strange objects which presented them- selves to their view. Columbus was the first European who set foot on the new world w'hich he had dis- covered. He landed in a rich dress, and with a naked sword in his hand. His men followed, and, kneeling down, they all kissed the ground which they had so long desired to see. They next erected a crucifix, and prostrating themselves before it, returned thanks to God for conducting their voyage to such a happy issue. They then took solemn possession of the country for the crown of Castile and Leon, with all the fonnalities which the Portuguese were accustomed to observe in acts (I this kind in their new disco- veries. The Spaniards, while thus empltyed, were sur- 189 FROM 1727 CYCLOPi^^DIA OF TO 1786. -(niiided by many of the natives, who gazed in silent admiration upon actions which they could not com- ])rehciid, and of which they did not foresee the conse- quences. The dress of the Spaniards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards, their arms, appeared strange and surjirising. The vast machines in which they had traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the the wat(:rs w ith wings, and uttered a dreadful sound resembling thunder, accompanied with lightning and smoke, struck them with such terror that they began to respect their new guests as a superior order of beings, and concluded that they were children of the sun, wlio had descended to visit the earth. The Europeans were hardly less amazed at the scene now before them. Every herb and shrub and ' tree was diiferent from those which flourished in I Europe. The soil seemed to be rich, but bore few marks of cultivation. The climate, even to the Spani.ards, felt warm, though extremely delightful. The inhabitants appeared in the simple innocence of nature, entirely naked. Their black hair, long and uncurled, floated upon their shoulders, or was bound in tresses on their heads. They had no beards, and every part of their bodies was perfectly smooth. Their complexion was of a dusty copper colour, their features singular rather than disagreeable, their aspect gentle and timid. Though not tall, they were well- shaped and active. Their faces, and several parts of their bodies, were fantastically painted with glaring colours. They were shy at first through fear, but soon became familiar with the Spaniards, and with tran- sports of joy received from them hawk-bells, glass beads, or other baubles ; in return for which they gave such provisions as they had, and some cotton yarn, the only commodity of value which they could produce. Towards evening, Columbus returned to his ship, accompanied by many of the islanders in their boats, which they called canoes, and though rudely formed out of the trunk of a single tree, they rowed them with aurjirising dexterity. Thus, in the first interview between the inhabitants of the old and new worlds, everything was conducted amicably and to their mutual satisfaction. The former, enlightened and ambitious, formed already vast ideas with respect to the advantages which they might derive from the regions that began to open to their view. The latter, simple aud undisceruing, had no foresight of the cala- mities and desolation which were approaching their country ! [ChivalryJ^ Among uncivilised nations, there is but one profes- sion honourable — that of arms. All the ingenuity and vigour of the human mind are exerted in acquiring military skill or address. The functions of peace are few and simple, and require no particular course of education or of study as a preparation for discharging them. This was the state of Europe during several centuries. Every gentleman, born a soldier, scorned any other occupation. He was taught no science but that of war ; even his exercises and pastimes were feats of martial prowess. Nor did the judicial cha- racter, which persons of noble birth were alone entitled to assume, demand any degree of knowledge beyond that which such untutored soldiers possessed. To recollect a few traditionary customs w'hich time had confirmed and rendered respectable, to mark out the lists of battle with due formality, to observe the issue of the combat, and to pronounce whether it had been conducted according to the laws of arms, included every thing that a baron, who acted as a judge, found it necessary to understand. But when the forms of legal proceedings were fixed, when the rules of decision were committed to writing ind collected into a body, law became a science, the knowledge of which required a regular course of study, ' together with long attention to the practice of courts. Martial and illiterate nobles had neither leisure nor inclination to undertake a task so laborious, as well as so foreign from all the occupations which they deemed entertaining or suitable to their rank. They gradually relinquished their places in courts of jus- tice, where their ignorance exposed them to contempt. They became weary of attending to the discussion of cases which grew too intricate for them to compre- hend. Not only the judicial determination of points, which were the subject of controversy, but the conduct of all legal business and transactions, was committed to persons trained by previous study and application to the knowledge of law. An order of men, to whom their fellow-citizens had daily recourse for advice, and to whom they looked up for decision in their most important concerns, naturally acquired consi- deration and influence in society. They were advanced to honours which had been considered hitherto as the peculiar rewards of military virtue. They were in- trusted with offices of the highest dignity and most extensive power. Thus, another profession than that of arms came to be introduced among the laity, and was reputed honourable. The functions of civil lifs were attended to. The talents requisite for discharg- ing them were cultivated. A new road was opened to wealth and eminence. The arts and virtues of peace were placed in their proper rank, and received ' their due recompense. ^ While improvements, so important with respect to j the state of society and the administration of justice, [ gradually made progress in Europe, sentiments more liberal and generous had begun to animate the nobles. These were inspired by the spirit of chivalry, which, though considered commonly as a wild institution, the effect of caj>rice, and the source of extravagance, arose naturally from the state of society at that period, and had a very serious influence in refining the man- ners of the European nations. The feudal state was a state of almost perpetual war, rapine, and anarchy ; during which the weak and unarmed were exposed to insults or injuries. The power of the sovereign was too limited to prevent these wrongs, and the admi- nistration of justice too feeble to redress them. The j most effectual protection against violence and oppres- sion was often found to be that which the valour and ; generosity of private persons afforded. The same ) spirit of enterprise which had prompted so many j gentlemen to take arms in defence of the oppressed ' pilgrims in Palestine, incited others to declare them- j selves the patrons and avengers of injured innocence i at home. When the final reduction of the Holy Land, ! under the dominion of infidels, put an end to these I foreign expeditions, the latter was the only employ- ment left for the activity and courage of adventurers. I To check the insolence of overgrown oppressors ; to I rescue the helpless from captivity ; to protect or to I avenge women, orphans, and ecclesiastics, who could not bear arms in their own defence ; to redress wrongs and remove grievances ; were deemed acts of the high- est prowess and merit. Valour, humanity, courtesy, justice, honour, were the characteristic qualities of chivalry. To these were added religion, which mingled itself with every passion and institution during the middle ages, and by infusing a large proportion of enthusiastic zeal, gave them such force as carried them to romantic excess. Men were trained to knight- hood by a long previous discipline ; they were ad- mitted into the order by solemnities no less devout than pompous ; every person of noble birth courted that honour ; it was deernod a distinction .superior to royalty ; and monarchs were proud to receive it from the hands of private gentlemen. This singular institution, in which valour, gallantry, and religion, were so strangely blended, was wonder- 1.00 HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. fully adapted to the taste and genius of martial nobles ; and its effects were soon visible in their man- ners. War was carried on with less ferocity when humanity came to be deemed the ornament of knight- hood no less than courage. More gentle and polished manners were introduced when courtesy was recom- mended as the most amiable of knightly virtues. Violence and oppression decreased when it was reckoned meritorious to check and to punish them. A scrupulous adherence to truth, with the most re- ligious attention to fulfil every engagement, became the di.stinguishing characteristic of a gentleman, be- cause chivalry was regarded as the school of honour, and Inculcated the most delicate sensibility with respect to those points. The admiration of these qua- lities, together with the high distinctions and pre- rogatives conferred on knighthood in every part of Europe, inspired persons of noble birth on some occa- sions with a species of military fanaticism, and led them to extravagant enterprises. But they deeply imprinted on their minds the principles of generosity and honour. These were strengthened by everything that can affect the senses or touch the heart. The wild exploits of those romantic knights who sallied forth in quest of adventures are well known, and have been treated with proper ridicule. The political and per- manent effects of the spirit of chivalry have been less observed. Perhaps the humanity which accompanies all the operations of war, the refinements of gallantry, and the point of honour — the three chief circum- stances which distinguish modem from ancient man- ners — may be ascribed in a great measure to this in- stitution, which has appeared whimsical to superficial observers, but by its effects has proved of great benefit to mankind. The sentiments which chivalry inspired had a wonderful influence on manners and conduct during the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and flfteenth centuries. They were so deeply rooted, that they continued to operate after the vigour and reputation of the institution itself began to decline. [C7ioraciucated at the Jesuit’s College of St Omer, but afterwards fled to England and embraced the Protestant faith : he was author of a History of the Popes. Dr John Campbell (1709-1775), a son of Campbell of Glen- lyon in Perthshire, wrote the Military History of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, Lives of the Admirals, a considerable portion of the Biographia Britannica, a History of Europe, a Political Survey of Britain, &c. Campbell was a candid and intelligent 191 FROM 1727 CYCLOPi^DIA OF TO 1780. man, acaiuaintod with Dr Johnson and most of the cini\ient men of his day. William Gutiiiuk (1708- 1770), a native of Brechin, was an indefatigable writer, author of a llislon/ of England, a ll'nitory of l^cotlund, a (rcographical Grammar, &c. Gkokgk Salk ( 1 080- 1 7.')0) translated the Koran, and was one of the founders of a society for the encouragement of learidng. Gkorok I’.salmanazaii (1079-170.'i), a native of France, deceived the world for sometime by ])retendiiig to he a native of the island of For- mosa, to sujiport which he invented an alphabet and grammar. He afterwards became a hack author, WHS sincerely penitent, and was reverenced by John- son for his piety. When the ‘ Universal History’ was completed. Goldsmith wrote a preface to it, for which he received three guineas! In 17G.‘l Goldsmith published a History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, in two small volumes. The deceptive title had the desired attraction ; the letters were variously attri- butepointed of a lucrative place which he had hoped for from ministerial patron- age, he resolved to retire to Lausanne, where he was offered a residence by a friend of his youth, M. Deyverdun, Here he lived very happily for about four years, devoting his mornings to com- position, and his evenings to the eidightened and polished society which had gathered in that situa- tion. The history was completed at the time and in the circumstances which he has thus stated : — ‘ It was on the day or rather night of the 27th of Iiine 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve. that I wrote the l ist lines of the last page in a summer-lum.se in iny garden. After laying down my pen, 1 took several turns in a berceau, or covered Residence of Gibbon at Lausanne. walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the j country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the j moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions | of joy on the recovery of my freedom, anil pcrha[is ' the establishment of my fame. But my pride was [ soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread ■ over my mind by the idea that I had taken an ever- j lasting leave of an old and agreeable companion. i and that whatsoever might be tlie future date of j my history, the life of the historian must be short I and precarious.’* The historian adds two facts which have seldom occurred in the composition of six or even five quartos ; his first rough manuscript, without an intermediate copy, was sent to the pres.s, and not a sheet was seen by any person but the author and the printer. His lofty style, like that of Johnson, was, in fact, ‘the image of his mind.’ Gibbon went to London to superintend the publi- cation of his three last volumes, and afterwards - returned to Lausanne, where he resided till 179.’i. The French Revolution had imbittered and divided i the society of Lausanne ; some of his friends were dead, and he anxiously wished himself again in England. At this time the lady of his most intimate friend. Lord Sheffield, died, and he hastened to ad- minister eonsolation : he arrived at Lord Sheffield’s house in London in June 1793. 'The health of the historian had, however, been indifferent for some time, owing to a long-settled comjilaint ; and, ex- hausted by surgical operations, he died without pain, and apparently without any sense of his dan- ger, on the 16th of January 1794. In most of the essential qualifications of a his- torian, Gibbon was equal to either Hume or Robert- son. In some he was superior. He had greater | * ‘ The garden and summer-house where he composed are ; neglected, and the last utterly decayed, but they still show it I as his “ cabinet,*’ and seem perfectly aware of his memory. — Byron's LctUrs. 194 HISTOniANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE EDWARD GIBDOn, depth aiul viirioty of loiiriiiiig, ami a more perfect conimaml of his intellectual treasures. It was not , nterelv with the main stream of Roman history that he was familiar. All its accessaries and tributaries — the art of war. philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, geography (down to its minutest point), every shade ! of manners, opinions, and public character, in Roman and contemporaneous history, he had studied with j Laborious diligence and complete success. Hume was elaborate, but it was only with respect to style. I Errors in fact and theory were perpetuated through ' every edition, while the author v.ms purifying his I periods and weeding out Scotticisms. The labour I of Gibbon was directed to higher objects — to the ! accumulation of facts, and the collation of ancient I authors. His style, once fixed, remained unaltered. I In erudition and comprehensiveness of intellect, I Gibbon may therefore be pronounced the first of I English historians. The vast r.ange of his subject, 1 and the tone of dignity which he preserves through- ] out the whole of his capacious circuit, also give him i a superiority over his illustrious rivals. In concen- trating his information, and presenting it in a clear and lucid order, he is no less remarkable, while his vivid imagination, quickening and adorning his varied knowledge, is fully equal to his other powers. He identifies himself with whatever he describes, and paints local scenery, national costume or man- ners, with all the force and animation of a native Dr eye-witness. These solid and bright acquirements of the historian were not, however, without their drawbacks. Ilis mind was more material or sen- su,al than philosophical — more fond of splendour and display than of the beauty of virtue or the grandeur of moral heroism. His taste was vitiated i and impure, so that his style is not only deficient in chaste simplicity, but is disfigured by olfensive pruriency and occasional grossness. His lofty ornate diction fatigues by its uniform pomp and dignity, notwithstanding the graces and splendour of his anim.ated narrative. Deficient in depth of moral feeling and elevation of sentiment. Gibbon seldom touches the heart or inspires true enthusiasm. The re.ader admires his glittering sentences, his tournaments, and battle-pieces, his polished irony and masterly sketches of character ; he marvels at his ine.xhaustible learning, and is fascinated i by his pictures of military conquest and Asiatic luxury, but he still feels, that, as in the state of ancient Rome itself, the seeds of ruin are developed amidst flattering appearances : ‘ the florid bloom but ill conceals the fatal malady which preys upon the vitals.’* The want of one great harmonising spirit of humanity and genuine philosophy to give unity to the splendid mass, becomes painfully visible on a calm review of the entire work. After one attentive study of Gibbon, when the mind has be- come saturated with his style and manner, we sel- dom recur to his pages excepting for some particu- lar fact or description. Such is the importance of simplicity and purity in a voluminous narrative, that this great historian is seldom read but as a study, while Hume and Robertson are always per- used as a pleasure. The work of Gibbon has been translated into French, with notes by M. Guizot, the distinguished philosopher and statesman. The remarks of Guizot, with those of Wenck, a German commentator, and numerous original illustrations and corrections, are embodied in a fine edition by Mr Milman, in twelve ' volumes, published by Mr Murray, London, in 1838. I M. Guizot has thus recorded his own impressions on i reading Gibbon’s history : — ‘ After a first rapid * Hall on the Causes of the Present Discontents. perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing but the interest of a narrative, alw.ays animated, and, not- withstanding its extent and the variety of objects which it makes to pass before the view, alw,ays perspicuous, I entered upon a minute examination of the details of which it was composed, and the opinion which I then formed was, I confess, sin- gularly severe. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which appeared to me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe that they had been written with extreme negligence ; in others, I was struck with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice, wdiich imparted to the exposition of the facts that w'ant of truth and justice which the Eng- lish express by their happy term, misrepresentation. Some imperfect quotations, some passages omitted unintentionally or designedly, have cast a suspicion on the honesty of the author ; and his violation of the first law of history — increased to my eyes by the prolonged attention with which I occupied myself with every phrase, every note, every reflec- tion — caused me to form on the whole work a judg- ment far too rigorous. After having finished my labours, I allowed some time to elapse before I re- viewed the whole. A second attentive and regular perusal of the entire work, of the notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it right to subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the im- portance of the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved : I w'as struck wdth the same errors, the same partiality on certain subjects ; but I had been far from doing adequate justice to the immensity of his researches, the variety of his knowledge, and, above all, to that truly philosophical discrimination (justesse d’esprif) which judges the past as it would judge the present ; which does not permit itself to be blinded by the clouds which time gathers around the dead, and which prevent us from seeing that under the toga as under the modern dress, in the senate as in our councils, men were what they still are, and that events took place eighteen centuries ago as they take place in our days. I then felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will always be a noble work ; and that we may correct his errors, and combat his prejudices, without ceasing to admit that few men have combined, if we are not to say in so high a degree, at least in a manner so complete and so well regulated, the necessary qualifications for a writer of history.’ \_Opinion of ike Ancient Philosopher's on the Immortality of the jS'ouL] The writings of Cicero represent in the most lively colours the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers with regard to the immor- tality of the soul. When they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of death, they incul- cate, as an obvious though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the calamities of life ; and that those can no longer suffer who no longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who had conceived a more exalted, and in some respects a juster idea of human nature ; though, it must be confessed, that in the sublime in- quiry, their reason had often been guided by their imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers , when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most important labours ; and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which trainsported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave ; they were unwilling to confound 1 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDrA OF to 1780. thomselve.s with the beasts of the field, or to sujipose tliat a being, for whose dignity they entertained the :nost sincere admiration, couhl he limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this favourable prepossession, they summoned to their aid the science, or rather the language, of metaphysics. 'J'hey soon discovered, that as none of the properties of matter will ai)ply to the oi)crations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a substance distinct from the body — i)Ure, simple, and spiritual, incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree of virtue and hap[)incss after the release from its corporeal iirison. Krom these specious and noble principles, the [)hilosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very unjustifiable conclu- sion, since they as.sertcd not only the future immor- tality, but the past eternity of the human soul, which they were too ajit to consider as a portion of the infi- nite and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sus- tains the univer.se. A doctrine thus removed beyond the .senses and the experience of mankind might serve to amuse the leisure of a philosophic mind ; or, in the silence of solitude, it might sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue ; but the faint impres- sion M'hich had been received in the school was soon obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Csesars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state.* At the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not apprehensive of giving offence to their hear- ers by exposing that doctrine as an idle and extra- vagant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man of a liberal education and under- standing. Since, therefore, the most sublime efforts of philo- sophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or at most the probability, of a future state, there is nothing except a divine reve- lation that can ascertain the existence and de.scribe the condition of the invisible country which is des- tined to receive the souls of men after their separation from the body. [?7ie City of Bagdad — Magnificence of the Caliphs.'] Almansor, the brother and successor of Saffah, laid the foundations of Bagdad (a.d. 762), the imperial seat of his posterity during a reign of five hundredyears. The chosen spot is on the eastern bank of the Tigi-is, about fifteen miles above the ruins of Modain : the * This passage of Gibbon is finely illustrated in Ilall’s Funeral Sermon for Dr Ryland : — ‘ If the mere conception of the reunion of good men in a future state infused a momentary rapture into the mind of Tally ; if an airy speculation, for there is reason to fear it had little hold on his convictions, could inspire him with such de- light, what may we be expected to feel who are assured of such an event by the true sayings of God ! How should we rejoice in the prospect, the certainty rather, of spending a blissfid eter- nity rvith those whom we loved on earth, of seeing them emerge from the ruins of the tomb, and the deeper ruins of the fall, not only uninjured, but refined and perfected, “ with every tear wiped from their eyes,” standing before the throne of God and the Lamb, “ in white robes, and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice. Salvation to God that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb , for ever and ever ! ” AVhat delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recoimt the toils of combat and the labour of the way, and to approach not the house but the throne of God in company, in order to join in the sjanphony of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendours and fruitions of the beatific fisioa.* double wall was of a circular form ; and such was the rapid increase of a capital now dwindled to aprovimial town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by eight hundred tbousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and the adjacetit villages. In thi.s city of peace, amidst the riches of the east, the Abbassides soon disdained the abstinence and frugality of the first caliphs, and a.spircd to emu- late the magnificence of the Persian kings. After his wars .and buildings, Alman.sor left behind him in gold and silver about thirty millions sterling ; and this treasure was exhausted in a few years by the vices or virtues of his children. Ills son Mahadi, in a single pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold. A pious and charitable motive may sanctify the foundation of cisterns and caravanseras, winch he distributed along a measured road of seven hundred miles ; but his train of camels, laden with snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal ban- quet. The courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson Almaraon, who gave away four-fifths of the income of a province — a sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold dinans — before he drew his foot from the stirrup. At the nuptials of the same prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on the head of the bride, and a lottery of lands and houses displayed the capricious bounty of fortune. The glories of the court were brightened rather than impaired in the decline of the empire, and a Greek ambassador might admire or pity the magnificence of the feeble Moctader. ‘ The caliph’s whole army,’ say’s the historian Abulfeda, ‘ both horse and foot, was under arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty thousand men. Ills state-officers, the favourite slaves, stood near him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of them white, the remainder black. The porters or doorkeepers were in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the most superb decorations, were seen swimming upon the Tigris. Nor was the place itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight thousand pieces of tapestry, Gvelve thou- sand five hundred of which were of silk embroidered j with gold. The carpets on the floor were twenty-two j thousand. A hundred lions were brought out, with a keeper to each lion. Among the other spectacles of rare and stupendous luxury, was a tree of gold and silver spreading into eighteen large branches, on which, and on the lesser boughs, sat a variety of birds made of the same precious metals, as well as the leaves of the tree. While the machinery affected spontaneous motions, the several birds warbled their natural harmony. Through this scene of magnificence the Greek ambassador was led by the visier to the foot of the caliph’s throne.’ In the west, the Ommiades of Spain supported, with equal pomp, the title of commander of the faithful. Three miles from Cor- dova, in honour of his favourite sultana, the third and greatest of the Abdalrahmans constructed the city, palace, and gardens of Zebra. Twenty-five years, and above three millions sterling, were employed by the founder: his liberal taste invited the arti.sts of Con- st.aiitinoj)le. the most skilful sculptors and architects of the age ; and the buildings were sustained or adorned by twelve hundred columns of Sp.anish and African, of Greek and Italian marble. The hall ri audience was incrusted with gold and pearls, and a great bason in the 'centre was surrounded with the curious and costly figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion of the gardens, one of these basons and fountains, so delightful in a sultry climate, was replenished not with water but with the purest quick- silver. The seraglio of Abdalrahman, his wives, con- cubines, and black eunuchs, amounted to six thousand 196 HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATUEE. EDWARD GIBBON. three hundred persons ; and he was attended to the I field by a "uard of twelve thousand horse, whose belts j and seiniitars were studded with gold. In a private condition, our desires are perpetually rc])rcssed by poverty and subordination ; but the lives and labours of millions are devoted to the service of a despotic prince, whose laws are blindly obeyed, and whose wishes are instantly gratified. Our imagina- tion is dazzled by the splendid picture ; and what- ever may be the cool dictates of reason, there are few among us who would obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts and the cares of royalty. It may therefore be of some use to borrow the experience of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authen- tic memorial which was found in the closet of the de- I ceased caliph. ‘ I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace ; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by ray allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor docs any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genu- ine happiness which have fallen to my lot : they amount to fourteen. 0 man 1 place not thy confi- dence in this present world.’ \Conqwst oj Jerusalem hy the Crusaders, a. d . 1099 .] Jerusalem has derived some reputation from the number and importance of her memorable sieges. It was not till after a long and obstinate contest that Babylon and Rome could prevail against the obsti- nacy of the people, the craggy ground that might supersede the necessity of fortifications, and the walls and towers that would have fortified the most acces- sible plain. These obstacles were diminished in the age of the crusades. The bulwarks had been com- pletely destroyed and imperfectly restored : the Jews, their nation and worship, were for ever banished ; but nature is less changeable than man, and the site of Jeru.salcm, though somewhat softened and somewhat removed, was still strong against the assaults of an enemy. By the experience of a recent siege, and a three years’ pos.session, the Saracens of Egj’pt had been taught to discern, and in some degree to remedy, the defects of a place which religion as well as honour forbade them to resign. Aladin or Iftikhar, the caliph’s lieutenant, was intrusted with the defence ; his policy strove to restrain the native Christians by the dread of their own ruin and that of the holy sepulchre ; to animate the Moslems by the assurance of temporal and eternal rewards. His garrison is said to have consisted of forty thousand Turks and Ara- bians ; and if he could muster twenty thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed that the besieged were more numerous than the besieging army. Had the diminished strength and numbers of the Latins I allowed them to grasp the whole circumference of I four thousand yards (about two English miles and a half), to whal useful purpose should they have de- scended into the valley of Ben Himraon and torrent of Cedron, or approached the precipices of the south I and cast, from whence they had nothing either to hope or fear? Their siege was more reasonably i directed against the northern and western sides of 1 the city. Godfrey of Bouillon erected his standard on the first swell of Mount Calvary ; to the left, as I far as St Stephen’s gate, the line of attack was con- , tinned by Tancred and the two Roberts ; and Count j Raymond established his quarters from the citadel to ! the foot of Mount Sion, which was no longer included I within the precincts of the city. On the fifth day, I the crusaders made a general assault, in the fanatic lupe of battering down the walls without engines, and 1 cf scaling them without ladders. By the dint of brutal force, they burst the first barrier, but they were driven back with shame and slaughter to the camp : the influence of vision and prophecy was deadened by the too frequent abuse of those pious stratagems, and time and labour were found to be the only means of victory. The time of thdsiege was indeed fulfilled in forty days, but they were forty days of calamity and anguish. A repetition of the old complaint of famine may be imputed in some degree to the voracious or dis- orderly appetite of the Franks, but the stony soil of Jerusalem is almost destitute of water; the scanty springs and hasty torrents were dry in the summer sea- son ; nor was the thirst of the besiegers relieved, as in the city, by the artificial supply of cisterns and aque- ducts. The circumjacent country is equally destitute of trees for the uses of shade or building, but some large beams were discovered in a cave by the cru- saders : a wood near Sichem, the enchanted grove of Tasso, was cut dowm : the necessary timber was tran- sported to the camp by the vigour and dexterity cf Tancred ; and the engines were framed by some Ge- noese artists, who had fortunately landed in the har- bour of Jaffa. Tw’o movable turrets were constructed at the expense and in the stations of the Duke of Lor- raine and the Count of Tholouse, and rolled forwards with devout labour, not to the most accessible but to the most neglected parts of the fortification. Ray- mond’s tower was reduced to ashes by the fire of the besieged, but his colleague was more vigilant and successful ; the enemies were driven by his archers from the rampart ; the drawbridge was let down ; and on a Friday, at three in the afternoon, the day and hour of the Passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood vic- torious on the walls of Jerusalem. His exaiu{)le was followed on every side by the emulation of valour ; and about four hundred and sixty years after the con- quest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mohammedan yoke. In the pillage of public and pri- vate wealth, the adventurers had'agreed to respect the exclusive property of the first occupant ; and the spoils of the great mosque — seventy lamps and massy vases of gold and silver — rewarded the diligence and displayed the generosity of Tancred. A bloody sacri- fice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians : resistance might provoke, but neither age nor sex could mollify their implacable rage ; they indulged themselves three days in a pro- miscuous massacre, and the infection of the dead bodies produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems had been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt in their synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives whom interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of these savage heroes of the cross, Tancred alone be- trayed some sentiments of compassion ; yet we may praise the more selfish lenity of Raymond, who granted a capitulation and safe conduct to the garrison of the citadel. The holy sepulchre was now free ; and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow. Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in a humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary amidst the loud anthems of the clergy ; kissed the stone which had covered the Saviour of the world, and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemption. [Appearance and Character of Mahomet.'\ According to the tradition of his companions, Ma- homet was distinguished by the beauty of his person- al! outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has bee i refused. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a pub- lic or private audience. They applauded his com- manding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his counte- .97 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780. nance tliat painted every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced eaeh expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country : his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by hib condescension and affa- bility to the poorest citizens of Mecca ; the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice of his views ; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to personal friend- ship or universal benevolence. His memory was capa- cious and retentive, his wit ea.sy and social, his ima- gination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action ; and although his designs might gradu- ally expand with his success, the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia ; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the prac- tice of discreet and seasonable silence. With the.se powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate bar- barian ; his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing ; the common ignorance exempted him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our mind the minds of .sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man w’as open to his view ; and some fancy has been indulged in the political and philosophical ob- servations which are ascribed to the Arabian traveller. He compares the nations and religions of the earth ; discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman monarchies ; beholds with pity and indignation the degeneracy of the times ; and resolves to unite, under one God and one king, the invincible spirit and primi- tive virtues of the Arabs. Our more accurate inquiry will suggest, that instead of visiting the courts, the camp.s, the temples of the east, the two journeys of Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs of Rostra and Damascus ; that he was only thirteen years of age when he accompanied the caravan of his uncle, and that his duty compelled him to return as soon as he had disposed of the merchandi.se of Cadijah. In these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of genius might discern some objects invisible to his grosser companions ; some seeds of knowledge might be cast upon a fruitful soil ; but his ignorance of the Syriac language must have checked his curiosity, and I cannot perceive in the life or writings of Mahomet that his prospect was far extended beyond the limits of the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world the pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of devotion and commerce : in the free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in his native tongue, might study the political state and character of the tribes, the theory and practice of the Jews and Christians. Some useful strangers might be tempted or forced to implore the rites of hospi- tality ; and the enemies of Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk, whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the composition of the Koran. Conversation enriches the understand- ing, but solitude is the school of genius ; and the uni- formity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation : each year, during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world and from the arms of Cadijah : in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthu- siasm, whose abode is not In the heavens but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name o^ Islam, he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth and a necessary fiction— that there is only one God, and that Mahomet is the apostle of God. f Term of the Conquest of Timour, or Tamerlane; his i Triumjih at Samarcand; his Death on the Road to ' China (a. d. 1405) ; Character and Merits of Tiniosir.'\ From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, , and from the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipe- ! lago, Asia was in the hand of Timour ; his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless, am' his ! zeal might aspire to conquer and convert the Cl.i.s \ tian kingdoms of the west, which already trembled at | his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land ; but an insuperable though narrow sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia, and the lord ' of so many tomans, or myriads of horse, was not master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus i and Helle.spont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the 1 Turks. On this great occasion they forgot the diffe- j rcnce of religion, to act with union and firmness in : the common cause : the double straits were guarded ! with ships and fortifications ; and they sei)arately | withheld the transports, whicli Timour demanded of [ either nation, under the pretence of attacking their i enemy. At the same time they soothed his pride | with tributary gifts and suppliant embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honours of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency for his father and himself ; accejded, by a red patent, the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already held by the sword ; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself in person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor (either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience so soon as the Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic com- pass — a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, march- ing from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the straits of Gibraltar, and, after im- posing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote and perhaps imaginary danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt ; the honours of the prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the su- premacy of Timour ; and a rare gift of a giraffe, or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samar- caiid the tribute of the African world. Our imagina- tion is not less astonished by the portrait of a Mogul who, in his camp before Smyrna, meditates and al- most accomplishes the invasion of the Chinese empire. Timour was urged to this enterprise by national honour and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed of Mussulman blood could be exjuated only by an equal destruction of the infidels ; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might best secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of Chin.a, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith in one God and his prophet Ma- homet. The recent expulsion of the house of Zingis was an insult on the Mogul name ; and the disorders of the empire afforded the fairest opportunity for re- venge. The illustrious Hongvou, founder of the dynasty of Ming, died four years before the battle of Angora ; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate ' youth, was burnt in his palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war. Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour de.spatched beyond the ! Silioon a numerous army, or rather colony, of his old , and new subjects, to open the road, to subdue the pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found cities and magazines in the desert ; and by the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map and descrii>tion of the unknown regions, from the .source 198 niSTORTANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD GIISBOS ! { 1 i i i i ( 1 ( ( ! ! of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these pre- parations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia, passed the winter on the hanks of the .Praxes, appeased the troubles of Persia, and slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years and nine months. On the throne of Samarcand, he displayed in a short repose his magnificence and power ; listened to the complaints of the people, distributed a just mea- sure of rewards and punishments, employed his riches in the architecture of palaces and temples, and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the last of whom pre- sented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the oriental artists. The marriage of six of the em- peror’s grandsons was esteemed an act of religion as well os of paternal tenderness ; and the pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They were celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable tents and pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city and the .spoils of a victo- rious camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the kitchens ; the plain was spread with pyra- mids of meat and vases of every liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited ; the orders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were marshalled at the royal banquet ; nor were the am- bassadors of Europe (says the haughty Persian) ex- cluded from the feast ; since even the casses, the smallest of fish, find their place in the ocean. The public joy was testified by illuminations and mas- querades ; the trades of Samarcand passed in review ; and every trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the marriage-contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the bridegrooms and their brides retired to the nuptial chambers ; nine times, according to the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed ; and at each change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their heads, and contemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A general indulgence was proclaimed ; every law was relaxed,' every pleasure was allowed ; the people were free, the sovereign was idle ; and the historian of Timour may remark, that, after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy period of his life was the two months in which he ceased to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of China ; the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran ; their bag- gage and provisions were transported by five hundred great wagons, and an immense train of horses and camels ; and the troops might prepare for a long absence, since more than six months were employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age nor the severity of the winter could retard the impatience of Timour ; he mounted on Iiorseback, passed the Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs (three hundred miles) from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighbour- hood of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue, and the indiscreet use of iced water, accelerated the progress of his fever; and the con- queror of Asia expired in the seventieth year of his age, thirty-five years after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai. His designs were lost ; his armies were disbanded ; China was saved ; and fourteen years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sent an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin, The fame of Timour has pervaded the east and west ; his posterity is still invested with the imperial title ; and the admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in some de- gree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. Although he was lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank ; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignoi-ant of the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of history and science ; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupterl with new refinements. In his religion he was a zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman ; but his sound understand- ing may tempt us to believe that a supei-stitious rever- ence for omens and pretphesies, for saints and astro- logers, was only atfected as an instrument of policy. In the government of a vast empire he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to oppose his power, a favourite to seduce his affections, or a minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firme.st maxim, that, whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should never be disputed or recalled ; but his foes have maliciously observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed than those of beneficence and favour. His sons and grandsons, of whom Timour left six -and -thirty at his decease, were his first and most submissive subjects ; and whenever they deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastonnade, and afterwards restored to honour and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social virtues ; perhaps lie was not incapable of loving his friends and pardoning his enemies ; but the rules of morality are founded on the public interest ; and it may be sufficient to applaud the wisdom of a monarch for the liberality by which he is not im- poverished, and for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain the har- mony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labours of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, b}' an equal and moderate assessment, to in- crease the revenue without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince ; but, in the discharge of these duties, he finds an ample and immediate re- compense. Timour might boast that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the east to the west. Such was his ctnfidence of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excu.se for his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following obsenations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul em- peror was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. 1. If some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects ; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the re- former. The gi'ound which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies — by columns or pyramids of human heads. Astracan, Carizrae, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdjul, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burned, or utterly destroyed in his pre.sence, and by his troops ; and perhaps his con- science would have been startled if a priest or philo sopher had dared to number the millions of victims 1 whom he had sacrificed to the establishment of peace l.h<) FROM 172V CYCLOPiKDIA OF TO 1780. and order. 2. Hit) most destructive wars were rather inroads than conquests. He invadcil Turkestan, Ki|)zak, Mussia, Hindostan, Syria, .\natolia, Armenia, tind (ieoi'oia, without a hope or a desire of preserv- ing tliose distant iirovinccs. From thence he departeil laden with sjioil ; but he left behind him neitlier troi,ps to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to lirotect the oOedient natives. Wlien he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he abandoned them to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or caused ; nor were these evils oompensated by any present or possible benefits. '6. Tlie kingiloms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he laboured to cultivate and adorn, as the peqictual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labours were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the ab.scnce of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private injuries «’ere poorly redressed by the tardy rigour of inquiry and punishment ; and we must be content to ju'aise the institutions of Tiniour as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was the ambition of his children and grand- children, the enemies of each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest son ; but after his decease, the .scene was again involved in darkness and blood ; and before the end of a century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbecks from the north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Tiniour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the great Moguls) extended their sway from the mountains of Caslunir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of .Vurungzebe, their empire has been dissolved ; their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber ; and the richest of their kingdoms is now posse.ssed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the northern ocean. l^Inrention and Use of Gunpowder.'] The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire and the adjacent kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some discovery in the art of war, that should give them a decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands ; such a iliscovery had been made in the criti- cal moment of their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise era of the invention and appli- cation of gunpowder is involved in doubtful traditions and equivocal language ; yet we may clearly discern that it was known before the middle of the fourteenth centurv ; and that before the end of the same, the use of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England. The priority of nations is of small account; none could derive any exclusive bene- fit from their previous or superior knowledge ; and in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of relative power and military science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church ; it was disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of ajOTstates and the selfish j.olicy of rivals ; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as his i)rcceptors ; and it was probably by their hands that his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople. The first attemiit was indeed unsucces.sful ; but in the general warfare of the age, the advantage was on their side who were most commonly the assailants ; for a while the pro- portion of the attack and defence was suspended ; and this thundering artillery was pointed against the walls and towers which had been erected only to resist the less potent engines of antiquity. By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the Ottoman power ; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities of Asia ; and the advan- tage of the European was confined to his easy vic- tories over the savages of the new world. If we con- trast the rapid progress of this mischievous di.scovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philo.sopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. \_Letter of Gibbon to Mrs Porten — Account of his Mode of Life at Lausanne.] December 27, iras The unfortunate are loud and loquacious in their complaints, but real happiness is content with its own silent enjoyment ; and if that happiness is of a quiet uniform kind, we suffer days and weeks to elapse without communicating our sensations to a distant friend. By you, therefore, whose temper and under- standing have extracted from human life, on every occasion, the best and most comfortable ingredients, my silence will always be interpreted as an evidence of content, and you would only be alarmed (the danger is not at hand) by the too frequent repetition of my letters. Perhaps I should have continued to slumber, I don’t know how long, had I not been awakened by the anxiety which you express in your last letter. * * From this base subject I descend to one which more seriously and strongly engages your thoughts — the consideration of my health and happiness. And you will give me credit when 1 assure you, with sincerity, that I have not repented a single moment of the step which 1 have taken, and tliat I only' regret the not having executed the same design two, or five, or even ten years ago. By this time I might have returned independent and rich to ray native country ; I should have escaped many disagreeable events that have happened in the meanwhile, and 1 should have avoided the parliamentary life, which experience has proved to be neithe» .suitable to my temper nor conducive to my fortune. In speaking of the hapi)iness which I enjoy', you will agi’ee with me in giving the preference to a sincere and .sensible friend ; and though you cannot discern the full extent of his merit, you will easily believe that Deyverdun is the man. Perhaps two persons so perfectly fitted to live together were never formed by nature and education. We have both read and seen a great variety of objects ; the lights and shades of our different characters are hap- pily blended ; and a friendship of thirty years has taught us to enjoy our mutual advantages, and to support our unavoidable imperfections. In love and marriage some harsh sounds will sometimes inteiTupt the harmony, and in the course of time, like our neighbours, we must, expect some disagreeable mo- ments ; but confidence and freedom are the two pillars of our union, and I am much mistaken if the building be not solid and comfortable. * In tliis season I rise (not at four in the morning, but) a little before eight ; at nine I am called from my study to break- fast, which I always perform alone, in the English 200 I I HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. style ; and, with the aid of Caplin,* I perceive no dif- fonnice between Lausanne and Ucntinck Street. Our uiorniiif^ are usually pa.ssed in separate studies ; we never approach each other’s door without a ])revious message, or thrice knocking, and my apartment is already sacred and formidable to strangers. I dress at half past one, and at two (an early hour, to which 1 am not perfectly reconciled) we sit down to dinner. We have hired a female cook, well skilled in her pro- fession, and accustomed to the taste of every nation ; as, for instance, we had excellent mince-pies yester- day. After dinner and the departure of our company — one, two, or three friends — we read together some amus- ing book, or play at che.ss, or retire to our rooms, or make visits, or go to the coffee-house. Between six and -seven the assemblies begin, and I am oppressed only with their number and variety. Whist, at shil- lings or half-crowns, is the game I generally play, and I play three rubbers with pleasure. Between nine and ten we withdraw to our bread and cheese, and friendly converse, which sends us to bed at eleven ; but these sober hours are too often interrupted by private or numerous suppers, which I have not the courage to resist, though I practise a laudable abstinence at the best furni.shed tables. Such is the skeleton of my life ; it is impossible to communicate a perfect idea of the vital and substantial parts, the characters of the men and women with whom I have very easily connected myself in looser and closer bonds, accord- ing to their inclination and my own. If I do not deceive myself, and if Deyverdun does not flatter me, I am already a general favourite ; and as our likings and dislikes are commonly mutual, I am equally satisfied with the freedom and elegance of manners, and (after proper allowances and exceptions) with the worthy and amiable qualities of many individuals. The autumn has been beautiful, and the winter hitherto mild, but in January we must expect some severe frost. Instead of rolling in a coach, I walk the streets, wrapped up in a fur cloak ; but this exer- cise is wholesome, and, except an accidental fit of the gout of a few days, I never enjoyed better health. I am no longer in Pavilliard’s house, where I was almost starved Avith cold and hunger, and you may be assured that I now enjoy every benefit of comfort, plenty, and even decent luxury. You wish me happy ; acknorvledge that such a life is more con- ducive to happiness than five nights in the week passed in the House of Commons, or five mornings spent at the Custom-house. [Remarlcs on Reading.'] [These remarhs form the preface to a series of memoranda begun by Gibbon in 1761, under the title of Abstract of my Readings.'] ‘ Reading is to the mind,’ said the Duke of Vivonne to Louis X 1 V., ‘ what your partridges are to my chops.’ It is, in fact, the nourishment of the mind ; for by reading we know our Creator, his works, ourselves chiefly, and our fellow-creatures. But this nourish- ment is easily converted into poison. Salmasius had re.ad as much as Grotiu.s, perhaps more ; but their different modes of reading made the one an en- lightened philosopher, and the other, to speak plainly, a pedant, pufied up with a useless eru- dition. Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which all our studies may point. Through neglect of this rule, gross ignorance often disgraces great readers ; who, by skipping hastily and irregu- larly from one subject to another, render themselves incapable of combining their ideas. So many de- tached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole. * His English valet de ebambro. EDWARD GIDBOH. This inconstancy weakens the energies of the mind, creates in it a dislike to application, and even robs it of the advantages of natural good sense. Yet let us avoid the contrary extreme, and respect method, without rendering ourselves its slaves. While we propo.se an end in our reading, let not this end be too remote ; and when once we have attained it, let our attention be directed to a different subject. In- constancy weakens the understanding ; a long and ex- clusive application to a single object hardens and contracts it. Our ideas no longer change easily into a different channel, and the course of reading to which we have too long accustomed ourselves is the only one that we can pursue Avith pleasure. We ought, besides, to be careful not to make the order of our thoughts subservient to that of our subjects ; this AA'OuId be to sacrifice the principal to the accessory. The use of our reading is to aid us in thinking. The perusal of a particular work gives birth, perhaps, to ideas unconnected with the subject of Avhich it treats. I Avish to jiursue these ideas ; they Avithdraw me from my proposed plan of reading, and thrOAV me into a new track, and from thence, perhaps, into a second and a third. At length I begin to perceiA-e Avhlther my researches tend. Their result, perhaps, may be profitable ; it is Avorth Avhile to try ; Avhereas, had I followed the high road, I should not have been able, at the end of my long journey, to retrace the progress of my thoughts. This plan of reading is not applicable to our eaidy studies, since the .sev'erest method is scarcely sufficient to make us conceive objects altogether new. Neither can it be adopted by those Avho read in order to Avi.te, and who ought to diA’cll on their subject till they have sounded its depths. These, reflections, hoAveA-er, I do not absolutely Avarrant. On the supposition that they are just, they may be so, perhaps, for myself only. The constitution of minds differs like that of bodies ; the same regimen Avill not suit all. Each individual ought to study his own. To read Avith attention, exactly to define the ex- pressions of our author, never to admit a conclusion Avithout comprehending its reason, often to pause, re- flect, and interrogate ourselves, these are so many advices which it is easy to give, hut difficult to folloAV. The same may be said of that almost evangelical maxim of forgetting friends, country, religion, of giving merit its due praise, and embracing truth Avherever it is to be found. But what ought Ave to read ? Each indivinual must ansAA'er this question for him.self, agreeably to the object of his studies. The only general precept that I Avould venture to give, is that of Pliny, ‘ to read much, rather than many things;’ to make a careful selection of the best works, and to render them fami- liar to us by attentive and repeated perusals. Without expatiating on the authors so generally known and approved, I Avould simply observe, that in matters of reasoning, the best are those aaEo have augmented the number of useful truths ; Avho have discovered truths, of Avhatever nature they may he ; in one Avord, those bold spirits Avho, quitting the beaten track, prefer being in the AATong alone, to being in the right Avith the multitude. Such authors increase the number of our ideas, and even their mistakes are useful to their suc- cessors. With all the respect due to Mr Locke, I AA'ould not, hoAvever, neglect the works of those aca- demicians who destroy errors without hoping to sub- stitute truth in their stead. In Avorks of fancy, invention ought to bear aAvay the palm ; chiefly that invention which creates a ncAv kind of writing ; and next, that AA’hich displays the charms of novelty in its subject, characters, situation, pictures, thoughts, and sentiments. Yet this invention will miss its effect, unless it be accompanied with a genius capable 201 FROM 1727 CYCLOPEDIA OF TO 17C0 of a(iai)tirig itself to every variety of the subject — suc- cessively sublime, jiathetie, flowery, majestic, and playful ; and with a judgment which admits nothing indecorous, and a style which expresses well what- f'-or ought to be said. As to compilations which are intended merely to treasure u]> the thoughts of others, I ask whether they are written with perspicuity, whether sui)erfluities are lopped off, and dispersed ob- servations skilfully collected ; and agreeably to my answers to tho.se questions, I estimate the merit of such performances. METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. The public taste has been almost ■wholly withdrawn from metaphysical pursuits, which at this time con- stituted a favourite study with men of letters. Ample scope ■was given for ingenious speculation in the in- ductive philosoiihy of the mind; and the example of a few great names, each connected with some parti- cular theory of moral science, kept alive a zeal for such minute and often fanciful inquiries. In the higher branch of ethics, honourable service was ren- dered by llishop Butler, but it was in Scotland that speculati.ve philosophy obtained most favour and celebrity. After a long interval of a century and a half. Dr Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) intro- duced into Scotland a taste for metaphysics, which, in the si.xteenth century, had prevailed to a great extent in the northern universities. Hutcheson was a native of Ireland, but studied in the university of Glasgow for six years, after which he returned to his native country, and kept an academy in Dublin. About the year 1726 he published his Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue, and his reputation was so high that he was called to be professor of moral philo- sophy in Glasgow in the year 1729. His great work, a System of Moral Philosophy, did not appear till after his death, when it was published in two volumes, quarto, by his son. The rudiments of his philosophy were borrowed from Sh.aftesbury, but he introduced a new term, the moral sense, into the metaphysical vocabulary, and assigned to it a sphere of consider- able importance. With him the moral sense was a capacity of perceiving moral qualities in action, which excite what he ealled ideas of those qualities, in the same manner as external things give us not merely pain or pleasure, but notions or ideas of hard ness, form, and colour. We agree with Dr Brown in considering this a great error; a moral sense con- sidered strictly and truly a sense, as much so as any of those which are the source of our direct external perceptions, and not a state or act of the understand- ing, seems a purely fanciful hj’pothesis. The an- cient doctrine, that virtue consists in benevolence, was supported by Hutcheson with much acuteness ; but when he asserts that even the approbation of our own conscience diminishes the merit of a bene- volent action, we instinctively reject his theory as unnatural and visionary. On account of these para- doxes, Sir James Mackintosh charges Hutcheson with confounding the theory of moral sentiments ■with the criterion of moral actions, but bears testi- mony to the ingenuity of his views, and the elegant simplicity of his language. DAVID HUME. The system of Idealism, promulgated by Berke- ley and tiie writings of Hutcheson, led to the first literary production of David Hume — his Treatise on Human A^oturc, published in 1738. The leading doctrine of Hume is, that all the objects of our knowledge are divided in two classes — impressions and ideas. From the structnre of our minds he con- ’ tended that we must for ever dwell in ignorance; and 1 thus, ‘ by perplexing the relations of cause and effect, I he boldly aimed to introduce a universal scepticism, j and to pour a more than Egyptian darkness into the j whole region of morals.’ The ‘ Treatise on Human I Nature’ was afterwards re-cast and re-published I under the title of An Inquiry concerning the Human \ Understanding ; but it still failed to attract attention. I He was now, however, known as a philosophical ! writer by his Bssays, Moral, Political, and Literary, I published in 1742 ; a miscellany of thoughts at once original, and calculated for popularity. The other metaphysical works of Hume are, an Inquiry con- cerning the Principles of Morals, the Natural History I of Religion, and Dialogues on Natural Religion, which j were not published till after his death. The moral system of Hume, that the virtue of actions depends | wholly upon their utility, has been often combated, j and is generally held to be successfully refuted by Brown. In his own day. Dr Adam Smith thus i ridiculed the doctrine. ‘ It seems impossible,’ he says, ‘ that the approbation of virtue should be a I sentiment of the same kind with that by which we I approve of a convenient and well-contrived build- | ing ; or that we should have no other reason for i praising a m.an than for that for which we commend a chest of drawers 1’ Mr Hume’s theory as to miracles, that there was more probability in the error or bad faith of the reporter than in any in- terference with the ordinary laws of nature, which the observations of scientific men show to be un- SAverving, was met, to the entire satisfaction of the public, by the able disquisition of Dr George Camp- bell, whose leading argument in reply ivas, that we have equally to trust to human testimony for an account of those laws, as for a history of the trans- actions which are considered to be an exception from them. In drawing his metaphysical theories and distinctions, Hume seems to have been unmoved by any consideration of consequences. He saiv that they led to universal scepticism — ‘to doubts that would not only shake all inductive science to pieces, but would put a stop to the whole business of life’ — to the absurd contradiction in terms, ‘ a belief that j there can be no belief’ — but his love of theory and i paradox, his philosophical acuteness and subtlety, \ involved him in the maze of scepticism, and he was content to be for ever in doubt. It is at the same time to be admitted, in favour of this remarkable man, that a genuine love of letters and of philosophy,* and an honourable desire of distinction in these walks— which had been his predominating sentiment and motive from his earliest years, to the exclusion of more vulgar though dazzling ambitions — had pro- bably a large concern in misleading him. In matters ! strictly philosophical, his thoughts ivere original | and profound, and to him it might not be difficult to j trace the origin of several ideas ivhich have since been more fully elaborated, and exercised no small i influence on human affairs. i I [Ore Delicacy of Taste."] [From Hume’s ‘ Essays.'] Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a certain elegance of sentiment ! to which the rest of mankind are strangers. The * Of this ruling passion of Hume we have the following out- burst in his account of the reign of James I. : — ‘ Such a supo- ! riority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other | ^ occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, ' J merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the i . common and vulgar professions.’ 202 ENGLISH LITERATURE. DAVID IIUMK. METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. emotions which they excite are soft ami tender. They draw off the inii.d from the hurry of business and in- terest ; cherish reflection ; dispose to tranquillity ; and produce an agreeable melancholy, which, of all dispo- sitions of the mind, is the best suited to love and Irltndship. In the second place, a delicacy of taste is favourable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater part of men. You will seldqm find that mere men of the world, whatever strong sense they may be endowed with, are lery nice in distinguishing characters, or in marking (hose insensible differences and gradations which make one man preferable to another. Any one that has competent sen.se is sufficient for their entertain- ment : they talk to him of their pleasure and aflairs with the same frankness that they would to another ; and finding many who are fit to supply his place, they never feel any vacancy or want in his absence. But, to make use of the allusion of a celebrated French author, the judgment may be compared to a clock or watch where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours, but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time. One that has well digested his knowledge, both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has entertained ; and his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they were more general and undistin- guished. The gaiety and frolic of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friendship ; and the ardours of a youthful appetite become an elegant passion. [On Simplicity and R^nement.'] [From the same.] It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination. The mind of man being naturally limited, it is impossible that all its faculties can operate at once ; and the more any one predominates, the less room is there for the others to exert their vigour. For this reason a greater degree of simplicity is required in all compositions where men, and actions, and passions are painted, than in such as consist of reflections and observations. And, as the former species of writing is the more engaging and beautiful, one may safely, upon this account, give the jireference to the extreme of simplicity above that of refinement. 'We may also observe, that those compositions which we read the oftenest, and which every man of taste has got by heart, have the recommendation of simplicity, and have nothing surprising in the thought when divested of that elegance of expression and har- mony of numbers with which it is clothed. If the merit of the composition lie in a point of wit, it may strike at first ; but the mind anticipates the thought in the second perusal, and is no longer affected by it. When 1 read an epigram of Martial, the first line recalls the whole ; and I have no pleasure in repeating to myself what 1 know already. But each line, each word in Catullus, has its merit ; and I am never tired with the perusal of him. It is sufficient to run over Cowley once ; but Parnell, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh as the first. Besides, it is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint, and airs, and apparel, which may dazzle the eye but reaches not the affections. Terence is a modest and bashful beauty, to whom we grant ever 3 'thing, because he assumes nothing ; and whose purity and nature make a durable though not a violent impressicL cn us. [Estimate of the Effects of Luxui'y.'\ [From the same.] Since luxury may be considered either as innocent or blameable, one may be surprised at those prepos- terous opinions which have been entertained concern- ing it; while men of libertine princi[iles bestow praises even on vicious luxury, and represent it as highly advantageous to society ; and, on the other hand, men of severe morals blame even the most innocent luxury, .and represent it as the source of all the corruptions, disorders, and factions incident to civil government. We shall here endeavour to correct both these ex- tremes, by proving, first, that the ages of refinement are both the happiest and most virtuous ; secondly, that wherever luxury ceases to be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial ; and when carried a degree too far, is a quality pernicious, though perhaps not the most pernicious, to political society. To prove the first point, we need but consider the effects of refinement both on private and on public life. Human happiness, according to the most re- ceived notions, seems to consist in three ingredients ; action, pleasure, and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the particular disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition. Indolence or repose, indeed, seems not of itself to contribute much to our enjoyment, but, like sleep, is requisite as an indulgence to the w'eak- ness of human nature, which cannot support an unin- terrupted course of business or pleasure. That quick march of the spirits which takes a man from himself, and chiefly gives satisfaction, does in the end exhaust the mind, and requires some intervals of repose, which, though agreeable for a moment, yet, if prolonged, beget a languor and lethargy that destroy all enjoy- ment. Education, custom, and example, have a mighty influence in turning the mind to any of these pursuits ; and it must be owned that, where they promote a relish for action and pleasure, they are so far favourable to human happiness. In times when in- dustry and the arts flourish, men are kept in perpetual occupation, and enjoy as their reward the occupation itself, as well as those pleasures which are the fruit of their labour. The mind acquires new vigour, en- larges its powers and faculties, and, by an assiduity in honest industry, both satisfies its natural appetites and prevents the growth of unnatural ones, which commonly spring up when nourished by ease and idleness. Banish those arts from society, you deprive men both of action and of pleasure ; and leaving nothing but indolence in their place, you even destroy the relish of indolence, which never is agreeable but when it succeeds to labour, and recruits tne spirits exhausted by too much application and fatigue. Another advantage of industry and of refinements in the mechanical arts i.s, that they commonly produce some refinements in the liberal; nor can one be carried to perfection without being accompanied in some degree with the other. The same age which produces great philosophers and politicians, renowned generals and poets, usually abounds with skilful weavers and ship-carpenters. We cannot reasonably expect that a piece of w'oollen cloth will be brought to perfection in a nation which is ignorant of astronomy, or where ethics are neglected. The spirit of the age affects all the arts, and the minds of men being once roused from their lethargy and put into a fermentation, turn themselves on all sides, and carry improvements into every art and science. Profound ignorance is totally banished, and men enjoy the privilege of ration^ FROM 1727 CYCLOP^IDIA OF to 1780. creatures, to think as well as to act, to cultivate the pleasures of the iiiiiul as well as those of the body. The more these refined arts advance, the more sociable men become. Nor is it jiossihle, that when enriched with science, and possessed of a fund of con- versation, they should be contented to remain in soli- tude, or live with their fellow-citizens in that distant manner which is peculiar to ignorant and barbarous nations. They flock into cities ; love to receive and communicate knowledge; to .show their wit or their breeding ; their taste in conversation or living, in clothes or furniture. Curiosity allures the wi.se; vanity the foolish ; and pleasure both. Particular clubs and societies are everywhere formed ; both sexes meet in an easy and sociable manner ; and the tempers of men, as well as their behaviour, refine apace. So that, beside the improvements which they receive from knowledge and the liberal arts, it is im- pos.sible but they must feel an increase of humanity, from the very habit of conversing together, and con- tributing to each other’s pleasure and entertainment. Thus industry, knowledge, and humanity, are linked together by an indissoluble chain, and are found, from experience as well as reason, to be peculiar to the more iKjli.-^hed, and what are commonly denominated the more luxurious ages. [After some farther arguments] Knowledge in the arts of government naturally begets mildness and moderation, by instructing men in the advantages of humane maxims above rigour and severity, which drive subjects into rebellion, and make the return to submission impracticable, by cutting off all hopes of pardon. Whei; the tempers of men are softened, as well as their knowledge improved, this humanity appears still more conspicuous, and is the chief cha- racteristic which distinguishes a civilised age from times of barbarity and ignorance. Factions are then less inveterate, revolutions less tragical, authority less severe, and seditions less frequent. Even foreign wars abate of their cruelty ; and after the field of battle, where honour and interest steel men against compa.ssion as well as fear, the combatants divest themselves of the brute, and resume the man. Nor need we fear that men, by losing their ferocity, will lose their martial spirit, or become less un- daunted and vigorous in defence of their country or their libei'ty. The arts have no such elfect in ener- vating either the mind or body. On the contrary, industry, their inseparable attendant, adds new force to both. And if anger, w'hich is said to be the whet- stone of courage, loses somew'hat of its asperity by politene.ss and refinement, a sense of honour, which is a stronger, more constant, and more governable prin- ciple, acquires fresh vigour by that elevation of genius which arises from knowledge and a good education. Add to this, that courage can neither have any dura- tion, nor be of any u.se, when not accompanied with di.scipliue and martial skill, which are seldom found among a barbarous people. The ancients remarked that Datames was the only barbarian that ever knew the art of war. And Pyrrhus, seeing the Romans I marshal their army with some art and skill, said with surprise. These barbarians have nothing barbarous in their discipline ! It is observable that, as the old Romans, by applying themselves solely to war, were almost the only uncivilised people that ever possessed military discipline, so the modem Italians are the only civilised people, among Europeans, that ever wanted courage and a martial spirit. Those who would ascribe this effeminacy of the Italians to their luxury, or politeness, or application to the art.s, need but consider the French and English, whose bravery is as incontestable as their love for the arts and their assiduity in commerce. The Italian his- torians give us a more satisfactory reason for this degeneracy of their countrymen. They show us how the sword wa.s drojiiicd at once by all the Italian sovereigns ; while the V'enctian aristocracy was jealous of its subjects, the Florentine democracy a])plied itself entirely to commerce ; Rome was governed by priests, and Naples by women. War then hecame the business of soldiers of fortune, who s]>ared one another, and, to the astonishment of the worhl, could engage a whole day in what they called a battle, and return at night to their camp without the least blood- shed. What has chiefly induced severe moralists to de- claim against refinement in the arts, is the example of ancient Rome, which, joining to its poverty and rusticity virtue and public spirit, rose to such a sur- prising height of grandeur and liberty ; but, having learned from its conquered jirovinccs the Asiatic luxury, fell into every kind of corruj)tion ; wdienca arose sedition and civil wars, attended at last with the total loss of liberty. All the Latin classics whom we peruse in our infancy are full of these sentiments and universally ascribe the ruin of their state to the arts and riches imported from the East ; insomuch that Sallust represents a taste for painting as a vice, no le.S3 than lewdne.ss and drinking. And so popular were these sentiments during the latter ages of the republic, that this author abounds in praises of the old rigid Roman virtue, though himself the most egregious instance of modern luxury and corruption ; speaks contemptuously of the Grecian eloquence, though the most elegant writer in the world ; nay, employs preposterous digre.ssions and declamations to this purpose, though a model of taste and correctne.ss. But it would be easy to prove that these WTiters mistook the cause of the disorders in the Roman state, and ascribed to luxury and the arts what really proceeded from an ill-modelled government, and the unlimited extent of conquests. Refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life has no natural tendency to beget venality and corruption. The value which all men put upon any particular plea- sure depends on comparison and experience ; nor is a porter less greedy of money which he spends on bacon and brandy, than a courtier who purchases champagne and ortolans. Riches are valuable at all times, and to all men, because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accustomed to and desire : nor can anything restrain or regulate the love of money but a sense of honour and virtue ; which, if it be not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages of knowledge and refinement. * * To declaim against present times, and magnify t’ne virtue of remote ancestors, is a propensity almost in- herent in human nature : and as the sentiments and opinions of civilised ages alone are transmitted to posterity, hence it is that we meet with so many severe judgments pronounced against luxury, and even science ; and hence it is that at present we give so ready an assent to them. But the fallacy is easily perceived by comparing different nations that are con- temporaries ; where w’e both judge more impartially, and can better set in opposition those manners with which we are sufficiently acquainted. Treachery and cruelty, the most pernicious and most odious of all vices, seem peculiar to uncivilised ages, and by the refined Greeks and Romans were ascribed to all the barbarous nations which surrounded them. They might justly, therefore, have presumed that their own ancestors, so highly celebrated, possessed no greater virtue, and were as much inferior to their posteidty in honour and humanity as in taste and science. An ancient Frank or Saxon may be highly extolled : but I believe every man would think his life or fortune much less secure in the hands of a Moor or Tartar than those of a French or English gentlemen, the rank of men the most civilised in the m- st civilised nations. 204 METAPiiYsicAL WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURR david ntuR. We eomc now to the second position which we pro- posed to illustrate, to wit, that as innocent luxury or a retinenient in the arts and conveniences of life is advantageous to the public, so wherever luxury ceases to be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial ; and when carried a degree farther, begins to be a quality pernicious, though perhaps not the most pernicious, to political society. Let us consider what we call vicious luxury. No gratification, however sensual, can of itself be esteemed vicious. A gratification is only vicious when it en- grosses all a man’s expense, and leaves no ability for such acts of duty and generosity as are required by his situation and fortune. Suppose that he correct the vice, and employ part of his expense in the edu- cation of his children, in the support of his friends, and in relieving the poor, would any prejudice result to society ! On the contrary, the same consumption would arise ; and that labour which at present is employed only in producing a slender gratification to one man, would relieve the necessitous, and bestow satisfaction on hundreds. The same care and toil that raise a dish of pease at Christmas, would give bread to a whole family during six months. To say that without a vicious luxury the labour would not have been employed at all, is only to say that there is some other defect in human nature, such as indolence, selfishness, inattention to others, for which luxury in some mea.sure provides a remedy ; as one poison may be an antidote to another. But virtue, like wholesome food, is better than poisons, however cor- rected. Suppose the same number of men that are at pre- sent in Great Britain with the same soil and climate ; I ask, is it not possible for them to be happier, by the most perfect way of life that can be imagined, and by the greatest reformation that omnipotence itself could work in their temper and disposition ? To assert that they cannot, appears evidently ridiculous. As the land is able to maintain more than all its present in- habitants, they could never, in such a Utopian state, feel any other ills than those which arise from bodily sickness, and these are not the half of human miseries. All other ills spring from some vice, either in our- selves or others ; and even many of our diseases pro- ceed from the same origin. Remove the vices, and the ills follow. You must only take care to remove all the vices. If you remove part, you may render the matter worse. By banishing vicious luxury, without curing sloth and an indifference to others, you only diminish industry in the state, and add no- thing to men’s charity or their generosity. Let us, therefore, rest contented with asserting that two op- posite vices in a state may be more advantageous than cither of them alone ; but let us never pronounce vice in itself advantageous. Is it not very inconsistent for an author to assert in one page that moral distinctions are inventions of politicians for public interest, and in the next page maintain that vice is advantageous to the public ? And indeed it seems, upon any system of morality, little less than ^ contradiction in terms to talk of a vice which is in general beneficial to society. 1 thought this reasoning necessary, in order to give some light to a philosophical question which has been much disputed in England. I call it a philosophical question, not a political one ; for whatever may be the consequence of such a miraculous transformation of mankind as would endow them with every species of virtue, and free them from every species of vice, this concerns not the magistrate who aims only at possibilities. He cannot cure every vice by substi- tuting a virtue in its place. Very often he can only cure one vice by another, and in that case he ought to prefer what is least pernicious to society. Luxury, when excessive, is the source of many ills, but is in general preferable to sloth and idleness, which would commonly succeed in its place, and arc more hurtful both to private persons and to the public. When sloth reigirs, a mean uncultivated way of life prevails amongst individuals, without society, without enjoy- ment. And if the sovereign, in such a situation, demands the service of his subjects, the labour of the state suffices only to furnish the necessaries of life to the labourers, and can afford nothing to those who are employed in the public service. Of the Middle Station of Life. The moral of the following fable will easily discover itself without my explaining it. One rivulet meet- ing another, with whom he had been long united in strictest amity, with noisy haughtine.ss and disdain thus bespoke him: — ‘ What, brother! .still in the same state 1 Still low and creeping 1 Are you not ashamed when you behold me, who, though lately in a like condition with you, am now become a great river, and shall shortly be able to rival the Danube or the Rhine, provided those friendly rains continue which have favoured my banks, but neglected yours ?’ ‘ Very true,’ replies the humble rivulet, ‘you are now, in- deed, swollen to a great size ; but methinks you are become withal somewhat turbulent and muddy. I am contented with my low condition and my purity.’ Instead of commenting upon this fable, 1 shall take occasion from it to compare the different stations of life, and to persuade such of my readers as are placed in the middle station to be satisfied with it, as the most eligible of all others. The.se form the most numerous rank of men that can be supposed suscep- tible of philosophy, and therefore all di.scour.ses of morality ought principally to be addressed to them. The great are too much immersed in pleasure, and the poor too much occupied in providing for the necessities of life, to hearken to the calm voice of reason. The middle station, as it is most happy in many respects, so particularly in this, that a man placed in it can, with the greatest leisure, consider his own happiness, and reap a new enjoyment, from comparing his situation with that of persons above or below him. Agur’s prayer is sufficiently noted — ‘ Two things have I required of thee ; deny me them not before I die: remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with food con- venient for me, lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.’ The middle sta- tion is here justly recommended, as affording the fullest security for virtue ; and I may also add, that it gives opportunity for the most ample exercise of it, and furnishes employment for every good quality which we can possibly be possessed of. Those who are placed among the lower ranks of men have little oppor- tunity of exerting any other virtue besides those of patience, resignation, industry, and integrity. Those who are advanced into the higher stations, have full employment for their generosity, humanity, affability, and charity. When a man lies betwdxt these two extremes, he can exert the former virtues towards his superiors, and the latter towards his inferiors. Every moral quality which the human soul is susceptible of, may have its turn, and be called up to action ; and a man may, after this manner, be much more certain of his progress in virtue, than where his good qualities lie dormant and wdthout employment. But there is another virtue that seems principally to lie among equals, and is, for that reason, chiefly calculated for the middle station of life. This virtue is friendship. I believe most men of generous tem- pers are apt to envy the great, when they consider the. I large opportunities such persons have of doing good FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1700. to their fellow-crcaturea, and of acquiring the friend- ship and cateem of men of merit. They make no advances in vain, and are not obliged to associate with those whom they have little kindness for, like people of inferior stations, who are subject to have tlieir ])rolTers of friendsliip rejected even where they would be most fond of j)lacing their affections. Hut though the great have more facility in acquiring friendships, they cannot be so certain of the sincerity of them as men of a lower rank, since the favours they bestow may acquire them flattery, instead of good will and kindness. It has been very judiciously remarked, that we attach ourselves more by the ser- vices we perform than by those we receive, and that a man is in danger of losing his friends by obliging them too far. 1 should therefore choose to lie in the middle way, and to have my commerce with my friend varied both by obligations given and received. I have too much jiride to be willing that all the obligations should lie on my side, and should be afraid that, if they all lay on his, he would also have too much jiride to be entirely easy under them, or have a perfect complacency in my company. We may also remark of the middle station of life, th.at it is more favourable to the acquiring of wisdom and ability, as well as of virtue, and that a man so situate h.as a better chance for attaining a knowledge both of men and things, than those of a more elevated station, lie enters with more familiarity into human life, and everything appears in its natural colours be- fore him : he has more leisure to form observations ; and has, besides, the motive of ambition to push him on in his attainments, being certain that he can never rise to any distinction or eminence in the world with- out his own industry. And here I cannot forbear communicating a remark, which may appear some- what extraordinary, namely, that it is wisely ordained by Providence that the middle, station should be the most favourable to the improving our natural abilities, since there is really more capiacity requhsite to per- form the duties of that station, than is requisite to act in the higher spheres of life. There are more natural parts, and a stronger genius requisite to make a good lawyer or physician, than to make a great monarch. For, let us take any race or succession of kings, where birth alone gives a title to the cro\vn ; the English kings, for instance, who have not been esteemed the most shining in history. From the Con- quest to the succession of his present majesty, we may reckon twenty-eight sovereigns, omitting those who died minors. Of these, eight are esteemed princes of great capacity, namely, the Conqueror, Harry II., Edward I., Edwanl III., Harry V. and VII., Eliza- beth, and the late King William. Now, I believe every one will allow, that, in the common run of mankind, there are not eight out of twenty-eight who are fitted by nature to make a figure either on the bench or at the bar. Since Charles VIE, ten monarchs have reigned in France, omitting Francis II. Five of those have been esteemed princes of capacity, namely, Louis XL, XII., and XIV., Francis I., and Harry IV. In short, the governing of man- kind well requires a great deal of virtue, justice, and humanity, but not a surprising capacity. A certain Pope, whose name I have forgot, used to say, ‘ Let us divert ourselves, my friends ; the world governs itself.’ There are, indeed, some critical times, such as those in which Harry IV. lived, that call for the utmost vigour ; and a less courage and capacity than what appeared in that great monarch must have sunk un- der the weight. Hut such circumstances are rare ; and even then fortune does at least one half of the business. Since the common professions, such as law or phy- sic, require equal, if not superior capacity, to what are everted in the higher spheres of life, it is evident that the soul must be made of still a finer mould, to shine in philosophy or poetry, or in any of the higher parts of learning. Courage and resolution are chiefly re- quisite in a comrnsMider, justice and humanity in a statesman, but genius and capacity in a scholar. Great generals and great politicians arc found in all ages and countries of the world, and frequently start up at once, even amongst the greatest barbarians. Sweden was sunk in ignorance ivhen it jiroduced Gustavus Ericson and (iustavus Adolplius ; Muscovy when the Czar appeared ; and jierhaps Carthage when it gave birth to Hannibal. Hut England must pass through a long gradation of its Spensers, Johnsons, Wallers, Drydens, before it arise at an Addi.son or a Pope. A happy talent for the liberal arts and sciences is a kind of prodigy among men. Nature must afford the richest genius that comes from her hands ; education and example must cultivate it from the earliest infancy; and inilustry must concur to carry it to any degree of perfection. No man needs be suqirised to see Kouli-Kan among the Persians ; but Homer, in so early an age among the Greeks, is certainly matter of the highest wonder. A man cannot show a genius for war who is not so fortunate as to be trusted with command ; and it sel- dom happens, in any state or kingdom, that several at once are placed in that situation. How many Marlboroughs were there in the confederate army, who never rose so much as to the command of a regiment 1 But I am persuaded there has been but one Mil- ton in England within these hundred year.s, because every one may exert the talents of poetry who is pos- sessed of them ; and no one could exert them under greater disadvantages than that divine poet. If no man were allowed to write verses but the person who was beforehand named to be laureate, could we expect a poet in ten thousand years ? Were we to distinguish the ranks of men by their genius and capacity, more than by their virtue and usefulness to the public, great philosophers would cer- tainly challenge the first rank, and must be placed at the top of mankind. So rare is this character, that perhaps there has not as yet been above two in the world who can lay a just claim to it. At least Gali- leo and Newton seem to me so far to excel all the rest, that 1 cannot admit any other into the same class with them. Great poets may challenge the second place ; and this species of genius, though rare, is yet much more frequent than the former. Of the Greek poets that remain, Homer alone seems to merit this character : of the Romans, Virgil, Horace, and Lucretius : of the English, Milton and Pope : Corneille, Racine, Boileau, and Voltaire of the F’rench: and Tasso and Ariosto of the Italians. Great orators and historians are perhaps more rare than great poets ; but as the opportunities for exert- ing the talents requisite for eloquence, or acquiring the knowledge requisite for writing history, depend in some measure upon fortune, we cannot pronounce these productionsjof genius to be more extraordinary than the former. I should now return from this digression, and show that the middle station of life is more favourable to happiness, as well as to virtue and wisdom ; but as the arguments that prove this seem pretty obvious, I shall here forbear insisting on them. The Hartleian theory at this time found ad- mirers and followers in England. Dr David Hart- ley, an English physician (1705-17.57), having im- bibed from Locke the principles of logic and meta- physics, and from a hint of Newton the doctrine that there were vibrations in the substance of the brain that might throw new light on the phenomena of the mind, formed a system which he developed METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR ADAM SMITH. in Ills eliibor.ite work, published in 1749, under the title of Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations. Hartley, besides his theory of the vibrations in the brain, refers all the operations of the intellect to the association of ideas, and repre- sents that association as reducible to the single law, that ideas which enter the mind at the same time acquire a tendency to call up each other, which is in direct proportion to the frequency of their having entered together. His theory of vibrations has a tendency to materialism, but was not designed by its ingcu'ous author to produce such au effect. DR ADAM SOTTH. Dr Adam Smith, after an interval of a few years, succeeded to Hutcheson as professor of moral philo- sophy in Glasgow, and not only inherited his love of metaphysics, but adopted some of his theories, which he blended with his own views of moral science. Smith was born in Kirkaldy in Fifeshire in 1723. His father held the situation of comp- troller of customs, but died before the birth of his Dr Adam Smith. son. At Glasgow university, Smith distinguished himself by his acquirements, and obtained a nomi- nation to Baliol college, Oxford, where he continued for seven years. His friends had designed him for the church, but he preferred trusting to literature and science. He gave a course of lectures in Edin- burgh on rhetoric and belles lettres, which, in 1751, recommended him to the vacant chair of pro- fessor of logic in Glasgow, and this situation he next year exchanged for the more congenial one of moral philosophy professor. In 1759 he published his Theory of Moral Sentiments, and in 1764 he was prevailed upon to accompany the young Duke of Buccleuch as travelling tutor on the continent. They were absent two years, and on his return. Smith retired to his native town, and pursued a severe system of study, which resulted in the publi- cation, in 1776, of his great work on political eco- nomy, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Two years afterwards he was made one of the commissioners of customs, and his latter days were spent in ease and opulence. He died in 1790 The philosophical doctrines of Smith are vastly inferior in value to the language and illustrations he employs in enforcing them. He has been styled the most eloquent of modern moralists; and his woik is embellished with such a variety of examples, with such true pictures of the passions, and of life and manners, that it may be read with pleasure and ad- vantage by those who, like Gray the poet, cannot see in the darkness of metaphysics. His leading doctrine, that sympathy must necessarily precede our moral approbation or disapprobation, has been gene- rally abandoned. ‘ To derive our moral sentiments,’ says Brown, ‘ whieh are as universal as the actions of mankind that come under our review, from the occasional sympathies that warm or sadden us with joys, and griefs, and resentments which are not our own, seems to me very nearly the same sort of error as it would be to derive the waters of an overflow- ing stream from the sunshine or shade which may occasionally gleam over it.’ Mackintosh has also pointed out the error of representing the sympathies in their jirimitive state, Avithout undergoing any transformation, as continuing exclusively to consti- tute the moral sentiments — an error which he hap- pily compares to that of the geologist who should tell us that the layers of this planet had always been in the same state, shutting his eyes to transition states and secondary formations. As a specimen of the flowing style and moral illustrations of Smith, we give an e.xtract on [The Results of Misdirected and Guilty Ambition.'] To attain to this envied situation, the candidates for fortune too frequently abandon the paths of vir- tue ; for unhappily, the road Avhich leads to the one, and that which leads to the other, lie sometimes in very opposite directions. But the ambitious m.an flat- ters himself that, in the splendid situation to whieh he advances, he will have so many means of command- ing the respect and admiration of mankind, and will be enabled to act with such superior propriety and grace, that the lustre of his future conduct will en- tirely cover or efface the foulness of the steps by which he arrived at that elevation. In many governments the eandidates for the highest stations are above the law, and if they can attain the object of their am bition, they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavour, therefore, not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and eabal, but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enor- mous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebel- lion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those Avho oppose or stand in the way of their greatness. They more frequently miscarry than succeed, and com- monly gain nothing but the disgraceful punishment which is due to their crimes. But though they should be so lueky as to attain that wished-for greatness, they are always most miserably disappointed in the happi- ness which they expect to enjoy in it. It is not ease or pleasure, but always honour, of one kind or another, though frequently an honour very ill understood, that the ambitious man really pursues. But the honour of his exalted station appears, both in his >wn eyes and in those of other people, polluted and defiled by the baseness of the means through which he rose to it. , Though by the profusion of every liberal expense, though by exeessive indulgence in every jirofligate pleasure — the wretched but usual resource of ruined characters ; though by the hurry of public business, or by the prouder and more dazzling tumult of war, he may endeavour to efface, both from his own memory and from that of other people, the remembrance of what he has done, that remembrance never fails to pursue him. He invokes in vain the dark and disma 207 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 178C. powers of forgetful ness urul oblivion. He remembers I iiimself wlmt he bus done, and that remembrance tells I bim that other people must likewise remember it. I Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most ostentatious I greatness, amidst the venal and vile adulation of the ' great and of the leanieil, amidst the more innocent ! though more foolish acelainations of the common I people, amidst all the pride of conquest and the I triumph of succe.ssful war, he is still secretly pursued by the avenging furies of shame and remorse ; and while glory seems to surround him on all sides, he himself, in his own imagination, sees black and foul infamy fast pursuing him, and every moment ready to overtake him from behind. Kven the great Cae.sar, though he had the magnanimity to dismiss his guards, could not dismiss his suspicions. The remembrance of I’harsalia still haunted and pursued him. When, at the request of the senate, he had the generosity to pardon Marcellus, he told that assembly that he was not un.'iwaro of the designs which were, carrying on against his life ; but that, as he had lived long enough both for nature and for glory, he was contented to die, and therefore despised all conspiracies. lie had, per- haps, lived long enough for nature ; but the man who felt himself the object of such deadly re.sentment, from those whose favour he wished to gain, and whom he still wished to consider as his friends, had certainly livial too long for real glory, or for all the happiness which he could ever hope to enjoy in the love and esteem of his equals. DR REID. Dr Keid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind, published in 1764, was an attack on the ideal theory, and on the scei)tical conclusions which Ilume deduced from it. The author had the candour to submit it to Hume before publication, and the latter, with his usual complacency and good nature, acknowledged the merit of the treatise. In 1785 Reid published his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, and in 1788 those on the Actwe Powers. The merit of Reid as a correct reasoner and original thinker on moral science, free from the jargon of the schools, and basing his speculations on inductive reasoning, has been generally admitted. The ideal theory which he combated, taught that ‘ nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it; that we really' do not perceive things that are external, but only’ certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which are called impressions and ideas.’ This doctrine Reid had himself believed, till, finding it led to important consequences, he asked himself the question, ‘ What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all the objects of my’ know- ledge are ideas in my’ ow’n mind ?’ He set about an inquiry, but could find no evidence for tbe principle, he says, excepting the authority of philosophers. Dugald Stewart says of Reid, that it is by the logi- cal rigour of his method of investigating metaphy- sical subjects (imperfectly understood even by the disciples of Locke), still more than by the impor- tance of his particular conclusions, that he stands §0 conspicuously distinguished among those who have hitherto prosecuted analytically the study of man. In the dedication of his ‘ Inquiry,’ Reid in- cidentally makes a definition which strikes us as very happy : — ‘ The productions of imagination,’ he s,ays, ‘ require a genius which soars above the com- mon rank; but the treasures of knowledge are com- monly buried deep, and may be reached by’ those drudges who can dig with labour and patience, though they have not wings to fly.’ Dr Reid was a native of Strachan, in Kincardineshire, where he was born on the 26th of April 1710. He was bred to the church, and obtained the living of New M;ichar, Aberdeenshire. In 1752 he was appointed professor of moral philosoidiy in King’s college, Aberdeen, whieh he quitted in 1763 for the chaii of moral philo.soi)hy in Glasgow. He died on the 7th of October 1796. LORD KAME8. Henry Home (1696-1782), a Scottish lawyer and judge, in wliieh latter capacity he took, according to a custom of his country, the designation of Lord Karnes, was a conspicuous member of the literary House of Lord Karnes, Canongate, Edinburgh, and philosophical society assembled in Edinburgh during the latter part of the eighteenth century. During the earlier part of his life he devoted the w’hole powers of an acute and reflective mind, and I with an industry calling for the greatest pr.aise, to j his profession, and compilations and treatises con- j nected with it. But the natural bent of his faculties towards philosophical disquisition — the glory if not the vice of his age and country — at length took the mastery’, and, after reaching the bench in 1752, he gave his leisure almost exclusively to metaphysi- cal .and ethical subjects. Ills first work of this kind. Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natu- ral Reliyion, combats those theories of human nature which deduce all actions from some single principle, and attempts to establish several principles of ac- tion. He here maintained philosophical necessity', but in a connection with the duties of morality and religion, which he hoped might save him from the obloquy’ bestowed on other defenders of that doc- trine ; an expectation in which he was partially disappointed, as he narrowly escaped a citation be- fore the General Assembly of his native church, on account of this book. The Intioduction to the Art of Thinking, published in 1761, was a small :ind subordinate work, consist- ing mainly of a series’of detached maxims and gene- r:d observations on human conduct, illustrated by .anecdotes drawn from the stores of history and biography. In the ensuing year appeared a larger work, perhaps the best of all his compositions — The Elements of Criticism, three volumes, a bold and 208 ENGLISH LITERATURE. METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. LORD KAMES. ! i I I ! I I i I I I original jx'rfoniiaiice, whidi, discarding all arbitrary rules of literary criticism derived from authority, seeks for a proper set of rules in the fundamental principles of human nature itself. Dugald Stewart admits this to be the first systematic attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts. Lord Karnes had, for many years, kept a common- place hook, into which he transcrilxid all anecdotes of man, in his various nations and degrees of civili- sation. which occurred in the course of his reading, or appeared in the fugitive publications cf the day. When advanced to near eighty years of age, he tl'.rew these together in a work entitled Sketches of the History of Man (two vols., 4to., 1773), which shows his usual ingenuity and acuteness, and pre- sents many curious disquisitions on society, but is materially reduced in value by the .absence of a proper authentic.ation to many of the statements presented in it as illustrations. A volume, entitled Loose Hints on Education, published in 1781, and in which he anticipates some of the doctrines on that Bubiect which have since been in vogue, completes the list of his philosophical works. Lord Karnes was also distinguished as an amateur agriculturist and improver of land, and some opera- tions, devised by him for clearing away a superin- cumbent moss from his estate by means of water raised from a neighbouring river, help to mark the originality and boldness of his conceptions. This taste led to his producing, in 1777, a volume entitled The Gentleman Farmer, which he has himself suffi- ciently described as ‘ an attempt to improve agricul- ture by subjecting it to the test of rational prin- ci])les.’ Lord Karnes was a man of commanding aspect and figure, but easy and familiar manners. He was the life and soul of every private company, and it was remarked of him that no subject seemed too great or too frivolous to derive lustre from his re- marks upon it The taste and thought of his philo- sophical works have now placed them out of fashion, but they contain many views and reflections from which modern inquirers might derive advantage. [Pleasures of the Eye and the .Ear.] That nothing external is perceived till first it make an impression upon the organ of sense, is an observa- tion that holds equally in every one of the external senses. But there is a difference as to our knowledge of that iiniiression ; in touching, tasting, and smelling, we are sensible of the impression ; that, for example, which is made upon the hand by a stone, upon the palate by an apricot, and upon the nostrils by a rose. It is otherwise in seeing and hearing; for I am not sensible of the impression made upon my eye when I behold a tree, nor of the impression made upon ray ear when 1 listen to a song. That difference in the manner of perceiving external objects, distinguisheth remarkably hearing and seeing from the other senses ; and I am ready to show that it distinguisheth still more remarkably the feelings of the former from that of the latter ; every feeling, pleasant or painful, must be in the mind ; and yet, becau.se in tasting, touching, and smelling, we are sensible of the impression made upon the organ, we are led to place there also the pleasant or painful feeling caused by that impression ; but, with respect to seeing and hearing, being insen- sible of the organic impression, we are not misled to assign a wrong place to the pleasant or painful feel- ings caused by that impression ; and therefore we naturally place them in the mind, where they really are; upon that account they are conceived to be more refined and spiritual than what are derived from tast- 56 ing, toucliing, and smelling; for the latter feelings, seeming to exist externally at the organ of sense, arc conceived ko be merely cori>oreal. The pleasures of the eye and the ear being thus elevated above those of the other externa! .senses, ac- quire so much dignity, as to become a laudable enter- tainment. They are not, liowever, .sot on a level with the purely intellectual, lx;ing no les.s inferior in dig- nity to intelleetiial pleasures, than superior to the organic or corporeal : they indeed resemble the latter, being, like them, proiluccd by external objects ; but they .also resemble the former, being, like them, pro- duced without any sensible organic impression. Their mixed nature and middle place between organic and intellectual pleasures qualify them to associate with both ; beauty heightens all the organic feelings, as well as the intellectual ; harmony, though it aspires to inflanie devotion, disdains not to improve the reli.sh of a banquet. The pleasures of the eye .and the ear have other valuable properties beside tho.se of dignity and eleva- tion ; being sweet and moderately exhilarating, they are in their tone equally di.stant from the turbulence of passion and the languor of indolence ; and by tliat tone are perfectly well qualified not only to revive the spirits when sunk by sensual gratification, but also to relax them when overstrained in any violent pur- suit. Here is a remedy provided for n.any distresses; and to be convinced of its salutary effects, it will be sufficient to run over the following particulars. Or- ganic ple.asures have naturally a short duration ; when prolonged, they lose their relish ; when indulged to excess, they beget satiety and disgust ; and to restore a proper tone of mind, nothing can be more h,a])]iily contrived than the exbilar.ating ple.asures of the eye and ear. On the other h.and, any intense exorcise of intellectual powers becomes painful by overstra.ning the mind ; cessation from such exerci.se gives not in- stant relief ; it is necessary that the void be filled ith some amusement, gently relaxing the spirits : organic pleasure, which h.ath no relish but while we are m vigour, is ill qualified for that otiice ; but the finer pleasures of sense, which occupy, without exhausting, the mind, are finely qualified to restore its usual tone after severe application to study or business, as well as after satiety from .sensual gratification. Our first perceptions are of external objects, and our first attachments are to them. Organic pleasures take the lead ; but the mind gradually ripening, re- lisheth more and more the pleasures of the eye and ear, which approach the purely mental without ex- hausting the spirits, and exceed the purely sensual without danger of satiety. The pleasures of the eye and ear have accordingly a natural aptitude to draw us from the immoderate gratification of sensual appe- tite ; and the mind, once accustomed to enjoy a variety of external objects without being sensible of the organic impression, is prepared for enjoying internal objects where there cannot be an organic impression. Thus the Author of nature, by qualifying the human mind for a succes.sion of enjoyments from low to high, leads it by gentle steps from the most grovelling corporeal pleasures, for which only it is fitted in the beginning of life, to those refined and sublime pleasures that are suited to its maturity. But we are not bound down to this succession by any law of necessity : the God of nature offers it to us in order to advance our happiness ; and it is suffi- cient that he hath enabled us to carry it on in a natural course. Nor has he made our task either di.sagreeable or difficult : on the contrary, the transi- tion is sweet and easy from corporeal pleasures to the more refined pleasures of sense ; and no less so from these to the exalted pleasures of morality and reli- gion. We stand therefore engaged in honour as wtU as interest, to second the purposes of nature by culti- 209 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiTiDIA OF TO 1781) Tatins; the pleasures of the eye and ear, those espe- cially that require extraordinary culture, sucli as arise from poetry, painting, scul])turc, inuHie, garden- ing, and architecture. This especially is the duty of the opulent, who have leisure to inqjrove their minds and their feelings. The fine arts are contrived to give pleasure to the eye and the ear, disregarding the in- ferior senses. A taste for these arts is a plant that grows naturally in many soils ; but without culture, scarce to perfection in any soil : it is susceptible of much refinement, and is by proper care greatly im- proved. In this respect a taste in the fine arts goes hand in hand with the moral sense, to which indeed it is nearly allied : both of them discover what is right and what is wrong : fashion, temper, and education, have an influence to vitiate both, or to preserve them pure and untainted : neither of them are arbitrary nor local, being rooted in human nature, and govern- ed by principles common to all men. The design of thepre.sent undertaking, which aspires not to morality, is to examine the sensitive branch of human nature, to trace the objects that are naturally agreeable, as well as those that arc naturally disagreeable ; and by the.se means to discover, if we can, what are the genuine principles of the fine arts. The man who aspires to be a critic in these arts must pierce still deeper ; he must acquire a clear perception of what objects are lofty, what low, what proper or improper, what manly, and what mean or trivial ; hence a foundation for reasoning upon the taste of any individual, and for passing a sentence upon it : where it is conformable to principles, we can pronounce with certainty that it is correct ; otherwise, that it is incorrect and perhaps whimsical. Thus the fine arts, like morals, become a rational science ; and, like morals, may be cultiviited to a high degree of refinement. Manifold are the advantages of criticism when thus studied as a rational science. In the first place, a thorough acquaintance with the principles of the fine arts redoubles the pleasure we derive from them To the man who resigns himself to feeling, without inter- posing any judgment, poetry, music, painting, are mere pastime. In the prime of life, indeed, they are delightful, being supported by the force of novelty and the heat of imagination ; but in time they lose their relish, and are generally neglected in the maturity of life, which disposes to more serious and more import- ant occupations. To those who deal in criticism as a regular science governed by just principles, and giving scope to judgment as well as to fancy, the fine arts are a favourite entertainment, and in old age maintain that relish which they produce in the morning of life. DR BEATXrE. Among the answerers of Hume was Dr Beattie the poet, who, in 1770, published his Essay on the Nature and Immutalnlity of Truth, in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. Inferior to most of the metaphysicians in logical precision, equanimity of temper, or patient rese.arch, Beattie brought great zeal and fervour to his task, a respectable share of philosophical knowledge, and a better command of popular language and imaginative illustration than most of his fellow-labourers in that dry and dusty field. These qualities, joined to the pious and bene- ficial tendency of his work, enabled him to produce a highly popular treatise. No work of the kind ivas ever so successful. It has fallen into equal neglect with other metaphysical treatises of the age, and is now considered unworthy the talents of its author. It has neither tlie dignity nor the acumen of the original philosopher, and is unsuited to the ordinary religious reader. The best of Beattie’s prose works are his Dissertations, Moral and Critical, and his Essays on Poetry, Music, ^c. He also i)ubli.shed a digest of his college lectures, under the title of JUe- mrnls of Moral Science. In these works, though not profoundly (>hilo.soi)hical, the author’s ‘ lively relish for the sublime and beautiful, his clear and elegant style,’ and his happy quotations and critical exam- ples, must strike every reader. [On the Love of Nature.'] [From * Beattie’s Essays.’] Homer’s beautiful description of the heavens and earth, as they appear in a calm evening by the light of the moon and stars, concludes with this circumstance — ‘ And the heart of the shepherd is glad.’ Madame Uacier, from the turn she gives to the passage in her version, seems to think, and Pope, in order perhaps to make out his couplet, insinuate.s, that the gladness of the shepherd is owing to his sense of the utility of those luminaries. And this may in part be the case; but this is not in Homer ; nor is it a necessary consi- deration. It is true that, in contemplating the ma- terial universe, they who discern the causes and effe.oU of things must be more rapturously entertained than those who perceive nothing but shape and size, colour and motion. Yet, in the mere outside of nature’s works (if I may so express my.self), there is a splen- dour and a magnificence to which even untutored minds cannot attend without great delight. Not that all peasants or all philosophers are equally susceptible of these charming impressions. It is strange to observe the callousness of some men, before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily suc- cession, without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility, how many are them to whom the lustre of the rising or setting sun, the .sparkling concave of the midnight sky, the mountain forest to.ssing and roaring to the stonn, or w.arbling with all the melodies of a summer evening ; the sweet interchange of hill and dale, shade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an extensive land.scape offers to the view ; the scenery of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, and the many pleas- ing varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom, could never afford so much real .satisfaction as the steams and noise of a ball-room, the insipid fiddling and squeaking of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of a card -table! But some minds there are of a different make, who, even in the early part of life, receive from the con- templation of nature a species of delight which they would hardly exchange for any other ; and who, as avarice and ambition are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal sincerity and rapture, ex- claim — ‘ I care not. Fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace ; You cannot shut the windows of the sky. Through whicli Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living stream at eve.' Such minds have always in them the seeds of true taste, and frequently of imitative genius. At least, though their enthusiastic or visionary turn of mind, as the man of the world would call it, should not always incline them to practise poetry or painting, we need not scruple to affirm that, without some portion of this enthusiasm, no person ever became a true poet or painter. For he wjio would imitate the works of nature, must first accurately observe them, and accu- rate observation is to be expected from those only who take great pleasure in it. To a mind thus disposed, no part of creation is in- different. In the crowded city and howling wilder- ness, in the cultivated province and solitary isle, in 210 METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. ENGLISH LlTKUATUli K. DR IIEAITIE. the flowery lawn aiul craggy mountain, in the mur- mur of tlie rivuLt and in the uproar of tlie ocean, in the radiance of summer and gloom of winter, in the thunder of lieaven and in the whisper of the breeze, i he still finds something to rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw forth his alfections, or to employ his understanding. And from every mental energy 1 that is not attended with pain, and even from some of i those that are, as moderate terror and pity, a sound mind derives satisfaction ; exercise, being equally ne- i ccssary to the body and the soul, and to both equally I productive of health and jileasure. j This happy sensibility to the beauties of nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages j them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful I works ; it purifies and harmonises the soul, and pre- ! pares it for moral and intellectual discipline ; it sup- I plies a never-failing source of amusement ; it contri- ! butes even to bodily health ; and, as .a strict analogy i j subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads ; I the heart by an easy transition from the one to the i ; other, and thus recommends virtue for its transcen- dent loveliness, and makes vice appear the object of I contempt and abomination. An intimate acquaint- ' ance with the best descriptive poets — Spenser, Milton, j and Thomson, but above all with the divine Georgic — i joined to some practiee in the art of drawing, will i promote this amiable sensibility in early years ; for then the faee of nature has novelty superadded to its other eharms, the passions are not pre-engaged, the heart is free from care, and the imagination warm and romantic. liut not to insist longer on those ardent emotions that are peculiar to the enthusiastic disciple of nature, may it not be affirmed of all men without sxception, or at least of all the enlightened part of ! I mankind, that they are gratified by the contemplation of things natural as opposed to unnatural ? IMon- etroas sights pi lase but for a moment, if they please at all ; for they derive their charm from the beholder’s amazement, wh’ch is quickly over. I have read, in- deed, of a man >f rank in Sicily who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and statues of most unnatural I deformity ; but it is a singular instance ; and one I would not be much more surprised to hear of a person I living without food, or growing fat by the use of I poison. To say of anything that it is contrary to I nature, denotes censure and disgust on the part of the speaker ; as the epithet natural intimates an agree- able quality, and seems for the most part to imply that a thing is as it ought to be, suitable to our own taste, and congenial with our own constitution. Think with what sentiments we should peruse a poem in which nature was totally misrepresented, and prin- eiples of thought and of operation supposed to take place repugnant to everything we had seen or heard of ; in which, for example, avarice and coldness were ascribed to youth, and prodigality and passionate I attachment to the old ; in which men were made to ! act at random, sometimes according to character, i and sometimes contrary to it ; in which cruelty and ; I envy were productive of love, and beneficence and , [ kind aft'ection of hatred ; in which beauty was in- ! variably the object of dislike, and ugliness of desire ; j ; in which society was rendered happy by atheism and I the promiscuous perpetration of crimes, and justice 1 ] and fortitude were held in universal contempt. Or I ! think how we should relish a painting where no ' ! regard was had to the proportions, colours, or any of i the physical laws of nature ; where the ears and eyes I of animals were placed in their shoulders ; where the i sky was green, and the grass crimson ; where trees I grew with their branches in the earth, and their roots ! in the air ; where men were seen fighting after their I heads were cut off, ships sailing on the land, lions en- tangled in cobwebs, sheep preying on dead carcases, fishes sporting in the woods, and elephants walking on the sea. Could such figures and combinations give pleasure, or merit the appellation of sublime or beau- tiful? Should we hesitate to pronounce their autlior mad? And are tlie absurdities of madmen proper subjects either of amusement or of imitation to rea- sonable beings ? [Ore Scolikh ^^usic.'} [From tlie same.] There is a certain style of melody peculiar to each musical country, which the people of that country are apt to jirefer to every other style. That they should prefer their own, is not surprising ; and that the me- lody of one people should (titfer from that of another, is not more surprising, perhajis, than that the language of one people should differ from that of another. Bui there is something not unworthy of notice in the par- ticular expression and style that characterise the music of one nation or province, and distinguish it from every other sort of music. Of this diversity Scotland sup- plies a striking example. The native melody of the Highlands and Western Isles is as different from that of the southern part of the kingdom as the Irish or Erse language is different from the English or Scotch. In the conclusion of a discourse on music, as it relates to the mind, it will not perhaps be impertinent to offer a conjecture on the cause of these peculiarities ; which, though it should not — and Indeed I am satis- fied that it will not — fully account for any one of them, may, how'ever, incline the reader to think that they are not unaccountable, and may also throw some faint light on this part of philosophy. Every thought that partakes of the nature of pa.ssion has a correspondent expression in the look and ges- ture ; and so strict is the union between the passion and its outward sign, that, where the former is not in some degree felt, the latter can never be perfectly natural, but if assumed, becomes awkward mimicry, instead of that genuine imitation of nature which draws forth the sympathy of the beholder. If there-, fore there be, in the circumstances of particular nations or persons, anything that gives a peculiarity to their passions and thoughts, it seems reasonable to expect that they will also have something peculiar in the expression of their countenance and even in tho form of their features. Gains Marius, Jugurtba, Tamerlane, and some other great warriors, are cele- brated for a peculiar ferocity of aspect, which they had no doubt contracted from a perpetual and unre- strained exertion of fortitude, contempt, and other violent emotions. These produced in the face their correspondent expressions, whieh, being often repeated, became at last as habitual to the features as the sen- timents they arose from were to the heart. Savages, whose thoughts are little inured to control, have more of this significancy of look than those men who, being born and bred in civilised nations, are accustomed from their childhood to suppress every emotion that tends to interrupt the peace of society. And while the bloom of youth lasts, and the smoothness of fea- ture peeuliar to that period, the human face is less marked with any strong character than in old age. A peevish or surly stripling may elude the eye of the physiognomist ; but a wicked old man, whose visage does not betray the evil temperature of his heart, must have more cunning than it would be prudent for him to acknowledge. Even by the trade or profession the human countenance may be characterised. They who employ themselves in the nicer mechanic arts, (hat require the earnest attention of the artist, do gene- rally contract a fixedness of feature suited to that one uniform sentiment which engrosses them while at work. Whereas other artists, whose work requires less attention, and who may ply their trade and 211 1 PROM 1727 CYCKOP^I^DI A OF to I7H0. amuse themselves with eoiiversatioii at the same time, have, for the most part, smoother aiul more uiimeaiiiii" faces: their thoughts are more miscellaneous, ami therefore their features are less fixed in one uniform confij;uration. A keen penetrating look indicates thoughtfulness and spirit: a dull torpid countenance is not often accompanied with great sagacity. This, though there may be many an exception, is in general true of the visible signs of our passions ; and it is no less true of the audible. A man habitu- ally ])ccvish,or passionate, or querulous, or imiierious, may be known by the sound of his voice, as well as by his physiognomy. May we not go a step farther, and say that if a man, under the influence of any passion, were to compose a di.scourse, or a poem, or a tunc, his work would in some measure e.xhibit an imago of his mind ? I could not easily be persuaded that Swift and .luvenal were men of sweet temiiers ; or that Thomson, Arbuthnot, and Prior, were ill- natured. The airs of Felton are so uniformly mourn- ful, that I cannot suppose him to have been a merry or even a cheerful man. If a musician, in deep aflliction, were to attemjit to compose a lively air, I believe he would not succeed : though I confess I do not well understand the naf^ure of the connection that may take place between a mournful mind and a me- lancholy tune. It is easy to conceive how a poet or an onitor should transfuse his passions into his work ; for every passion suggests ideas congenial to its own nature ; and the composition of the poet or of the orator must necessarily consist of those ideas that occur at the time he is composing. But musical sounds are not the signs of ideas ; rarely are they even the imitations of natural sounds ; so that I am at a loss to conceive how it should happen that a musician, overwhelmed with sorro-w, for example, should ])ut together a series of notes whose expression is contrary to that of another series which he had put together when elevated with joy. But of the fact I .am not doubtful ; though I have not sagacity or knowledge of music enough to be able to explain it. And my opinion in this m.atter is warranted by that of a more competent judge, who s.ays, spe.aking of church volun- taries, that if the organist ‘ do not feet in himself the divine energy of devotion, he will Labour in vain to raise it in others. Nor can he hope to throw out those happy instantaneous thoughts which sometimes far exceed the best concerted compositions, and which the enraptured performer would gladly secure to his future use .and pleasure, diil they not as fleetly esc.ape as they rise.’ A man who has made music the study of his life, and is well acquainted with all the best ex- amples of style and expression that are to be found in the works of former masters, m.ay, by memory .and much pr.actice, attain a sort of mechanical dexterity in contriving music suitable to any given p.a.ssion ; but such music would, I presume, he vulgar and spiritless compared to what an .artist of genius throws out when under the power of any ardent emotion. It is recorded of Lulli, that once when his im.agination was all on fire with some verses descriptive of terrible ideas, which he had been reading in a French tragedy, he r.an to his harpsichord, and struck off such .a com- bination of sounds, th.at the company felt their bail- stand on end with hoiTor. Let us therefore suppose it proved, or, if you please. Lake it for granted, that diflerent sentiments in the mind of the musician will give different and peculiar expressions to his music ; and upon this principle it will not perhaps be impossible to account for some of the phenomen.a of a national ear. The Highlands of Scotland are a picturesque, but in general a melancholy country. Long tracts of mountainous desert, covered with dark heath, and often obscured by misty weather ; n.arrow valleys, thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices resound- ing with the fall of torrents ; a .soil so ruggeil, and a clinuite so dreary, as in many jiarts to admit neither the amusements of ji.asturage nor the labours of agri- culture; the mournful dashing of waves along the firths and lakes that intersect the country; the por- tentous noises which every change of the wind and every incre.ase and diminution of the waters is apt to . raise in a lonely region, full of echoe.s, and rocks, and ; cavei'iis ; the grotesque and ghastly api)earance of | such a land.scapc by the light of the moon. Objects i like these diffu.se a gloom over the fancy, which may | be compatible enough with occasional and social I merriment, but cannot fail to tincture the thoughts of a native in the hour of silence and solitude. If | these people, notwithst.anding their reformation in re- 1 ligion, ami more frequent intercourse with str.angers, j do still retain many of their old superstitions, we need not drmbt but in former times they must have been more enslaved to the horrors of imagination, when be- set with the bugbears of popery and the darkness of i paganism. Llost of their superstitions are of .a me- | lancholy cast. Th.at second sight wherewith some of them are still supposed to be haunted, is considered by themselves as .a misfortune, on account of the m.any dreadful images it is saiil to obtrude upon the fancy. 1 have been told that the inhabitants of some of the Aljiine regions do likewi.se lay claim to a sort of second sight. Nor is it wonderful that persons of lively imagination, immured in deep solitude, and sur- rounded with the stupendous scenery of clouds, pre- cipices, and torrents, should dream, even when they think themselves awake, of those few striking ideas with which their lonely lives are diversified ; of corp.ses, funeral processions, and other objects of ter- | ror ; or of marriages and the arrival of strangers, ami j .such like imatters of more agree.able curiosity. Let it be observed, also, that the ancient Highlanders of Scot- Land had hardly any other way of supporting them- selves than by hunting, fishing, or war, professions that .arc continually exposed to fatal accidents. And hence, no doubt, additional horrors would often haunt their solitude, and a deeper gloom overshadow the imagi- nation even of the hardie.st native. What then would it be reasomable to expect from ; the fanciful tribe, from the musicians and poets, of ' such a region? Strains expressive of jo)', tranquil- 1 lity, or the softer passions ? No : their style must have | been better suited to their circumstances. And so | we find in fact th.at their music is. The w'ildest irre- gularity appe.ars in its composition : the ex])ression is warlike and mel.ancholy, and approaches even to the terrible. And that their poetry is almost uniformly mournful, and their views of n.ature dark .and drearr-, will be allowed by all who .admit of the authenticity of Ossian ; and not doubted by any who believe those fragments of HighLand poetry to be genuine, which many old people, now alive, of that country, remem- ber to have heard in their youth, and were then taught to refer to a jwetty high antiquity. Some of the southern provinces of Scotland present a very different prospect. Smooth and lofty hills covered with verdure ; clear streams winding through long and beautiful valleys ; trees produced without culture, here straggling or single, and there crowding into little groves .and bowers, with other circum- stances peculiar to the districts I allude to, render them fit for pasturage, and favourable to romantic leisure and tender pa.ssions. Several of the old Scotch songs take their names from the rivulets, villages, and hills adjoining to the Tweed near Melrose ; a region distinguished by many charming varieties of rural scenery, and which, whether we consider the face of the country or the genius of (he people, may ]>roperly enough be termed the Arcadia of Scotland. And all these songs are sweetly and powerfully expressive of love and tenderness, and other emotions suited to (ho 21-2 WniTF.RS IN DIVINITY. ENGLISH LITERATUKE. nn JOSEI’II BUTLER. tranquillity of pastoral life. * * I believe it [the Scottish music] took its rise among men who were real shepherds, and who actually felt the sentiments and affections whereof it is so very expressive. DR RICUARD PRICE ABRAHAM TUCKER — DR JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. Dr Richard Price (1723-1791), a nonconfor- mist divine, published, in 1758, A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, which I attracted attention as ‘ an attempt to revive the in- i tellectual theory of moral obligation, which seemed to I j have fallen under the attacks of Butler, Hutcheson, I and Hume, even before Smith.’ Price, after Cud- worth, supports the doctrine that moral distinctions being perceived by reason, or the understanding, are equally iniinutable with all other kinds of truth. On the other side, it is argued that reason is but a principle of our mental fr.arne, like the principle which is the source of moral emotion, and has no peculiar claim to remain unaltered in the supposed general alteration of our mental constitution. Price was an able writer on finance and ]>olitical economy, and took .an active part in the political questions of the day at the time of the French Revolution: he was a republican in principle, and is attacked by Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution. Abraham Tucker (1705-1774) was an English squire, who, instead of pursuing the pleasures of the chase, studied metaphysics at bis country-seat, and published, under the fictitious name of Edward j Search, a work, entitled The Light of Nature Pur- sued, which Paley said contained more original think- ing and observ.ation than any other work of the kind. Tucker, like Adam Smith, excelled in illustration, and he did not disdain the most homely subjects for e.xainples. Mackintosh says he excels in mixed, not in pure philosophy, and that his intellectual views I I are of the Ilartleian school. How truly, and at the j : same time how beautifully, has Tucker characterised ! I in one short sentence his own favourite metaphysical 1 1 studies ! ‘ The science of abstruse learning,’ he I ' B.ays, ‘ when completely attained, is like Achilles’s ; I spear, that healed the wounds it had made before. It casts no additional light upon the paths of life, I but disperses the clouds with which it had over- I spread them ; it advances not the traveller one step j on his journey, but conducts him back again to the I j spot from whence he had wandered.’ ! ! In 1775 Dr Joseph Priestley published an ex- j ' amination of the principles of Dr Reid and others, I I designed as a refutation of the doctrine of common I ] sense, said to be employed as the test of truth by I the Scottish metaphysicians. The doctrines of I I Priestley are of the school of Hartley. In 1777 1 1 he published a series of disquisitions on Matter I and Spirit, in which he openly supported the mate- j rial system. He also wrote in support of another ' unpopular doctrine — that of necessity. He settled ! in Birmingham in 1780, and officiated as minister I of a dissenting congregation. His religious opinions j were originally Calvinistic, but afterwards became decidedly anti-Trinitarian. His works excited so , niucti opposition, that he ever after found it necessary , J as he states, to write a pamphlet annu.ally in their r defence! Priestley was also an active and distin- ! guished chemist, and wrote a history of discoveries j i relative to light and colours, a history of electricity, ! ' &c. At the period of the French Revolution in ; 1791, a mob of outrageous and brutal loyalists set ; ' fire to his house in Birmingham, and destroyed his I library, a[ p.aratus, and specimens. Three years afterwards he emigrated to America, where he con- j tinned his studies in science and theology, and died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, in 1804. As an experimental philosopher, Priestley was of a supe- rior class ; but as n metaphysical or ethical writer, he can only be considered subordinate. He was a man of intrepid spirit and of unceasing industry. One of his critics (in the Edinburgh Review) draws from his writings a lively picture of ‘ that inde- fatigable activity, that bigotted vanity, that pre- cipitation, cheerfulness, and sincerity, which made up the character of this restless philosopher.’ Robert Hall, whose feelings as a dissenter, and an enemy to all religious intolerance and persecution, were enlisted on the side of Priestley, has thus eulo- gised him in one of his most eloquent sentences : — ‘ The religious tenets of Dr Priestley apjiear to me erroneous in the extreme : but I should be sorry to suffer any difference of sentiment to diminish my sensibility to virtue, or my admiration of genius. His enlightened and active mind, his unwearied .assiduity, the extent of his researches, the light he has poured into almost every department of science, will be the admiration of that period, when the greater part of those who have favoured, Cr those who have opposed him, will be alike forgotten. Distinguished merit will ever rise superior to op- pression, and will draw lustre from reproach. Th-e vapours which gather round the rising sun, and follow in its course, seldom fail at the close of it to form a magnificent theatre for its reception, .and to invest with varieg.ated tints, and with a softened effulgence, the luminary which they cannot hide. WRITERS IN DIVINITY. Without much originality (excepting in one me- morable instance), there wais great acuteness, con- troversial ability, and learning displayed in the de- partment of theology. The higher dignitaries of the church of England are generally well fitted, by education, talents, and the leisure they enjoy, for vindicating revealed religion from the attacks of all assailants ; and even ivhen the standard of duty was low among the inferior clergy, there has seldom been any want of sound polemical divines. It seems to be admitted that there was a decay of piety and zeal in the church at the time of which we are now tre.at- ing. To .animate this drooping spirit, and to pl.ace revelation upon the imperishable foundations of true ]'i'.ilosophy. Dr Joseph Butler publisl ed his great work on the Analogy of Religion to the Course of Nature, which appeared in 173G. Without entering on the question of the miracles and prophecies. Dr Butler rested his evidence on the analogies of nature : ‘ he reasons from that part of the divine proceedings which comes under our view in the d,aily business of life, to that larger and more comprehensive part of t’.iese proceedings which is beyond our vieiv, and which religion reveals.’ His argument for a future life, from the changes which the human bodj' undir- goes at birth, and in its different stages of maturity ; and from the instances of the same law of nature, in the change of worms into butterflies, and birds and insects bursting the shell, and entering into a new world, furnished with new powers, is one of the most conclusive pieces of reasoning in the lan- guage. The same train of argument, in support of the immortality of the soul, h.as been followed up in two admirable lectures in Dr T. Brown’s Philosophy. 'I’he work of Butler, however, extends over a wide field— over the whole of the leading points, both in natural and revealed religion. The germ of his treatise is contained in a p,assage in Origen (one of the most eminent of the fathers, who died at Tyre in the year 254), which Butler quotes in his intro- duction. It is to the effect that he who believes 213 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OK TO 17petite or passion. They are to be de- duced from the dictates of one principle, which is evidently intended to rule over the other parts of our nature, and which is.sues its mandates with authority. This master principle is conscience, which rests upon rectitude as its object, as disinte- restedly as the social affections rest upon their ap- propriate objects, and as naturally as the appetite of imnger is satisfied with food. The ethical system of Butler has been adopted by Reid, Stewart, and Brown. Sir .Tames Mackintosli (who acknowledged that Bishop Butler was his father in philosophy) made an addition to it ; he took the principle of utility as a test or criterion of the rectitude or vir- tue which, with Butler, he maintained to be the pro- per object of our moral affections. The life of this eminent prelate affords a pleasing instance of talent winning its w.ay to distinction in the midst of diffi- culties. lie was born in 1692, the son of a shop- keeper at Wantage, in Berkshire. His father was a Presbyterian, and intended his son to be a minister of the same persuasion, but the latter conformed to the establishment, took orders, and was successively preacher at the Rolls chapel, prebendary of Ro- chester, clerk of the closet to the queen, bishop of Bristol, and bishop of Durham. He owed much to Queen Caroline, who h.ad a ])liilosophical taste, and valued his talents and virtues. Butler died on the 16th of June 1752. BISHOP WAKBURTON. No literary m.an of this period engrossed in his own time a larger share of the attention of the learned world, not to speak of the public at large, than did Wili.iam Warburton, bishop of Glou- cester (1698-1779). Prodigious powers of study and of expression, a bold and original waj' of think- ing, and indomitable self-will and arrogance, were the leading characteristics of this extraordinary man, who unfortunately was too eager to astonisli and arrest the attention of mankind, to care for any more beneficial result from his literary e.xertions; and whose writings have, accordingly, after passing ike a splendid meteor across the horizon of his own age, sunk into all but oblivion. He was the son of an attorney at Newark, and entered life in the same pnjfession, and at the same town, hut soon .saw fit to abandon a pursuit in which it was evident he could have no success. A passion for reading led Warburton in his twenty-fifth year to adopt the Bishop Warburton. clerical profession. He took deacon’s orders, and by a dedication to a small and obscure volume of trans- lations published in 172.3, obtained a presentation to a small vicarage. He now threw himself amidst the inferior literary society of the metropolis, and sought for subsistence and advancement by his pen. On obtaining from a patron the rectory of Brand ; Broughton, in Lincolnshire, he retired thither, and ! devote(> himself for a long series of years to reading. j His first work of any note was published in 1736, i under the title of Alliance between Church and State, : which, though scarcely calculated to please either ! party in the church, was extensively read, and brought the author into notice. In the next. The ' Divine Legation of Moses, of which the first volume | iippe.ared in 1738, and the remaining four in the ! course of several j'ears thereafter, the gigantic I scholarship of Warburton shone out in all its vast- j ness. It had often been objected to the pretensions | of the Jewish religion, that it presented nowhere i any acknowledgment of the principle of a future state of rewards and punishments. Warburton, who delighted in pariidox, instead of attempting to deny this or explain it away, at once acknowledged it, but asserted that therein lay the strongest argument for the divine mission of Moses. To establish this point, he ransacked the whole donuains of pagan antiquity, and reared such a mass of curious and confounding I argument, tliat mankind might be said to be awed by it into a i)artial concession to the author’s views. He never completed the work ; he became, indeed, weary of it ; and perhaps the fallacy of the hypo- thesis was first secretly acknowledged by bimself. • If it had been consecrated to truth, instead of j)ara- dox, it would h.ave been by far the most illustrious book of its age. As it is, we oidy look into it to | wonder at its endless learning and misspent inge- | nuity. The merits of the author, or his worldly wisdom, brought him preferment in the church : he rosa through the grades of prebend of Gloucester, pre- bend of Durham, and dean of Bristol, to be (1’’59' 214 WRITERS IN PIVINITT. ENGLISH LITERATURE. BISHOP WARBURTOM. bishop of Gloucester — a remarkable transition for the Newark attorney. It would he tedious to detail the other literary adventures of this arrogant prelate. The only one which falls particularly in our way is his edition of Pope’s works, for the publication of which he had obtained a patent right in consequence of the poet’s bequest. The annotations of Warburton upon Pope, perverting the author’s ii'eaning in miinberless in- stances, and full of malignity against half the learned men of the age, were a disgrace to contemiiorary liteiature. Yet for many years the works of Pope could not be possessed without this monstrous in- cumbrance. The latter years of Warburton were spent in a melancholy state of mental weakness, partly occasioned by grief' for the loss of a son ; for, like the butcher animals, this man. ^uthle^s to all others, had kind feelings towards his own kindred. Ten years after his death, his great work is spoken of by Gibbon as already a brilliant ruin. It is now rarely referred to, its learning being felt as no at- traction where the solid qualities of truth are want- ing. Warburton is indeed as perfect a proof of the futility of talent without moral direction, as could be produced from the meanest walks of literature. He gave all to a bad ambition, in which the chief object seems to have been to make his fellow crea- tures wonder at and stand in awe of him. Such feelings as he excited are doomed to be transient. They have passed away; and Warburton, having never conferred any solid benefit on his kind, is already little else than a name. f The Grecian Mythology — The Various Lights in which it was regarded.] [Frcm the ‘ Divine Legatioa.’] Here matters rested : and the vulgar faith seems to have rem.ained a long time undisturbed. But as the age grew refined, and the Greeks became inquisitive and learned, the common mythology began to give offence. The speculative and more delicate were shocked at the absurd and immoral stories of their gods, and scandalised to find such things make an authentic p.art of their story. It may, indeed, be thought matter of wonder how such tales, taken up in a barbarous age, came not to sink into oblivion as the age grew more knowing, from mere abhorrence of their indecencies and shame of their absurdities. Without doubt this had. been their fortune, but for an unlucky circumstance. The great poets of Greece, who had most contributed to refine the public taste and man- ners, and were now grown into a kind of sacred authority, had sanctified these silly legends by their writings, which time had now consigned to immor- tality. Vulgar paganism, therefore, in such an age as this, lying open to the attacks of curio-us and inquisitive men, would not, we may well think, be long at rest. It is true, freethinking then lay under great difficul- ties and discouragements. To insult the religion of one’s country, which is now the mark of learned dis- tinction, was branded in the ancient world with public infiiny. Yet freethinkers there were, who, as is their wont, together with the public worship of their country, threw off all reverence for religion in general. Amongst these was Euhemerus, the Messenian, and, by what we can learn, the most distinguished of this tribe. This man, in mere wantonness of heart, began his attacks on religion by divulging the secret of the my.steries. But as it was capital to do this directly and pro- fessedly, he contrived to cover his perfidy and malice by the intervention of a kind of Utopian romance. He pretended, ‘ that in a certain city, which he came to in his travels, he found this grand secret, that the gods were dead men deified, preferred in their sacred writings, and confirmed by monumental records in- scribed to the gods themselves, who were there said to bo interred.’ So far was not amiss ; but then, in the genuine spirit of his cla.ss, who never cultivate a truth but in order to graft a lie upon it, he pretended ‘ that dead mortals were the first gods, and that an ima- ginary divinity in these early heroes and conquerors created the idea of a superior power, and introduced the practice of religious worship amongst men.’ The learned reader sees below [note in Greek omitted] that our freethinker is true to his cause, and en- deavours to verify the fundamental principle of his sect, that fear first made gods, even in that very in- stance where the contrary passion seems to have been at its height, the time when men made gods of their deceased benefactors. A little matter of address hides the shame of so perverse a piece of malice. He repre- sents those founders of society and fathers of theii country under the idea of destructive conquerors, who by mere force and fear had brought men into subjec- tion and slavery. On this account it was that indig- nant antiquity concurred in giving Euhemerus the proper name of atlieist, which, however, he would hardly have escaped, though he had done no more than divulge the secret of the mysteries, and had not poisoned his discovery with this impious and foreign addition, so contrary to the true spirit of that secret. This detection had been long dreaded by tlie orthodox protectors of pagan worship ; and they were provided of a temporary defence in their intricate and properly perplexed system of symbolic adoration. But this would do only to stop a breach for the pre- sent, till a better could be provided, and was too weak to stand alone against so violent an attack. The philosophers, therefore, now took up the defence of paganism where the priests had left it, and to the otliers’ symbols added their own allegories, for a second cover to the absurdities of the ancient mytho- logy ; for all the genuine sects of pliilosophy, as we have observed, were steady patriots, legislation making one essential part of their philosophy ; and to legis- late without the foundation of a national religion, was, in their opinion, building castles in the air. So that we are not to wonder they took the alarm, and opposed these insulters of the public worship with all their vigour. But as they never lost sight of their proper character, they so contrived that the defence of the national religion should terminate in a recom- mendation of their philosophic speculations. Hence, their support of the public worship, and their evasion of Euhemerus’s charge, turned upon this proposition, ‘ That the whole ancient mythology was no other than the vehicle of physical, moral, and divine know- ledge.’ And to this it is that the learned Eusebius refers, where he says, ‘ That a new race of men refined their old gross theology, and gave it an honester look, and brought it nearer to the truth of things.’ However, this proved a troublesome work, and, after all, ineffectual for the security of men’s private morals, which the example of the licentious stoiy according to the letter would not fail to influence, how well soever the allegoric interpretation was cal- culated to cover the public honour of religion ; so that the more ethical of the philosophers grew peevish with what gave them so much trouble, and answered so little to the interior of religious practice. This made them break out, from time to time, into hasty resentments against their capital poets ; unsuitable, one would think, to the dignity of the authors of such noble recondite truths as they would persuade us to believe were treasured up in their writings. Heno it was that Plato banished Homer from his republic, and that Pythagoras, in one of his extramunJane ad- ventures, saw both Homer and Hesiod doing penance in hell, and hung up there for examples, to be bleached 215 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 1780. and imi ifiod from tlie grossness and pollution of tlieir ideas. Tlie first of tlicse allegorisers, as we learn from Laertius, was .•\naxagoras, who, witli his friend Me- trodorus, turned Homer’s mytliology into a system of ethies. Ne.xt eanie Ilereelides I’onticns, and of the same fables mareaehers in London. He wrote Tracts on Heresy, Discourses on Natural Religion and Social Virtue, and other tlieologieal works. John Leland (1691-1766) was pastor of a con- gregation of Protestant dissenters in Dublin. He wrote A View of the Deisticul Writers in England, and an elaborate work on the Advantage and Neces- sity of the Christian Revelation. The former is a solid and valuable treatise, and is still regarded as one of the best confutations of infidelity. DR HUGH BLAIR, The Scottish church at this time also contained some able and accomplished divines. The equality of livings in the northern estahlishment, and the greater amount of pastoral labour devolved upon its ministers, are unfavourahle for studious research or profound erudition. The Edinhurgh clergy, how- ever, are generally men of talents and attainments, and the universities occasionally receive some of the best divines as professors. One of the most popidar and influential of the Scottish clergy was Dr Hugh Blair, born in Edinburgh in 1718. He was at first minister of a country church in Eifeshire, but, being celebrated for his jiulpit eloquence, he was succes- sively preferred to the Canongate, Lady Yester’s, and the High Church in Edinburgh. In 1759 he commenced a course of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, which extended his literar 3 ' reputation; .and in 1763 he published his Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, a production evincing both critical taste and learning. In 1777 appeared the first vo- lume of his Sermons, which was so well received that the author published three other volumes, and a fifth which he had prepared, was printed after his death. A royal pension of £200 per ammm further rewarded its author. Blair next published his Rhe- torical Lectures, and they also met with a favourable reception. Though somewhat hard and dry in style and manner, this work forms a useful guide to the young student : it is carefully arranged, contains abundance of examples in every department of lite- rafy composition, and has also detailed criticisms on ancient and modern authors. The sermons, how- ever, are the most valuable of Blair’s works. They are written with taste and elegance, and by incul- cating Christian morality without any allusion to controversial topics, are suited to all classes of Chris- tians. Profound thought, or reasoning, or impas- sioned eloquence, they certainly' do not possess, and in this respect they must be considered inferior to the posthumous sermons of Logan the poet, which, if occasional!)' irregular, or faulty in style, have more of devotional ardour and vivid de.scription. In society Dr Blair was cheerful and polite, the friend of literature as well as of virtue. His predominant weakness seems to have been v.anif)’, which was soon discovered by Burns, in his memorable resi- dence in Edinburgh in 1787. Blair died on the 27th of December 1800. [On the Cultivation of Taste.~\ [From ‘ Blair’s Lectures.’] Such studies have this peculiar adv.antage, that the/ exercise our reason without fatiguing it. They lead to inquiries acute, but not painful ; profound, but not dry or abstruse. They strew flowers in the path of science, and while they keep the mind bent in some degree and active, they relieve it at the same time 217 PROM 1727 CYCLOPyEDIA OP TO 178o. from that more toilrtome labour to which it must sub- mit in tlie acquisition of necessary erudition or the investigation of abstract trutli. The cultivation of taste is further recommended by the happy effects wliich it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man in the most active sphere cannot he always occupied by business. Men of serious ])rofessions cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay ami flourishing situations of fortune afford any man the power of filling all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit. How then shall these vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, nhich more or less occur in the life of every one, be filled up? How can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature? He who is .so happy as to have acquired a relish for these, has always at hand an in- nocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a perni- cious passion. He is not in hazard of being a burden to himself. He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence. Providence seems ])lainly to have pointed out this useful purpose to which the pleasui-es of taste may be applied, by interposing them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those of i)ure intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former ; nor are we cap- able of dwelling constantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect and the labours of abstract study ; and they gradually raise it above the attach- ments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue. So consonant is this to experience, that, in the edu- cation of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with ease from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favourable to many virtues. Whereas, to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising sympitom of youth ; and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. There are indeed few good dispositions of any kind with which the improvement of taste is not more or les.s connected. A cultivated taste increases sensibi- lity to all the tender and humane passions, by giving them frequent e.xercise ; while it tends to weaken the more violent and fierce emotions. Ingenuas didicisse fidellter artes Emollit mores, nee sinlt esse feros.* The elevated sentiments and high examples which poetry, eloquence, and history are often bringing under our view, naturally tend to nourish in our minds public spirit, the love of glory, contempt of external fortune, and the admiration of what is truly illus- trious and great. I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same, or that they may ♦ These polished arts have humanised mankind. Softened the rude and calmed the boisterous mind. always be expected to coexist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are neces.sary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speeulations are sometimes found to float on the sur- faee of the mind, while bad passions pos.sess the inte- rior regions of the heart. At the same time this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendeney, moral and purifying. From reading the most admired productions of genius, whether in poetry or prose, almost every one rises with some good impressions left on his mind ; and though these may not always be durable, they are at least to be ranked among the means of disposing the heart to virtue. One thing is certain, that with- out pos.sessing the virtuous affections in a strong degree, no man can attain eminence in the sublime parts of eloquence. He mu.st feel what a good man feels, if he expects greatly to move or to interest man- kind. They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnanimity, and public sjiirit, that only can kindle that fire of genius, and call up into the mind those high ideas, which attract the admiration of ages ; and if this spirit be necessary to produce the most distinguished efforts of eloquence, it must be neces- sary also to our relishing them with proper taste and feeling. [Difference letween Taste and Genius.'] [From the same.] Taste and genius are two words frequently joined together, and therefore, by inaccurate thinkers, con- founded. They signify, however, two quite different things. The difference between them can be clearly pointed out, and it is of importance to remember it. Taste consists in the power of judging; genius in the power of executing. One may have a considerable degree of taste in poetry, eloquence, or any of the fine arts, who has little or hardly any genius for com- position or execution in any of these arts ; but genius cannot be found without including taste also. Genius, therefore, deserves to be considered as a higher power of the mind than taste. Genius always imports some- thing inventive or creative, which does not rest in mere sensibility to beauty where it is perceived, but j which can, moreover, produce new beauties, and ex- | hibit them in such a manner as strongly to impress I j the minds of others. Refined ta.ste forms a good critic ; but genius is further necessary to form the I poet or the orator. | It is proper also to observe, that genius is a wora | which, in common acceptation, extends much further I than to the objects of taste. It is used to signify that j | talent or aptitude which we receive from nature for I excelling in any one thing whatever. Thus, we speak | of a genius for mathematics, as well as a genius for | poetry — of a genius for war, for politics, or for any j mechanical employment. | This talent or aptitude for excelling in some one particular is, I have .said, what we receive from nature. By art and study, no doubt, it may be greatly ira- | proved, but by them alone it cannot be acquired. As genius is a higher faculty than taste, it is ever, ac- cording to the usual frugality of nature, more limited i in the sphere of its operations. It is not uncommon I to meet with persons who have an exeellent taste in | several of the polite arts, such as music, poetry, paint- i ing, and eloquence, all together ; but to find one who | is an excellent performer in all these arts, is much ! more rare, or rather, indeed, such a one is not to bo i looked for. A sort of universal genius, or one who is i equally and indifferently turned towards several difle- I i rent professions and arts, is not likely to excel in any; j j although there may be some few exceptions, yet in ! general it holds, that when the bent of the mind is l 218 ENGLISH LITERATURE. WRITEUS IN DIVINITY. DR HUGH BLAIR. wholly directed towards some one object, exclusive in a manner of others, there is the fairest prospect of eminence in that, whatever it be. The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow intensely. [On Sublimity.^ [From the same.] It is not easy to describe in words the precise im- pression which great and sublime objects make upon us when we behold them ; but every one has a con- ception of it. It produces a sort of internal elevation and e.xpansion ; it raises the mind much above its ordinary state, and fills it with a degree of wonder avd a-stonishinent which it cannot well expres.s. The emotion is certainly delightful, but it is altogether of the serious kind ; a degree of awfulness and solemnity, even approaching to severity, commonly attends it when at its height, very distinguishable from the more gay and brisk emotion raised by beautiful objects. The simplest form of external grandeur appears in the vast and boundless prospects presented to us by nature ; such as wide extended plains, to which the eye can see no limits, the firmament of heaven, or the boundless expanse of the ocean. All vastness produces the impression of sublimity. It is to be remarked, however, that space, extended in length, makes not so strong an impression as height or depth. Though a boundless plain be a grand object, yet a high mountain, to which we look up, or ..n awful pre- cipice or tower, whence we look down o.i the objects which lie below, is still more so. The excessive gran- deur of the firmament arises from its height, joined to its boundless extent ; and that of the ocean not from its extent alone, but from the perpetual motion and irresistible force of that mass of waters. M'herever space is concerned, it is clear that amplitude or great- ness of extent in one dimension or other is necessary to grandeur. Remove all bounds from any object, and you presently render it sublime. Hence infinite space, endless numbers, and eternal duration, fill the mind with great ideas. From this some have imagined that vastness or amplitude of extent is the foundation of all sub- limity. But I cannot be of this opinion, because many objects appear sublime which have no relation to space at all. Such, for instance, is great loudness of sound. The burst of thunder or of cannon, the roaring of winds, the shouting of multitudes, the sound of vast cataracts of water, are all incontestably grand objects. ‘ I heard the voice of a great multi- tude, as the sound of many waters, and of mighty thunderings, saying. Hallelujah.’ In general, we may observe that great power and force exerted always raise sublime ideas ; and perhaps the most copious source of these is derived from this quarter. Hence the grandeur of earthquakes and burning moun- tains ; of great conflagrations ; of the stormy ocean and overflowing waters ; of tempests of wind ; of thun- der and lightning ; and of all the uncommon violence of the elements : nothing is more sublime than mighty power and strength. A stream that runs within its banks is a beautiful object, but when it rushes down with the impetuosity and noise of a torrent, it pre- sently becomes a sublime one. From lions, and other animals of strength, are drawn sublime comparisons in poets. A race-horse is looked upon with pleasure ; but it is the war-horse, ‘ whose neck is clothed with thunder,’ that carries grandeur in its idea. The en- gagement of two great armies, as it is the highest exertion of human might, combines a variety of sources of the sublime, and has accordingly been always considered as one of the most striking and magnificent spectacles that can be either presented to the eye, or exhibited to the imagination in descrip- tion. For the further illustration of this subject, it is proper to remark, that all idca.s of the solemn and awful kind, and even bordering on the terrible, tend greatly to assist the sublime ; such as darkness, soli- tude, and silence. What are the scenes of nature that elevate the mind in the highest degree, and produce the sublime sensation ? Not the gay landscape, the flowery field, or the flourishing city ; but the hoary mountain-s, and the solitary lake, the aged forest, and the torrent falling over the rock. Hence, too, night scenes are commonly the most sublime. The firma- ment, when filled with stars, scattered in such vast numbers, and with such magnificent profusion, strikes the imagination with a more awful grandeur than when we view it enlightened with all the splendour of the sun. The deep sound of a great bell, or the striking of a great clock, are at any time grand, but, when heard amid the silence and stillness of the night, they become doubly so. Darkness is very commonly applied for adding sublimity to all our ideas of the Deity : ‘ He inaketh darkness his pavilion, he dwelleth in the thick cloud.’ So Milton : — How oft, amidst Thick clouds and dark, does heaven's all ruling Sire Choose to reside, h's glory unobscured. And with the majesty of darkness, round Circles his throne. Observe with how much art Virgil has introduced all those ideas of silence, vacuity, and darkne.ss, when he is going to introduce his hero to the infernal re- gions, and to disclose the secrets of the great deep Ye subterranean gods, whose awful sway The gliding ghosts and silent shades obey ; Oh, Chaos, hear ! and Phlegethon profound ! "Whose solemn empire stretches wide around ! Give me, ye great tremendous powers, to tell Of scenes and wonders in the depth of hell ; Give me, your mighty secrets to display From those black realms of darkness to the day. — PUL Obscure they went ; through dreary shades, that led Along the waste dominions of the dead ; As wander travellers in woods by night. By the moon’s doubtful and malignant light. — Drydcn. These passages I quote at present, not so much as instances of sublime writing, though in themselves they truly are so, as to show, by the effect of them, that the objects which they present to us belong to the class of sublime ones. Obscurity, we are further to remark, is not unfavour- able to the sublime. Though it render the object in- distinct, the impression, however, may be great ; for, as an ingenious author has well observed, it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination ; and the imagination may be strongly afiected, and, in fact, often is so, by objects of which we have no clear conception. I hus we see that almost all the descriptions given us of the appearances of supernatural beings, cainy some sub- limity, though the conceptions which they afford us be confused and indistinct. Their sublimity arises from the ideas, which they always conve}', of superior power and might, joined with an awful obscurity. We may see this fully exemplified in the following noble passage of the book of Job : — ‘ In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up ; it stood still ; but I could not discern the form thereof ; an image was before mine eyes ; there was silence ; and I heard a voice — Shall mortal man be more just than God !’ (Job iv. 15.) No ideas, it is plain, are so sublime as those taken from the Supreme Being, the most un- known, but the greatest of all objects j the infinity 219 \1il CYCLOr^DIA OF TO 1780. of whose nature, ami tlie eternity of wliose duration, joined with the oinni]iotence of Ids power, tliough tliey surpass our conceptions, yet exalt them to the highest. In general, all objects that are greatly raised above us, or far removed from us, either in space or in time, are apt to strike us as great. Our viewing them as through the mist of distance or antiquity is favour- able to the impressions of their sublimity. .\s obscurity, so disorder too is very comp.atibic with grandeur; nay, frequently heightens it. Few things that are strictly regular and methodical appear sublime. We see the limits on every side ; we feel ourselves confined ; there is no room for the mind’s exerting any great efibrt. Kxact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime. A great mass of rocks, thrown together by the hand of nature with wildness and confusion, strike the mind with more grandeur than if they had been adjusted to one another with the most accurate symmetry. In the feeble attem])ts which human art can make towards producing grand objects (feeble, I mean, in comparison with the powers of nature), greatness of dimensions always constitutes a principal part. No pile of buildings can convey any idea of sublimity, unless it be ample and lofty. There is, too, in archi- tecture, what is called greatness of manner, which seems chiefly to arise from presenting the object to us in one full point of view, so that it shall make its impression whole, entire, and undivided upon the mind. A Gothic cathedral raises ideas of grandeur in our minds by its size, its height, its awful ob.scu- rity, its strength, its antiquity, and its durability. There still remains to be mentioned one class of sublime objects, which may be called the moral or sentimental sublime, ari.sing from certain exertions of the human mind, from certain affections and actions of our fellow-creatures. These will be found to be all, or chiefly of that class, which comes under the name of magnanimity or heroism ; and they produce an effect extremely similar to what is produced by the view of grand objects in nature ; filling the mind with admiration, and elevating it .above itself. Wherever, in some critical and high situ.ation, we behold a man uncommonly intrepid, and resting upon himself, supe- rior to p.assion and to fear ; animated by some greiit principle to the contempt of popul.ar opinion, of selfish interest, of dangers, or of death, there we are struck with rotracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. 1 therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise. [Reflections on Landing at Iona.'] [From the ‘ Journey to the Western Isles.*] We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowlea- triotism would not gain force on the plains of Mara- thon, or who.se piety w'ould not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona. [Parallel hetween Pope and Drydcn.] [From the ‘ Lives of the Poets.*] Pope professed to have learned his poetry from Drydcn, whom, whenever an opportunity was pre- sented, he praised through his whole life with un- varied liberality ; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master. Integrity of understanding and nicety of discern- ment were not allotted in a less proportion to Drydcn | than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden’s mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts j and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. lie wrote, and ! professed to write, merely for the people ; and when he pleased others he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers ; he never attempted to make that better which w-as already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He w-rote, as he tells us, with verj* little consideration ; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment hap- pened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind ; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude. I Pope was not content to satisfy : he desired tc | excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do hi. best; he did not court the candour, but dared th.‘ ! judgment of his reader, and expecting no indul- j gence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and puncti- lious observation, and retouched every part with in- defatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven. For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might ha.sten their publication, were the two satires of ‘ Thirty- eight,’ of which Dodsley told me that they were brought to him by the author that they might be fairly copied. ‘ Almost every line,’ he said, ‘ was then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent sometime afterwards to me for the press with almost every line written twice over a second time.’ His decharation, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His pa- rental attention never abai.doned them ; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the ‘Iliad,’ and freed it from some of its imper- fections ; and the ‘ Essay on Criticism ’ received many improvements after its first appearance. It will sel- dom be found that he altered without adding clear- ness, elegance, or vigour. Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden, but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope. •J22 OLIVER OOLDSMlTn. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LTTEllATUIlE. In acquired knowledge, the superiority must he allowed to Dryden, whose education was more .scho- lastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of in- formation. Ilis mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more ex- tensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by conprehensive .speculaGon, and those of Pope by m'nute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. Poetry was not the sole praise of either ; for both excelled likewise in prose ; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind. Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composi- tion. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid. Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden’s page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and divei-sified by the varied exuberance of abundant ve- getation, Pope’s is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet, that quality without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert, that energy which collects, com- bines, amplifies, and animates, the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more ; for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope ; and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dry- den’s performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity ; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his senti- ments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher. Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden’s fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope’s the heat is more regu- lar and constant. Dryden often surpasses expecta- tion, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with pei'petual delight. This parallel will, I hope, when it is well consi- dered, be found just ; and if the reader should sus- pect me, as I suspect myself, of some partial fondness for the memory of Dryden, let him not too hastily condemn me, for meditation and inquiry may, per- haps, show him the reasonableness of my determi- nation. [Picture of the Miseries of TFar.] [From the ‘ Thoughts on the Falkland Islands."] It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the successful field, hut they die upon the bed of honour, resign their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England’s glory, smile in death ! The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the ihouiands and ten thousands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy ; the rest lan- guished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putre- faction ; pale, torpid, spiritle.s.s, and helpless ; ga.sping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery ; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, with- out notice and without remembrance. By incommo- dious encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless and enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away. Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little effect. The wars of civilised nations make very slow changes in the system of empire. The public perceives scarcely any alteration but an increase of debt ; and the few individuals who are benefited are not supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle, grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains with- out envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years’ war, how are we recompensed for the death of multitudes and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contrac- tors and commissaries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations \ OLIVER GOLDSMITH. The ‘Citizen of the World,’ by Goldsmith, was pub- lished in a collected shape in 1762, and his ‘Essays about the same time. As a light critic, a sportive yet tender and insinuating moralist, and observer of men and manners, we have no hesitation in placing Goldsmith far above Johnson. His chaste humour, poetical fancy, and admirable style, render these essa 3 ’s (for the Citizen of the World consists of de- tached pieces) a mine of lively and profound thought, happy imagery, and pure English. The story of the Old Soldier, Beau Tibbs, the Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern, and the Strolling Plaj'cr, are in ths finest vein of story-telling ; while the Eastern Apo- logue, Asem, an Eastern Tale, and Alcander and ! Septimius, are tinged with the light of true poetry and imagination. Where the author spe.aks of actuM life, anti the ‘fashion of our estate,’ we see the w'orkings of experience and a finely meditative mind. ‘ The History of Animated Nature,’ not pub- lished till after his death, is imbued with the same graces of composition. Goldsmith was no naturalist, strictly speaking, but his descriptions are often vivid and beautiful, and his history is well calcu- lated to aw'aken a love of nature and a study of its various phenomena. [Scenery of the A Ips.'] [From the ‘ History of the Earth and Animated Nature."] Nothing can be finer or more exact than Mr Pope’s description of a traveller straining up the Alps. Every mountain he comes to he thinks will be the last : he finds, however, an unexpected hill rise before him ; and that being scaled, he finds the highest sum- mit almost at as great a distance as before. Upon quitting the plain, he might have left a green and fertile soil, and a climate warm and pleasing. As he ascends, the ground assumes a more russet colour, the grass becomes more mossy, and the weather more moderate. When he is still higher, the weather be- comes more cold, and the earth more barren. In this dreary passage he is often entertained with a little valley of sui-prising verdure, caused by the reflecti d heat of the sun collected into a narrow spot on the surrounding heights. But it much more frequently 223 I'lioM 17-27 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1780 liappcns that he sees oiilv frljjhtful preeijiices beneath, ami lakes of ania7,iii<; deptli, from whence rivers are firmed, and fountains derive their original. On those places next tlic hi^rhest summits vegetation is scarcelv carried on ; here and tliere a few jilants of the most hardy kind appear. The air is intolerably cold — either continually refrigerated with frosts, or dis- turhed with temjiests. All the ground hero wears an eternal covering of ice and snow, that seem con- tinually accumulating. Upon emerging from this war of the elements, he ascends into a purer and serener region, where vegetation is entirely ceased — where the |ii-ecipices, composed entirely of rocks, rise perpendicularly above him ; while he views beneath liim all the combat of the elements, clouds at his feet, and thunders darting upwards from their bosoms be- low. A thousand meteors, which are never seen on the plain, present thomseUcs. Circular rainbows, mock suns, the shadow of the mountain projected upon the body of the air, anil the traveller’s own image re- flected as in a looking-glass upon the opposite cloud. [A Sl'elch of the Universe.l [From the same.] The world may be considered as one vast mansion, where man has hecn admitted to enjoy, to admire, and to be grateful. The first desires of savage nature are merely to gratify the importunities of sensual ap- jietite, and to neglect the contemplation of things, barely satisfied with their enjoyment ; the beauties of nature, and all the wonders of creation, have but little charms for a being taken up in obviating the wants of the day, and anxious for precarious subsistence. Our philosophers, therefore, who have testified such surprise at the want of curiosity in the ignorant, .seem not to consider that they are usually employed in making provisions of a more important nature — in providing rather for the necessities than the amuse- ments of life It is not till our more pressing w'ants are sufiiciently supplied, that we can attend to the calls of curiosity ; so that in every age scientific re- finement has been the latest effort of human industry. But human curiosity, though at first slowly' excited, being at last possessed of leisure for indulging its pro- pensitv, becomes one of the greatest amusements of life, and gives higher satisfactions than what even the senses can afford. A man of this disposition turns all nature into a magnificent theatre, replete with objects of wonder and surprise, and fitted up chiefly for his happiness and entertainment ; he industriously examines all things, from the minutest insect to the most finished animal, and when his limited organs can no longer make the di.squisition, he sends out his imagination upon new inquiries. Nothing, therefore, can be more august and striking than the idea which his reason, aided by his imagina- tion, furnishes of the universe around him. Astrono- mers tell us that this earth which we inhabit forms but a very minute part in that great assemblage of bodies of which the world is composed. It is a mil- lion of times less than the sun, by which it is en- lightened. The planets, also, which, like it, are sub- ordinate to the sun’s influence, exceed the earth one thou.sand times in magnitude. These, which were at first supposed to wander in the heavens without any fixed path, and that took their name from their ap- parent deviations, have long been found to perform their circuits with great exactness and strict regula- rity. They have been discovered as forming with our earth a system of bodies circulating round the sun, all obedient to one law, and impelled by one com- mon influence. Modern philosophy has taught us to believe, that when the great Author of nature began the work of treation, he chose to operate by second causes ; and that, suspending the constant exertion of his jiower, he endued matter with a (piality by which the uni- ! versal economy of nature might be continued, without i his immediate assistance, 'fhis quality is called at- j traction, a sort of aiiproximating influence, which all | bodies, whether terrestrial or celestial, are found to | possess ; and which, in all, increases as the quantity of | matter in eacli increases. The sun, by far the great- I cst body in our system, is, of consequence, posse.ssed | of much the greatest share of this .attracting power ; i and all the planets, of which our earth is one, are, of 1 course, entirely subject to its superior influence. Were 1 this power, therefore, left uncontrolled by any other, | tile sun must quickly have attracted all the bodies of ; our celestial .system to itself ; but it is equally conn- | teracted by anotlier power of equal efficacy; namely, a progre.ssive force which each planet received when it j was impelled forward by the divine architect upon its first formation. The heavenly bodies of our system being thus acted upon by two opposing powers; | namely, by that of attraction, which draws them to- ; wards the sun, and that of impulsion, which drives '■ them straight forward into the great void of space, : they piirsUe a track between these contrary directions ; 1 and each, like a stone whirled about in a sling, obey- j ing two opjiosite forces, circulates round its great | centre of heat and motion. | In this manner, therefore, is the harmony of our | planetary system [ire.sen'ed. The sun, in the midst, j gives heat and light and circular motion to the pl.anets which surround it : Mercury, Venus, the ' Earth, Mars, .lupiter, and Saturn, pcrf^orni their con- stant circuits at different distances, each taking up a time to complete its revolutions, proportioned to the greliilosoplicr, ‘ to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted.’ A mind long habituated to a cer- tain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits them from habit,. and parts from them with reluctance. From hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession ; they love the world and all that it produces ; they love life and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long. Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjustly detained in prison during the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion there appeared a majestic old man, who, falling at the emperor’s feet, addressed him as follows : ‘ Great father of China, beliold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accusers. I have now lived in solitude and darkness for more than fifty years, and am grown familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled with the splendour of that sun to which you have restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find out some friend that would assist, or relieve, or remember me ; but my friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me, then, 0 Chin- vang, to wear out the wretched remains of life in my former prison ; the walls of my dungeon are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace : I have not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest of my days where my youth was passed — in that prison from whence you were pleased to release me.’ The old man’s pas.sion for confinement is similar to that we all have for life. We are habituated to the prison, we look round with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houses we h.ave built, or the pos- terity we have begotten, all serve to bind us closer to earth, and imbitter our parting. Life sues the young like a new acquaintance ; the companion, as )’et un- exhausted, is at once instructive and amusing ; its company pleases, yet for all this it is but little re- garded. To us, who are declined in years, life appears like an old friend ; its jests have been anticipated in former conversation ; it has no new story to make us ■mile, no new improvement with which to surpri.se, yet still we love it ; destitute of every enjoyment, still we love it ; husband the wasting treasure with in- creasing frugality, and feel all the poignancy of an- guish in the fatal separation. Sir Philip Mordaunt was young, beautiful, sincere, brave, an Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the love of the king his master, which was equivalent to riches. Life opened all her treasures before him, and promised a long succession of future happiness, lie came, tasted of the entertainment, but was disgusted even at the beginning. He professed an aversion to living, was tired of walking round the same circle ; had tried every enjoyment, and found them all grow weaker at every repetition. ‘ If life be in youth so displeasing,’ cried he to himself, ‘ what will it appear when age comes on? if it be at pre.sent indifferent, sure it will then be execrable’ This thought imbittered every reflection ; tlL at last, with all the serenity of perverted reason, he ended the debate with a pistol ! Had this self-deluded man been apprised that existence grows more desirable to us the longer we exist, he would have then faced old age without shrinking; lie would have boldly dared to live, and served that society by his future assiduity which he basely injured by his desertion. [A City Niylit- Piece.'] [From the * Citizen of the tVorld.’J The clock has just struck two; the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket ; the watchman forgets the hour in slumber ; the laborious and the happy are at rest ; and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, anil despair. The drunkard once more fills the de- stroying bowl ; the robber walks his midnight round ; and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred person. Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me — where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. What a gloom hangs all around ! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow gleam ; no sound is heard but of the chiming clock or the distant watch-dog ; all the bustle of human pride is forgotten. An bout like this may well display the emptiness of human vanity. There will come a time when this temporary soli- tude will be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room. What cities, great as this, have once triumphed in existence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded, and, W'ith short-sighted presump- tion, promised themselves immortality ! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some ; the sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others ; and, as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession. Here, he cries, stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds ; there their senate house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile. Temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of state were conferred on amusing, and not on useful members of society. Their riches and ojmlence invited the invaders, who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished destruction. How few appear in those streets, which but some few hours ago were crowded ! And those who appear now no longer wear their daily nuisk, nor attempt to hide their lewdness or their misery. But who are those who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent ? These are strangers, wanderers, and or- phans, whose circumstances are too humble to expect re- dress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness excites rather horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags, and others emaciated with disease. The world has di.sclaimed them : society turns its back upon their di.stress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty. Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the suf- ferings of wretches I cannot relieve ? Poor houseless creatures ! the world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief. The slightest misfortunes of the great, the most imaginary uneasiness of the rich, are aggravat<;d with all the power of eloquence, and held up to engage our attention and .sympathetic sorrow. The poor weep unheeded, persecuted by every subordinate species of tyranny ; and every law which gives others security becomes an enemy to them. 226 ENGLISH LITERATURE. F.DMUND nURKE. , I I MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. Why was this licart of mine formed witli so much sensibility ? or why was not niy fortune adapted to its , impulses ! Tenderness without the capacity of re- lieving, only makes the man more wretched than the I '■Ujcct which sues for assistance. EDMUND BURKE. As an orator, politician, and author, the name of 1 Edmund IIurke stood high with his contemporaries, and time has abated little of its lustre. He is still j by far the most eloquent and imaginative of alt our writers on public affairs, and the most philosopliical of English statesmen. Burke was born in Dublin, the second son of an attorney, in 1730. After his education at Trinity college, he removed to London, where he entered himself as a student of the Middle Temple, and laboured in periodical works for the booksellers. His first conspicuous work was a parody on the style and manner of Bolingbroke, a Vindication of Natural Society, in which the para- do.xical reasoning of the noble sceptic is pushed to a ridiculous extreme, and its absurdity very happily I exposed. In 1757 he published A P/nVosop/n'eaZ 7n- I quiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and • Beautiful, which soon attracted considerable atten- tion, and jwived tlie way for the author’s introduc- tion to tlie society of Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and the other eminent men of the day. Burke, however, was still struggling with difficulties, and Edmund Burke. compiling for booksellers. He suggested to Dodsley the plan of an Annual Register, which that spirited publisher adopted, Burke furnishing the whole of . the original matter. He continued for several years j to write the historical portion of tliis valuable com- I pilation. In 1761 Burke accompanied the Earl of I Halifax to Ireland as one of his secretaries ; and four i years afterwards, he was fairly launched into public life as a Whig politician, by becoming private secre- tary to the Marquis of Rockingham, then appointed first lord of the treasury. A seat in parliament next followed, and Burke became a leading speaker in i the House of Commons. His first seat was for j Wendover, and he was afterwards member for I Bristol and Malton. His speeches on American affairs were among his most vigorous and felicitous appearances : his most important public duty was the part he took in the prosecution of Warren Hastings, and his opposition to the regency bid ' of Mr Pitt. Stormier times, however, were at hand : the French Revolution was then ‘ blacken- ing the horizon’ (to use one of his own metaphors), and he early predicted the course it would take. He strenuously warned his countrymen against the dangerous influence of French principles, and pub- lished his memorable treatise. Reflections on the French Revolution. A rupture now took place be- tween him and his Whig friends, Mr Fo.x in parti- cular ; but with characteristic ardour Burke went on denouncing the doctrines of the revolution, and published his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, his Letters to a Noble Lord, and his Letters on the Pro- posals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France. The splendour of these compositions, the various knowledge which they display, the rich imagery with which they abound, and the spirit of philoso- phical reflection which pervades them all, stamp them among the first literary productions of their time. Judged as political treatises, they may in some instances be considered as exaggerated in their tone and manner : the imagination of the orator transported him beyond the bounds of sober pru- dence and correct taste ; but in all his wanderings there is genius, wisdom, and eloquence. Such a flood of rich illustration had never before been poured on questions of state policy and government. At the same time Burke was eminently practical in his views. His greatest efforts w ill be found directed to the redress of some existing wrong, or the pre.ser- vation of some existing good — to hatred of actual oppression, to the removal of useless restrictions, and to the calm and sober improvement of the law’s and government which he venerated, without ‘ coin- ing to himself MJiig principles from a French die, unknown to the impress of our fathers in the con- stitution.’ Where inconsistencies are found in his writings between his early and later opinions, they j will be seen to consist chiefly in matters of detail or in expression. Tire leading principles of his public life wore always the same. He wished, as he says, to preserve consistency, but only by varying Ids means to secure the unity of his end; ‘when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails maj’ be en- dangered by overloading it upon one side, he is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.’ When the revolution broke out, his sagacity enabled him to foresee the dreadfid consequences which it would entail upon France and the world, and his enthusi- astic temperament led him to state his impressions in language sometimes overcharged and almost bom- bastic, sometimes full of prophetic fire, and always w'ith an energy and exuberance of fancy in which, among philosophical politicians, he was unrivalled. In the clash of party strife, so eminent a person could not escape animadversion or censure ; his own ardour excited others, and the vehemence of his manner natu- j rally provoked and aggravated discussion. 'J’hus he I stood aloof from most of his old associates, when, like a venerable tower, he was sinking into ruin and de- cay. Fosterity, however, has done ample justice to his genius and character, and has confirmed the opinion of one of his contemporaries, that if (as he did not attempt to conceal) Cicero was the model on which he laboured to form his own character in eloquence, in policy, in ethics, and philosophy, he infinitely surpassed the original. Burke retired from parliament in 1794. The friendship of the Marquis of Rockingham had enabled him to purchase an estate near Beaconsficld, in Buckinghamshire, and 227 FHOM 1727 CYCr.OP^IDIA OF I there tlie orator spent exclusively his few remaining years. In lie was rewarded with a handsome IKMision from the civil list. It was in oontemplation to elevate him to the peerage, hut the death of his only .son (who was his colleague in the representa- tion of Malton) rendered him indifferent, if not averse, to such a distinction. The force and energy of his mind, and the creative richness of his imagi- nation, continued with him to the last. Ills Letter tu (I JVohle Lord on his Pension (ITyti), his Letters on a Reyicide. Pence {^7^6 and 1797), and his Ohserva- tions on the Conduct of the Minority (1797), hear no trace of decaying vigour, though written after the age of sixty-seven. The keen interest with which he regarded passing events, particularly the great political drama then in action in France, is still manifest in these works, with general oh.servations and reflections that strike from their profundity and their universal application. ‘ He possessed,’ says Coleridge, ‘and had sedulously sharpened that eye which sees all things, actions, and events, in relation to the laws which determine their existence and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habi- tually to principles — he was a scientifle statesman.’ This reference to principles in the writings and speeches of Burke (and his speeches were all care- fully prepared fur the press), renders them still po[)ular and valuable, when the circumstances and events to which they relate have long passed away, and been succeeded by others not less important ; while their grander passages, their imagery and pro- fusion of illustration, make them interesting to the orator and literary student. His imagination, it is admitted, was not always guided by correct taste ; some of his images are low, and even border on dis- gust.* His language and his conceptions are often hyperbolical ; or it may be said, his mind, like the soil of the East, which he loved to paint, threw up a rank and luxuriant vegetation, in which unsightly weeds were mingled with the choicest flowers and the most precious fruit. He was at once a poet, an * One of the happiest of his homely similes is eontained in his reply to Pitt, on the subjeet of the commercial treaty with France in 1797* Pitt, he contended, had contemplated the subject with a narrowness peculiar to limited minds — ‘ as an affair of two little countin?:-hoiises, and not of two great nations. He seems to consider it as a contention between the sign of the Jteur-el^-lis and the sign of the old red lion, for which should obtain the best custom.’ In replying to the argument, that the Americans were our children, and shouhl not have revolted against their parent, he said, ‘ They are our children, it is true, but when children ask for bread, we are not to give them a stone. "When those children of ours wi.sh to assimilate with their parent, and to respect the beauteous countenance of British liberty, are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our constitution ? Are we to give them our weakness for their strength, our oppro- brium for their glory, and the slough of slavery', which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom ?’ His account of the ill-assorted administration of Lord Chatham is no less ludicrous than correct. ‘ He made an administration so chequered and speckled ; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented, and whimsically dove-tailed ; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such a piece of diversified mosaic ; such a tesselated pavement without cement, here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers ; king’s friends and republicans ; Whigs and Tories ; treacherous friends and open enemies ; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had a.ssorted at the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, “ Sir, your name ?" “ Sir, you have the advantage of me “ Mr Such-a-one, I beg a thousand par- dons.” I venture to say it did so happen, that persons had a single office divided between them, who h.ad never spoke to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and pioints, in the same Ixuckle bed.’ lO 1780. orator, a jtliilosopber, ami practical statesman ; and liis knowledge, bis industry, and iterseverance, were as remarkable as bis gonin.s. Tbe protracted and brilliant career of this great man was terminated on tbe 9tb of .July 1797, and be was interred in tbe ebureb at Beaconsfield.* A comijlete edition of Burke’s works baa been pnb- lislieii in sixteen volutnes. His political, and not bis pbilosopbical writings. are noweb iefly read. His ‘ l)is- (jnisition on tbe Sublime and Beautiful’ is incorrect in tbeory and in many of its illustrations, tb-.-igb containing some just remarks and elegant criticism. His inigbty understanding, as Sir .James iUaekintosb observed, w as best einjiloyed in ‘ tbe middle region. Beaconsfield. between tbe details of business and the gener.alitics of speculation.’ In this department, his knowleolitical writings of Jlr Burke, an author wliose splendid and unequal powers have giv'en a vogue and fashion to certain tenets which, from any other pen, would have aj.peared abject and contemptible. In the field of reason the en- counter w'ould not be difficult, but who can with- stand the fascination and magic of his eloquence? The excursions of his genius are immense. His im- perial fancy has laid all nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation * A plain mural tablet has been erected in the church to the memory of Burke. The orator’s re.sidcnce was about a mile from the town of Beacc nsfield. The hoiLse wa.s afterwards partly destroyed by fire, ^d is now, we believe, wholly re- moved. 228 MISCKI.I.ANKOUS WRITKItS. ENGLISH LITEUATURE. KDMUNI) nUBKK. ■ind ('very walk of art. Ills culogium on the queen of France is a master-piece of pathetic composition ; so select are its images, so fraught with tenderness, and so rich with colours “ dipt in heaven,” that he vho can read it without rapture may have merit as a reasoner, hut must resign all pretensions to taste and sensibility. His imagination is, in truth, only too prolific : a world of itself, where he dwells in the midst of chimcricid alarms — is the dupe of his own enchantments, and starts, like Prospero, at the spectres of his own creation, His intellectual views in general, however, are wide and variegated, rather than distinct ; and the light he has let in on the Rritish constitution, in particular, resembles the coloured etrulgence of a painted medium, a kind of mimic twilight, solemn and sootliing to the senses, but better fitted for ornament than use.’* Sir James Mackintosh considered that Burke’s best style was before the Indian business and the French Revolution had inflamed him. It was more chaste and simple ; but his writings and speeches at this period can hardly be said to equal his later productions in vigour, fancy, or originality. The I excitement of the times seemed to give a new development to his mental energies. The early speeches have most constitutional and practical value — the late ones most genius. The former are a solid and durable structure, and the latter its ‘ Corinthian columns.’ I \_From the Speech on Conciliation mth America, 1775.] ! ^Ir Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over the great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and dark- ness, rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive who.«e memory might touch the two extremities. For in- stance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam, lerjere, et qua sit poterit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had opened to him in vision, that, when in the fourth generation, the third prince of the house of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of tha.t nation, which (by the happy i.ssue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, I lord-chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a I higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one. If amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honour and prosperity that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he was gazing' with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of ' England, the Genius should point out to him a little I speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national inte- j rest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed I body, and should tell him—* Young man, there is j America — which at this day serves for little more i than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before you taste of death, I show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which I now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever Eng- I land has been growing to by a progressive increase of ' improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by ' * UalTs Works, 2d edition, vol. iv. p. 89. succe.ssion of civilising conquests and civilising settle- ments in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life!’ If this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it ! Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect and cloud the setting of his day I * * You cannot station garrisons in every part of these deserts. If you drive the people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of the peojde in the back settlements are already little attached to particular situations. Already they have topped the Appalachian mountains. From thence they behold before them an immense pla’n, one vast, rich, level meadow ; a square of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander without a possibility of restraint ; they would change their manners with the habits of their life ; would soon forget a government by which they were disowned ; would become hordes of English Tartars, and, pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters of your governors and your counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and all the slaves that adhere to them. Such would, and in no long time must be, the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil, the command and blessing of Providence — * increase and multiply.’ Such would be the happy result of an endeavour to keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God, by an express charter, has given to the children of men. Far dif- ferent, and surely much wiser, has been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandman to look to authority for his title. We have taught him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was ]>eopled, into districts, that the ruling power should never be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we could, and we have carefully attended every settlement with government. Adhering, sir, as I do to this policy, as well as for the reasons I have just given, 1 think this new project of hedging in population to be neither prudent nor practicable. To impoverish the colonies in general, and in par- ticular to arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task, I freely con- fess it. We have shown a disposition to a system of this kind ; a disposition even to continue the restraint after the offence ; looking on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things is often more than sufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and immediate power of the colonies to resist our violence as very formidable. In this, however, I may be mistaken. But when I consider that we have colonies for no purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems to my poor understand- ing a little preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old, and, as I thought, exploded pro- blem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects into submission. But remember, when you have com- pleted your system of impoverishment, that nature still proceeds in her ordinary course ; and that dis- content will increase with misery ; and that there are critical moments in the fortunes of all states, when they who are too weak to contribute to your prospe- rity, may be strong enough to complete your ruin Spoliatis arma supei-mnt. 22.9 FROM 1727 CYCIi)IV>:i)IyV OP’ TO 1780. Tlio tiMiipor and character whicli prevail in onr colonies are, 1 am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, 1 fear, falsify the i)cdi"ree of this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not spruno from a nation in whose veins the blood of free- dom circulates. The language in which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the impo- sition ; your speech would betray you. An Knglish- mau is the unfittost per.son on earth to argue another Knglishman into slavery. * * My hold of the colonics is in the close affection wdiich grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties wdiich, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keeii the idea of their civil rights associated wdth your government ; they will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. Hut let it be once understood that your government may be one thing and their privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual relation, the cement is gone — the cohesion is loosened — and everything hastens to decay and dis- solution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanc- tuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the cho.sen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faees towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have ; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia ; but until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. This is the true act of navi- gation, which binds you to the commerce of the colo- nies, and through them secures to you the commerce of the world. Deny them this participation of free- dom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the em- pire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your coquets aijd your clear- ances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and youi instructions, and your su.spending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the sjurit of the English communion that gives all their life ami efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the Engli.sh constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue wdiich does everything for us here in England f Do you imagine, then, that it is the land-tax act wdiich raises your revenue I that it is the annual vote in the committee of supply which gives you your army? or that it is the mutiny bill wdiich inspires it with bravery and discipline? Xo! Surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sen.se of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institu- tion, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience wdthout wdiich your army would be a ba.se rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, w ill sound wdld and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians wdio have no place among us ; a sort of people wdio think that nothing exists but what is gross and material ; Mid who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine, lliit to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master princi|)les which, in the opinion of such men as I have j mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest w isdom, and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America, wdth I the old warning of the church, tsurmm cot-da/ W' ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. liy adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wdlderness into a glo- rious eniiure ; and have made the most extensive, and the only honourable conquests ; not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happi- ness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue, as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is ; English privi- leges alone wdll make it all it can be. In full confi- dence of this unalterable truth, I now (quod felix f au.it umquets it) lay the first stone of the temple of peace.* [Mr Burle’s Account of his 5on.] Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I should have been, according to my mediocrity, and the mediocrity of the age 1 live in, a sort of founder of a family ; I should have left a son, who, in all the points in wdiich personal merit can be viewed, in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honour, in generosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal accom- plishment, would not have shown himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his line. 11 is Grace very soon would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that pro- vision wdiich belonged more to mine than to me. He would soon have supplied every deficiency, and sym- metrised every disproportion. It would not have been for that successor to resort to aiiy stagnant wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in any ancestry. He had in him.self a salient living spring of generous and manly action. Every day he lived, he would have re- purchased the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he had received. He was made a public creature, and had no enjoyment what- ever but in the performance of some duty. At this exigent moment the loss of a finished man is not easily supplied. But a Disposer, wdiose power we are little able -to resist, and wdiose wdsdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another manner, and (whatever my querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. The storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of tho.se old oaks wdiich the late hurricane .has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honours ; I am torn up b^' the roots, and lie prostrate j on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, I most j unfeignedly recognise the divine justice, and in some I degree submit to it. But whilst 1 humble myself i before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel ! the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The j patience of .lob is proverbial. After some of the con- I vuLsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted j * At the conclusion of this speccli, Jlr lliirke moved that the right of parliamentary representation should be extended to the American colonies, but his motion wag negatived by 270 to 7 d. Indeed his most brilliant orations made little im- pression on tile House of Coinmong, the ministerial party Ixr ing strong in numbers. 230 EDMUND BUllKK. MISCELLANEOUS wiuTERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. him.sclf, and repented in dust and ashes. Hut even so, 1 do not find him blamed for reprehending, and vvitli a considerable degree of verbal asi>erity, those ill-natured neighbours of his who visited his dung- hill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my lord, I greatly de- ceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a lu.xury ; it is a privilege; it is an indul- gence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. It is an instinct ; and under the direction of Veason, instinct is always in the right. I live in an inverted order. ■ They who ought to have succeeded me are gone before me ; they who should have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors. I owe to the dearest relation (which ever must subsist in memory) that act of piety, which he would have performed to me ; I owe it to him to show, that he was not descended, as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. C The British Monarchy.'] The learned professors of the rights of man regard prescription, not as a title to bar all claim, set up against old possession, but they look on prescription it.self as a bar against the possessor and proprietor. They hold an immemorial possession to be no more than a long continued, and therefore an aggravated injustice. Such are their ideas, such their religion, and such their law. But as to our country and our race, as long as the well-compacted structure of our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple, shall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion — as long as 'the British monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the state, shall, like the proud keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers — as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land, so long the mounds and dikes of the low fat Bedford Level will have no- thing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France. As long as our sovereign lord the king, and his faithful subjects, the lords and commons of this -ealm — the triple cord which no man can break ; the .solemn, sworn, constitutional frankpledge of this nation ; the firm guarantee of each other’s being and each other’s rights ; the joint and several securities, each 'll its place and order for every kind and every quality of property and of dignity — as long as these endure, so long the Duke of Bedford is safe ; and we are all safe together — the high from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity ; the low from the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. [Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.] [From * Reflections on the Revolution in Franee.’] It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; ind surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in — glittering like the morning star full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh ! what a revolution ! and what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall ! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to chat enthusiastic, distant, re- spectful love, that she .'-hould ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bo.som ; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gal- lant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cava- liers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threat- ened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded ; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submis- sion, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude- itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired cour- age whihst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled what- ever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness. [2'/iC Order of Nobility.] [From the same.] To be honoured and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, grow- ing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man. Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not abso- lutely a crime. The strong struggle in every indivi- dual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the securities against injustice and despotism implanted in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure property, and to preserve communities in a settled state. What is there to shock in this ! Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Co- rinthian capital of polished society. Omnes boni nobi- litati semper favemus, was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle in his own heart who wishes to level all the artificial institutions which have been adopted for giving a body to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is a sour, malignant, and envious di.sposition, with- out taste for the reality, or for any image or represen- tation of virtue, that secs with joy the unmerited fall of what had long flourished in splendour and in hen- our. I do not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land. [Dependence of English on American Freedom.] [From ‘ Address to the King.’ 1777.] To leave any real freedom to parliament, freedom must be left to the colonies. A military government is the only substitute for civil liberty. That the establishment of such a power in America will utterly ruin our finances (though its certain effect', is the smallest part of our concern. It will become an apt, powerful, and certain engine for the destruction of our freedom here. Great bodies of armed men, trained to a contempt of popular assemblies representative of an English people, kept up for the purpose of exacting imiiositions without their consent, and maintained by that exaction ; instruments in subverting, without any process of law, great ancient establishments and lespected forms of governments, set free from, and therefore above the ordinary English tribunals of the country where they serve ; these men cannot so trans- form themselves, merely by crossing the sea, as to behold with love and reverence, and submit with pro- found obedience to the very same things in Great Britain which in America they had been taught to 231 H.OM 17-27 CYCLOPiKniA OF to 17!)u dcH|)isc, iiikI Imd been accustomed to awe and humble All your majesty’s troops, in the rotation of service, will puss through this discipline, and contract these habits. If we coubi flatter < urselves that this would not happen, we must be the weakest of men : we must be the worst, if we were indifferent whether it hap- p'uied or not. What, gracious sovereign, is the empire of America to us, or the empire of the world, if we lose our own liberties? We dej>rccate this last of evils. We deprecate the effect of the doctrines which must support and countenance the government over conquered Knglishmen. As it will be impossible long to resist the powerful and equitable arguments in favour of the freedom of these iinhaiipy people, that are to be drawn from the principle of our own liberty, attenqits will be made, attempts have been made, to ridicule and to argue away this principle, and to inculcate into the minds of your people other maxims of government and other grounds of obedience than those which have prevailed at and since the glorious Revolution. By degrees these doctrines, by being convenient, may grow pre- valent. The consequence is not certain; but a gene- ral change of principles rarely happens among a people without leading to a change of government. Sir, your throne cannot stand secure upon the prin- ciples of unconditional submission and passive obe- dience; on powers exercised without the concurrence of the people to be governed ; on acts made in defiance of their prejudices and habits; on acquiescence pro- cured by foreign mercenary troojis, and secured by standing armies. These may possibly be the founda- tion of other thrones ; they must be the subversion of your.s. It was not to passive princijiles in our ances- tors that we owe the honour of ajipearing before a sovereign who cannot feel that he is a prince, without knowing that we ought to be free. The Revolution is a departure from the ancient course of the descent of this monarchy. The people at that time re-entered into their original rights ; and it was not becau.se a positive law authorised what was then done, but be- cause the freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws, reijuired a proceeding para- mount and superior to them. At that ever-memorable and instructive period, the letter of the law was super- seded in favour of the substance of liberty. To the free choice, therefore, of the people, without either king or parliament, we owe that happy establishment out of which both king and parliament were regene- rated. From that great principle of liberty have originated the statutes confirming and ratifying the establishment from which your majesty derives your right to rule over us. Those statutes have not given us our liberties ; our liberties have produced them. Every hour of your majesty’s reign, your title stands upon the very same foundation on which it was at first laid, and we do not know a better on which it can po.ssibly be laid. Convinced, sir, that you cannot have diflferent rights, and a different security in different parts of your do- minions, we wish to lay an even platform for yonr throne, and to give it an unmovable stability, by lay- ing it on the general freedom of your people, and by securing to your majesty that confidence and affection in all parts of your dominions, which makes your be.st security and dearest title in this the chief seat of your empire. [Destruction of the Carnatic.] [From speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts, 1785.^ \VTien at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign tio convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human inter- v.)Urse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals .a I memorable example to mankind, lie rc.solved, in the gloomy rece.sses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Caniatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual de.s(datio]i as a barrier between him and those against whom the fiuth which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection. He became at length so confi- dent of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their ,jnutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction ; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on the menacing meteor which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of wo, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart con- ceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable iidiabitants flying from the fiaming villages, in part were slaughtered : others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or .sacredness of function ; fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into cajjtivity, in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities; but, escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. The alms of the settlement, in this dreadful exi- gency, were certainly liberal ; and all was done by charity that private charity could do : but it was a people in beggary ; it was a nation that stretched out its hands for food. For months together these crea- tures of sufl’erance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, re- signed, without .sedition or disturbance, almost with- out complaint, peri.shed by a hundred a day in the streets of Madras ; every day seventy at le.ast laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of India. 1 was going to awake your justice towards this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens, by bringing before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger. Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is : but I find myself unable to manage it with deccruin ; these details are of a species of horror so nau.seous and disgusting ; they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers ; they are so humi- liating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, 1 find it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to your geiieral con- ceptions. For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore ; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son, ab.solve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march did tiiey not sec one man, not one woman, not one child, not one fourfooted bo.ist of any description whatever. One dead uniform silence 232 Misc!>LLAnEous wiiiTEUS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. i.dmund bcrkb. n'igncd over the whole region. * * The Carnatic is a country not mucli inferior in extent to Engliiiul. Figure to yourself, Mr Speaker, the land in whose re- presentative chair you sit ; figure to yourself the form and fiushion of your sweet and cheerful country from Thames to Trent, north and south, and from the Irish to the German sea east and west, emptied and em- bowelled (may God avert the omen of our crimes !) by so accomjilished a desolation 1 \Thc Difference Between Mr Burlce and the Duke of Bedford.] [Tlie Puke of Bedford .ind th^ E.arl of Lauderdale attacked Mr Burke and his pension in their place in the House of Lords, aud Burke replied in his ‘ Letters to a Noble Lord,' one of the most sarcastic and most able of all his productions.] I was not, like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled into a legislator — Nitor in adver- sum is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favour and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts by imposing on the understandings of the people. At every step of my progress in life (for in every step was I traversed and opposed), and at every turnpike I met I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove ray sole title to the honour of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws, and the whole system of its intere.sts both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration even for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lau- derdale, to the last gasp will I stand. * * I know not how it has happened, but it really seems that, whilst his Grace was meditating his well-con- sidered censure upon me, he fell into a sort of sleep. Homer nods, and the Duke of Bedford may dream ; and as dreams (even his golden dreams) are apt to be ill-pieced and incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach to me, but took the sub- ject-matter from the crown-grants to his own family. This is ‘the stuff of which his dreams are made.’ In that way of putting things together, his Grace is per- fectly in the right. The grants to the house of Russel were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk ; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst ‘ he lies floating many a rood,’ he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over with the spray — everything of him and about him is from the throne. Is it for him to question the dispensation of the royal favour? I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favourable construction of which I have obtained what his Grace so much disapproves. In private life, I have not at all the honour of acquaint- ance with the noble duke. But I ought to presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly deserves the esteem and love of all who live with him. But as to public service, why, truly, it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself in rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between his services and my attempts to be useful to my country. It would not be gross adula- tion, but uncivil irony, to say that he has any public merit of his own, to keep aliie the idea of the services by which his va.st landed pensions were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are original and personal ; his are derivative. It is his ancestor, the original ]ien- sioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his Grace ro very delicate and ex- ceptions about the merit of all other grantees of the crown. Had he permitted me to remain in quiet, I .should have said, ’tis his estate ; that’s enough. It is his by law; what have I to do with it or its his- tory? He would naturally have said on his side, ’tis this man’s fortune. He is as good now as my an- cestor was two hundred and fifty years ago. I am a 3'oung man with very old pensions ; he is an old man with very young pensions — that’s all. ^Vhy will his Grace, by attacking me, force me re- luctantly to compare ray little merit with that which obtained from the crown those prodigies of profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity of humble and laborious individuals ? * * S’.nce the new grantees have war made on them by the old, and that the word of the sovereign is not to be taken, let us turn our eyes to history, in which great men have always a ])leasure in contemplating the heroic origin of their house. ■rhe first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the grants, W'as a Mr Russel, a person of an ancient gen- tleman’s family, raised by being a minion of Henry VIII. As there generally is some resemblance of cha- racter to create these relations, the favourite was in all likelihood much such another as his master. The first of these immoderate grants was not taken from the ancient demesne of the crown, but from the recent confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land. The lion having sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass to the jackal in waiting. Having tasted once the food of confiscation, the favourites became fierce and ravenous. This worthy favourite’s first grant was from the lay nobility. The second, infinitely im- proving on the enormity of the first, was from the plunder of the church. In truth, his Grace is some- what excusable for his dislike to a grant like mine, not only in its quantity, but in its kind so different from his own. Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign ; his from Henry VIII. Mine had not its fund in the murder of any innocent person of illustrious rank, or in the pUlage of any body of unoffending men ; his grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments iniquitously legal, and from posse.ssions voluntarily surrendered / the lawful proprietors with the gibbet at their door. The merit of the grantee whom he derives from, was that of being a prompt and greedy instrument of a levelling tyrant, who oppressed all descriptions of his people, but who fell with particular fury on every- thing that W'as great and noble. Mine ha.s been in endeavouring to screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in defending the high and eminent, who in the bad times of confiscating prince.s, confiscating chief governors, or confiscating dema- gogues, are the most exposed to jealousy, avarice, and envy. The merit of the original grantee of his Grace’s pensions was in giving his hand to the W'ork, and partaking the spoil with a prince, who plundered a part of the national church of his time and country. Mine was in defending the whole of the national church cf my own time and my own country, and the whole of the national churches of all countries, from the principles and the examples which leail to eccle- siastical pillage, thence to a contempt of all prc.scrip- tive titles, thence to the pillage of all property, aud thence to universal desolation. The merit of the origin of his Grace’s fortune was in being a favourite and chief adviser to a prince who 233 FBOH 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF to 1780. »C‘ft no liberty to lii» native country. My endeavour was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in which I was born, and for all descriptions and denomi- nations in it. Mine was to support, with unrelaxing vigilance, every right, every privilege, every franchise, •n thij my adopted, my dearer and more comprehen- sive country ; and not only to preserve those rights in this chief seat of empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every climate, language, and religion in the vast domain that still is under the protection, and the larger that was once under the protection, of the British crown. llis founder’s merits were by arts in which he served his master ami made his fortune, to bring poverty. Wretchedness, and depopulation on his country. Mine were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of his king- dom ; in which his majesty shows an eminent exam- ple, who even in his amusements is a patriot, and in hours of leisure an improver of his native soil. \^Characler of Howard the Pliilanthropiit.1 I cannot name this gentleman without remarking, that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of all mankind. He has visited all Europe — not to survey the sumi>tuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples ; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of mo- dern art ; nor to collect medals, or collate manu- scripts, but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain ; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and compare and collate the dis- tresses of all men in all countries, llis plan is ori- ginal : it is as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voy.tge of di.scovery ; a circumnavigation of charity. Already, the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country : 1 hope he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its effects fully realised in his own. JUNIUS. On the 21st of January 1769 appeared the first of a series of political letters, bearing the signature of Junius, whieli have since taken their place among the standard works of the English language. Great excitement prevailed in the nation at the time. The contest with the American colonies, the imposition of new taxes, the difficulty of forming a steady and permanent administration, and the great ability and eloquence of the opposition, had tended to spread a feeling of dissatisfaction throughout the country. The public.ation of the North Briton, a periodical edited by’ John Wilke.s, and conducted w’ith reckless violence and asperity', added fuel to the flame, and the prime minister. Lord North, said justly’, that ‘ the press overflowed the land with its black gall, and poisoned the minds of the people.’ Without any wish to express political opinions, we may say that the government was not equal to the emergency, and indeed it would have required a cabinet of the highest powers and most energetic wisdom to have triumphed over the opposition of men like Chatham and Burke, and writers like Junius. The most popular newspaper of that day w.as the Public Advertiser, published by Woodfall, a man of educa- tion and res|)cctability. In this journal the writer known as Junius had contributed under various signatures for about two years. The letters by which he is now distinguished were more carefully elaborated, ami more highly polished, than any of his previous communications. They attacked .all the public characters of the day connected with the government, they retailed much private scandal and Iiersonal history, and did not spare even royalty it- self. The compression, point, and brilliancy of their language, their unrivalled sarcasm, boldness, and tremendous invective, at once arrested the attention of the pvMic. Every effort that could be devised by the government, or prompted by private indig- nation, was made to discover their author, but in vain. ‘ It is not in the nature of things,’ he writes to his publisher, ‘ tliat y’ou or anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known : all arts or inquiries or rewards would be inetfectual.’ In an- other place he remarks, ‘ I am the sole depository of my secret, and it shall die with me.’ The even'; has verified the prediction : he had drawn around himself so impenetrable a veil of secrecy, that all the efforts of inquirers, political and literaiy, failed in dispelling the origijial darkness. The letters were published at intervals from 1769 to 1772, when they were collected by Woodfall and revised by their author (who was equally unknown to his publisher), and printed in two volumes. 'They have since gone through innumenable editions ; but the best is that published in 1812 by Woodfall’s son, which includes the letters by the same writer under other signa- tures, with his private notes to his publisher, and fac-similes of his handwriting. The principles of Junius are moderate, compared with his personalities. Some sound constitutional maxims are conveyed in his letters, but his style has undoubtedly been his passport to fame. His illustrations and metaphors are also sometimes un- commonly felicitous. The personal malevolence of his att.acks it is impossible to justify, 'fhey evince a settled deliberate malignity, which could not pro- ceed from a man of a good or noble nature, and con- tain allusions to obscure individuals in the public offices, which seem to have arisen less from p.atriotisiu than from individual hatred and envy. When the controversy as to the authorship of these memorable philippics had almost died away, a book appeared in 1816, bearing the title of ‘Junius Identified with a Celebrated Living Character.’ 'I’he living character w.as tlje late Sir Philip Francis, and certainly a mass of strong circumstantial evidence has been jiresented in his favour. ‘ 'I'he external evidence,’ says Mr M.acaulay,* ‘ is, we think, such .as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwrit- ing of FTancis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connexions of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved : — First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the secretary of state’s office; secondly, th.at he was intiimately acquainted with the business of the war office ; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham ; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr Chamier to the place of deputy-secretary at war ; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the secretary of state’s office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war office. He repeatedly men- tioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham ; and some of these speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the war office from resentment at the appointment of 5Ir Chamier. It was by Lord Hol- ♦ Edinburgh Review for 1841. 234 MISCKI.l.AM'.Ol'S WRITKKS. ENCiLlSIl TjlTKH ATUHK. junius. laiul that 1 e was first introduced into tlie public service. Now, here are live marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circ\im- stantial eviilence.’ The same acute writer considers the internal evidence to be equally clear as to the claims of Francis. Already, how’ever, the impression made on the public mind by the evidence for this gentleman seems to have passed away, and atten- tion has recently been directed to another indi- vid'ial, who was only one ■ of ten or more persons 8usi)ected at the time of the publication. This is Lord George Sackville, latterly Viscount Sackville, an able but unpopular soldier, cashiered from the army in consequence of neglect of duty at tlie battle of Minden, but who afterwards regained the favour of the government, and acted as secretary at war throughout the whole period of the American con- test. A work by Mr Coventry in 1825, and a volume by Mr Jaques in 1842, have been devoted to an endeavour tc fix the authorship of Junius upon Lord George, and it is surprising how many and how (lowerful are the arguments which have been adduced by these writers. It seems by no means unlikely that a haughty and disappointed man, who conceived himself to have suffered unjustly, should pour forth his bitter feelings in this form ; but, again, if Lord George Sackville was really Junius, how strange to consider that the vituperator of the king. Lord Mansfield, and others, should in a few short years have been acting along with them in the go- vernment! Here, certainly, there is room to pause, and either to suspend judgment altogether, or to lean to the conclusion for Francis which has been fa- voured by such high authority. Philip Francis was the son of the Rev. Philip Francis, translator of Horace. He was, born in Dublin in 1740. and at the early age of sixteen was placed b}' Lord Holland in the secretary of state’s office. By the patronage of Pitt (Lord Chatham), he was made secretary to General Bligh in 1758, and was present at the capture of Cherburgh ; in 1760 he accompanied Lord Kinnoul as secretary on his embassy to Lisbon; and in 1763 he was appointed to a considerable situation in the war office, which he held till 1772. Next year he was made a member of the council appointed for the government of Ben- g.al, from whence he returned in 1781, after being per- petually at war with the governor-general, Warren Hastings, and being wounded by him in a duel. He after ’ards sat in parliament, supporting Whig prin- ciples, and was one of the ‘Friends of the People’ in association with Fox, Tierney, and Grey. He died in 1818. It must be acknowledged that the speeches and letters of Sir Philip evince much of the talent found in Junius, though they are less rhetorical in style ; while the history and dispositions of the man — his strong resentments, his arrogance, his interest in the public questions of the day, evinced by his numerous pamphlets, even in ad- vanced age, and the whole complexion of his party and political sentiments, are what we should expect of Woodfall’s celebrated correspondent. High and commanding qualities he undoubtedly possessed ; nor was he without genuine patriotic feelings, and a desire to labour earnestly for the public weal. His error lay in mistaking his private enmities for pub- lic virtue, and nursing his resentments till they at- tained a dark and unsocial malignity. His temper was irritable and gloomy, and often led him to form mistaken and uncharitable estimates of men and measures. Of the literary e.\ccllenccs of Juniu.s, his sarcasm, compressed energy, and brilliai.t illustration, a few specimens may be quoted. His finest metaphor (as just in sentiment as beautiful in expression) is con- tained in the conclusion to the forty-second letter : — ‘ The ministry, it seems, are labouring to draw a line of distinction between the honour of the crown and the rights of the people. This new idea has yet only been started in discourse ; for, in effect, both objects have been equally sacrificed. I neither un- derstand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it. The king’s honour is that of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the same. I am not contending for a vain punc- tilio. A clear unblemished character comprehends not only the integrity that will not offer, but the spirit that will not submit, to an injury ; and whether it belongs to an individual or to a community, it is the foundation of peace, of independence, and of safety. Private credit is wealth ; public honour is security. The feather that adorns the royal bird supports his flight. Strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth.’ Thus also he remarks— ‘In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved ; while every- thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever.’ Of the supposed enmity of George HI. to Wilkes, and the injudicious prosecution of that demagogue, Junius happily remarks — ‘ He said more than mo- derate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honour of your majesty’s personal resent- ment. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could not con- sume. Animated by the favour of the people on the one side, and heated by persecul ion on the other, his views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest sparkle in collision. There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. The passions are engaged, and create a maternal affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer.’ The letter to the king is the most dignified of the letters of Junius; those to the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford the most severe. The latter afford the most favourable specimens of the force, ejiigram, and merciless sarcasm of his best style. The Duke of Grafton was descended from Charles 11., and this afforded the satirist scope for invective : — ‘ The cha- racter of the reputed ancestors of some men has made it impossible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, even to their legitimate posterity ; and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedi- gree, in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheri- tance of reputation. There are some nereditary strokes of character by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human face. Charles I. lived and died a hypo- crite ; Charles II. was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different cha- racters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and .severe without religion, profligate with- out gaiety, you live like Charles II., without being an amiable companion ; and. for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.’ Ill the same strain of elaborate and ref ned sar- 235 FROM 1727 CYCLOP71':niA OF »o 17HU. casm Ihc Diikuof Ikalfoni is addressed; — ‘ My lord, you are so little aceustorned to reeeive any marks of respect or esteem from the puhlie, that if in the fol- lowiiifT lines a compliment or expression of api)lause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your estahlished character, and perhaps an insult to your imderstandiiifr. You have nice feeliiif^s, my lord, if we may judge from 3 'our resent- ments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illus- tration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness of jour temper, or jirohahly they are better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. You have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. You have still left ample room for speculation when pane- g 3 'ric is ex'hausted.’ After having reproached the duke for corruption and imbecility, the splendid tirade of Junius con- cludes in a strain of unmeasured yet lofty invec- tive ; — ‘ Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your phins of avarice and ambition are accom- plished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fc;ir as well as the hatred of the people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? and is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retire- ment? For shame, my lord ! Let it not be recorded of j'ou that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to tlie same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, though j'ou cannot disgrace j'our former life, you are violating the cha- racter of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have tost the vigour, of the passions. Your friends will ask, perhaps, “ Whither shall this unhappy old man retire ? Can he remain in the metropolis, where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If he returns to Woburn, scorn and mockery await him : he must create a solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the face of reproacli and derision. At Plymouth his destruction would be more than probable; at Exeter inevitable. No honest English- man will ever forget his attachinent, nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. At every town he enters, he must change his liveries and name. Whichever way he Hies, the hue and cry of the country pursues him. In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt, his virtues better understood ; or, at worst, they will not for him alone forget their hospitalitj'.” As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my lord ; beware of a third experi- ment. The indignation of a whole people plun- dered, insulted, and oppressed, as they have been, >ill not always be disappointed. It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene ; you can no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my lord, j’ou may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger ; and though you cannot be safe, j'ou may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed everything th.at ought to be dear to a man of honour. They are still base enough to en- courage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they vill not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even 1 now they tell you that life is no more than a dra- matic scene, in which the hero should i)rcserve his consistency to the last; and that, as j'ou lived with- out virtue, you should die without repentance.’ These are certainly brilliant pieces of composi- tion. The tone and spirit in which they are con- ceived are harsh and reprehensible — in some parts almost fiendish — but they are the emanations of a powerful and cultivated genius, that, under better moral discipline, might have done lasting honour to literature and virtue. The acknowledged produc- tions of Sir Philii) Francis have equal animation, but less studied brevity and force of style. The soaring ardour of j'outh had flown ; his hopes were crushed ; he was not writing under the mask of a fearless and impenetrable secrecy. Yet in 1812, in a letter to Earl Grey on the subject of the blockade of Norway, we find such vigorous sentences as the following; — ‘ Though a nation may be bought and sold, deceived or betraj-ed, oppressed or beggared, and in every other sense undone, all is not lost, as long as a sense of national honour survives the general ruin. Even an individual cannot be crushed by events or over- whelmed by adversity, if, in the wreck and ruin of his fortune, the character of the man remains un- blemished. That force is elastic, and, with the help of resolution, will raise him again out of any depth of calamity. But if the injured sufferer, whetlier it be a great or a little community, a number of individuals or a single person, be content to sub- mit in silence, and to endure without resentment — if no complaints shall be uttered, no murmur shall be heard, deploratum est — there must be something celestial in the spirit that rises from that descent. In March 1798, I had your voluntary and entire concurrence in the following, as well as many other abandoned propositions — when we drank pure wine together — when you were young, and I was not superannuated — when we left the cold infusions of prudence to fine ladies and gentle politicians — when true wisdom was not degraded by the name of mo- deration — when we cared but little by wliat majo- rities the nation was betrayed, or how many felons I were aequitted by their peers — and wlien we were j not afraid of being intoxicated by the elevation of a spirit too highly rectified. In England and Scot- land, the general disposition of the people may be ; fairly judged of by the means which are said to be necessary to counteract it — an immense standing army, barracks in every part of the countiw, tlie bill of rights suspended, and, in effect, a military despotism.’ The following vigorous and Junins-Uhe passage is from a speech made by Francis in answer to the remark of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, namely, that it would have been well for the country if General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr Francis, had been drowned in tlieir passage to India. Sir Philip observed : — ‘His second reason for obtaining a seat in parliament, was to have an o])portunity of explaining his own conduet if it should be ques- tioned, or defending it if it should be attacked. The last and not least urgent reason was, that he might be ready to defend the character of his colleagues, not against specific charges, which he was sure would never be produced, but against the language of calumny, which endeavoured to asperse without daring to accuse. It was well known that a gross and public insult had been offered to the memory of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, Iw a person of high rank in this country. He was haj)pj’ when he heard that his name was included in it with theirs. So highly did he respect the cluiracter of those men, that he deemed it an honour to share in the injustice it had suffered. It was in compliance 236 mSCKI.I.ANF.OUS WHITERS. EN('.LIS1I LI'l'ERATURE. JUNIDh with tlie forms of tlie lunisc. ami not to shelter him- self. or out of temlerness to the part}', tliiit lie for- bore to name him. He meant to describe him so exactly that he could not be mistaken. He declared, in his idace in a great assembly, and in the course of a grave deliberation, “ that it would have been h'iii]iv for this country if General Clavering, Colonel iMonson, and Mr Francis, had been drowned in their jiassage to India.” If this poor and spiteful invec- tive had been uttered by a man of no consequence or repute — by any light, trifling, inconsiderate i>erson — by a lord of the bed-chamber, for example — or any of the other silken barons of modern days, he should have heard it with indifference; but when it was seriously urged, and deliberately insisted on, by a grave lord of parliament, by a judge, by a man of ability and eminence in his profession, whose personal disposition was serious, who carried gravity to sternness, and sternness to ferocity, it could not be received with imlifference. or answered without resentment. Such a man would be thought to have imiuircd before he pronounced. From his mouth a reproach was a sentence, an invective was a judg nicnt. The accidents of life, and not any original distincti('ii that he knew of, had placed him too high, and himself at too great a distance from him, to admit of any other answer than a public defiance for General Clavering, for Colonel Jlonson, and for himself. This was not a party question, nor should it be left to so feeble an advocate as he was to sup- port it. The friends and fellow-soldiers of General Clavering and Colonel Jlonson would assist him in defending their memory. He demanded and ex- pected the su])port of every man of honour in that house and in the kingdom. What character was safe, if slander was permitted to .attack the reputa- tion of two of the most honourable and virtuous men that ever were employed, or ever perished in the service of their country. He knew that the authoihy of this man was not without weight ; but he had an infinitely higher aiithority to oppose to it. He had the happiness of hearing the merits of General Clavering and Colonel Monson acknow- ledged and aiiplauded, in terms to which he was not at liberty to do more than to allude — they were rajiid and expressive. He must not venture to repeat, lest he should do them injustice, or violate the forms of respect, where essentially he owed and felt the most ; but he was sufficiently understood. The generous sens.ations that animate the royal mind were easily distinguished from those which rankled in the heart of that person who was sup- posed to be the keeper of the royal conscience.’ In the last of the private letters of Junius to Woodfall — the last, indeed, of his appearances in that character — he says, with his characteristic ar- dour and impatience, ‘ I feel for the honour of this country, when I see that there are not ten men in it who will unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all alike, vile and contemiitible.’ Tins was written in January 1773. F'orty-three years afterwards, in 1816, Sir Philip Francis thus writes in a letter on public .affairs, addressed to Lord Holland, and the similarity in manner and senti- ment is striking. The style is not unworthy of Junius: — ‘My mind sickens and revolts at the scenes of public depravity, of personal baseness, and of ruinous folly, little less than universal, which have passed before us, not in dramatic represen ta- ti(,n, but in real action, since the year 1792, in the government of this once flourishing as well as glori- ous kingdom. In that period a deadly revolution has taken place in the moral character of the nation, and even in the instinct of the gregarious multitude. Passion of any kind, if it existed, might excite action. With still many generous exception.s, the body of the country is lost in apathy and indilfercnce — some- times strutting on stilts— for the most part grovel- ling on its belly — no life-blood in the heart — and instead of reason or reflection, a caput vxutuum for a head-piece ; of all revolutions this one is the worst, because it makes any other impossible.’’*' Among the lighter sketches of Fr.anos m,ay be t.aken the following brief characters of Fox and Pitt : — ‘ They know nothing of Mr Fox who think that he was what is commonly called well educated. I know that it vvas directly or very nearly the re- verse. His mind educated itself, not by early study or instruction, but by active listening and rapid apprehension. He said so in the House of Com- mons when he .and Mr Burke jiarted. His powerful understanding grew like a forest oak, not by culti- vation, but by neglect. Mr Pitt was a plant of an inferior ordeir, though marvellous in its kind — a smooth bark, with tlie deciduous pomp and decora- tion of a rich foli.age, and blossoms and flowers which drop off of themselves, and leave the tree naked at last to be judged by its fruits. He, indeed, as I suspect, had been educated more than enough, until there w'as nothing natural and spontaneous left in him. He was too ]iolished and accurate in the minor embellishments of his art to be a great artist in anything. He could have painted the boat, and the fish, and the broken nets, but not the two fisher- men. He knew his audience, and. with or without eloquence, how' to summon the generous passions to his applause. The human eye soon grows weary * The ch.iracter of Francis is seen in the following admir- able observation, whieh is at once acute and profound : — ‘ With a callous heart there can be no genius in the imagina- tion or wisdom in the mind*; and therefore the prayer with equal truth and sublimity s,ays — “ Incline our hearts unto wisdom. ■■ Resolute thoughts find words foi themselves, and make their own vehicle. Im])ression and pre.-,sion are rela- tive ideas. He who feels deeply will express strongly. The language of slight sensations is naturally feebie and su))erficial. — Jti’fkclions on the Abmulanc of Paper. 1.110.— Francis ex- celled in pointed and pithy exjiressifm. Alter his return to parliament in 17(14, he g: ve great offence tc. Mr I’itt, by ex- claiming, after he had pronounced an animated eulogy on Lord Chatham, ‘ Rut he is dead, and has left nothing in this w'orld that resembles him 1* In a speech d-.-l \ ered at a political meet- ing in 11117, he said, ‘ We live in times that call for wisdom in contemplation and virtue in action ; but in which virtue and wisdom will not do without resolution.' Whet, the property- tax was imposed, he exclaimed, ‘ that the ministers were now coming to the life-blood of the country, and the more they wanted the less they would get,' In a letter to Lord Holland, written in UlKi, he remarks, * Whether you look up to the lop or down to the bottom, whether you mount with the froth or sink w'ith the sediment, no rank in this country can s,ippi>rl a perfectly degraded name.’ ‘ .My recital,’ he says to Loid Hol- land, * shall be inflicted on you, as if it w*ere an operation, with compassion for the p.atient, with the brevity of impatience and the rapidity of youth ; for 1 feel or fancy that 1 am gradually growing young again, in my way back to infancy. The taper that burns in the socket flashes more than once before it dies. 1 would not long outlive myself if 1 could help it, like some of my old friends who pretend to be al ve, when to luy certain knowledge they have been dead these seven years.’ The writer of a memoir of F'rancis, in the Annual Obituary (1112ih, states that one of his maxims was, * That the views of every one should be directed towards a solid, however moderate inde- pendence, without which no man can be happy or even honest, 'fhere is a remarkable eoincidence 'too close to be accidental, in a private letter by Junius to his publisher Woodfall. dated March 5, 1772 : * As for myself, be assured that 1 am far above all pecuniary views, and no other person I think has any claim to share with you. Make the most of it, therefore, and let all your views in life be directed to a sold, however moderate independence. Without it no ."oan can be happy, nor evra honest.* 237 KROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF lo 1780. of !in unlxmiKlod plain, and sooner, I believe, than of any limited portion of spaee, whatever its dimen- sions may he. There is a calm delight, a doled ripoxo, in viewing tlie smooth-shaven verdure of a bowline green as long as it is near. You must learn from re[)etition that those properties are inseparable from the idea of a fiat surface, and that flat and tire.some are synonymous. The works of nature, which eommand admiration at once, and never lose it, are compounded of grand inequalities.’ [Janirts’s Celebrated Letter to the King.'] To tho Printer of the Public Advertiser. — 19th December 17G9. Sir — When the eomplaints of a brave and power- ful ]>eople are observed to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have suffered ; when, instead of sink- ing into submission, they are roused to resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every inferior considera- tion must yield to the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the state. There is a moment of difficulty and danger, at which flattery and false- hood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled. Let us suppose it arrived. Let us suppose a gracious well-intentioned prince made sensible at last of the great duty he owes to his peojile, and of his own disgraceful situation; that he looks round him for assistance, and asks for no advice but how to gratify the wishes and secure the happiness of his subjects. In these circumstances, it may be matter of curious speculation to consider, if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that the first pre- judice against his character is removed ; that the cere- monious difficulties of an audience are surmounted ; that he feels him.self animated by the purest and most honourable affection to his king and country ; and that the great person whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention. Unacquainted with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his sen- timents with dignity and firmness, but not without respect : — Sir — It is the misfortune of your life, and origi- nally the cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth till you heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error of your edu- cation. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form tne most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence of your disposition. We are far from thinking you capable of a direct deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your sub- jects on which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonourable to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The doc- trine inculcated by our laws, ‘ that the king can do no wrong,’ is admitted without reluctance. We sepa- rate the amiable good-natured prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his government. Were it not for this just distinction, I know not whether your majesty’s condition, or that of the English na- tion, would deserve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favourable reception of truth, by removing every painful offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your government, so you, in your turn, would distinguish between the conduct Thich becomes the permanent dignity of a king, and that which serves only to promote the temiiorary in- ’ tcrest and miserable ambition of a minister. You ascended the throne with a declared (and, 1 doubt not, a sincere) resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince, whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you not only from principle but passion. It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, animated attachment to a favourite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid you in ad- vance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people who now sur- round your throne with reproaches and complaints. Uo justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested per- sons have laboured to pos.sess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are naturally light and inconstant ; that they complain without a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties ; from ministers, favourites, and relations ; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have con- sulted your own understanding. When you affectedly renounced the name of Eng- lishman, believe me, sir, you were persuaded to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one part of your sub- jects at the expen.se of another. While the natives of Scotland arc not in actual rebellion, they are un- doubtedly entitled to protection ; nor do I mean to condemn the policy of giving some encouragement to the novelty of their affection for the house of Hanover. I am ready to hope for everything from their new-born zeal, and from the future steadiness of their allegiance. But hitherto they have no claim to your favour. To honour them with a determined predilection and con- 1 fidence, in exclusion of your English subjects — who ] placed your family, and in spite of treachery and re- bellion, have supported it, upon the throne — is a mis- take too gross for even the unsuspecting generosity of | youth. In this error we see a capital violation of the ' most obvious rules of policy and prudence. We trace ! it, however, to an original bias in your education, and : are ready to allow for your inexperience. 1 To the same early influence we attribute it, that | you have descended to take a .share not only in the i narrow views and interests of p.articular persons, but | in the fatal malignity of their pa.ssions. At your j accession to the throne the whole system of govern- ‘ ment was altered ; not from wisdom or deliberation, ( but because it had been adopted by your predcce.ssor, i A little personal motive of pique and resentment was sufficient to remove the ablest servants of the crown , | but it is not in this country, sir, that such men can | be dishonoured by the frowns of a king. They were | dismissed, but could not be disgraced. 1 Without entering into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent | hurry with which the finst overtures from Erance were i accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, the strongest marks of that preci- pitate spirit of concession with which a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to pur- chase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. On your part we are satisfied that everything wa.s honourable and sincere ; and if England was sold tc France, we doubt not that your majesty was equally betrayed. The conditions of the jicace were matter of grief and surprise to your subjects, but not the immediate cause of their present discontent. , Hitherto, sir, you had been sacrificed to the preju- i dices and passions of others. With what firmncis will you bear the mention of your own ? A man not very honourably distinguished in the 2.38 — — 1 MiscKu.ANB)us WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. junius. world commences iv formal attack upon your favourite ; consiilcriu" nothiiif; but h)w he might best expose his person and principles to detestation, and the national character of his countrymen to contempt. The natives of that country, sir, are as much distinguished by a peculiar character, as by your majesty’s favour. Like another chosen people, they have been conducted into the land of plenty, where they find themselves effec- tually marked and divided from mankind. There is hardly a period at which the most irregular character may not be redeemed ; the mistakes of one sex find a retreat in patriotism ; those of the other in devo- tion. Mr Wilkes brought with him into politics the same liberal sentiments by which his private conduct had been directed ; and seemed to think, that as there are few excesses in which an English gentleman may not be permitted to indulge, the same latitude was allowed him in the choice of his political principles, and in the spirit of maintaining them. I mean to state, not entirely to defend, his conduct. In the earnestness of his zeal, he suffered some unwarrant- able insinuations to escape him. He said more than moderate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honour of your majesty’s personal resent- ment. The rays of royal indignation collected upon him, served only to illumine, and could not consume. Animated by the favour of the people on one side, and heated by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition ; the hardest sparkle in collision. There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves ; the passions are engaged, and create a maternal aflfection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer. Is this a conten- tion worthy of a king? Are you not sensible how much the meanness of the cause gives an air of ridi- cule to the serious difficulties into which you have been betrayed? The destruction of one man has been now for many years the sole object of your govern- ment ; and if there can be anything still more dis- graceful, we have seen for such an object the utmost influence of the e.xecutive power, and every ministerial artifice, exerted without success. Nor can you ever succeed, unless he should be imprudent enough to forfeit the protection of those laws to which you owe your crown ; or unless your ministers should persuade you to make it a question of force alone, and try the whole strength of government in opposition to the people. The lessons he has received from experience will probably guard him from such excess of folly ; and in your majesty’s virtues we find an unquestion- able assurance that no illegal violence will be at- tempted. Far from suspecting you of so horrible a design, we would attribute the continued violation of the laws, and even this last enormous attack upon the vital principles of the constitution, to an ill-advised un- wythy personal resentment. From one false step you have been betrayed into another ; and as the cause was unworthy of you, your ministers were deter- mined that the prudence of the execution should correspond with the wisdom and dignity of the design. They have reduced you to the necessity of choosing out of a variety of difficulties ; to a situation so un- happy, that you can neither do ivrong without ruin, nor right without affliction. These worthy servants have undoubtedly given you many singular proofs of their abilities. Not contented with making Mr Wilkes a man of importance, they have judiciously transferred the question from the rights and interests of one man, to the most important rights and interests of the people ; and forced your subjects, from wishing well to the cause of an individual, to unite with him in their own. Let them proceed as they have begun, and your majesty need not doubt that the catastrophe will do no dishonour to the conduct of the piece. The circumstances to which you are reduced will not admit of a compromise with the English nation. Undecisive qualifying measures will disgrace your government still more than open violence ; and with- out satisfying the people, will excite their contempt. They have too much understanding and spirit to accept of an indirect satisfaction for a direct injury. Nothing less than a repeal as formal as the resolution* itself, can heal the wound which has been given to the constitution ; nor will anything less be accepted. I can readily believe that there is an influence suffi- cient to recall that pernicious vote. The House of Commons undoubtedly consider their duty to the crown as paramount to all other obligations. To us they are indebted for only an accidental existence, and have justly transferred their gratitude from their parents to their benefactors ; from those who gave them birth to the minister from whose benevolence they derive the comforts and pleasures of their poli- tical life ; who has taken the tenderest care of their infancy, and relieves their necessities without offend- ing their delicacy. But if it were possible for their integrity to be degraded to a condition so vile and abject, that, compared with it, the present estimation they stand in is a state of honour and respect, con- sider, sir, in what manner you will afterwards proceed. Can you conceive that the people of this country will long submit to be governed by so flexible a House of Commons? It is not in the nature of human society that any form of government in such circumstances can long be preserved. In ours, the general contempt of the people is as fatal as their detestation. Such, I am persuaded, would be the necessary effect of any base concession made by the present House of Com- mons ; and, as a qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you to decide whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of men who have reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or whether you will gratify the united wishes of the whole people of England by dissolving the parliament. Taking it for granted, as 1 do very sincerely, that you have personally no design against the constitu- tion, nor any view inconsistent with the good of your subjects, 1 think you cannot hesitate long upon the choice which it equally concerns your interest and your honour to adopt. On one side, you hazard the affections of all your English subjects ; you relinquish every hope of repose to yourself, and you endanger the establishment of your family for ever. All this you venture for no object whatever, or for such an object as it would be an affront to you to name. Men of sense will examine your conduct with suspicion ; while those who are incapable of comprehending to what degree they are injured, affiict you with clamours equally insolent and unmeaning. Supposing it pos- sible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you detei- mine at once to be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation either from interest or ambition. If an English king be hated or despised, he must be un- happy ; and this, perhaps, is the only political truth which he ought to be convinced of without experi- ment. But if the English people should no longer confine their resentment to a submissive representa- tion of their wrongs ; if, following the glorious ex- ample of their ancestors, they should no longer appeal to the creature of the constitution, but to that high Being who gave them the rights of humanity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to surrender, let me ask you, sir, upon what part of your subjects would you rely for assistance ? The people of Ireland have been uniformly plun- * Of the House of Commons, on the subject of the Middlesex election. 239 FROM 1727 dercd iiml oppressed. In return, they give you every day fresh marks of tlieir resentment. Tliey despise the miserable governor you have sent them, because lie is the creature of bord liute ; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with the disgrace- ful representation of him. The distance of the colonies would make it impo.s- fiible for them to take an active concern in your affairs, even if they were as well affected to your go- vernment as they once pretended to be to your per.son. They were ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They comtilained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no higher than to the servants of the crown ; they pleased themselves with the hope that their sovereign, if not favourable to their cau.se, at least was impartial. The decisive personal part you took against them has effectually banished that first distinction from their minds.* They consider you as united with your ser- vants against .\merica ; and know how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one side, from the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but if ever you retire to .America, be assured they will give you such a covenant to digest, as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles II. They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it lira deseit. Divided as they are into a thousand forms of polity and religion, there is one point in which they all agree ; they equally detest the pa- geantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. It is not, then, from the alienated affections of Ire- land or America that you can reasonably look for assi.stance : still less from the people of England, wdio are actually contending for their rights, and in this great que.-tiou are parties against you. You are not, however, destitute of every appearance of .support; you have all the Jacobites, non-jurors, Roman Catho- lics, and Tories of this country ; and all Scotland, without exception. Considering from what family you are de.scended, the choice of your friends has been singularly directed ; and truly, sir, if you had not lost the W hig interest of England, I should admire your dexterity in turning the hearts of your enemies. Is it ]iossible for you to place any confidence in men who, before they are faithful to you, must renounce every opinion, and betray every principle, both in church and state, which they inherit from their an- cestors, and are confirmed in by their education ; whose numbers are so inconsiderable, that they have long since been obliged to give up the principles and language which distinguish them as a party, and to fight under the banners of their enemies! Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, and must conclude in treachery. At first they deceive; at last they betray. As to the Scotch, I must suppose your heart and understiindiug so biased from your earliest infancy in their f.ivour, that nothing le.ss than your own mis- fortunes can undeceive you. You will not accept of the uniform experience of your ancestors ; and when once a man is determined to believe, the very ab- surdity of the doctrine confirms him in his faith. A bigoted understanding can draw a proof of attachment to the house of Hanover from a notorious zeal for the * In the kins’s speech of 8th November 1/88, it was deciared ‘ that the spirit of faction had broken out afresh in some of the colonies, and in one of them proceeded to acts of violence and resistance to the execution of the laws ; that Boston was in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and had proceeded to measures subversive of the constitution, and at- tended with circumstances that manifested a disposition to throw off their dependence on Great Britain.' TO 1780. house of Stuart ; and find an earnest of future loyalty in former rebellions. Appearances are, however, in their favour ; so strongly, indeed, that one would think they hail forgotten that you are their lawful king, and had mistaken you for a pretender to the crown. Let it be admitted, then, that the Scotch are as sincere in their present jirofessions, as if you were in reality not an Englishman, but a IJriton of the north ; you would not be the first prince of their native country against whom they have rebelled, nor the first whom they have basely betrayed. Have you forgotten, sir, or has your favourite concealed from you, that part of our history when the unhappy Charles (and he, too, had private virtues) fled from the open avowed indig- nation of his English subjects, and surrendered him- self at discretion to the good faith of his own country- men? Without looking for support in their affections as subjects, he applied only to their honour as gentle- men for protection. They received him, as they would your majesty, with bows, and smiles, and falsehood; and kept him till they had settled their bargain with the English parliament; then basely sold their native king to the vengeance of his enemies. This, sir, was not the act of a few traitors, but the deliberate treachery of a Scotch parliament, representing the nation. A wi.se prince might draw from it two le.s.sons of equal utility to himself : on one side he might leani to dread the undisgui.sed resentment of a generous people who dare openly assert their rights, and who in a just cause are ready to meet their sove- reign in the field ; on the other side he would be i taught to apprehend something far more formidable — | a fawning treachery, against which no prudence c.an j guard, no courage can defend. The insidious smile upon the cheek would warn him of the canker in the ' heart. From the uses to which one part of the army has been too frequently applied, you have some reason to expect that there are no services they would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality of your understand- ing. You take the sense of the army from the con- duct of the Guards, with the same justice with which you collect the sense of the people from the represen- tations of the ministry. Your marching regiments, ! sir, will not make the Guards their exaiiqile cither as I soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ( ought to do, that invariable undistinguishing f.ivour j with which the Guards are treated ; ivhile those gal- lant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish in garrisons abroad, or pine in quarters at home, neglected and forgotten. If they had no .sense of the great original duty they owe their country, their re.sentment would operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended by those on whom you have lavished the re- wards and honours of their profession. The praetorian bands, enervated and debauched as they were, had still strength enough to awe the Roman populace; but when the distant legions took the alarm, they marched to Rome and gave away the empire. On this side, then, whichever way you turn y^ur eyes, you see nothing but perplexity and distre.ss. You may determine to support the very ministry who have reduced your affairs to this deplorable situation ; you may .shelter yourself under the forms of a par- liament, and set your people at defiance ; but be assured, sir, that such a resolution would be as im- prudent as it would be odious. If it did not imme- diately shake your establishment, it would rob you of your peace of mind for ever. On the other, how different is the prospect! how easy, how safe and honourable is the path before you ! The English nation declare they are grossly injured by their representatives, and .solicit your majesty to exert your lawful prerogative, and give them an op- portunity of recalling a trust which they find hius been 240 CYCLOI’fliDIA OF JUNIUS. ttiscF.i.LANi’.ous WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. j scnmlalouslv iibustHl. You are not to be told that , tin [lower of the House of Commons is not orieiiml ; but delc"atepropriated than the periaanent substantial soil; partly because they rvere m >re susceptible of a long occupance, which might be continued for months to- gether without any sensible interruption, and at length by usage ripen into an established right ; but princi- pally because few of them could be fit for use, till improved and meliorated by the bodily labour of the 24G UISCEIXANE0U9 WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. SIR WILLIAM BLACK.STONA. occupant ; which bodily labour, bestowed upon any subject which before lay in common to all men, is uni- versally allowed to give the fairest and most reason- able title to an exclusive property therein. The article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a more early consideration. Such as were not contented with the spontaneous product of the earth, sought for a more solid refreshment in the flesh of beasts, which they obtained by hunting. But the frequent disappointments incident to that method of provision, induced them to gather together such ani- mals as were of a more tame and sequacious nature ; and to establish a permanent property in their flocks and herds, in order to sustain themselves in a less pre- carious manner, partly by the milk of the dams, and partly by the flesh of the young. The support of these their cattle made the article of water also a very important point. And therefore the book of Genesis (the most venerable monument of antiquity, considered merely with a view to hi.story) will furnish us with frequent instances of violent contentions concerning wells, the exclusive property of which appears to have been established in the first digger or occupant, even in such jdaces where the ground aiul herbage remained yet in common. Thus we find Abraham, who was but a sojourner, asserting his right to a well in the country of Abimelech, and exacting an oath for his security, ‘ because he had digged that well.’ And Isaac, about ninety years afterwards, reclaimed this his father’s property ; and after much contention with the Philis- tines, was suffered to enjoy it in peace. All this while the soil and pasture of the earth re- mained still in common as before, and open to every occupant ; except perhaps in the neighbourhood of towns, where the necessity of a sole and exclusive j roperty in lands (for the sake of agriculture) was turlier felt, and therefore more readily complied with. Otherwise, when the multitude of men and cattle had consumed every convenience on one spot of ground, it was deemed a natural right to seize upon and occupy such other lands as would more easily supply their necessities. This practice is still retained among the wild and uncultivated nations that have never been formed into civil states, like the Tartars and others in the East, ivhere the climate itself, and the bound- less extent of their territory, conspire to retain them still in the same savage state of vagrant liberty which was universal in the earliest ages, and which Tacitus informs us continued among the Germans till the de- cline of the Roman empire. We have also a striking example of the same kind in the history of Abraham and his nephew Lot. When their joint substance became so great, that pasture and other conveniences grew scarce, the natural consequence was, that a strife arose between their servants, so that it was no longer practicable to dwell together. This contention Abra- ham thus endeavoured to compose : — ‘ Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me. Is not the whole land before thee ? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then will I go to the right ; or if thou depart to the right hand, then will I go to the left.’ This plainly implies an ac- knowledged right in either to occupy whatever ground he pleased, that was not pre occupied by other tribes. ‘ And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain »f Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and journied east, and Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan.’ Upon the same principle was founded the right of migration, or .sending colonies to find out new habita- tions, when the mothei -country was overcharged with inhabitants ; which was practised as well by the Phoe- nicians and Greeks, as the Germans, Scythians, and other northern people. And so long as it was con- fined to tiin si -eking and cultivation )f desert, unin- habited countries, it kept strictly within thedimits of the law of nature. But how far the se zing on coun- tries already peopled, and driving out or mas.sacring the innocent and defenceless natives, merely because they ditfered from their invaders in language, in reli- gion, in customs, in goveniment, or in colour ; how far such a conduct was con.sonant to nature, to reason, or to Christianity, deserved well to be considered by those who have rendered their names immortal by thus civilising mankind. As the world by degrees grew more populous, it daily became more difficult to find out new spots to inhabit, without encroaching upon former occupants ; and, by constantly occupying the same individual spot, the fruits of the earth were consumed, and its spontaneous produce destroyed, without any provision for a future supply or succession. It therefore be- came necessary to pursue some regular method of providing a con.stant subsistence ; and this necessity produced, or at least promoted and encouraged, the art of agriculture, by a regular connection and conse- quence ; introduced and established the idea of a more permanent property in the soil than had hitherto been received and adopted. It was clear that the earth would not produce her fruits in sufficient quan- tities, without the assistance of tillage ; but who would be at the pains of tilling it, if another might watch an opportunity to seize upon and enjoy the product of his industry, art, and labour? Had not, therefore, a separate property in lands, as movables, been vested in some individuals, the world must have continued a forest, and men have been mere animals of prey ; which, according to some philosophers, i.s the genuine state of nature. Whereas now (so graciously has Providence interwoven our duty and our happiness together) the result of this very neces- sity has been the ennobling of the human species, by giving it opportunities of improving its rational faculties, as well as of exerting its natural. Necessity begat property ; and, in order to insure that property, recourse was had to civil society, which brought along with it a long train of inseparable concomitants— states, government, laws, punishments, and the public exercise of religious dutie.s. Thus connected together, it was found that a part only of society was sufficient to provide, by their manual labour, for the neces.sary subsistence of all ; and leisure was given to others to cultivate the human mind, to invent useful arts, and to lay the foundations of science. The only question remaining is, how this property became actually vested ; or what it is that gave a man an exclusive right to retain in a permanent manner that specific land which before belonged generally to everybody, but particularly to nobody ? And as we before observed, that occupancy gave the right to the temporary use of the soil, so it is agreed upon all hands that occupancy gave also the original right to the iiermanent property in the substance of the earth itself, which excludes every one else but the owner from the use of it. There is, indeed, some dift'erence among the writers on natural law concern- ing the reason why occupancy should convey this right, and invest one with this absolute property ; Grotius and Puflendorf insisting that this right of occupancy is founded upon a tatit and implied assent of all mankind, that the first occupant should become the owner; and Barbeyrac, Titius, Mr Locke, and others, holding that there is no such implied assent, neither is it necessary that there should be ; for that the very act of occupancy alone being a degree of bodily labour, is, from a principle of natural jus- tice, without any consent or compact, sufficient of itself to gain a title ; a di.spute that savours too much of nice and scholastic refinement! However, both sides agree in this, that occupancy is the thing by which the title was in fact originally gained ; 247 FROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF to 1780, every man Hcizing to his own continueil use such spots of ground as he found most agreeable to his own con- venieiiee, provided he found them unoccupied by any one else. EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. Philii* Dormer Stanhore, Karl of Chesterfield (1094 -1773), was an elegant autlior, though his only j)opnlar compositions are his Letters to his Su/i, a work eoiitainiiig many e.veellent advices for the cultivation of tlie minii and improvement of tlie ex- ternal worldly cliaraeter. but greatly deficient in the higher ixiints of morality. Lord Cliesterfield was an aide politician and diplomatist, ami an eloquent parliamentary del)ater. The celebrated • Letters to his Son’ were not intended for publication, and did not ai>pear till after his death. Their publication was much to Iw regretted by every friend of this ac- complished, witty, and eloquent peer. [Difiniticm of Good Brecdint/.'i [From Chesterfield’s Letters.] A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined good breeding to be, ‘ the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain tlie same indul- gence from them.’ Taking this for granted (as I think it cannot be disputed), it is a.stonishing to me that anybody, who has good sense and good nature, can essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience ; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally tlie same. Good manners are, to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general — their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there .seems to me to be less diffe- rence both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another’s property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who by his ill manners invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished society. Mutual complaisances, attentions, and .sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilised people, as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects ; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advan- tages arising from it. For my own part, 1 really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing ; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred. Thus much for good breeding in general ; I will now consider some of the vai ious modes and degrees of it. Very few, scarcely any, are wanting in the respect which they should show to those whom they acknow- ledge to be infinitely their superiors, such as crowned heads, prince.s, and public persons of distinguished and eminent posts. It is the nnanner of showing that respect which is different. The man of fashion and of the w’orld expresses it in its fullest extent, but naturally, easily, and without concern ; whereas a man who is not used to keep good company expresses it awkwardly ; one sees that he is not used to it, and that it costs him a great deal; but 1 never saw the worst-bred man living guilty of lolling, whistling, scratching his head, and such like indecencie.s, in company that he respected. In such companies, therefore, the only point to bo attended to is, to show li : - — — that res])ect which everybody means to show, in an ca.sy, unembarrassed, and graceful manner. This is what observation and experience mu.st teach you. In mixed companie.s, whoever is admittoint them out to you ; and then your own good nature will re- commend, and your self-interest enforce the practice. There is a third sort of good breeding, in which people are the most apt to fail, from a very mistaken notion that they cannot fail at all. 1 mean with regard to one’s most familiar friends and acquaint- ances, or those w ho really are our inferiors ; and there, undoubtedly, a greater degree of ease is not only allowed, but proper, and contributes much to the comforts of a private sociai life. Hut case and free- dom have their bounds, which must by no means be violated. A certain degree of negligence and careles.s- ness becomes injurious and insulting, from the real or supposed inferiority of the j>ersons ; and that de- lightful liberty of conversation among a few friends is soon destroyed, as liberty often has been, by .being carried to licentiousness. Hut example exidains things best, and I will put a pretty strong case : Supi>ose you and me alone together; 1 believe you will allow that 1 have as good a right to unlimited freedom in your company, as either you or I can po.ssibly have in an}' other ; and I am apt to believe, too, that you would indulge me in that freedom as far as anybody would. Hut, notwithstanding thi.s, do you imagine that I should think there was no bounds to that free- dom ? I assure you I should not think so; and I take myself to be as much tied down by a certain degree of good manners to you, as by other degrees of them to other people. The most familiar and inti- mate habitudes, connexions, and friendshi])s, require a degree of good breeding both to pre.serve and cement them. The best of us have our bad sides, atid it is as imprudent as it is ill-bred to exhibit them. 1 shall not use ceremony with you ; it would be misplaced between us ; but I shall certainly observe that degree of good breeding with you w hich is, in the first place, decent, and which, 1 am sure, is ab.solutely necessary to make us like one another’s company long. 248 MISCKI.I.ANKOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITER ATURE. HORACE WAIPOLB. eOAMl'. JESYNS — DR ADAM FERODSON — LORD MONBODDO — HORACE WALPOLE. SoAME Jknyns (1704-1787) was distinguislied in early life as a gay and witty writer, both in poetry ami prose; but afterwards applying liiinself to serious subjects, be produced, in 1757, A Free Inquiry into 1 the Nature of Foil; in 1776, A View of the Internal Kriiiences of the Christian lleliyion; and in 1782, Disquisitions on Various Subjects ; works containing niucii ingenious speeulation, but which have lost most of their early popularity. Dr Adam Ferguson (1724-1816), son of the minister ol' Logierait, in rerthshire, was educated at St Andrews : removing to Edinburgh, he be- eame an associate of Dr Robertson, Blair, Home, &e. In 1744 he entered the 42d regiment as chaplain, and continued in that situation till 1757, when he resigned it, and became tutor in the family of Lord Bute. He was afterwards pro- fessor of n.atural philosophy and of moral philo- sophy in the university of Edinburgh. In 1778 he went to America as secretary to the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the revolted colonies: on his return he resumed the duties of his professor- shi]!. His latter days were spent in ease and afflu- ence at St Andrews, where he died at the patriarchal age of ninety-three. The works of Dr Ferguson are. The History of Civil Society, published in 1766; Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 1769 ; A Reply to Dr Priceon Civil and Religious Liberty, 1776 ; The His- lori/ of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic, 1783; and Principles of Moral and Political Science, 1792. SirWidter Scott, who was personally acquainted Avith Ferguson, supplies some interesting information as to the latter years of this venerable professor, whom he considered the most striking example of the stoic philosopher which could be seen in modern days. He had a shock of paralysis in the sixtieth year of his life, from which period he became a strict Pythagorean in his diet, eating no- thing but vegetables, and drinking only water or milk. The deep interest which he took in the French w.ar had long seemed to be the main tie which connected him with passing existence ; and the news of Waterloo acted on the aged patriot as a nunc dimittis. From that hour the feeling that had almost alone given him energy decayed, and he avowedly relinquished all desire for prolonged life. Of Ferguson's ‘ History of Civil Society,’ Gray the poet remarks — ‘ There are uncommon strains of eloquence in it ; and I was surprised to find not one single idiom of his country (I think) in the Avhole Avork. His application to the heart is frequent, and often successful. His love of Montesquieu and Tacitus has led him into a manner of writing too short-Avinded and sententious, which those gre.at men, had they lived in better times, and under a better government, aa'ouIcI have avoided.’ This re- mark is true of all Ferguson’s Avritings; his style is too succinct and compressed. His Roman history, however, is a valuable compendium, illustrated by philosophical vieAvs and reflections. Lord Monboddo’s Essay on the Origin and Pro- gress of Language, published in 1771-3 and 6, is one of those singular Avorks Avhich at once provoke study and ridicule. The author Avas a man of real learning and talents, but a humorist in character and opinions. He aa’rs an enthusiast in Greek litera- ture and antiquities, and a worshipper of Homer. So far did be carry this, that, finding carriages Avere not in use among the ancients, he never Avould enter one, but made all his journeys to London (which he visited once a year) and other places ou horseback, and continued the practice till he Ai’as upAvards of eighty. He said it Avas a degradation of the genuine dignity of human nature to be dragged at the tail of a horse instead of mounting upon his back ! The eccentric philosopher Avas less careful of the dignity of human nature in some of his opinions. He gravely maintains in his Essay that men were originally monkeys, in AA-hicb condition they remained for ages destitute of speech, reason, and social afl'eetions. They gradually improved,' according to Monboddo’s theory, as geologists say the earth Avas changed by successive revolutions ; but he contends that the ou- rang outangs are still of the human species, and that in the Bay of Bengal there exists a nation of human beings Avith tails like monkeys, Avhich had been dis- covered a hundred and thirty years before by .a SAvedish skipper. When Sir Joseph Banks returned from Botany Bay, Monboddo inquired after the long- tailed men, and, according to Dr Johnson, Avas not pleased that they had not been found in all bis pere- grinations. All the moral sentiments and domestic affections AA-ere, according to this AA-liimsical philoso- pher, the result of art, contrivance, and experience, as much as Avriting, ship-building, or any other me- chanical invention ; and hence he places man, in his natural state, below beavers and sea cats, Avhich he terms social and political animals ! The laughable absurdity of these doctrines must have protected their author from the fulminations of the clergy, Avho Avere then so eager to attack all the metajihy- sical opponents of revealed religion. In 1779 Mon- boddo published an elaborate Avork on ancient met.a- pbysics, in three volumes quarto, Avhich. ’ike his former publication, is equally learned and equally AA-himsical. After a life of study and paradox, dis- charging his duties as a lord of session with upright- ness and integrity, and much respected in private for his amiable dispositions, James Burnet, Lord Monboddo, died in Edinburgh May 26, 1799, at the advanced age of eighty-five. Horace Walpole, the author of the ‘Castle of Otranto,’ already noticed, Avould have held but an insignificant place in British literature, if it had not been for his Correspondence and IMemoirs, those pictures of society and manners, compounded of Avit and gaiety, shreAvd observation, sarcasm, censorious- ness, high life, and sparkling language. His situa- tion and circumstances Avere exactly suited to his character and habits. He had in early life traA died Avith his friend Gray, the poet, and imbibed in Italy a taste for antiquity and the arts, fostered, no lioubt, by the kindred genius of Gray, Avho delighted in ancient architecture and in classic pursuits. He next tried public life, and sat in parliament for tAventy-six years. This added to his observation of men and manners, but Avithout increasing his repu- tation, for Horace Walpole Avas no orator or states- man. His aristocratic habits preA’ented him from courting distinction as a general author, and he accordingly commenced collecting antiques, building a baronial castle, and chronicling in secret his opi- nions and impressions of his contemporaries. His income, from sinecure offices and private sources, Avas about £4000 per annum ; and, as he Avas never married, his fortune enabled him, under good ma- nagement and methodical arrangement, to gratify his tastes as a virtuoso. When thirty years old, he had purchased some land at TAvickenham, near Lon- don, and here he commenced improving a snudl house, AA'hich by degrees SAvelled into a feudal castle, Avith turrets, toAvers, galleries, and corridors, Avin- dows of stained glass, armorial be.arings, and all the other appropriate insignia of a Gothic baronnil man- sion. Who has not heard of StraAA-berry Hill — that ‘little plaything house,’ as Walpole styled it, in 249 PROM 1727 CYCLOPiKDIA OF TO 1780. which were gathered curiosities of all descriptions, works of art, rare editions, valuable letters, memo- rials of virtue and of vice, of genius, beauty, taste, and fashion, mouldered into dustl This valuable collection is now (1842) scattered to the winds — ■ dispersed at a public sale. r.nough to rouse the dead man into r.agc. And warm with red resentment the wan cheek. The delight with which Walpole conteniphated this suburban retreat, is evinced in many of his let- ters. In one to General Conway (the only man he seems ever to have really loved or regarded), he runs on in this enthusiastic manner : — ‘ You i)erceive that I h.ave got into a new camj), and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little pl.aything house that I have got out of this Chevenix’s shop [Strawberry Hill had been occupied by Mrs Chevenix, a toy- woman !], and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled meadows, with filigree hedges ; A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled, And little fishes wave their wings of gold. Two delightful ro.ads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually with coaches and chaises ; and barges, as solemn as barons of the E.xchequer, move under my window. Kichmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospect; but, thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queens berry. Dowagers, as plenty as flounders, inh.abit all around ; and Pope’s ghost is just now skim- ming under my window by a most poetical moon- light.’ The literary performances with which Walpole varied bis life at Strawberry Hill are all character- istic of the man. In 1758 appeared his Catalogue of Boi/al and Noble Authors; in 1761 his Anecdotes o/ Painting in England; in 1765 his Castle of Otranto; and in 1767 liis Historic Doubts as to the ch.aracter and person of Rieh.ard III. He left for publication Afenioirs of the Court of George //., and a large col- lection of copies of his letters; and he printed at his private press (for among the collections at Strawberry Hill was a small i)rinting establishment) his tragedy of the Mgsterious Mother. A complete collection of his letters w.as printed in 1841, in six volumes. The writings of Walpole are all ingenious and entertain- ing, and though his judgments on men and books or p.assing events are often inaccurate, and never profound, it is impossible not to be amused by the liveliness of his style, his wit, his acuteness and even his malevolence. ‘ Walpole’s Letters,’ says Mr Macaulay, ‘are generally considered as his best performances, .and, we think, with reason. His faults are far less oflTensive to us in his correspondence than in his books. His wild, absurd, and ever- changing opinions of men and things are easily pardoned in familiar letters. His bitter scoffing depreciating disposition does not show itself in so unmitigated a manner as in his Memoir.s. A writer of letters must be civil and friendly to his correspondent at least, if to no other person.’ The variety of topics introduced is no doubt one cause of the charm of these compositions, for every page and almost every sentence turns up something new, and the whim of the moment is ever with Walpole a subject of the greatest import.ance. The peculiarity of his information, his private scandal, his anecdotes of the great, and the constant exhibition of his own tastes and pursuits, furnish abundant amusement to the reader. Another Horace Walpole, like another Boswell, the world has not supplied, and probably Uever wiU, {^Politics and Evening Parties.] To Sir Horace Mann — 1745. When I receive your long letters I am ashamed ; mine are notes in comparison. How do you contrive to roll out your patience into two sheets! You cer- tainly don’t love me better than 1 do you ; and yet if our loves were to be sold by the quire, you would have by far the more magnificent stock to dispose of. I can only say that age has already an eft'eet on the vigour of my pen ; none on yours : it is not, I assure you, for you alone, but my ink is at low water-mark for all my acquaintance. My present shame arises from a letter of eight sides, of December 8th, which I received from you last post. It is not being an upright sen.ator to promise one’s vote beforeh.and, especially in a money-matter ; but I believe so many excellent pnsci:i.i.\Ni:oi;s writkrs. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EARI, OF CHATHAM. of Chatham on bchirf tattntcd on accomit of youth. ~\ .''ir — The atrocious crime of being a 3'oung man, wliich the honourable gentleman has, with such si)irit ami ib'ccuLT, chargeil upon me, I shall neither attempt to puli late nor deny, but content inj’self with wish- ing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in s]>ite of experience. Whether j’outh can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the prordnee of determining ; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the oppor- tunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obsti- nacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of ab- horrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs shouhl secure him from insult. IMuch more, sir, is he to be abhorred wdio, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation ; who prostitutes himself for money wliich he cannot enjoy, and spends the re- mains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, is not my only crime ; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissi- mulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the 0]Huions and language of another man. In the fir.st sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language ; and though, perhaps, I may have .some ambition to please this gentleman, 1 shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical beha- viour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain ; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity entrench themselves ; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment ; age, which alwi vs brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious, without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure ; the heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the ser- vice of my country which neither hope nor fear .shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned Avhile my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at what- ever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder. We need not follow the public career of Pitt, which is, in fact, a part of the history of England during along and agitated period. His style of ora- tory was of the highest class, rapid, vehement, and over[)owering, and it was adorned bj' all tlie graces of action and delivery. His public conduct was singu- larly pure and disinterested, considering the venality of the times in which he lived ; but as a statesman he was often inconsistent, haughty, and impracti- calde. His acceptance of a peerage (in 17G6) hurt his popularity witli the nation, who loved and reve- renced him as ‘ the great commoner but he still ‘ shook the senate’ with the resistless appeals of his eloquence. His speech — delivered wffien he was up- wards of sixty, and broken down and enfeebled by disea.se — against t'e employment of Indians in the war with America, is too characteristic, too noble, tsj be omitted. \_Spcech of Chatham ayainst the employment of Indian) in the war with America.] I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratu- lation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment; it is not a time for adqlation ; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now neces.sary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation ? Can parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty, as to give their sup- port to measures thus obtruded aiid forced upon them ; measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But yes- terday, and England might have stood against the world ; now, none so poor to do her reverence ! The people whom we at fir.st despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy ; and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The des- perate state of our army abroad is in part kuow.n. No man more highly esteems and honours the Englis.i troops than I do ; I know their virtues and *thei! v'alour ; I know they can achieve anything but im- pos.sibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst , but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be forever vain and impotent — doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely ; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary .sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their pos.sessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If 1 were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, 1 never would lay dowm my arras: Never, never, never! But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the dis- graces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to autho- rise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the .savage ; to call into civilised alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods ; to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his bar- barous war against our brethren ? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redre.ss and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been de- fended, not only on the principles of policy and neces- sity, but also on those of morality ; ‘ for it is perfectly allow-able,’ says Lord Suffolk, ‘ to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands.’ I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed ; to hear them avowed in this house or in this country. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention ; but I cannot repress my indignation — I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as Christians, to prote.'t against such horrible barbarity I That God and na ure have put into our hands ! What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain I know not ; but 1 know tliat such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion 25.1 FROM 1727 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TO 178ti and lnimaiiity. W'liat ! to attribute the sacred Banc- tion oKiod and nature to the massacres of the Indian gcalping-kTiife ! to the cannibal savage, torturing, mur- dering, devouring, drinking the blood of bis mangled victims ! Such notions shock every j)rccei)t of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. J'hese abominable principles, and this more abominable av )\val of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I tall upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their Ood, to support the justice of their country. I call upon tjie bishops to intcriiose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn ; upon the juish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are emlured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom? your Protestant brethren ! to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwelling.s, and extirpate their race and name by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible hell-hounds of war ! Spain can no longer boast pre- eminence in barbarity. She armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of ^le-^ico ; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs of war against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in the .state, to stamp upon this infamous pro- cedure the indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. More particularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this iniquity; let them per- form a lustration, to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. My lord.s, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more ; but my feelings and indign.ation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even rejio.sed my head upon my i>illow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and pre- posterous principles. The last public .appearance and death of Lord Chatham are thus described by Bclsham, in his history of Great Britain : — ‘ The mind feels interested in the minutest circum- stances relating to the host d.ay of the public life of this renowned statesman and patriot. He was dressed in a rich suit of black velvet, with a full wig, and covered up to the knees in flannel. On his arrival in the hou.se, he refreshed himself in the lord chancellor’s room, where he stayed till prayers were over, and till he was informed that business was going to begin. He was then led into the house by his son .and son-in- law, Mr Willi.arn Pitt and Lord Viscount Mahon, all the lords standing up out of respect, and making a lane for him to pass to the earl’s bench, he bowing very gracefully to them as he proceeded. He looked pale and much emaciated, but his eye retained all its native fire ; wlimh, joined to his general deportment, and the attention of the house, formed a spectacle very striking and impressive. When the Duke of Richmond had sat down. Lord Chatham rose, and beg.an by lamenting “ that his bodily infirmities had so long and at so important a crisis pro vented hi.s attendance on the duties of par- tiainent. He declared that he had made an effort • Imost beyond the powers of his constitution to come down to the house on this day, perhaps the last ’ time he should ever be able to enter its walls, to express the indignation he felt at the idea which he understood was gone forth of yielding up the sove- reignty of America. My lords,” continued he, “ I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me, tliat I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dis- memberment of this ancient and noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the lo.ad of infirmity, 1 am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture; but, my lords, wliile I have sense and memory, I never will consent to tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions. Shall a people, so lately the terror of the world, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon ? It is impossible ! In God’s name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, .and if peace cannot be pre.served with honour, why is not war commenced without hesitation ? I am not, 1 confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. Any state, my lords, is better than despair. Let us at least make one effort, and if wo must fall, let us fall like men.” The Duke of Richmond, in reply, dechared himself to be “ totally ignorant of the means by which we were to resist with success the combination of .Ame- rica with the house of Bourbon. He urged the noble lord to point out any possible mode, if he were able to do it, of making the Americans renounce that in- , dependence of which they were in possession. His ; Grace added, that if he could not, no man could ; and j that it was not in his power to change his opinion on the noble lord’s authority, unsupported by any reasons but a recital of the calamities arising from a st.ate of things not in the power of this country now to alter.” Lord Chatham, who had appeared greatly moved during the reply, made an eager effort to rise at the conclusion of it, as if Labouring with .some great idea, and impatient to give full .scope to his feelings ; but before he coubl utter XYCLOP/EDIAS AND 5IACAZINL9. iiDt Kiiglaml, not tlie present age only, but Kurope and posterity. Wonderful were the incans by which theue schemes were accomplished ; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour and enlightened by prophecy. 'J’hc ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic diffi- culties, no domestic weakness, reached him ; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to cotinsel and to decide. A character so ei alted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the trea- sury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories ; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, an- swered and refuted her. Nor were his political abi- lities his only talents : his eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly ex- pressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom ; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully ; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation ; nor was he, like Townsend, for ever on the rack of exer- tion ; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be fol- lowed. Upon the whole, there was in this man some- thing that could create, subvert, or reform ; an un- derstanding, a spirit,* and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority ; something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.’ ENCTCLOPJEDIA3 AND MAGAZINES. The Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers, published in 1728, in two folio volumes, w'as the first dictionary or repertory of general knowledge produced in Bri- tain. Chambers, who had been reared to the busi- ness of a globe-maker, and was a man of respectable though not profound attainments, died in 1740. His work was printed five times during the subsequent eighteen 3 'ears, and has finally been extended, in the present centurjq under the care of Dr Abraham Rees, to forty volumes in quarto. Dr John Camp- bell, whose share in compiling the Universal His- tory has already been spoken of, began in 1742 to publish his Lives of the British Admirals, and three jears later commenced the Biographia Britannica; works of considerable magnitude, and which still possess a respectable reputation. The reign of George II. produced many other attempts to fami- liarise knowledge ; but it seems only necessary to a’lude to ors of these, the Breceptor of Robert Dodsley, first published in 1748, and which long continued to be a favourite and useful book. It embraced within the compass of two volumes, in octavo, treatises on elocution, composition, arith- metic, geography, logic, moral philosoph)', human life and manners, and a few other branches of know- ledge, then supposed to form a complete course of education. The age under notice may be termed the epoch of magazines and reviews. The earliest work of the former kind, the Gentleman's Magazine, com- menced in the year 1731 by Mr Edward Cave, a printer, W'as at first simply a monthly' condensation of newspaper discussions and intelligence, but in the course of a few years became open to the reception of literary and archaeological articles. The term magazine thus gradually departed from its original meaning as a depository of extracts from newspapers, till it was understood to refer to monthly miscel- lanies of literature, such as it is now habitually applied to. The design of Mr Cave was so success- ful, that it soon met with rivalry, though it was some time before any other w'ork obtained sufficient encouragement to be continued for any lengthened period. The Literary Magazine, started in 173.5 by Mr Ephraim Cliambers, subsisted till about th« close of the century. The London Magazine, the British Magazine, and the Town and Country Ma- gazine, were other works of the same kind, pub- lished with more or less success during the reigns of George II. and George III. In 1739, the Scots Magazine was commenced in Edinburgh, upon a plan nearly similar to the ‘ tJentleman’s it sur- vived till 1826, and forms a valuable register of the events of the times over which it extends. In the old magazines, there is little trace of that anxiety for literary excellence which now animates the con- ductors of such miscellanies ; yet, from the notices which they contain respecting the characters, inci- dents, and manners of former years, they are gene- rally very entertaining. The ‘ Gentleman’s Maga- zine’ continues to be published, and retains much of its early distinction as a literary and archxological repository. Periodical works, devoted exclusively to the criti- cism of new books, were scarcely known in Britain till 1749, when the Monthly Review was com- menced under the patronage of the Whig and low church party. This was followed, in 1756, bj' the establishment of the Critical Review, which for some years was conducted by Dr Smollett, and was de- voted to the interests of the Tory party in church and state. These productions, marked by no great ability, were the only publications of the kind pre- vious to the commencement of the British Critic in 1793. Another respectable and useful periodical work was originated in 1758 by Robert Dodsley, under the title of the Annual Register, the plan being sug- gested, as has been said, by Burke, who for some years wrote the historical portion wHh his usual ability. This work is still published FROM 17B0 CYCLOPEDIA OF TILL THF. PRESENT TIMB. FROM 1780 TILL THE PRESENT TIME. POETa HE great va- riety ami abun- dance of ttie li- terature of this period might, in some measure, have been pre- dicted from the progress made during the pre- vious thirty or forty years, in wliich, as Johnson said, almost every man had come to write and toexpress himself correctly, and the number of readers had been multiplied a thousand- fold. The increase in national wealth and population natu- rally led, in a country like Great Britain, to the improvement of literature and the arts, and accordingly we find that a more popular and general style of composition be- gan to sujiplant the conventional stiffness and classic restraint imposed upon former authors. The human intellect and imagination were sent abroad on wider surveys, and with more ambitious views. To excite a great mass of hearers, the public orator finds it necessary to appeal to the stronger passions and universal sympathies of his audience ; and in writ- ing for a large number of readers, an author must adopt similar means, or fail of success. Hence it seems natural that as society advanced, the character of our literature should become assimilated to it, and partake of the onward movement, the popular feeling, and rising energy of the nation. Tliere were, however, some great puWic events and accidental circumstances which assisted in bringing about a change. The American war, by exciting the elo- quence of Chatham and Burke, awakened the spirit of tile nation. The enthusiasm was continued by the poet Cowper, who sympathised keenly with his fellow-men, and liad a w’arm love of his native coun- try. Cowper wrote from no system ; he had not read a poet for seventeen ye-ars ; but he drew the distinguishing features of English life and scenery with such graphic power and beauty, that tlie mere poetry of art and fashion, and the stock images of descriptive verse, could Tiot hut appear mean, affected, and commoniilace. W'arton’.s ‘History of Poetry,’ and Peri-y’s ‘Heliques,’ threw back the imagination to the bolder and freer era of our national literature, and the German d ima, witli all its horrors and extra- vagance, w'as something better than mere delinea- tions of m.-umers or incidental satire. The French Revolution came next, and seemed to break down all artificial distinctions. Talent and virtue only were to be regarded, and the spirit of man w-as to enter on a new course of free and glorious action. This dream passed away; but it had sunk deep into some irdent minds, and its fruits were seen in bold specu- ations on the hopes and destiny of man, in the strong colourings of nature and passion, and in the free and flexible movements of the native genius of our poetry. Since then, every department of lite- rature has been cultivated with success. In fiction, the name of Scott is inferior only to that of Shak- speare; in criticism, a new era may be dated from the establishment of the Edinburgh Review ; and ir» historical composition, if we have no Hume or Gib- bon, we have the results of far more valuable and diligent researcli. Truth and nature liave been more truly and devoutly worshipped, and real e.xcel- lence more highly prized. It has been feared by some that the principle of utility, which is recog- nised as one of the features of tlie present age, and the progress of mechanical knowledge, would be fatal to the higher efforts of imagination, and diminish the territories of the poet. This seems a groundles.« fear. It did not damp the ardour of Scott or Byron, and it has not prevented the poetry of Wordsworth from gradually working its way into public favour. If we have not the chivalry and romance of the Elizabetlian age, we have the ever-living passions of human nature, and tlie wide theatre of the world, ! now accurately knou-n and discriminated, as a field | for the exercise of genius. We have the benefit of all past knowledge and literature to exalt our stan- | dard of imitation and taste, and a more sure reward in the encouragement and applause of a populous and enlightened nation. ‘ The literature of England,’ says Shelley, ‘ has arisen, as it were, from a new birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy which would undervalue contemporary merit, our own will be a memorable age in intellectual achievements, and we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass, beyond comparison, any who have appeared since i the last national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the com- positions of the most celebrated writers of the pre- sent lay, without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. 'They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations, for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. I’oetsare the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present ; the words which express what they understand not ; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire ; the in- fluence which is moved not, hut moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.’ 256 PORTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WIILIAM COWPEE. WILLIAM COWPER, AVilliam Cowper, * the most popular poet of his jeneratioii, and tlie best of Enplisli letter-writers,’ *a Illr Sdutliey has designated liim, belonged cmpha- ■WiDlam Cowper. tically to the aristocracy of England. His father, the Rev. Dr Cowper, chaplain to George II., was the son of Spencer Cowper, one of the judges of the coiut of common pleas, and a younger brother of the first Earl Cowper, lord chancellor. Ills mother was allied to some of the noblest families in England, descended by four ditferent lines from King Henry III. This lofty iineage cannot add to the lustre of the poet’s fame, but it sheds additional grace on his piety and humility. Dr Cowper, besides his royal chap- laincy, held the rectory of Great Berkhamstead, in the county of Hertford, and there the poet was born, November 15, 1731. In his sixth j'ear he lost his motlier (whom he tenderly and affectionately re- membered through all his life), and was placed at a boarding-school, where he continued two years. The tyranny of one of his school-fellows, who held in complete subjection and abject fear the timid and home-sick boy, led to his removal from this semi- nary, and undoubtedly prejudiced him against the whole system of public education. He was next placed at Westminster school, where, as he says, he served a seven vears’ apprenticeship to the classics ; and at the age of eighteen was removed, in order to be articled to an attorney. Having passed through this training (with the future Lord Chancellor Tlmr- low for his fellow-clerk), Cowper, in 1754, was called to the bar. He never, however, made the law a study: in the solicitor’s office he and Thurlow were ‘ constantly' employed from morning to night in gig- gling and making giggle,’ and in his chambers in the Temple he wrote gay verses, and associated with B nmel Thornton, Colm.an, Lloyd, and other wits. He contributed a few papers to the Connoisseur and to the St James's Chronicle, both conducted by his friends. Darker days were at hand. Cowper’s father was now dead, his patrimony was small, and he was in his thirty-second year, almost ‘ unprovided with an aim,’ for the law was with him a mere nomi- nal profession. In this crisis of his fortunes his kinsman. Major Cowper, presented him to the office of clerk of the journals to the House of Lords — a desirable and lucrative appointment. Cowper ac- cepted it; but the labour of studying the forms of procedure, and the dread of qualifying himself by 59 appearing at the bar of the House of Lords, [ilnnged him in the deepest misery and distress. The seeds of in.sanity were then in his frame; and .after brood- ing over his fancied ills till reason had fled, he at- tempted to commit suicide. Happily this desperate effort failed; the appointment was given up, and Cowper was removed to a private madhouse at St Albans, kept by Dr Cotton. The cloud of horror gradually passed away, and on his recovery, he re- solved to withdraw entirely from the society and ; business of the world. He had still a small portion | of his funds left, and his friends subscribed a further sum, to enable him to live frugally in retirement. The bright hopes of Cowper’s youth seemed tlius to have all vanished : his prospects of .advancement in : the world were gone ; and in the new-born zeal of , his religious fervour, his friends might well doubt I whether his reason had been completely restored. He retired to the town of Huntingdon, near Cam- I bridge, where his brother resided, and there formed an intimacy with the family of the Rev. Morley | Unwin, a clergyman resident in the place. He was * adopted as one of the family; and when Mr Unwin himself was suddenly removed, the same connexion was continued with his widow. Death only could sever a tie so strongly knit — cemented by mutual : faith and friendship, and by sorrows of which the j world knew nothing. To the latest generation the name of Mary Unwin will be united with that ol Cowper, partaker of his fame as of his sad decline — j By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light. | After the de.ath of Mr Unwin in 1767, the family : were .advised by the Rev. .John Newton — a remark- able man in many respects — to fix their abode at Olney, in the nortliern division of Buckinghamshire, where Mr Newton himself officiated as curate. Thii Olney Church. was accordingly done, and Cowper removed with them to a spot which he has consecrated by his genius. He had still the river Ouse with him, as at Huntingdon, but the scenery is more varied and attractive, and abounds in fine retired walks. His life was that of a religious recluse : he ceased cor- responding with his friends, and associated only with Mrs Unwin and Newton. The latter engaged 257 FROM 17f)0 CVUI.01V>:i)IA OF TILL THE PBE8BKT T)>r>. Ills assistance in writin|» a volume ot'liymns, Imt his niorhiil imlancholy Knined Kmund, and in 1773 it beiamie a ease of decided insanity. AlHiut two years were jiassed in this unha|)py state. On his recovery, Cowper t(x)k to ijardeninf', rearing hares, drawing landscapes, and composing poetry. 'J'he latter was fortunately the most permanent enjoyment ; and its fruits appeared in a volume of poems published in 1782. Tlie sale of the work was slow ; but his friends were eager in its praise, and it received the approba- tion of .Johnson and Franklin. Ilis correspondence was resumed, and cheerfulness ag.ain became an in- mate of his retreat at Olney. This happy change was augmented by the presence of a third party, f/’idy Austen, a widow, who came to re.^hle in the i'-.im'-d.iate neighbourhood of Olney, and whose con- ’’ rsation for a time charmed away the nidancholy spirit of •"'owper. She told him the story of John a.::-: ‘ the famous horseman anc his feats were h> !xl;.;u"tihle source of merriment.’ J ady Aisfon Sij-.. -."—-^occl u; :o uue poet to try his powere in j blanli •-.--t., and fro,.: her snggostion sprang the noble poe,.' of ’the Task. Tins memorable fiiend- ( Ehij) was at length dissolved. The lady exacted too much of the time and attention of the poet — perhaps a shade of jealousy on the part of Blrs Unwin, with respect to the sui>erior charms and attractions of her rival, intervened to increase the alienation — and be- fore the Task was finished, its fair inspirer had left Olney without any intention of returning to it. In 1785 the new volume was published. Its suc- cess was instant and deindeil. The public were glad to hear the true voice of poetry and of nature, and in the rural descriptions and fireside scenes of the Task, they saw the features of English scenery and domestic life faithfully delineated. ‘The Task,’ says Southey, ‘ was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle si>irit, as well as of an observant eye ; and the moral senti- ment which pervaded them gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found wanting. The best didactic poems, when compared with the Task, are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery.’ As soon as he had completed his labours for the publication of his second volume, Cowper entered upon an undertaking of a still more arduous nature — a translation of Homer. He had gone through the great Grecian at Westminster school, and afterwards read him critically in the Temple, and he was impressed with but a poor opinion of the transl.ation of Pope. Setting himself to a daily task of forty lines, he at length accomplished the forty thousand verses. He published by subscription, in which his friends were generously active. Tlie work appeared in 1791, in two volumes .'luarto. In the interval the poet and Mrs Unwin had removed to Weston, a beautiful village about a mile from Olney. Ilis cousin. Lady Hesketh, a woman of refined and fascinating manners, had visited him; he had also formed a friendly intimacy with the family of the Throckmortons, to whom Weston belonged, and his circumstances were comparatively easy. His malady, however, returned upon him with full force, and Mrs Unwin being rendered helpless by palsy the task of nursing her fell upon the sensitive and de- jected poet. A careful revision of his Homer, and an engagement to edit a new edition of IMilton, were the last literary undertakings of Cowper. The former he completed, but without improving the first edition : his second task was never finished. A deepening gloom settle 1 on his mind, with occa- lionally bright intervals. A visit to his friend Haylev, at Eartham, produced a short cessa'ion of bis mental suffering, and in 1794 a pension oi £300 was granted to him from the crown. He was induced, I in 1795, to remove with Mrs Unwin to Norfolk, on I a visit to some relations, and there Mrs Unwin died on the 17th December 1796. The uidiappy poet would not believe that his long tried friend was actually dead ; he went to see the body, and on wit- nessing the unaltered placidity of death. Hung him- self to the other side of the room with a passionate expression of feeling, and from that time he never mentioned her name nor spoke of her again. He lingered on for more than three years, still under the same dark shadow of religious despondency and terror, but occasionally writing, and listening atten- tively to works read to him by his friends. His last poem was the Castuwuy, a strain of touching and beautiful verse, which showed no decay of his ‘ poetical powers : at length death came to his release ■ on the 25th of Aptil 1800. ‘Jo sad and strange a Cowper’s Monument. destiny has never before or since been that of a man of genius. With wit and humour at will, he was i nearly all his life plunged in the darkest melancholy, t Innocent, pious, and confiding, he lived in per- ; petual dread of everlasting punishment: he could only see between him and heaven a high wall which ! he despaired of ever being able to scale ; yet his in- j tellectual vigour was not subdued by affliction. AVhat i he wrote for amusement or relief in the midst of ‘ supreme distress,’ surpasses the elaborate efforts of 1 others made under the most favourable circum- | stances ; and in the very winter of his days, his j fancy was as fresh and blooming as in the spring and morning of existence. That he was constitu- tionally prone to melancholy and insanity, seems u.'idoubted ; but the predisposing causes were as surely .aggravated by his strict and secluded mode of life. Lady Hesketh was a better guide and com- panion than .John Newton ; and no one can read Ids letters without observing that cheerfulness was inspired by the one, and terror by the other. The iron frame of Newton could stand unmoved anddst shocks that destroyed the shrinking and apprehen- sive ndnd of Cowper. All, however, have now gone to their account — the stern yet kind minister, the faithful Mary Unwin, the gentle high-borc relations 258 j torn. ENGLISH LITERATURE. william cowpeb. who forsook ease, and luxury, and society to soothe the misery of one wretched being, and that immortal 1 being hiniself has p.assed away, scarce conscious that ' he had bequeathed an imperishable treasure to man- ■ kind. We have greater and loftier poets than ; 1 Cowper, but none so entirely incorporated, as it \ were, with our daily existence — none so completely a friend — our companion in woodland wanderings, and in moments of serious thought — ever gentle and affectionate, even in his transient fits of ascetic gloom — a pure mirror of affections, regrets, feelingjs, and desires which we have all felt or would wish to cherish. Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, are spirits j of ethere.al kind : Cowper is a steady and valu.able 1 1 friend, whose society we may sometimes neglect for that of more splendid and attractive associates, but whose unwavering principle and purity of character, joined to rich intellectual powers, overflow upon us in secret, and bind us to him for ever, i It is scarcely to be wondered at that Cowper’s Irst volume was coldly received. The subjects of ^ ais poems (Table Talk, the Progress of Error, Truth. Expostulation, Hope, Charity, &c.) did not promise 1 much, and his manner of handling them was not I i calculated to conciliate a fastidious public. He ' j was both too harsh and too spiritu.al for general i i readers. Johnson had written moral poems in the ! ! same form of verse, but they possessed a rich declama- ' i tory grandeur and brilliancy of illustration which Cowper did not attempt, and probably would, from principle, have rejected. There are passages, how- ' ever, in these evangelic.al works of Cowper of masterly execution and lively fancy. His character ; of Chatham has rarely been surpassed, even by Poi>e or Dryden : — A. Patriots, alas ! the few that have been found 1 Where most they flourish, upon English ground, j The country’s need have scantily supplied ; 1 And the last left the scene when Chatham died. ! jB. Not so ; the virtue still adorns our age, 1 Though the chief actor died upon the stage. I I In him Demosthenes was heard again ; '• j Liberty taught him her Athenian strain ; She clothed him with authority and awe, 1 Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law. I i His speech, his form, his action full of grace, i And all his country beaming in his face, j He stood as some inimitable hand Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand. No sycophant or slave that dared oppose ! 1 Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose ; ' And every venal stickler for the yoke, ' Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke. i 1 Neither has the fine simile with which the foUow- ! ! ing retrospect closes : — Ases elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared, j And ages ere the hlantuan swan was heard ; 1 To carry nature lengths unknown before, ’ To give a Milton birth asked ages more. Thus genius rose and set at ordered times, j And shot a day-spring into distant climes, ' Ennobling every region that he chose. I I He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose ; And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past, , j Emerged all splendour in our isle at last. [ 1 Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main, j '■ Then show far off their shining plumes again. i ^ The poem of Conversation in this volume is rich j| in Addisonian humour and satire, and formed no j unworthy prelude to the Task. In Hope and Retire- ment, we see traces of the descriptive powers and natural pleasantry afterwards so finely developed. The highest flight in the whole, and the one most characteristic of Cowper, is his sketch of [77iC Greenland Missionaries.] That sound bespeaks salvation on her way. The trumpet of a life-restoring day ; ’Tis heard where England’s e.ostern glory shines, And in the gulfs of her Cornubian mines. And still it spreads. See Germany send forth Her sons to pour it on the farthest north ; Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy The rage and rigour of a polar sky. And plant successfully sweet Sharon’s rose On icy plains and in eternal snows. Oh blessed within the enclosure of your rocks, Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks ; No fertilising streams your fields divide. That show reversed the villas on their side ; No groves have ye ; no cheerful sound of bird. Or voice of turtle in your land is heard ; Nor grateful eglantine regales the smell Of those that walk at evening where ye dwell ; But Winter, armed with terrors here unknown. Sits absolute on his unshaken throne. Piles up his stores amidst the frozen waste. And bids the mountains he has built stand fast ; Beckons the legions of his storms away From happier scenes to make your lauds a prey ; Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won. And scorns to share it with the distant sun. A'et Truth is yours, remote unenvied isle ! And Peace, the genuine offspring of her smile; The pride of lettered ignorance, that binds In chains of error our accomplished minds. That decks with all the splendour of the true, A false religion, is unknoivn to you. Nature indeed vouchsafes for our delight The sweet vicissitudes of day and night ; Soft airs and genial moisture feed and cheer Field, fruit, and flower, and every creature here ; But brighter beams than his who fires the skies Have risen at length on your admiring eyes. That shoot into your darkest caves the day From which our nicer optics turn away. In this mixture of argument and piety, poetry' and plain sense, we have the distinctive traits of Cowper’s genius. The freedom acquired by composition, and especially the presence of Lady Austen, led to more valuable results ; and when he entered upon the Task, he was far more disposed to look at the sunny' side of things, and to launch into general description. His versification underwent a similar improvement. His former poems were often rugged in style and expression, and were made so on purpose, to avoid the polished uniformity of Pope and his imitators. He was now sensible that he had erred on the oppo- site side, and accordingly the Task was made to unite strength and freedom witli elegance and har- mony. No poet has introduced so much idiomatic expression into a grave poem of blank verse; but the higher passages are all carefully finished, and rise or fall, according to the nature of the subject, with inimitable grace and melody. In this respect Cow- per, as already mentioned, has greatly the advantage of Thomson, whose stately march is never relaxed, however trivial be the theme. The variety oi the Task in style and manner, no less than in subject, is one of its greatest charms. The mock-heroic opening is a fine specimen of his humour, und from this he slides into rural description a id moral reflec- tion so naturally and easily, that the reader is carried along apparently without an effort. The scenery of the Ouse — its level plains and spacious meads — is described with the vividness of painting, and th« 259 FROM 1780 CYCLOPEDIA OF "ill the prksknt tims. poet tlion elevates the character of his picture by a rapid sketch of still nobler features: — {Rural Sounds. Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Kxliilarate the spirit, and restore Tlie tone of languid nature. Mighty winds That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music not unlike The dasli of ocean on his winding shore. And lull the spirit while they fill the mind. Unnumbered branches waving in the blast. Anil all their leaves fast fluttering all at once. Nor less composure waits upon the roar Of distant floods, or on the softer voice Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length In matted grass, that with a livelier green Betrays the secret of their silent course. Nature inanimate displays sweet sounds, But animated nature sweeter still. To soothe and satisfy the human ear. Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night ; nor these alone whose notes Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain. But rawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime In still-repeated circles, screaming loud. The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh. Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns. And only there, please highly for their sake. The freedom of this versification, and the admirable variety of pause and cadence, must strike the most uncritical reader. With the same playful strength and equal power of landscape painting, he describes {The Diversified Character of Creation.'] The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. Prospects, however lovely, may be seen Till half their beauties fade ; the weary sight. Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides oflf Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes. Then snug enclosures in the sheltered vale. Where frequent hedges intercept the eye. Delight us, happy to renounce a while. Not sensele.ss of its charms, what still we love. That such short absence may endear it more. Then forests, or the savage rock may please That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts Above the reach of man ; his hoary head Conspicuous many a league, the mariner Bound homeward, and in hope already there. Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist A girdle of half-withered shrubs he shows. And at his feet the baffled billows die. The common overgrown with fern, and rough With prickly goss, that, shapeless and deform. And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom. And decks itself with ornaments of gold. Yields no unpleasing ramble ; there the turf Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense With luxury of unexpected sweets. From the beginning to the end of the Task we never lose sight of the author. His love of country rambles, when a boy. O’er hills, through valleys, and by river’s brink ; his walks with Mrs Unwin, when he had exchanged Uie Thames for the Ouse, and had ‘ grown sober in the vale of years j’ his playful satire ai d tendei admonition, his denunciation of slavery, his noble jiatriotism, his devotional earnestness and snbli- mity, his warm sympathy with his fellow-men, and bis exquisite paintings of domestic peace and hap- piness, are all so much self-portraiture, drawn with the ripe skill and taste of the master, yet with a modesty that shrinks from the least obtrusiveness and display. The very rapidity of his transitions, where tilings light and sportive are drawn up with the most solemn truths, and satire, patho.s, and re- proof alternately mingle or repel each other, are characteristic of his mind and temperament in ordi- nary life. His inimitable ease and colloquial free- dom, which lends such a charm to his letters, is never long absent from his poetry; and his peculiar tastes, as seen in that somewhat grandiloquent line, Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too, are all pictured in the pure and lucid pages of the Task. It cannot be said that Cowper ever aban- doned his sectarian religious tenets, yet they are little seen in his great work. His piety is that which all should feel and venerate; and if his sad experience of the world had tinged the pro.spect of life, ‘ its fiuctuations and its vast concerns,’ with a deeper shade than seems consonant with the genera welfare and happiness, it also imparted a highei authority and more impressive wisdom to his earnest and solemn appeals. He was ‘ a stricken deer that left the herd,’ conscious of the follies and w.ants of those he left behind, and inspired with power to minister to the delight and instruction of the whole human race. {From ‘ Conversation.’] The emphatic speaker dearly loves to oppose. In contact inconvenient, nose to nose, .“^s if the gnomon on his neighbour’s phiz. Touched with a magnet, had attracted his. His whispered theme, dilated and at large. Proves after all a wind-gun’s airy charge — An extract of his diary — no more — A tasteless journal of the day before. He walked abroad, o’ertaken in the rain. Called on a friend, drank tea, stept home again ; Resumed his purpose, had a world of talk With one he stumbled on, and lost his walk ; 1 interrupt him with a sudden bow. Adieu, dear sir, lest you should lose it now. A graver coxcomb we may sometimes see, Quite as absurd, though not so light as he : A shallow brain behind a serious mask. An oracle within an empty cask. The solemn fop, significant and budge ; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge; He says but little, and that little said. Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead. His wit invites you by his looks to come. But when you knock, it never is at home : ’Tis like a pareel sent you by the stage. Some handsome present, as your hopes presage; ’Tis heavy, bulky, and bids fair to prove An absent friend’s fidelity of love ; But when unpacked, your disappointment groans To find it stuffed with brickbats, earth, and stones. Some men employ their health — an ugly trick — In making known how oft they have been sick. And give us in recitals of disease A doctor’s trouble, but without the fees ; Relate how many weeks they kept their bed. How an emetic or cathartic sped ; Nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot; Nose, ears, and eyes seem Piesent on the spot. 260 POETS, ENGLISH LITERATURE. william cowpek Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, Victorious seemed, and now the doctor’s skill ; And now — alas ! for unforeseen mishaps ! They j)ut on a damp nightcap, and relapse ; They thought they must have died, they were so bad. Their peevish hearers almost wish they had. Some fretful tempers wince at every touch, You always'do too little or too much : You speak with life, in hopes to entertain, Y our elevated voice goes through the brain ; You fall at once into a lower key, That’s worse, the drone-pipe of a humble bee. The southern sash admits too strong a light ; You rise and drop the curtain — now ’tis night. He shakes with cold — you stir the fire, and strive To make a blaze — that’s roasting him alive. Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish ; H’ith sole- — that’s just the sort he would not wish. He takes what he at first professed to loathe, And ip du" time feeds heartily “u both ; Yet still o’erclouded with a ..onstaiit frown. He does not swallow, but he gulps it down. Your hope to please him vain on every plan, Himself should work that wonder, if he can. Alas ! his efforts double his distress. He likes yours little and his own still less ; Thus always teasing others, always teased. His only pleasure is to be displeased. I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain. And bear the marks upon a blushing face Of needless shame and self-imposed disgrace. Our sensibilities are so acute. The fear of being silent makes us mute. We sometimes think we could a speech produce Much to the purpose, if our tongues were loose; But being tried, it dies upon the lip. Faint as a chicken’s note that has the pip ; Our wasted oil unprofitably burns. Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns. On the Receipt of hie Mother's Picture. Oh that those lips had language ! Life has passed With me but roughly since 1 heard thee last. Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smiles I sec. The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say, ‘ Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away !’ The meek intelligence of those dear eyes (Blest be the art that can immortalise. The art that baffles time’s tyrannic claim To quench it) here shines on me still the same. Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 0 welcome guest, though unexpected here 1 Who bidd’st me honour, with an artless song Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 1 will obey, not willingly alone. But gladly, as the precept were her own : And while that face renews my filial grief. Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief; Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, A momentary dream, that thou art she. My mother ! when I learned that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o’er thy sorrowing son. Wretch even then, life’s journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unseen, a kiss ; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — Ah, that maternal smile ! it answers — Yes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away. And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu 1 But was it such ! It was. Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May 1 but meet thee on that peaceful shore. The parting sound shall pass my lips no morel Thy maidens grieved themselves at my concern. Oft gave me promise of a quick return : What ardently I wished I long believed. And, disappointed still, was still deceived ; By disappointment every day beguiled. Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went. Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, 1 learned at last submission to my lot. But, though I less deplored thee, ne’er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin, day by day. Drew me to school along the public way. Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capt, ’Tis now become a history little known. That once we called the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession ! but the record fair. That memory keeps of all thy kindness there. Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced A thousand other themes less deeply traced. Thy nightly visits to my chamber made. That thou might’st know me safe and warmly laid; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home. The biscuit or confectionary plum ; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed ; All this, and more endearing still than all. Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall. Ne’er roughened by those cataracts and breaks. That humour interposed too often makes ; All this, still legible in memory’s page. And still to be so to my latest age, Addsjoy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honours to thee as my numbers may ; Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere. Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When, playing with thy vesture’s tissued flowers. The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while. Would softly speak, and stroke my head and smile), Could those few pleasant hours again appear. Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? I would not trust my heart — the dear delight Seems so to be desired, perhaps I m'ght. But no — what here we call our life is such. So little to be loved, and thou so much. That I should ill requite thee to constrain Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion’s coast (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed). Shoots into port at some well-havened isle. Where spices breathe and brighter seasons smile. There sits quiescent on the floods, that show Her beauteous form reflected clear below. While airs impregnated with incense play Around her, fanning light her streamers gay ; So thou, with sails how swift ! hast reached the shore ‘ Where tempests never beat nor billows roar;’ And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life, long since, has anchored at thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest. Always from port withheld, always distressed- Me howling winds drive devious, tempest-tossed, Sails ript, seams opening wide, and compass lost ; And day by day some current’s thwarting force Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. But oh the thought, that thou art safe, and hel That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. My boast is not that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth ; FROM 1780 CYCLOPiEDIA OF TILL THE PRESENT TIMX. Hut higher far my proud pretensions rise — The son of parents passed into the skies. And now, farewell — Time unrovoked has run His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. Hy contemplation’s help, not sought in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o’er again : 'I'o have renewed the joys that once were mine, Without the sin of violating thine ; And, while the wings of fancy still are free, And I can view this mimic show of thee. Time has but half .succeeded in his theft — Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. [ Voltaire and the Lace-worker.^ Y on cott.ager, who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store ; Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads .about the live-long day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light ; She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit ; Receives no praise ; but though her lot be such (Toilsome and indigent), she renders much ; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true — A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew; And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, Her title to a treasure in the skies. O happy peasant ! 0 unhappy bard ! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward ; He praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come. She never heard of half a mile from home; He lost in errors his vain heart prefers, SLi safe in the simplicity of hers. To Mary l^Mrs TJnioirC). Autumn, 1793. The twentieth year is well nigh past Since first our sky was overcast ; Ah, would that this might be our last ! My Mary ! Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow ; ’Twas my distress that brought thee low. My Mary! Thy needles, once a shining store. For my sake restless heretofore. Now rust disused, and shine no more. My Mary I For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil The same kind office for me still. Thy sight now seconds not thy will. My Mary ! But well thou play’dst the housewife’s part. And all thy threads, with magic art. Have wound themselves about this heart. My Mary! Thy indistinct expressions seem Like language uttered in a dream ; Yet me they charm, whate’er the theme. My Mary ! Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, Are still more lovely in my sight Than golden beams of orient light. My Marv • For, could I view nor them nor thee. What sight worth seping could 1 see! The sun would rise in vain for me. My Mary! Partakers of thy sad decline. Thy hands their little force resign ; Yet gently pressed, press gently mine. My Mary! Such feebleness of limbs thou prov’st. That now at every step thou mov’st Upheld by two ; yet still thou lov’st. My Maryl And still to love, though pressed with ill. In wintiy age to feel no chill. With me is to be lovely still. My Mary ! But ah! by constant heed I know. How oft the sadness that I show. Transforms thy smiles to looks of wo. My Mary ! And should my future lot be cast With much resemblance of the past. Thy worn-out heart will break at last. My Mary 1 [ Winter Evening in the Country.'] [From ‘ The Task."] Hark ! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge. That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrlnkled face reflected bright ; He comes, the herald of a noisy world. With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks ; News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, Y et careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn ; And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch ! Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks. Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears, that trickled down the writer’s cheeks Fast as the p'eriods from his fluent quill. Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all. But 0 the important budget I ushered in With such heart-shaking music, who can say What are its tidings ? have our troops awaked ! Or do they still, as if with opium drugged. Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave ? Is India free! and does she wear her plumed And jewelled turban with a smile of peace. Or do we grind her still ! The grand debate. The popular harangue, the tart reply. The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit. And the loud laugh — I long to know them all ; I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free. And give them voice and utter.ance once again. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast. Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round. And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups. That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each. So let us welcome peaceful evening in. Not such his evening who, with shining face. Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed And bored with elbow-points through both his sidea, Out-scolds the ranting actor on the stage : Nor his who p.atient stands till his feet throb. And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriot, bursting with heroic rage. PORTS. ENGLISH LlTEIlA'rUHE. wim-iasi cowpee. Dr j)liu;cm«n, nil tranquillity and smiles. This liilio of four papes, happy work ! Which not even critics criticise ; that holds Inqui.dtive attention, while 1 read, Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ; What is it but a map of busy life. Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge That tempts ambition. On the summit see The seals of office glitter in his eyes ; He climbs, he pants, he grasps them ! At his heels, Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends. And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down, And wins them but to lose them in his turn. Here rills of oily eloquence in soft Meanders lubricate tlie course they take ; Th“ modest speaker is ashamed and grieved To engross a moment^s notice, and yet begs, Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts. However trivi..' all that he conceives. Sweet bashfulness! it claims at least this praise, The dearth of information and good sense That it foretells us, always comes to pass. Cataracts of declamation thunder here ; There forests of no meaning spread the page. In which all comprehension wanders lost; While fields of pleasantry amuse us there. With merry descants on a nation’s woes. The rest appears a wilderness of strange But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks. And lilies for the brows of faded age. Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald. Heaven, earth, and ocean, plundered of their sweets ; Nectareous essences, Olympian dews. Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs, /Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits. And Katterfelto,* with his hair on end At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. ’Tls pleasant through the loop-holes of retreat To peep at such a world ; to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; To hear the roar she sends through all her gates At a safe distance, where the dying sound Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear. Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease The globe and its concerns, 1 seem advanced To some secure and more than mortal height. That liberates and exempts me from them all. * * 0 W’inter ! ruler of the inverted year, * * I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st. And dreaded as thou ai't ! Thou hold’st the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning east. Shortening his journey between morn and noon. And huiTying him, impatient of his stay, Down to the rosy west ; but kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease. And gathering, at short notice, in one group The family dispersed, and fixing thought. Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares. I crown tTiee king of intimate delights. Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness. And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know. No rattling wheels stop short before these gates ; No powdered pert proficient in the art Of sounding an alarm assaults these doors Till the street rings ; no stationary steeds Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound. The silent circle fan themselves, and quake: But here the needle plies its busy task. The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower, ♦ A noted conjuror of tbo day. Wrought |)atiently into the snowy lawn. Unfolds its bosom: buds, and leaves, and sprigs, .^nd curling tendrils, gracefully disposed. Follow the nimble finger of the fair ; A wreath, that cannot fade, of flowers, that blow With most success when all besides decay. The poet’s or historian’s page by one Made vocal for the amusement of the rest ; The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out; And the clear voice symphoiiious, yet distinct. And in the charming strife triumphant still. Beguile the night, and set a keener edge On female industry : the threaded steel Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. The volume closed, the customary rites Of the last meal commence. A Roman meal ; Such as the mistress of the world once found Delicious, when her patriots of high note. Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors. And under an old oak’s domestic shade. Enjoyed, spare feast! a radish and an egg. Discourse ensues, not trivial, j’et not dull. Nor such as with a frown forbids the play Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth; Nor do we madly, like an iminous world. Who deem religion frenzy, and the God That made them an intruder on their joys. Start at his awful name, or deem his praise A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone. Exciting oft our gratitude and love. While we retrace with memory’s pointing wand. That calls the past to our exact review. The dangers we have ’scaped, the broken snare. The disappointed foe, deliverance found Unlooked for, life preserved and peace restored. Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. 0 evenings worthy of the gods ! exclaimed The Sabine bard. 0 evenings, I reply. More to be prized and coveted than yours ! As more illumined, and with nobler truths. That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy. • Come Evening, once again, season of peace ; Return sweet Evening, and continue long! Methinks I see thee in the streaky west. With matron-step slow-moving, while the night Treads on thy sweeping train ; one hand employed In letting fall the curtain of repose On bird and beast, the other charged for man With sweet oblivion of the cares of day : Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid. Like homely-featured night, of clustering gems ; A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow. Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine No less than hers: not worn indeed on high With ostentatious pageantry, but set With modest grandeur in thy purple zone. Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. Come then, and thou shalt find tny votary calm, Or make me so. Composure is thy gift ; And whether I devote thy gentle hours To bookr, to music, or the poet’s toil ; To we.aving nets for bird-alluring fruit ; Or twining silken threads round ivory reels. When they command whom man was born to please, 1 slight thee not, but make thee welcome still. Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze With lights, by clear reflection multiplied From many a mirror, in which he of Oath, Goliah, might have seen his giant bulk Whole without stooping, towering crest and all. My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps The glowing hearth may satisfy a while With faint illumination, that uplifts The shadows to the ceiling, there by fits Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame. 263 PHOM r7ftO CYCLOl’^iDlA OF TILL THE PEESEM TIMl. N(< uiiilelightful is an liom- to me So Hpent in parlour twiliglit : huc)i a gloom SuitH well the thoughtful or unthinking mind, The mind contemplative, with some new theme Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all. I Laugh )e who hoast vour more mercurial power*. That never felt a. stupor, know no pause. Nor need one ; 1 am conscious, and l onfess Fearle.ss a soul that does not always think. Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild, Soothed with a waking dream o. houses, towers. Trees, churches, and strange visage, expressed In the red cinders, while with poring ve I gazeil, myself creating what I saw. Nor less amused have 1 quiescent watched The sooty films that play upon the bars Pendulous, and foreboding in the view Of superstition, i>ro])hcsying still. Though still deceived, some stranger’s near approach. ’Tis thus the understanding takes repo.se In inilolent vacuity of thought, And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask Of deep deliberation, as the man Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost. Thus oft, reclined at ease, I lose an hour At evening, till at length the freezing blast. That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home The recollected powers ; and snai>ping short The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves Her brittle toils, restores me to my.self. How calm is my recess ; and how the frost. Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear The silence and the warmth enjoyed within! I saw the woods and fields at close of day, A variegated show ; the meadows green. Though faded ; and the lands, where lately waved The golden harvest, of a mellow brown, Upturned so lately by the forceful share. 1 saw far off the weedy fallows smile With verdure not unprofitable, grazed By. flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each His favourite herb ; while all the leafless groves That skirt the horizon wore a sable hue. Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve. To-iiionow brings a change, a total change ! Which even now, though silently performed. And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face Of universal nature undergoe.s. Fast falls a fleecy shower: the downy flakes Descending, and with never-ceasing lapse Softly alighting upon all below. Assimilate all objects. Earth receives Gladly the thickening mantle; and the green And tender blade, that feared the chilling blast. Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil. In such a world, so thorny, and where none Finds happine.ss unblighted ; or, if found, Without some thistly .sorrow at its side. It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin Against the law of love, to measure lots With less distingui.shed than ourselves ; that thus We may with patience bear our moderate ills. And sympathise with others suffering more. Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalks In ponderous boots beside his reeking team. The wain goes heavily, impeded sore By congregated loads adhering close To the clogged wheels ; and in its sluggish pace Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow. The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide. While every breath, by respiration strong Forced downward, is consolidated soon Upon their jutting che.sts. He, formed to bear The pelting brunt of the tempe.stuous night, With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks, and teeth t k " . rr I’rcscnted bare against the storm, plods on. One hand secures his hat, save when with both He brandishes his pliant length of whip, Ke.sounding oft, and never heard in vain. 0 ha[ipy — and in my account denied That sensibility of pain with which Refinement is endued — thrice ha]>py thou! Thy frame, robust and haidy, feels indeed 'fhe piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired. The learned finger never need explore Thy vigorous pul.se ; and the unhealthful cast. That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone Of the infirm, is wholesome air to tliee. Thy days roll on exemi)t from household care ; Thy wagon is thy wife ; and the poor beasts That drag the dull companion to and fro. Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care. Ah, treat them kindly ; rude as thou appearest. Yet show that thou hast mercy ! which the great With needle.ss hurry whirled from ]>lace to place. Humane as they would seem, not always show. Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat. Such claim compa.ssion in a night like Hiis, And have a friend in every feeling heart. Warmed, while it lasts, by labour, all day long They brave the season, and yet find at eve, HI clad, and fed but sparely, time to cool. 'J'he frugal housewife trembles wliile she lights Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear. But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys. The few small embers left she nui'ses well ; And, while her infant race, with outspread hands And crowded knees, sit cowering o’er the sparks, Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. The man feels least, as, more inured than she To winter, and the current in his veins More briskly moved by his severer toil ; Yet he, too, finds bis own distress in theirs. The taper .soon extinguished, which 1 saw Dangled along at the cold finger’s end Ju.st when the day declined, and the brown loaf Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce Of savoury cheese, or butter, co.stlier still. Sleep seems their only refuge ; for, alas. Where penury is felt the thought is chained. And sweet colloquial jileasures are but few! With all this thrift they tlirive not. All the care Ingenious parsimony takes, but just Saves the small inventory, bed and .stool. Skillet and old carved chest, from public sale. They live, and live without extorted alms From grudging hamls ; but other boa-st have non* To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg. Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. 1 praise you much, ye meek and patient pair. For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far A dry but independent crust, hard earned. And eaten with a sigh, than to endure The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs Of knaves in office, partial in the work Of distribution ; liberal of their aid To clamorous importunity in rags. Rut ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would bluah To wear a tattered garb, however coarse, Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth : The.se ask with painful shyness, and, refused Because deserving, silently retire I But be ye of good courage! Time itself Shall much befriend you. Time .shall give increase; And all your numerous progeny, well-trained. But helpless, in few years shall find their hands. And labour too. Meanwhile ye shall not want What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare. Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may seud. I mean the man who, when the distant poor Need help, denies them nothing but his name. 264 IH>K'rS. ENOLISII LITERATURE. WILLIAM COWPER. [Lore of Nature.] [From the same.] Tis bom with all : the love of Nature’s works Is an ingredient in the compound man, Infused at the creation of the kind. And, though the Almighty Maker has throughout Discriminated each from each, by strokes And touches of his hand, with so much art Diversified, that two were never found Twins at all points — yet this obtains in all, That all discern a beauty in his works. And all can taste them : minds, that have been formed And tutored with a relish, more exact. But none without some relish, none unmoved. It is a flame that dies not even there, ■\Vhere nothing feeds it : neither business, crowds. Nor habits of luxurious city-life. Whatever else they smother of true worth In human bosoms, quench it or abate. The villas with which London stands begirt. Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads. Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air. The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer The citizen, and brace his languid frame 1 Even in the stifling bosom of the town, A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms That soothe the rich possessor ; much consoled That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint. Of nightshade or valerian, grace the wall He cultivates. These serve him with a hint That nature lives ; that sight-refreshing green Is still the livery she delights to wear. Though sickly .samples of the exuberant whole. What are the casements lined with creeping herbs. The prouder sashes fronted with a range Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed. The Krenchman’s darling? Arc they not all proofs That man, immured in cities, .still retains His inborn inextinguishable thiisst Of rural scene.s, compensating his loss By supplemental shifts the best he may? The most unfurni.shed with the means of life. And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds To range the fields and treat their lungs with air. Yet feel the burning instinct ; over-head Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick. And watered duly. There the pitcher stands A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there ; Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets The country, with what ardour he contrives A peep at nature, when he can no more. Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease, And contemplation, heart-consoling joys And harmless pleasures, in the thronged abode Of multitudes unknown ; hail, rural life! Address himself who will to the pursuit Of honours, or emolument, or fame, I shall not add myself to such a chase. Thwart his attempts, or envy his success. Some must be great. Great otiices will have Great talents. And God gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste. That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordained to fill. To the deliverer of an injured land He gives a tongue to enlarge upon, a heart To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs ; To monarchs dignity ; to judges sense ; To artists ingenuity and skill ; To me an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life, that early felt A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long Found here that leisure and that ease I wished. [English Liberty.] We love The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, And reigns content within them ; him we serve Freely and with delight, who leaves us free: But recollecting still that he is man. We trust him not too far. King though he be, And king in England too, he may be weak. And vain enough to be ambitious still ; May exercise amiss his jiroper powers. Or covet more than freemen choose to grant : Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours To administer, to guard, to adorn the state. But not to waq) or change it. We are his To serve him nobly in the common cause. True to the death, but not to be his slaves. Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. Wc love the man, the paltry pageant you ; We the chief patron of the commonwealth. You the regardless anther of its woes ; We for the sake of liberty, a king. You chains and bondage for a tyrant’s sake: Our love is principle, and has its root In reason, is judicious, manly, free ; Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod. And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. Were king.ship as true treasure as it seems. Sterling, and worthy of a wise man’s wish, I would not be a king to be beloved Causeless, and daubed with undisceming praise, VV’here love is mere attachment to the throne. Not to the man who fills it as he ought. ’Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; And we are weeds without it. All constraint. Except what wisdom lays on evil men. Is evil ; hurts the faculties, impedes Their progress in the road of science, blinda The eyesight of discovery, and begets In those that suffer it a sordid mind. Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man’s noble form. Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art. With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed By public exigence, till annual food Fails for the craving hunger of the state. Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nation.s, seeing thou art free. My native nook of earth ! thy clime is rude. Replete with vapour.s, and disposes much All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine: Thine unadulterate manners are less soft And plausible than social life requires. And thou hast need of discipline and art To give thee what politer France receives From nature’s bounty — that humane addresa And sweetness, without which no pleasure is In converse, either starved by cold reserve. Or flushed with fierce dispute, a sen.seless brawl. Yet being free, I love thee : for the sake Of that one feature can be well content. Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art. To seek no sublunary rest beside. But once enslaved, farewell ! 1 could endure Chains nowhere patiently ; and chains at home. Where I am free by birthright, not at all. Then what were left of roughness in the grain Of British natures, wanting its excuse That it belongs to freemen, would disgust And shock me. I should then with double pain Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime ; And, if I must bewail the blessing lost. For which our Hampdeus and our Sidneys bled, 265 FROM 1780 CYCLOPEDIA OF till TitE present TiJOk I would at least bewail it under skies Milder, among a people less austere ; In scenes which, having never known me free, Would not rc[>roach me with the loss I felt. Do 1 forebode impossible events, J\nd tremble at vain dreams? Heaven grant I mayl Hut the age of virtuous politics is past. And we are deep in that of cold pretence. Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere. And we too wise to trust them. He that takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp Designed by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith. And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough : For when was public virtue to be found M'here private was not? Can he love the whole Who loves no part? He be a nation’s friend, Who is in truth the friend of no man there? Can he be strenuous in his country’s cause Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake That country, if at all, must be beloved ? ’Tis tlierefore sober and good men are ead For England’s glory, seeing it wax pale And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts So loose to private duty, that no brain. Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes. Can dream them trusty to the general weal. Such were they not of old, whose tempered blades Dispersed the shackles of usurped control. And hewed them link from link ; then Albion’s sons Were sons indeed ; they felt a filial heart Beat high within them at a mother’s wrongs; And, shining each in his domestic sphere. Shone brighter still, once called to public view. ’Tis therefore many, whose sequestered lot Forbids their interference, looking on. Anticipate perforce some dire event ; And, .seeing the old castle of the state. That promised once more firmness, so assailed That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake. Stand motionless expectants of its fall. All has its date below ; the fatal hour AVaa registered in heaven ere time began. M’e turn to dust, and all our mightiest works Die too : the deep foundations that we lay. Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains. We build with what we deem eternal rock : A distant age asks where the fabric stood : And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain. The undiscoverable secret sleeps. [A Winter Tfa?!-.] The night was winter in his roughest mood ; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon. Upon the .southern side of the slant hills. And where the woods fence off the northern blast. The season smiles, resigning all its rage. And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud, .and white without a speck The diizzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o’er the vale. And through the trees 1 view the embattled tower. Whence all the music. I again perceive The soothing influence of the wafted strains. And settle in soft musings as I tread The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms. Whose outspre.ad branches overarch the glade. The roof, though movable through all its length As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed. And, intercepting in their silent fall The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. T'ne redbreast warbles still, but is content With slender notes, and more than half suppressed : I’lcased with his solitude, and flitting light From spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendant drops of ice. That tinkle in the withered leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft. Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head. And learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one. Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men. Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass. The mere materials with which wisdom builds. Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place. Docs but incumber whom it .seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much, Wi.sdom is humble that he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and .spells. By which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. Some to the fascination of a name Surrender judgment, hoodwinked. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of error leads them by a tune entranced ; While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of thought. And swallowing therefore without pause or choice The total grist unsifted, husks and all. But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer. And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes in which the primro.se ere her time Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthor* root. Deceive no student. Wisdom there and truth. Not shy as in the world, and to be won By slow solicitation, seize at once The roving thought, and fix it on thera.selves. What prodigies can power divine perform More grand than it produces year by year. And all in sight of inattentive man ! Familiiir with the effect, we slight the cause. And in the constancy of nature’s course. The regular return of genial months. And renovation of a faded world. See nought to wonder at. Should God again. As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race Of the undeviating and punctual sun. How would the world admire? But speaks it less An agency divine, to make him know His moment when to sink and when to rise. Age after age, than to arrest his course? All we behold is miracle ; but seen So duly, all is miracle in vain. Where now the vital energy that moved. While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph Through the imperceptible meandering veins Of leiif and flower? It sleeps ; and the icy touch Of unprolific winter has impressed A cold stagnation on the intestine tide. But let the months go round, a few short months. And all shall be restored. These naked shoots. Barren as lances, among which the wind flakes wintry music, sighing as it goes. Shall put their graceful foliage on again. And more aspiring, and with ampler spread. Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost. Then, each in its peculiar honours clad. Shall publish even to the distant eye Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich In streaming gold ; syringii, ivory pure ; The .scentless and the scented rose ; this red. And of a humbler growth, the other tall. And throwing up into the darkest gloom 266 POETS. KN(JLIS1I LITERATURE. WILLIAM COWPSB. Of iioigliboufing cvpress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs fiom the broken wave ; The lilac, various in array, now white, Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set With purple spikes pyramidal, as if Studious of ornament ; yet unresolved Which hue she most approved, she chose them all ; Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never-cloying odours, early and late; Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a leaf appears ; mezerion too. Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing every spray; Althasa with the purple eye ; the broom. Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloyed. Her bloss mis ; and luxuriant above all The jessa nine, throwing wide her elegant sweets. The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more The bright profusion of her scattered stars. These have been, and these shall be in their day ; And all this uniform and coloured scene Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load. And flush into variety again. From dearth to plenty, and from death to life. Is Nature’s progress, when she lectures man In heavenly truth ; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. The beauties of the wilderness are his. That make so gay the solitary place Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms That cultivation glories in are his. He sets the bright procession on its way. And marshals all the order of the year; He marks the bounds which winter may not pass. And blunts his pointed fury ; in its case. Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ Uninjured, with inimitable art ; And, ere one flowery season fades and dies. Designs the blooming wonders of the next. T/te Diverting History of John Gilpin: Showing how he went farther than he intended, and came safe home again. John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown, A train-band captain eke was he Of famous London town. John Gilpin’s spouse said to her dear. Though wedded we have been These twice ten tedious years, yet we No holiday have seen. To-morrow is our wedding day. And we will then repair Unto the Bell at Edmonton All in a chaise and pair. My sister, and my sister’s child. Myself and children three, M^ill fill the chaise ; so you must ride On horseback after we. He soon replied, I do admire Of womankind but one. And you are she, my dearest dear ; Therefore it shall be done. I am a linen-draper bold. As all the world doth know. And my good friend the calender Will lend his horse to go. Quoth Mrs Gilpin, That’s well said ; And for that wine is dear. We will be furnished with our own. Which is both bright and clear. John Gilpin kissed his loving wife; O’erjoyed was he to find That, though on pleasure she was bent. She bad a frugal mind. The morning came, the chaise was brought. But yet was not allowed To drive up to the door, lest all Should say that she was proud. So three doors off the chaise was stayed. Where they did all get in ; Six precious souls, and all agog To dash through thick and thin. Smack went the whip, round went the wheels^ Were never folk so glad ; The stones did rattle underneath. As if Cheapside were mad. John Gilpin at his horse’s side Seized fast the flowing mane, And up he got, in haste to ride. But soon came down again ; For saddle-tree scarce reached had he. His journey to begin. When, turning round his head, he saw Three cu.stomers come in. So down he came ; for loss of time. Although it grieved him sore. Yet loss of pence, full well he knew. Would trouble him much more. ’Twas long before the customers Were suited to their mind. When Betty screaming came down stairs, ‘ The wine is left behind 1’ Good lack ! quoth he — j'et bring it me. My leathern belt likewise. In which I bear my trusty sword When I do exercise. Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul 1) Had two stone bottles found. To hold the liquor that she loved. And keep it safe and sound. Each bottle had a curling ear. Through which the belt he drew. And hung a bottle on each side. To make his balance true. Then over all, that he might be Equipped from top to toe. His long red cloak, well brushed and neat, He manfully did throw. Now see him mounted once again Upon his nimble steed. Full slowly pacing o’er the stones With caution and good heed. But finding soon a smoother road Beneath his well-shod feet. The snorting beast began to trot. Which galled him in his seat. So, fair and softly, John he cried. But .John he cried in vain ; That trot became a gallop soon. In spite of curb and rein. So stooping down, as needs he must Who cannot sit upright. He grasped the mane with both his handi, Amd eke with all his might. 267 FROM 1780 CYCLOPAEDIA OF ^ till the present time. Ills hoibc, uliiih uever in that sort Had luiiullod been before, The calender, amazed to see His neighbour in such trim. Wbat tiling upon his back liad got Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate. Did wonder more and i:;'.*;". And thus accostc^d him : Away went Gilpin, neck or nought; What news? what news? your tidings tell— Away went hat and wig ; Tell me you must and shall — He little drcaint when he set out Say why bareheaded you are come. Of running such a rig. Or why you come at all ? The wind did blow, the cloak did fly, Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit. Like streamer long and gay. And loved a timely joke ; Till, loop and button failing both, And thus unto the calender At last it flew away. In merry guise he spoke : Then might all people well discern I came because your horse would come; The bottles he had slung ; And, if I well forebode. A bottle swinging at each side. My hat and wig will soon be here — As hath been said or sung. They are upon the road. The dogs did bark, the children screamed. The calender, right glad to find Up flew the window's all ; His friend in merry pin. And every soul cried out. Well done ! Returned him not a single word. As loud as he could baw'l. But to the house went in. Away went Gilpin — who but he t Whence straight he came with hat and wig ; His fame soon spread around ; A wig that flowed behind. He carrioi weight ! he rides a race t A hat not much the worse for wear. ’T'S idr a thousand pound! Each comely in its kind. .And still, as fast as he drew near. He held them up, and in his turn ’Twas wonderful to view Thus showed his ready wit. How in a trice the turnpike men My head is twice as big as yours, T1 eir gates wide open threw. They therefore needs must fit. And now, as he went bowing down His reeking head full low. But let me scrape the dirt away That hangs upon your face ; The bottles twain behind his back And stop and eat, for well you may Were shattered at a blow. Be in a hungry case. Down ran the wine into the road. Said John, It is my wedding day. Most piteous to be seen. And all the world would stare Which made his horse’s flanks to smoke If wife should dine at Edmonton, As they had basted been. And I should dine at VV’are. But still he seemed to carry weight. So turning to his horse, he said. With leathern girdle braced; I am in haste to dine ; For all might see the bottle necks ’Twas for your pleasure you came here, Still dangling at his waist. Y ou shall go back for mine. Thus all through merry Islington Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast < These gambols he did play. For which he paid full dear ; Until he came unto the VVash For, while he spake, a braying ass Of Edmonton so gay. Did sing most loud and clear ; And there he threw the w.ash about Whereat his horse did snort, as he On both sides of the way. Had heard a lion roar. Just like unto a trundling mop. And galloped off with all his might. Or a wild goose at play. As he had done before. At Edmonton his loving wife Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin’s hat and wig : From the balcony spied Her tender husband, wondering much He lost them sooner than at first ; To see how he did ride. For why? — they were too big. Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! — Here’s the house — Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw They all aloud did cry ; Her husband posting down The dinner waits, and we are tired : Into the country far away. Said Gilpin — So am I ! She pulled out half-a-crown ; But yet his horse was not a whit And thus unto the youth she said. Inclined to tarry there ; That drove them to the Bell, For why ? his owner had a house This shall be yours when you bring back Full ten miles off at Ware. My husband safe and well. So like an arrow swift he flew. The youth did ride, and soon did ms£^ Shot by an archer strong ; John coming back amain ! So did he fly — which brings me to Whom in a trice he tried to stop. The middle of my song. By catching at his rein ; Away went Gilpin ou^of breath. But not performing what he meant. And sore against his w.ll. And gladly would have done. Till at his friend the calender’s The frighted steed he frighted more, His horse at last stood stilL And made him faster run. 258 FOBTt. ENGLISH 1.1TERATURE. WIM.IAH IIAYLET, Away went Gilpin, and away Went post-boy at his heels, The post-boy’s horse right glad to miss The lumbering of the wheels. Six gentlemen upon the road Thus seeing Gili)in fly. With post-boy scampering in the rear, They raised the hue and cry : — Stop thief ! stop thief! a highwayman I Not one of them was mute ; And all and each that passed that way Did join in the pursuit. And now the turnpike gates again flew open in short space ; The tollmen thinking as before T''at Gilpin rode a race. And >0 he diil, and won it too, For he got first to town ; Nor stopped till where he had got up He did again get down. Now let us sing long live the king, And Gilpin, long live he ; And, when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see 1 ■WILLIAM HATL'ET. William Hayley (1745-1820), the biographer of Cowper, wrote various poetical works, which en- joyed great popularitv in their day. His principal productions are the Triumphs of Temper (1781), a series of poetical epistles on history, addressed to Gibbon, and Essays on Painting, on Epic Poetry, &c. He produced several unsuccessful tr.igedies, a novel, and an Essay on Old Maids. A gentleman by educa- tion and fortune, and fond of literary communication, Hayley enjoyed the acquaintance of most of the eminent men of his times. His overstrained sensi- bility and romantic tastes exposed him to ridicule, yet he was an amiable and benevolent man. It was through his personal a|)plication to Pitt that Cowper received his pension. He had (what appears to have been to him a sort of melancholy pride and satis- faction) the task of writing epitaphs for most of his friends, including Mrs Unwin and Cowper. His life of Cowper appeared in 180.3, and three years after- wards it was enlarged by a supplement. Hayley prepared memoirs of his own life, which he disposed of to a publisher on condition of his receiving an annuity for the remainder of his life. This annuity he enjoyed for twelve years. The memoirs ap- pearecl in two fine quarto volumes, but they failed to attract attention. Hayley had outlived his popu- larity, and his smooth but often unmeaning lines had vanished like cliaff before the vigorous and natural outpourings of the modern muse. As a specimen of this once much praised poet, ive subjoin some lines on the death of his mother, which had the merit of delighting Gibbon, and with which Mr Southey has remarked Cowper would sympathise deeply : — [Tribute to a Mother, on her Death.'] [From the ‘ Essay on Epic Poetry.’] For me who feel, whene’er I touch the lyre. My talents sink below my proud desire ; Who often doubt, and sometimes credit give. When friends assure me that my verse will live ; Whom health, too tender for the bustling throng. Led into pensive shade and soothing song ; Whatever fortune my unpolished rhymes May meet in present or in future times. Let the blest art my grateful thoughts employ. Which soothes my sorrow and augments my joy ; Whence lonely peace and social pleasure springs, And friendship dearer than the smile of kings. While keener poets, querulously proud. Lament the ill of poesy aloud. And magnify with irritation’s zeal, Those common evils we too strongly feel. The envious comment and the subtle style Of specious slander, stabbing with a smile ; Frankly 1 wish to make her blessings known. And think tho.se blessings for her ills atone ; Nor would my honest pride that praise forego. Which makes Malignity yet more my foe. If heartfelt pain e’er led me to accuse The dangerous gift of the alluring Muse, ’Twas in the moment when my verse impressed Some anxious feelings on a mother’s breast. 0 thou fond .spirit, who with pride ha.st smiled, And frowned with fear on thy poetic child. Pleased, yet alarmed, when in his boyish time He sighed in numbers or he laughed in rhyme ; While thy kind cautions warned him to beware Of Penury, the bard’s perpetual snare; Marking the early temper of his soul. Careless of wealth, nor fit for base control ! Thou tender saint, to whom he owes much more Than ever child to parent owed before ; In life’s first season, when the fever’s flame Shrunk to deformity his shrivelled frame. And turned each fairer image in his brain To blank confusion and her crazy train, ’Twas thine, with constant love, through lingering yean To bathe thy idiot orphan in thy tears ; Day after day, and night succeeding night. To turn incessant to the hideous sight. And frequent watch, if haply at thy view Departed reason might not dawn anew ; Though medicinal art, with pitying care. Could lend no aid to save thee from de.spair. Thy fond maternal heart adhered to hope and prayer : Nor prayed in vain ; thy child from powers above Received the sense to feel and bless thy love. 0 might he thence receive the happy skill. And force proportioned to his ardent will. With truth’s unfading radiance to emblaze Thy virtues, worthy of immortal praise 1 Nature, w’ho decked thy form with beauty’s fiawera, Exhausted on thy soul her finer powers ; Taught ii with all her energy to feel Love’s melting softness, friendshi|i’s fervid zeal, The generous purpose and the active thought. With charity’s diffusive .spirit fraught. There all the best of mental gifts she placed. Vigour of judgment, purity of taste, Superior parts without their spleenful leaven. Kindness to earth and confidence in heaven. While my fond thoughts o’er all thy merits roll, Thy praise thus gushes from my filial .soul ; Nor will the public with harsh rigour blame This my just homage to thy honoured name ; To please that public, if to please be mine. Thy virtues trained me — let the praise be thine. ' Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper. Ye who with ivarmth the public triumph feel Of talents dignified by sacred zeal. Here, to devotion’s bard devoutly just. Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper’s dust! England, exulting in his .spotless fame. Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name. Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise So clear a title to affection’s praise : His highest honours to the heart belong; His virtues formed the magic of his soi.g. 8«9 FROM 178) CYCLOPEDIA OF xirx the present time. On the Tomb of Mrs Unwin. Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, This woman jirovcd magnanimously kind; Kiidurcd allliction’s desolating hail, And vitehed a poet through misfortune’s vale. Her sj itless dust angelic guards defendl It is the dust of Unwin, Cowper’s friend. That single title in itself is fame. For all who read his verse revere her name. vn ERASMUS DARWIN. Dr Erasmus Darwin, an ingenious philosophi- cal, though fanciful poet, was born at Elston, near Newark, in 1731. Having pa.ssed with credit through a course of education at St John’s college, Cambridge, he ajiplied himself to the study of physic, and took his degree of bachelor in medicine at Edinburgh in 17.55. He then commenced prac- tice in Nottingham, but meeting with little encour- agement, he removed to Lichfield, where he long continued a successful and distinguished physician. In 1757 Dr Darwin married an accomplished lady of Lichfield, Miss Mary Howard, by whom he had five children, two of whom died in infancy. The lady herself died in 1770 ; and after her decease, Darwin seems to have commenced his botanical and literary pursuits. He was at first afraid that the reputation of a poet would injure him in his profession, but being firmly established in the latter capacity, he at length ventured on publication. At this time he lived in a picturesque villa in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, furnished with a grotto and fountain, and here he began the formation of a botanic garden. The spot he has described as ‘adapted to love-scenes, and as being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of botany.’ In 1781 appeared the first part of Darwin’s Botanic Garden, a poem in glittering and polished heroic Terse, designed to describe, adorn, and allegorise the Liunaian system of botany. The Rosicrucian doc- trine of gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, and salamanders, was adopted by the poet, as • affording a proper machinery for a botanic poem, as it is probable they were origin.ally the names of hieroglyphic figures representing the elements.’ The novelty and ingenuity of Darwin’s attempt attracted much attention, and rendered him highly popular. In the same year the poet was called to attend an aged gentleman, Colonel Sachevell Pole of Rad- bourne-hall, near Derby. An intimacy was thus formed with Mrs Pule, and the colonel dying, the poetical physician in a few months afterwards, in 1781, married the firir widow, wdio possessed a join- ture of L.600 per annum. Darwin was now released from all pruilential fears and restraints as to the cul- tivation of his poetical talents, and he went on adding to his floral gallery. In 1789 appeared the second part of his poen. , containing the Loves of the Plants. Ovid having, he said, transmuted men, women, and even gods and goddesses into trees and flowers, he had undertaken, by similar art, to restore some of them to their original animality, after having re- mained prisoners so long in their respective vege- table mansions : — From giant oaks, that wave their branches dark To the dwarf moss that clings upon their bark. What beaux and beauties crowd the gaudy groves, And woo and win their vegetable loves.* * Linn.vus, the celebrated Swedish natur,alist, has deinon- atrated, that all flowers contain families of males or females, or both ; and on their marriage, has constructed his invaluable system of botany. — Vanvin. How snowdrops cold, and blue-eyed harebells blend Their tender tears, as o’er the streams they bend ; The love-sick violet, anil the primrose pale, I’ow their sweet heads, and whi.sper to the gale ; With secret sighs the virgin lily droops. And jealous cowslips hang their tawny cups. How the young ro.se, in beauty’s damask pride, Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride; With honied lips enamoured woodbines meet. Clasp with fond arms, and mix their kisses sweet ! Stay thy soft murmuring waters, gentle rill ; Hush, whispering winds; ye rustling leaves be still; Rest, silver butterflies, your quivering wings; Alight, ye beetles, from your airy rings ; Ye painted moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl, Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl ; Glitter, ye glow-worms, on your mossy beds ; Descend, ye .spiders, on your lengthened threads ; Slide here, ye horned snails, with varni.shed shells; Y e bee-nymphs, listen in your waxen cells 1 This is exquisitely melodious verse, and ingenious subtle fancy. A few passages have moral sentiment and human interest united to the same powers of vivid painting and expression : — Roll on, ye stars ! exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time; Near and more near your beamy cars approach. And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach ; Flowers of the sky ! ye, too, to age must yield, Frail as your silken si.sters of the field 1 Star after star from heaven’s high arch shall rush. Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush. Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall. And death, and night, and chaos mingle all! Till o’er the wreck, emerging from the storm. Immortal nature lifts her changeful form. Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame. And soars and shines, another and the same 1 In another part of the poem, after describing the cassia plant, ‘ cinctured with gold,’ and borne on by the current to the coasts of Norway, with all its ‘infant loves,’ or seeds, the poet, in his usual strain of forced similitude, digresses in the following happy and vigorous lines, to Moses concealed on the Nile, and the slavery of the Africans : — So the sad mother at the noon of night. From bloody Memphis stole her silent flight ; Wrapped her dear babe beneath her folded vest. And clasped the treasure to her throbbing breast ; With soothing whispers hushed its feeble cry. Pressed the soft kiss, and breathed the secret sigh- With dauntle.ss step she seeks the winding shore, Hears unappalled the glimmering torrents roar; With paper-flags a floating cradle weaves. And hides the smiling boy in lotus leaves ; Gives her white bosom to his eager lip.s. The salt tears mingling with the milk he sips ; Waits on the reed-crowned brink ivith pious guile. And trusts the scaly monsters of the Nile. Erewhile majestic from his lone abode. Ambassador of heaven, the prophet trod ; Wrenched the red scourge from proud oppression*! hands. And broke, cursed slavery 1 thy iron bands. Hark! heard ye not that piercing cry. Which shook the waves and rent the sky? E’en now, e’en now, on yonder western shores Weeps pale despair, and writhing anguish roars ; E’en now in Afric’s groves with hideous yell, Fierce slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell ; From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound. And sable nations tremble at the sound! Ye bands of senators ! whose suffrage sways Britannia’s realms, whom eiiher Ind obeys; 270 rOETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. nn EHASMUS DARWin. Who ri^ht the injured and reward the brave, t Rt.rcteli your strong arm, for ye have power to save! Throned in tlic vaulted heart, his dread resort, Inexorable conscience holds his court; \\'ith still small voice the plots of guilt alarms. Hares his masked brow, his lifted hand disarms ; But wrapped in night with terrors all his own. He speaks in thunder when the deed is done. Hear him, ye senates! hear this truth sublime, ‘ He who allows oppression shares the crime 1’ The material images of Darwin are often less happy than tlie above, being both e.xtravagant and gross, and grouped together witliout any visible connexion or dependence one on the other. He has such a throng of startling metaphors and descriptions, the latter drawn out to an excessive length and tiresome minuteness, that nothing is left to tlie reader’s ima- gination, and the whole passes like a glittering pageant before the eye, exciting wonder, but without toucliing the heart or feelings. As the poet was then past fifty, the exuberance of his fancy, and his pecu- liar choice of subjects, are the more remarkable. A third part of the ‘ Botanic Garden’ was added in 1792. D.arwin next published his Zoononiia, or the Laws of Organic Life, part of which he had written many years previously. Tliis is a curious and original physiological treatise, evincing an inquiring and attentive study of natural phenomena. Dr Thomas Brown, Professor Dugald Stewart, Paley, and others, have, liowever, successfully combated the positions of Darwin, particularly his theory which refers in- stinct to sensation. In 1801 our author came forward with another philosophical disquisition, entitled Phgtologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gar- dening. He also wrote a short treatise on Female Education, intended for the instruction and assist- I ance of part of his own family. This was Darwin’s last publication. He had always been a remarkably temiierate man. Indeed he totally abstained from all fermented and spirituous liquors, and in his Botanic Garden he compares their effeets to that of the Promethean fire. He was, however, subject to inflammation as well as gout, and a sudden attack carried him olf in his seventy-first year, on the 18th of April 1802. Shortly after his death was pub- lished a poem. The Temple of Nature, which he had ready for the press, the preface to the work being dated only three months before his death. The Temple of Nature aimed, like the Botanic Garden, to amuse by bringing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature. It is more metaphysic.al than its prede- cessor, and more inverted in style and diction. The poetical reputation of Darwin was as bright and transient as the plants and flowers which formed the subject of his verse. Cowper praised his song for its rich embellishments, and said it was as ‘ strong’ as it was ‘ learned and sweet.’ ‘ There is a fashion in poetry,’ observes Sir Walter Scott, ‘ which, without increasing or diminishing the real value of the materials moulded upon it, does wonders in facilitating its currency while it has novelty, and is often founci to impede its reception when the mode has passed aw.ay.’ This has been the fate of Darwin. Be.sides his coterie at Lichfield, the poet of Flora had cvmsiderable influence on the poetical taste of his own day. He may be traced in the ‘ Pleasures of Hope’ of Campbell, and in other young poers 3f that time. The attempt to unite science with tr.e inspirations of the Muse, was in itself an attractive novelty, and he supported it with various and high powers. His command of fancy, of poetical language, dazzling metaphors, and sonorous versification, was well iccouded hr his cr-j-ious and multifarious knowledge. The effect of tlie wliole, however, was artificial, and destitute of any strong or continuous interest. The Rosicrucian machinery of Pope was united to the delineation of human passions and pursuits, and became the auxiliary of wit and satire ; but who can sympathise with the loves and metamorphoses of the plants ? Darwin had no sentiment or pathos, except in very brief episodical passages, and even his eloquent and splendid versification, for want of variety of cadence, becomes monotonous and fatigu- ing. There is no repgse, no cessation from the glare of his bold images, his compound epithets, and high- toned melody. He had attained to rare perfection in the mechanism of poetry, but wanted those im- pulses of soul and sense, and that guiding taste which were required to give it vitality, and direct it to its true objects. \_Invocation to the Goddess of Botany. [From * The Botanic Garden.l ‘ Stay your rude steps 1 whose throbbing breasts icfcld The legion-fiends of glory and of gold 1 Stay, whose false lips seductive simpers part. While cunning nestles in the harlot heart! For you no dryads dress the roseate bower. For you no nymphs their sparkling vases pour; Unmarked by you, light graces swim the green, And hovering Cupids aim their shafts unseen. But thou whose mind the well-attempered ray Of taste and virtue lights with purer day ; Whose finer sense with soft vibration owns With sweet responsive sympathy of tones ; So the fair flower expands its lucid form To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm ; For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath. My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe ; Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye; On twinkling fins my pearly pinions play. Or win with sinuous train their trackless way ; My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed. Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest. To love’s sweet notes attune the listening dell. And echo sounds her soft symphonious shell. And if with thee some hapless maid should stray. Disastrous love companion of her way, , Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade. Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade ; Where, as meek evening wakes her temperate breeze, And moonbeams glitter through the trembling trees, The rills that gurgle round shall soothe her ear. The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear ; There, as sad Philomel, alike forlorn. Sings to the night from her accustomed thorn ; While at sweet intervals each falling note Sighs in the gale and whispers round the grot. The sister wo shall calm her aching breast. And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest. Winds of the north 1 restrain your icy gales. Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales! Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering clouds, revolve! Disperse, ye lightnings, and ye mists dissolve 1 Hither, emerging from yon orient skies. Botanic goddess, bend thy radiant eyes ; O’er these soft scenes assume thy gentle icign, Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train ; O’er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse. And with thy silver sandals print the dews ; In noon’s bright blaze thy vermeil vest unfold. And wave thy emerald banner starred with gold. Thus spoke the genius as he stept along, And bade these lawns to peace and truth belong , Down the steep slopes he led with modest skill The willing pathway and the truant rill. 271 PROM 17ff0 CYCLOI’iKDIA OF TILL THE I’RKSE.Vl riMK. Strctolied o’er the marsliy vale yon willowy iiiouml, Where HhineH the lake amid the tufted ground ; liaised the young woodland, smoothed the wavy green, And gave to beauty all the quiet scene. She comes ! the goddess! through the whispering air, liright as the morn descends her blushing car ; Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines. And, gemmed with flowers, the silken harness shines; The golden bits with flowery studs are decked. And knots of Howers the crimson reins connect. And now on earth the silver axle rings. And the shell sinks upon its sleftder springs; Light from her airy seat the goddess bounds. And steps celestial press the jiansied grounds. Fair Spring advancing calls her feathered quire, And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre; Lids her gay hours on purple pinions move. And anus her zephyrs with the shafts of love. [Destruction of Scnnacherlt's Army hy a Pestilential Wind.] [Fmm the ‘ Economy of Vegetation.’] From Ashur’s vales when proud Sennacherib trod. Poured his swoln heart, defied the living God, Urged with incessant shouts his glittering powers. And Judah shook through all her massy towers; Hound her sad altars press the prostrate crowd. Hosts beat their breasts, aud suppliant chieftains bowed ; Loud shrieks of matrons thrilled the troubled air, And trembling virgins rent their scattered hair; High in the midst the kneeling king adored, Sjiread the blaspheming scroll before the Lord, Raised his pale hands, and breathed his pausing sighs, Aud fixeil on heaven his dim imploring eyes. ‘ Oh ! mighty God, amidst thy seraph throng Y'ho sit’st sublime, the judge of right and wrong ; Thine the wide earth, bright sun, and starry zone. That twinkling journey rounum. Eliza's name along the camp he calls, ‘ Kliza’ eclioes through the canvass walls ; Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread, O’er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead. Vault o’er the jdain, and in the tangled wood, Lo! dead Kliza weltering in her blood ! Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds. With open arms and sparkling eye he bounds : ‘ Speak low,’ he cries, and gives his little hand, ‘ Eliza sleeps upon the acw-cold sand Poor wee])ing babe with bloody fingers pressed. And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast ; ‘Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake — \\ by do you weep ! — Mamma will soon awake.’ ‘She’ll wake no more 1’ the hapless mourner cried. Upturned his eyes, and clasped his hands, and sighed ; ] Stretched on the ground, a while entranced he lay. And pressed warm kisses on the lifeless clay ; And then upsprung with wild convulsive start. Ami all the father kindled in his heart ; ‘ Oh heavens! he cried, ‘ my first rash vow forgive ; These bind to earth, for those 1 pray to live 1’ Round his chill babes he wrapped his crimson vest. And clasi 'd them sobbing to his aching breast.* [Philanthropy — Mr Hoioa/rd.'] [From the ‘ Loves of the Plants.’] And now, philanthropy! thy rays divine D.art round the globe from Zembla to the line ; O’er each dark prison plays the cheering light. Like northern lustres o’er the vault of night. From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crowned. Where’er mankind and misery are found. O’er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow. Thy Howard journeying seeks the house of wo. Down many a winding step to dungeons dank. Where aiiguisi. vails aloud, and fetters clank ; To caves bestrewed with many a mouldering bone. And cells whose echoes only learn to groan ; Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose. No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows. He treads, unemulous of fame or wealth. Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health. With soft assuasive eloquence expands Power’s rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands ; Leads stern-eyed Justice to the dark domains. If not to sever, to relax the chains ; Or guides awakened mercy through the gloom. And shows the prison, sister to the tomb 1 Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife. To her fond husband liberty and life 1 The spirits of the good, who bend from high M’ide o’er these earthly scenes their partial eye. When first arrayed in Virtue’s purest robe. They saw her Howard traversing the globe ; Saw round his brows her sun-like glory blaze In arrowy circles of unwearied rays; Mistook a mortal for an angel guest. And asked what seraph foot the earth impressed. Onw’ard he moves 1 Disease and Death retire, And murmuring demons hate him and admire ! * Those who have the opportunity may compare this death BCcne (inueh to the advantage of the living author) with that of Gertrude of Wyoming, which may have been suggested, very remotely and quite unconsciously, by Darwin’s Eliza. Sir M'alter Scott excels in painting battle-pieces, as overseen by Bonie interested spectator. Eliza at Minden is circumstanced so nearly like Clara at Flodden, that the mighty Minstrel of the North may possibly have caught the idea of the latter from the Lichfield Botanist ; but oh, how has he triumphed — Monlgomerif't Lectures on Poetry. 60 HRS CHARLOTTE SMITH. Song tc May. [From the same.] Born in yon blaze of orient sky. Sweet May 1 thy radiant form unfold ; Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye. And wave thy shadowy locks of gold. For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow. For thee descends the sunny shower ; The rills in softer murmurs flow. And brighter blcssoms gem the bower. Light graces decked in flowery wreaths And tiptoe joys their hands combine; And Love his sweet contagion breathes. And, laughing, dances round thy shrine. Warm with new life, the glittering throng On quivering fin and rustling wing. Delighted join their votive song. And hail thee Goddess of the Spring! Song to Echo. [From the same.] I. Sweet Echo! sleeps thy vocal .shell. Where this high arch o’erhangs the dell ; While Tweed, with sun-reflecting stream*. Chequers thy rocks with dauciug beams I II. Here may no clamours harsh iiitr’ade. No brawling hound or clarion rude ; Here no fell beast of midnight prowl. And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl. III. Be thine to pour these vales along Some artless shepherd’s evening song ; While night’s sweet bird from yon high spray Responsive listens to his lay. IV. And if, like me, some love-lorn maid Should sing her sorrows to thy shade. Oh 1 sooth her breast, ye rocks around. With softest sympathy of sound. MRS CHARLOTTE SMITH. This lady (whose admirable prose fictions vill afterwards be noticed) was the daughter of Mr Turner of Stoke House, in Surrey, and was born on the 4th of May 1749. She was remarkable for pre- cocity of talents, and for a lively playful humour that showed itself in conversation, ami in composi- tions both in prose and verse. Being early deprived of her mother, she was carelessly though expensively educated, and introduced into society at a very early age. Her father having decided on a second mar- riage, the friends of the young and admired poetess endeavoured to establish her in life, and she was induced to accept the hand of Mr Smith, the son and partner of a rich West India merchant. The husband was twenty-one years of age, and his wife fifteen 1 This rash union was productive of mutual discontent and misery. Mr Smith was careless and extravagant, business was neglected, and his father dying, left a will so complicated and voluminous that no two lawyers understood it in the same sense. Lawsuits and embarrassments were therefore the portion of this ill-starred pair for all their after-lives. Mr Smith was ultimately forced to sell the greater 273 ennyi !780 CYCLOPil^DIA OF TILL THE PRESENT TIKS. part of liis property, after he had been thrown into prison, and Ids faithful wife liad shared with him tlie ndsery and diseoinfort of his confinement. A numerous family also {rathered around them, to add to tlieir solicitude and difficulties. In 1782 Mrs 'jith published a volume of sonnets, irregular in structure, but marked by poetical feeling and ex- pression. They were favourably received by the public, and at length passed through no less than eleven editions, besides being translated into French and Italian. After an unhappy union of twenty- three years, Mrs Smith separated from her husband, and, taking a cottage near Chichester, applied her- self to her literary occupations with cheerful assi- duity, supplying to her children the duties of both parents. In eight months she completed her novel of Emmeline, juiblished in 1788. In the following year a])peared another novel from her pen, entitled Elhdinite ; and in 1791 a third under the name of Celeslina. She imbibed the opinions of the French Ilevolution, and embodied them in a romance en- titled Desmond. This work arrayed against her many of her friends and readers, but she regained the public favour by her tale, the Old Manor House, which is the best of her novels. Part of this w-ork Tvas written at Eartham, the residence of Ilayley, during the period of Cowper’s visit to that poetical retreat. ‘ It was delightful,’ says Hayley, * to hear her read what she had just written, for she read, as she wrote, with simplicity and grace.’ Cowper was also astonished at the rapidity and excellence of her composition. Mrs Smith continued her literary labours amidst private and family distress. She wrote a valuable little compendium for chil- dren, under the title of Conversations; A History of British Birds; a descriptive poem on Beuchy Head, &c. The delays in the settlement of her property, which had been an endless source of vexation and anxiety to one possessing all the sus- ceptibility and ardour of the poetical temperament, were adjusted by a compromise; but Mrs Smith had sunk into ill health. She died at Tilford, near Farnham, on the 28th of October 1806. The poetry of Mrs Smith is elegant and sentimental, and gene- rally of a pathetic cast. She wrote as if ‘ melancholy had marked her for her own.’ The keen satire and observation evinced in her novels do not appear in her verse, but the same powers of description are displayed. Her sketches of English scenery are true and pleasing. ‘ But while we allow,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘ high praise to the sweet and sad effusions of Mrs Smith’s muse, we cannot admit that by these alone she could ever have risen to the height of eminence which we are disposed to claim for her as tuthoress of her prose narratives.’ Flora's Horologe. In every copse and sheltered dell. Unveiled to the observant eye. Are faithful monitors who tell How pass the hours and seasons by. The green-robed children of the spring M'ill mark the periods as they pass, Mingle with leaves Time’s feathered wing. And bind with flowers his silent glass. Mark where transparent waters glide. Soft flowing o’er their tranquil bed; There, cradled on the dimpling tide, Nymphaea rests her lovely head. But conscious of the earliest beam, She rises from her humid nest. And sees, reflected in the stream. The virgin whiteness of her breast. Till the bright day-star to the west Ucclines, in ocean’s surge to lave; Then, folded in her modest vest, She slumbers on the rocking wave. See Hieracium’s various tribe. Of plumy seed and radiate flowers, | The course of Time their blooms describe, | And wake or sleep appointed hours. j Broad o’er its imbricated cup ! The goatsbeard spreads its golden rays, But shuts its cautious petals up. Retreating from the noontide blaze. Pale as a pensive cloistered nun. The Bethlem star her face unveils. When o’er the mountain peers the sun. But shades it from the vesper gales. Among the loose and arid jands The humble arenaria creeps ; Slowly the purple star expands. But soon within Its calyx sleeps. And those small bells so lightly rayed With young Aurora’s rosy hue, Are to the noontide sun disi>laycd. But shut their plaits against the dew. On upland slopes the shepherds mark The hour when, as the dial true, Cichoriura to the towering lark Lifts her soft eyes serenely blue. And thou, ‘ Wee crimson tipped flower,’ Gatherest thy fringed mantle round Thy bosom at the closing hour, When night-drops bathe the turfy ground. , Unlike silene, who declines The garish noontide’s blazing light ; i But when the evening crescent shines, _ 1 Gives all her sweetness to the night. ; Thus in each flower and simple bell, | That in our path betrodden lie, | Are sweet remembrancers who tell I How fast their winged moments fly. ! Sonnets. I On the Departure of the Nightingale. i Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu 1 i Farewell soft minstrel of the early year! | Ah ! ’twill be. long ere thou shalt sing anew. And pour thy music on the night’s dull ear. I Whether on spring thy wandering flights await, I Or whether silent in our groves you dwell, | The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate, | And still protect the song she loves so well. | With cautious .step the love-lorn youth shall glide . Through the lone brake that shades thy mossy neat; | And shepherd girls from eyes profane shall hide [ The gentle bird who sings of pity best : | For still thy voice shall soft affections move, 1 And still be dear to sorrow and to love 1 | Written at the Close of Spring. i The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove ; | Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew j Anemonies that spangled every grove, j The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. | No more shall violets linger in the dell, j Or purple orchis variegate the plain, | Till Spring again shall call forth every bell, ' And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. | Ah, poor humanity ! so frail, so fair, ‘ i Are the fond visions of thy early day, | Till tyrant passion and corrosive care Bid all thy fairy colours fade away 1 Another May new buds and flowers shall bring; Ah 1 why has happiness no second Spring 1 274 roBW. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HISS BI.AHISB. I Should the lone wanderer, fainting on his way, I Host for a moment of the sultry hours, ! .\nd, though his path through thorns and roughness 1 lay, I riuok the wild rose or woodbine’s gadding flowers ; I \^'caving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree, ! The sense of sorrow he a while may lose ; I So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy ! 1 So charmed my ivay with friendship and the Muse, j Cut darker now grows life’s unhappy day. Dark with new clouds of evil yet to come; Her pencil sickening Fancy throws away. And weary Hope reclines upon the tomb. And points my wishes to that tranquil shore. Where the pale spectre Care pursues no more 1 [^Recollections of English Sce:neryJ\ [From ‘ Bcachy Head,' a Poem.] ! Haunts of ray youth I Scenes of fond day-dreams, 1 behold ye yet ! Where ’twas so pleasant by thy northern slopes, To climb the winding sheep-path, aided oft By scattered thorns, whose spiny branches bore Small woolly tufts, spoils of the vagrant lamb. There seeking shelter from the noon-day sun : And pleasant, seated on the short soft turf, To look beneath upon the hollow way. While heavily upward moved the labouring wain. And stalking slowly by, the sturdy hind. To case his panting team, stopped with a stone The grating wheel. Advancing higher still. The prospect widens, and the village church But little o’er the lowly roofs around Rears its gray belfry and its simple vane ; Those lowly roofs of thatch are half concealed By the rude arms of trees, lovely in spring ; When on each bough the rosy tinctured bloom Sits thick, and promises autumnal plenty. For even those orchards round the Norman farms, I Which, as their owners marked the promised fruit. Console them, for the vineyards of the south I Surpass not these. I Where woods of ash and beech. And partial copses fringe the green hill foot. The upland shepherd rears his modest home ; There wanders by a little nameless stream That from the hill wells forth, bright now, and clear. Or after rain with chalky mixture gray. But still refreshing in its shallow course The cottage garden ; most for use designed. Yet not of beauty destitute. The vine Mantles the little casement ; yet the brier Drops fragrant dew among the July flowers ; And pansies rayed, and freaked, and mottled pinks, Grow among balm and rosemaiy and rue ; There honeysuckles flaunt, and roses blow Almost uncultured ; some with dark green leaves Contrast their flowers of pure unsullied white; Others like velvet robes of regal state Of richest crimson ; while, in thorny moss Enshrined and cradled, the most lovely wear The hues of youthful beauty’s glowing cheek. With fond regret I recollect e’en now In spring and summer, what delight I felt Amuig these cottage gardens, and how much Such artless nosegays, knotted with a rush By village housewife or her ruddy maid. Were welcome to me ; soon and simply pleased. An early worshipper at nature’s shrine, I I loved her rudest scenes — warrens, and heaths, And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows. And hedgerows bordering unfrequented lanes, Bowered with wild roses and the clasping woodbine. MISS BLAMIRE. Miss Susanna Blamire (1747-1794), a Cumber- land lady, was distinguished for the excellence of her Scottish poetry, which lias all the idiomatic ease and grace of a native minstrel. Miss Blamire was born of a respectable family in Cumberland, at Car- dew Hall, near Carlisle, where she resided till her twentieth year, beloved by a circle of friends and acquaintances, with whom she associated in what were called merry neets, or merry evening parties, in her native district. Her sister becoming the wife of Colonel Graham of Duchray, Perthshire, Susanna accompanied the pair to Scotland, where she re- mained some years, and imbibed that taste for Scot- tish melody and music which prompted her beautiful lyrics. The Nabob, The Siller Croun, &c. She also wrote some pieces in the Cumbrian dialect, and a descriptive poem of some length, entitled Stockle- walh, or the Cumbrian Village. Miss Blamire died unmarried at Carlisle, in her forty-seventh year, and her name had almost faded from remembrance, when, in 1842, her poetical works were collected and published in one volume, with a preface, memoir, and notes by Patrick MaxweU. The Nabob. When silent time, wi’ lightly foot. Had trod on thirty years, I sought again my native land Wi’ mony hopes and fears. Wha kens g^ the dear friends I left May still continue mine? Or gin 1 e’er again shall taste The joys 1 left langsyne! As I drew near my ancient pile, My heart beat a’ the way ; Ilk place I passed seemed yet to speak O’ some dear former day ; Those days that followed me afar, Those happy days o’ mine, Whilk made me think the present joya A’ naething to langsyne 1 The ivied tower now met my eye. Where minstrels used to blaw ; Nae friend stepped forth wi’ open hand, Nae weel-kenned face I saw ; Till Donald tottered to the door, Wham 1 left in his prime. And grat to see the lad return He here about langsyne. I ran to ilka dear friend’s ro^m, As if to find them there, I knew where ilk ane used to sit. And hang o’er mony a chair; Till soft remembrance threw a veil Across these een o’ mine, I closed the door, and sobbed aloud. To think on auld langsyne 1 Some pensy chiels, a new sprung race. Wad next their welcome pay, Wha shuddered at my Gothic wa’s, And wished my groves away. ‘ Cut, cut,’ they cried, ‘ those aged elms. Lay low yon mournfu’ pine.’ Na ! na 1 our fathers’ names grow there. Memorials o’ langsyne. To wean me frae these waefu’ thoughts. They took me to the town ; But sair on ilka weel-kenned face 1 missed the youthfu’ bloom. 275 PROM 1780 C YCI^OI’il';i)l A OF till the present timr. At balls they pointed to a nymjih Wham a’ declared divine ; Hut sure her mother’s blushing cheeks Were fairer far langsynci In vain I sought in music’s sound To find that magic art, Which oft in Scotland’s ancient lays Has thrilled through a’ my heart. The sang had mony an artfu’ turn ; My ear confessed ’twas fine ; But missed the simple melody I listened to langsyne. Y e sons to comrades o’ my youth, Forgie an auld man’s spleen, Wha ’midst your gayest scenes still mourns The days he ance has seen. When time has passed and seasons fled. Your hearts will feel like mine; And aye the sang will maist delight That minds ye o’ langsyne 1 What Ails this Heart o’ Mine 1 F This song seems to have been a favourite with the author- ess, for I have met with it in various forms among her papers ; and the labour bestowed upon it has been well repaid by the popularity it has all along enjoyed.’ — Maxwell's Memoir of Miss Dlamire.'] What alls this heart o’ mine 1 What ails this watery ee ? What gars me a’ turn pale as death When I take leave o’ thee ? When thou art far awa’, Thou’lt dearer grow to me ; But change o’ place and change o’ folk May gar thy fancy jee. When I gae out at e’en. Or walk at morning air. Ilk rustling bush will seem to say I used to meet thee there. Then I’ll sit dou'n and cry. And live aneath the tree. And when a leaf fa’s i’ my lap, I’ll ca’t a word frae thee. I’ll hie me to the bower That thou wi’ roses tied. And where wi’ mony a blushing bud 1 strove myself to hide. I’ll doat on ilka spot Where I ha’e been wi’ thee ; And ca’ to mind some kindly word By ilka burn and tree. As an ex.ample of the Cumberland dialect — Auld Rohm Forbes. And auld Robin Forbes hes gien tern a dance, I pat on my speckets to see them aw prance ; I thout o’ the days when I was but fifteen. And skipp’d wi’ the best upon Forbes’s green. Of aw things that is I think thout is meast queer. It brings that that’s by-past and sets it down here ; I see Willy as plain as I dui this bit leace. When he tuik his cwoat lappet and deeghted his feace. The lasses aw wondered what Willy cud see In yen that was dark and hard featured leyke me ; And they wondered ay mair when they talked o’ my wit. And slily telt Willy that cudn’t be it. But Willy he laughed, and he meade me his weyfe. And whea was mair happy thro’ aw his lang leyfe ? It’s e’en my great comfort, now Willy is geane. That he offen said — nea pleace was leyke his awn heame ! I mind when I carried my wark to yon steyle. Where Willy was deyken, the time to beguile. He wad fling me a daisy to put i’ my breast. And I hammered my noddle to mek out a jest. But merry or grave, Willy often wad tell There was nin o’ the leave that was leyke my awn sel And he spak what he thout, for I’d hardly a plack When we married, and nobbet ae gown to my back. When the clock had struck eight I expected him heame. And wheyles went to meet him as far as Dumleane ; Of aw hours it telt, eight was dearest to me. But now when it streykes there’s a tear i’ my ee. 0 Willy ! dear Willy ! it never can be That age, time, or death, can divide thee and me 1 For that S[)Ot on earth that’s aye dearest to me. Is the turf that has covered my Willie frae me. MRS BARBAULD. Anna Letitia Barbauli), the daughter of Dr .Tobn Aikin, was born at Kibworth Ilareourt, in Leicestershire, in 174.8. Her father at this time kept a seminary for the education of boys, and Anna received the same instruction, being early initiated into a knowledge of classical literature. In IT.'iS Dr Aikin undertaking the office of classical tutor in a dissenting academy at Warrington, his daughter accompanied him, and resided tliere fifteen years. In 1773 she published a volume of miscellaneous poems, of which four editions were called for in one year, and also a collection of pieces in prose, some of which w'ere written by her brother. In j\Iay 1774 she was married to the Rev. Rochenount Barliauld, a French I’rotestant, who was minister of a dissent- ing congregation at Palgrave, near Diss, and who had just opened a boarding-scliool at the neighbour- ing village of Palgrave, in Suffolk. The poetess par- ticipated with her husband in the task of instruction, and to her talents and exertions the seminary was mainly indebted for its success. In 1775 she came forward with a volume of devotional pieces conqiiled from the Psalms, and another volume of Ihjmns in Pras-efor children. In 1780, after a tour to the con- tinent, Mr and Mrs Barbauld established themsclven at Hampstead, and there several tracts proceeded from the pen of our authoress on the toydes of the day, in all which she esyiouscd the yu inciydes of the Whigs. She also assisted her father in yireyiaring a series of tales for children, entitled Evoiinys at Home, and she wrote critical essays on Akenside and Collins, prefixed to editions of their works. In 1802 Mr Barbauld became pastor of the congregation (formerly Dr Price’s) at Newington Green, also in the vicinity of London ; and quitting Ilamyistead, they took up their abode in the village of Stoke Newington. In 1803 Mrs Barbauld comyiiled a selection of essay's from the ‘ Spectator,’ ‘ T'atler,’ and ‘ Guardian,’ to wdiich she prefixed a yireliminary essay ; and in the following year she edited the cor- respondence of Richardson, and wrote an interesting and elegant life of the novelist. Her husband died in 1808, and Mrs Barbauld has recorded her feelings on this melancholy event in a yioetical dirge to his memory, and also in her poem of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. Seeking relief in literary occuyiation, she also edited a collection of the British novelists, published in 1810, with an introductory essay, and biographical and critical notices. After a gradual decay, this accomplished and e.xcellent woman died on the 9th of March 1825. Some of the lyrical pieces of Mrs Barbauld are flowing and harmonious, and her ‘ Ode to Spring’ is a happy imitation of Collins. She wrote also several poems in blank verse, characterised by a serious tenderness and 276 PORTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MRS BARBADLD. elevation of thought. ‘Her earliest pieces,’ says her niece, Mrs Lucy Aikin, ‘as well as her more recent ones, exhibit in their imagery and allusions tlie fruits of extensive and varied reading. In youth, the power of her imagination was counterbalanced by the activity of her intellect, which exercised itself in rai>id but not unprofitable excursions over almost every field of knowledge. In age, when this activity abated, intagination appeared to exert over her an undiminished sway.’ Cliarles James Fox is said to have been a great admirer of Mrs Barbauld’s songs, but they, are by no means the best of her composi- tions, being generally artificial, and unimpassioned in their ch.aracter. Ode to Spring, Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire. Hoar Winter’s blooming child, delightful Spring! Whose unshorn locks with leaves And swelling buds are crowned ; From the green islands of eternal youth (Crowned with fresh blooms and ever-springing shade), Turn, hither turn thy step, 0 thou, whose powerful voice More sweet than softest touch of Doric reed Or Lydian flute, can soothe the madding winds, And through the stormy deep Breathe thy own tender calm. Thee, best beloved ! the virgin train await With songs and festal rites, and joy to rove Thy blooming wilds among. And vales and dewy lawns. With untired feet ; and cull thy earliest sweets To weave fresh garlands for the glowing brow Of him, the favoured youth That prompts their whispered sigh. Unlock thy copious stores ; those tender showers That drop their sweetness on the infant buds. And silent dews that swell The milky ear’s green stem. And feed the flowering osier’s early shoots ; And call those winds, which through the whispering boughs With warm and pleasant breath Salute the blowing flowers. Now let me sit beneath the whitening thorn. And mark thy spreading tints steal o’er the dale ; And watch with patient eye Thy fair unfolding charms. 0 nymph, approach ! while yet the temperate sun With bashful forehead, through the cool moist air Throws his young maiden beams, I And with chaste kisses woos I The earth’s fair bosom ; while the streaming veil j Of lucid clouds, with kind and frequent shade, I Protects thy modest blooms From his severer blaze. Sweet is thy reign, but short : the red dog-star Shall scorch thy tresses, and the mower’s scythe Thy greens, thy flowerets all. Remorseless shall destroy. Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell ; For 0 1 not all that Autumn’s lap contains. Nor Summer’s ruddiest fruits. Can aught for thee atone. Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights Than all their largest wealth, and through the heart Each joy and new-born hope With softest iufluea:e breathes-, To a Lady, with lome Painted Flowers. Flowers to the fair: to you these flowers I bring. And strive to greet you with an earlier spring. Flowers sweet, and gay, and delicate like you; Emblems of innocence, and beauty too. With flowers the Graces bind their yellow hair, And flowery wreaths consenting lovers wear. Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew, In Eden’s pure and guiltless garden grew. To loftier forms are rougher tasks assigned ; The sheltering oak resists the stormy wind. The tougher yew repels invading foes. And the tall pine for future navies grows : But this soft family to cares unknown, W ere born for i)leasure and delight alone. Gay without toil, and lovely without art. They spring to cheer the sense and glad the heart. Nor blush, my fair, to own you copy these ; Your best, your sweetest empire is — to please. Hymn to Content. natura beatos Omnibus esse dedit, si quis eognoverit uti. — Claudiate. 0 thou, the nymph with placid eye ! 0 seldom found, yet ever nigh ! Receive my temperate vow : Not all the storms that shake the pole Can e’er disturb thy halcyon soul. And smooth the unaltered brow. 0 come, in simple vest arrayed. With all thy sober cheer displayed. To bless my longing sight ; Thy mien composed, thy even pace. Thy meek regard, thy matron grace, And chaste subdued delight. No more by varying passions beat, 0 gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell ; Where in some pure and equal sky, Beneath thy soft indulgent eye. The modest virtues dwell. Simplicity in Attic vest. And Innocence with candid breast. And clear undaunted eye ; And Hope, who points to distant years. Fair opening through this vale of tears, A vista to the sky. There Health, through whose calm bosom glila The temperate joys in even-tide. That rarely ebb or flow ; And Patience there, thy sister meek. Presents her mild unvarying cheek To meet the offered blow. Her influence taught the Phrygian sage A tyrant master’s wanton rage With settled smiles to wait : Inured to toil and bitter bread. He bowed his meek submissive head. And kissed thy sainted feet. But thou, oh nymph retired and coyl In what brown hamlet dost thou joy To tell thy tender tale? The lowliest children of the ground. Moss-rose and violet, blossom round. And lily of the vale. 0 say what soft propitious hour 1 best may choose to hail thy power And court thy gentle sway? When autumn, friendly to the Muse, Shall thy o\vn modest tints diffuse. And shed thy milder day. 277 moM 1780 CYCLOPiLDIA OF TILL THE PRESENT niOk When eve, her dewy star beneath, Thy balmy spirit loves to breathe, And every storm is laid ; Jf sueli an hour was e’er thy choice. Oft let me hear tliy soothing voice Low whispering through the shade. Wasldng Day. The Muses are turned gossips ; they have lost The buskined step, and clear high-sounding phrase, Ijanguagc of gods. Come, then, domestic Muse, In slip-shod measure loosely prattling on. Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream. Or droning flies, or shoes lost in the mire By little whimpering boy, with rueful face — Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded wa.shing day. Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend. With bowed soul, full well ye ken the day Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on Too soon ; for to that day nor peace belongs. Nor comfort ; ere the first gray streak of dawn. The red-armed washers come and chase repose. Nor pleasant, smile, nor quaint device of mirth, Kre visited that day ; the very cat. From the wet kitchen scared, and reeking hearth. Visits the parlour, an unwonted guest. Th'S silent breakfast meal is soon despatched. Uninterrupted, save by an.xious looks Cast at the louring sky, if .sky should lour. From that last evil, oh preserve us, heavens ! P’or .should the skies pour down, adieu to all Remains of quiet ; then expect to hear Of sad disasters — dirt and gravel stains Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once Snapped short, and linen horse by dog thrown down, And all the petty miseries of life. Saints have been calm while stretched upon the rack, ^-•‘d Montezuma smiled on burning coals; ,..,1 never yet did housewife notable Greet with a smile a rainy washing day. But grant the welkin fair, require not thou Who call’st thyself, perchance, the master there, Or study swept, or nicely dusted co.at. Or usual ’tendance ; ask not, indiscreet. Thy stockings mended, though the yawning rents Gape wide as Erebus ; nor hope to find Some snug recess impervious. Should’st thou try The ’customed garden walks, thine eye shall rue The budding fragrance of thy tender shrubs. Myrtle or ro.se, all crushed beneath the weight fff coanse-checked apron, with impatient hand Twitched off when showers impend ; or crossing lines Sh.all mar thy musing.s, as the wet cold sheet Flaps in thy face abrupt. Wo to the friend Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim On such a day the hospitable rites ; Looks blank at best, and stinted courtesy Shall he receive ; vainly he feeds his hopes With dinner of roast chicken, savoury pie. Or tart or pudding; pudding he nor tart That day shall eat ; nor, though the husband try — Mending what can’t be helped — to kindle mirth From cheer deficient, shall his consort’s brow Clear up propitious ; the unlucky guest In silence dines, and early slinks away. 1 well remember, when a child, the awe This day struck into me ; for then the maids, I scarce knew why, looked cross, and drove me from them ; Nor soft caress could I obtain, nor hope Usu al indulgences ; jelly or creams, Relique of eostly suppers, and set by For me their petted one ; or buttered toast, When butter was forbid ; or thrilling tale Of ghost, or witch, or murder. So I went And sheltered me beside the parlour fire ; There my dear grandmother, eldest of all forms, Tended the little ones, and watched from harm ; ^ Anxiously fond, though oft her spectacles With elfin cunning hid, and oft the pins Drawn from her ravelled stocking might have soured One le.ss indulgent. i At intervals my mother’s voice was heard Urging despatch ; briskly the work went on. All hands employed to wash, to rinse, to wring. Or fold, and starch, and clap, and iron, and plait. Then would I sit me down, and ponder much Why washings were ; sometimes through hollow holt Of pipe amused we blew, and sent aloft The floating bubbles ; little dreaming then To see, Montgolfier, thy silken ball Ride buoyant through the clouds, so near approach The sports of children and the toils of men. Earth, air, and sky, and ocean hath its bubbles. And verse is one of them — this most of all. MIS3 SEWARD — MRS HUNTER — MRS OPIE — MRS GRANT — MRS TIGHE. Several other poetesses of this period are deserving j of notice, though their works are now almost faded i from remembrance. With much that is delicate | in sentiment and feeling, and with considerable j powers of poetical fancy and expression, their lead- ing defect is a want of energy or of genuine passion, and of tliat originality which can alone forcibly arrest the public attention. One of the most con- spicuous of these was Miss Anna Seward (1747- 1809), the daughter of the Rev. Mr Seward, eanon- residentiary of Lichfield, himself a poet, and one of the editors of Beaumont and Fletcher. This lady w.as early trained to a tasfe for poetr}', and, before she was nine years of age, she could repeat the three first books of Paradise Lost. Even at this time, she says, she was charmed with the numbers of Milton. Miss Seward wrote several elegiac poems — an Elegy to the Memory of Captain Cook, a Monody on the Death of 3IaJor Andre, &c. — which, from the pcpular nature of the subjects, and the animated tbcugh inflated I style of the composition, enjoyed great celebrity. | Darwin complimented her as ‘ the inventress of i epic elegy ;’ and she was known by the name of the | Swan of Lichfield. A poetical novel, entitled Louisa, j was published by Miss Seward in 1782, and passed | through several editions. After bandying comph- j ments witli the poets of one generation. Miss Seward | engaged Sir Walter Scott in a literary correspon- | deuce, and bequeathed to him for publication three [ volumes ofher poetry, which he pronounced e.xecrable. l At the same time she left her correspondence to Con- ! stable, and that publisher gave to the world six j volumes of her letters. Botli collections were un- | successful. The applauses of IMiss Seward’s early admirers were only calculated to excite ridicule, and the vanity and affectation which w.^re her be- setting sins, destroyed equidly her poetry and prose. ! Some of her letters, however, are written with spirit j and discrimination. In contrast to Miss Seward ^ was Mrs .John Hunter (1742-1821), a retired but j highly accomplished lady, sister of Sir Everard | Home, and wife of John Hunter, the celebrated surgeon. Having written several copies of verses, which were extensively circulated, and some .songs that even Haydn had married to immortal music, Mrs Hunter was induced, in 1806, to collect her pieces and commit them to the press. In 1802, Mas Amelia Opie, whose pathetic and iiitereating Tales 278 ENGLISH LITERATURE. MISS SKWARO. are so justly distinguished, publislied a volume of niisoellaneous poems, characterised by a simple and placid tenderness. Her Orphan Boy is one of those touching domestic effusions which at once finds its way to the hearts of all. In the following year a volume of miscellaneous poems was published by Mas Anne G iiant, widow of the minister of Laggan, in Inverness-shire. l\Irs Grant (1754-1838) was author of sevend able and interesting prose works. She wrote Letters from the Mountains, giving a de- scription of Highland scenery and manners, with which she was conversant from her residence in the country ; also Memoirs of an American Lady (1810) ; and Essays on the Superstitions of the High - landers, which appeared in 1811. The writings of this lady display a lively and observant fancy, and considerable powers of landscape painting. They first drew attention to the more striking and ro- mantic features of the Scottish Highlands, after- wards so fertile a theme for the genius of Scott. An Irish poetess, Mas Mary Tighe (1773-1810), evinced a more passionate and refined imagination than any of her tuneful sisterhood. Her poem of Psyche, founded on the classic fable related by Apuleius, of the loves of Cupid and Psyche, or the allegory of Love and the Soul, is characterised by a graceful voluptuousness and brilliancy of colouring rarely excelled. It is in six cantos, and wants only a little more concentration of style and description to be one of the best poems of the period. Mrs Tighe was daughter of the Rev. W. Blackford, county of Wicklow. Her history seems to be little known, unless to private friends; but her early death, after six years of protracted suffering, has been commemorated by Moore, in his beautiful lyric — • ‘ I saw thy form in youthful prime.’ We subjoin some selections from the works of each of the above ladies : — The Anniversary. [By Miss Seward.] Ah, lovely Lichfield ! that so long hast shone In blended charms peculiarly thine own ; Stately, yet rural ; through thy choral day, Though shady, cheerful, and though quiet, gay ; How interesting, how loved, from year to year, Kow more than beauteous did thy scenes appear! Still as ..he m.li Spring chased the wintry gloom, Devolved her leaves, and waked her rich perfume. Thou, with thy fields and groves aiocnd thee spread, •bift’st, in unlessened grace, thy spiry head ; But many a loved inhabitant of thine Sleeps where no vernal sun will ever shine. Why fled ye all so fast, ye happy hours. That saw Honora’s' eyes adorn these bowers? These darling bowers, that much she loved to hail. The spires she called ‘ the Ladies of the Vale!’ Fairest and best ! — Oh ! c.an I e’er forget To thy dear kindness my eternal debt 1 Life’s opening paths how tenderly it smoothed. The joys it heightened, and the pains it soothed? No, no ! my heart its sacred memory bears. Bright mid the shadows of o’erwhelming years; When mists of deprivation round me roll, ’Tis the soft sunbeam of ray clouded soul. Ah, dear Ilonora! that remembered day. First on these eyes when shone thy early ray! Scarce o’er my head twice seven gay springs had gone, Scarce five o’er thy unconscious childhood flown, I Ilonora Sneyd, the object of Major Andre’s attachment, afterwards Mrs Ed.cewortli, and mother of the distinguished novelist, Maria Edge vorth. When, fair as their young flowers, thy infant frame To our glad walls a liapiiy inmate came. 0 summer morning of unrivalled light ! Fate wrapt thy rising in prophetic white ! .Line, the bright month, when nature joys to wear The livery of the gay, consummate year. Clave that envermiled dayspring all her powers, Gemmed the light leaves, and glowed upon the flowerej Bade her plumtsl nations hail the rosy ray With warbled orisons from every spray. Purpureal Tempe, not to thee belong More poignant fragrance or more jocund song. Thrice happy day ! thy clear auspicious light Gave ‘ future years a tincture of thy white ;’ Well may her strains thy votive hymn decree. Whose sweetest pleasures found their source in th&s ; The purest, best that memory explores, Safe in the p.ast’s inviolable stores. The ardent progress of thy shining hours Beheld me rove through Lichfield’s verdant bowers. Thoughtless and gay, and volatile and vain. Circled by nymphs and youths, a frolic train ; Though con.scious that a little orphan child Had to my parents’ guidance, kind and mild. Recent been summoned, when disease and death Shed dark stagnation o’er her mother’s breath. While eight sweet infants’ wailful cries deplore IV’hat not the tears of innocence restore ; And while the husband inoumed his widowed dooin. And hung despondent o’er the closing tomb. To us this loveliest scion he con.signed. Its beauty blossoming, its opening mind. His heartfelt loss had drawn my April tears. But childish, womanish, ambiguous years Find all their griefs as vanishing as keen ; Y outh’s rising sun soon gilds the showery scene. On the expected trust no thought 1 bent. Unknown the day, unheeded the event. One sister dear, from spleen, from falsehood free. Rose to the verge of womanhood with me ; Gloomed by no envy, by no discord jarred. Our pleasures blended, and our studies shared ; And when with day and waking thoughts they closed, On the same couch our agile limbs reposed. Amply in friendship by her virtues blest, 1 gave to youthful gaiety the rest ; Considering not how near the period drew When that transplanted branch should me it our view Whose intellectual fruits were doomed to rise, I’ood of the future’s heart-expanding joys ; Born to console me when, by Fate severe. The Much-Beloved* should press a timeless bier. My friend, my sister, from my arms be torn. Sickening and sinking on her bridal morn ; While Hymen, speeding from this mournful dome, Should drop his darkened torch upon her tomb. ’Twas eve ; the sun, in setting glory drest. Spread his gold skirts along the crimson west ; A Sunday’s eve I Ilonora, bringing thee. Friendship’s soft Sabbath long it rose to me. When on the wing of circling seasons borne. Annual 1 hailed its consecrated mom. In the kird-iiiterclm.nge of mutual thouehr. Our home myself, and gentle sister sought ; Our pleasant home,- round which the ascending gale Breathes all the freshness of the sloping vale ; On her green verge the spacious walls arise, V’iew her fair fields, and catch her balmy sighs ; See her near hills the bounded prospect close. And her blue lake in gla.ssy breadth repose. With arms entwined, and smiling as we talked. To the maternal room we careless walked, I Miss Sarah Seward, wlio died o her nineteenth year, tah on the eve of nuirriiige. I ' The bishop’s palace at Lichfield. 27d FROM 1780 CYCLOPAEDIA OF TILL THE PRESENT ntO, vV here sat its honoured mistress, and with smile Of love indulgent, from a Horal pile The fjayest ftlory of the summer bower Culled for the new-arrived — the human flower, A lovely infant-girl, who pensive stood Close to her knees, and charmed us as w’e viewed. O ! hast thou marked the summer’s budded rose, When ’mid the veiling moss its crimson glows? So bloomed the beauty of that fairy form. So her dark locks, «ith golden tinges warm, Playeil round the timid curve of tiiat white neck, Ami sweetly shaded half her blushing check. () ! hast thou seen the star of eve on high. Through the soft dusk of summer’s balmy sky Shed its green light,’ and in the glassy stream Eye the mild reflex of its trembling beam? So looked on us with tender, b.ashful gaze. The destined charmer of our youthful days; Whose soul its native elevation joined To the gay wildness of the infant mind ; Esteem and saeved confluence impressed. While our fond arms the beauteous child caressed. Sonff. [From Mrs Hunter’s Poems-j The season comes when first we met, Hut you return no more ; Why cannot 1 the days forget. Which time can ne’er restore? 0 days too sweet, too bright to laat. Are you indeed for ever past? The fleeting shadows of delight, In memory I trace; In fancy stop their rapid flight. And all the past replace : But, ah ! 1 wake to endless woea. And tears the fading visions close ! Song. [From the same.] 0 tuneful voice ! I still deplore Those accents which, though heard no more. Still vibrate on my heart ; In echo’s cave I long to dwell. And still would hear the sad farewell, W'hen we were doomed to part. Bright eyes, 0 that the task were mine To guard the liquid fires that shine. And round your orbits play ; To watch them with a vestal’s care. And feed with smiles a light so fair. That it may ne’er decay 1 The Death Song, Written for, and Adapted to, an Original Indian Air. [From the same.J The sun sets in n’ght, and the stars shun the day. But glory remains when their lights fade away. Begin, you tormentors ! your threats are in vain. For the son of Alknomook will never complain. Remember the arrows he shot from his bow. Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low. Why so slow? Do you wait till I shrink from the pain ? No ; the son of Alknomook shall never complain. Remember the wood where in ambush we lay. And the scal]is which we bore from your nation away. Now the flame rises fast ; you exult in iny ]>ain ; But the son of Alknomook can never complain. ' The lustre of the brightest of the stars (says Miss Seward, In a note on her ninety-third sonnet) always appeared to me of a green hue ; and they are so described by Ossian. I go to the land where my father is gone, II is ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his son ; Death comes, like a frieml, to relieve me from pain; And thy son, 0 Alknomook ! has scorned to complain. To my Daughter, on heing Separated from her on, her MamuAje. [From the same.] Dear to iny heart as life’s warm stream W’hich animates this mortal clay. For thee I court the waking dream. And deck with smiles the future day; And thus beguile the present pain With hopes that we shall meet again. Yet, will it be as when the past Twined every joy, and care, and thought, And o’er our minds one mantle cast Of kind affections finely wrought? Ah no 1 the groundless hope were vain. For so we ne’er can meet again ! May he who claims thy tender heart Deserve its love, as 1 have done ! For, kind and gentle as thou art. If so beloved, thou’rt fairly won. Bright may the sacred torch remain. And cheer thee till we meet again I The Lot of Thousands. [From the same.] When hope lies dead within the heart. By secret sorrow close concealed. We shrink lest looks or words impart What must not be revealed. “Tis hard to smile when one would weep; To speak when one would silent be ; To w.ake when one should wish to sleep. And wake to agony. Yet such the lot by thousands cast Who wander in this world of care. And bend beneath the bitter blast. To save them from despair. But nature waits her guests to greet. Where disappointment cannot come; And time guides with unerring feet The weary wanderers home. The Orphan Boy's Tale. [From Mrs Opie’s Poems.] Stay, lady, stay, for mercy’s sake. And hear a helple.ss orphan’s tale. Ah 1 sure my looks must pity wake, ’Tis want that n)akes my cheek so pale. Yet I was once a mother’s pride. And my brave father’s hope and joy; But in the Nile’s proud flght he died. And 1 am now an orphan boy. Poor foolish child ! how pleased was I When news of Nelson’s victory came. Along the crowded streets to fly. And see the lighted windows flame ! To force me home my mother sought. She could not bear to see my joy ; For with my father’s life ’twas bought. And made mo a poor orphan boy. The people’s shouts were long and loud. My mother, shuddering, clo.sed her ears; ‘Rejoice! rejoice!’ still cried the crowd; My mother answered with her tears. ‘ Why are you crying thus,’ said I, ‘ While others laugh and shout with joy ?* She kissed me — and with such a .sigh 1 She called me her poor orphan boy. 280 roETS. ENGLISH LITERATUKE. mrs osAirb ‘ Wliat is an orplian boy ?’ 1 cried, As in her face 1 looked, and smiled ; My niotlier (hrough her tears replied, ‘ You’ll know too soon, ill-fated child !* And now they’ve tolled iny mother’s knell, And I’m no more a parent’s joy; 0 lady, I have learned too well What ’tis to be an orphan boy ! Oh ! were 1 by your bounty fed! Nay, gentle lady, do not chide — Trust me, I mean to earn ray bread ; The sailor’s orphan boy has pride. Lady, you weep ! — ha? — this to rae? You’ll give me clothing, food, employ! Look down, dear parents! look, and see Y' our happy, happy orphan boy I Song* [From the same.] Go, youth beloved, in distant glades New friends, new hopes, new joys to find ! Yet sometimes deign, ’midst fairer maids, To think on her thou leav’st behind. Thy love, tliy fate, dear youth, to share, Alust never be ray happy lot ; But thou mayst grant this humble prayer. Forget me not ! forget me not ! Yet, should the thought of my distress Too painful to thy feelings be. Heed not the wish 1 now express. Nor ever deign to think on me: But oh ! if grief thy steps attend. If want, if sickness be thy lot. And thou require a soothing friend. Forget me not ! forget me not ! [0» a Sprig of Heath.'] [From Mrs Grant’s Poems.] Flower of the waste! the heath -fowl shuns For thee the brake and tangled wood — To thy protecting shade she runs. Thy tender buds supply her food ; Her young forsake her downy plumes. To rest upon thy opening blooms. Flowiv of the desert though thou art! The deer that range the mountain free. The graceful doe, the stately hart. Their food and shelter seek from thee ; The bee thy earliest blossom greets. And draws from thee her choicest sweets. Gera of the heath ! whose modest bloom Sheds beauty o’er the lonely moor ; Though thou dispense no rich perfume. Nor yet with splendid tints allure. Both valour’s crest and beauty’s bower Oft hast thou decked, a favourite flower. Flower of the wild ! whose purple glow Adorns the dusky mountain’s side. Not the gay hues of Iris’ bow. Nor garden’s artful varied pride. With all its wealth of sweets could cheer. Like thee, the hardy mountaineer. Flower of his heart ! thy fragrance mild Of peace and freedom seem to breathe ; To pluck thy blossoms in the wild. And deck his bonnet with the wreath. Where dwelt of old his rustic sires. Is all his simple wish requires. * A writer in the F.dinburgh Review styles this production of Mrs Opie's one of the finest songs in our language. Flower of his dear-loved native land ! Alas, when distant far more dear! When he from some cold foreign strand. Looks homeward through the blinding tear, How must his aching heart deplore. That home and thee he sees no more 1 [The Highland Poor.] [From Mrs Grant’s poem of ‘ The Ilighlander.’] Where yonder ridgy mountains bound the scene. The narrow opening glens that intervene Still shelter, in some lowly nook obscure. One poorer than the rest — where all are poor; Some widowed matron, hopeless of relief. Who to her secret breast confines her grief; Dejected sighs the wintry night away. And lonely muses all the summer day: Her gallant sons, who, smit with honour’s charms, Pursued the phantom Fame through war’s alarms. Return no more; stretched on Hindostan’s plain. Or sunk beneath the unfathomable main ; In vain her eyes the watery waste ex])lore For heroes — fated to return no more ! Let others bless the morning’s reddening beam, Foe to her j>eace — it breaks the illusive dream That, in their prime of manly bloom confest. Restored the long-lost warriors to her breast ; And as they strove, with smiles of filial love, Their widowed parent’s anguish to remove. Through her small casement broke the intrusive dsy, And chased the pleasing images away ! No time can e’er her banished joys restore. For ah ! a heart once broken heals no more. The dewy beams that gleam froin pity’s eye. The ‘ still small voice’ of sacred synqiathy. In vain the mourner’s sorrows would beguile, Or steal from weary wo one languid smile ; Yet what they can they do — the scanty st)re. So often opened for the wandering poor. To her each cottager complacent deals. While the kind glance the melting heart reveals ; And still, when evening streaks the west with gold. The milky tribute from the lowing fold With cheerful haste officious children bring. And every smiling flow'er that decks the spring: Ah! little know the fond attentive train. That spring and flowerets smile for her in vain : Yet hence they learn to reverence modest wo, And of their little all a part bestow. Let those to wealth and proud distinction bom. With the cold glance of insolence and scorn Regard the suppliant wretch, and harshly grieve The bleeding heart their bounty would relieve : Far different these ; while from a bounteous heart With the poor sufferer they divide a part ; Humbly they own that all they have is given A boon precarious from indulgent Heaven : And the next blighted crop or frosty spring. Themselves to equal indigence may bring. [From Mrs Tighe's ‘Psyche.’] [The marriage of Cupid and Psyche in tlie Palace of Love. Psyche afterwards gazes on Love while asleep, ai.d is banMhoi from the Island of Pleasure.] She rose, and all enchanted gazed On the rare beauties of the pleasant scene: Conspicuous far, a lofty palace bla'zed Upon a sloping bank of .softe.st green ; A fairer edifice was never seen ; The high-ranged columns own no mortal hand. But seem a temple meet for Beauty’s queen ; Like polished snow the marble |)illars siana. In grace-attempered majesty, sublimely grand. 231 FROM 1780 CYCLOPEDIA OF Gently asccmling from a Hilvery flood. Above the jialace rose the sliaded lull, The lofty eminence was crowned with wood. And the rich lawns, adorned by nature’s skill, The passing breezes with their odours fill ; Here ever-blooming groves of orange glow, And here all flowers, which from their leaves distil Ambrosial dew, in sweet succession blow. And trees of matchless size a fragrant shade bestow. The sun looks glorious ’mid a sky serene, ynui bids bright lustre sparkle o’er the tide ; The clear blue ocean at a distance seen, Hounds the gay landscape on the western side, While closing round it with majestic pride, The lofty rocks mid citron groves arise ; ‘ Sure some divinity must here reside,’ As tranced in some bright vision. Psyche cries. And scarce believes the bliss, or trusts her charmed eyes. When lo ! a voice divinely sweet die hears. From unseen lips )iroceeds the heavenly sound ; ‘Psyche ai>proach, dismiss thy timid fears. At length his bride thy longing spouse has foufld. And bids for thee immortal joys abound ; For thee the palace rose at his command, For thee his love a bridal banquet crowned ; He bids attendant nymphs around thee stand. Prompt every wish to serve — a fond obedient band.’ Increasing wonder filled her ravished soul. For now the pompous portals opened wide. There, pausing oft, with timid foot she stole Through halls high-domed, enriched with sculp- tured ]iride. While gay saloons appeared on either side. In splendid vista opening to her sight ; And all with precious gems so beautified, And furnished with such exquisite delight. That scarce the beams of heaven emit such lustre bright. The amethyst was there of violet hue. And there the topaz shed its golden ray. The chrysoberyl, and the sapphire blue As the clear azure of a sunny day. Or the mild eyes where amorous glances play; The snow-white jasper, and the opal’s flame. The blushing ruby, and the agate gray. And there the gem which bears his luckless name Whose death, by Phoebus mourned, insured him death- less fame. There the green emerald, there cornelians glow, AtkI rich carbuncles pour eternal light, With all that India and Peru can show. Or Labrador can give so flaming bright To the charmed mariner’s half-dazzled sight : 'fhe coral-paved baths with diamonds blaze; And all that can the female heart delight Of fair attire, the last recess displays. And all that luxury can ask, her eye surveys. Now through the hall melodious music stole. And self-prejiared the splendid banquet stands. Self-poured the nectar sparkles in the bowl. The lute and viol, touched by unseen hands. Aid the soft voices of the choral bands; O’er the full board a brighter lustre beams Than Persia’s monarch at his feast commands : For sweet refreshment all inviting seems To taste celestial food, and pure ambrosial streams. But when meek eve hung out her dewy star. Anil gently veiled with gradual hand the sky, Lo ! the bright folding doors retiring far. Display to Psyche’s captivated eye All that vohqituous ease could e’er supply To soothe the spirits in serene repose : Beneath the velvet’s purple eanopy. Divinely formed, a downy couch arose. While alabaster lamps a milkv light disclose. TILL THE PRESENT Tllft. Once more she hears the hymeneal strain ; Far other voices now attune the lay ; The swelling sounds approach, awhile remain, And then retiring, faint dissolved away ; The expiring lamps emit a feebler rayj^ And soon in fragrant death extinguished lie: Then virgin terrors Psyche’s soul dismay, M’hen through the obscuring gloom she nought can spy, But softly rustling sounds declare some being nigh. Oh, you for whom I write ! whose hearts can melt At the soft thrilling voice whose power you prove. You know what charm, unutterably felt. Attends the unexpected voice of love : Above the lyre, the lute’s soft notes above. With sweet enchantment to the soul it steals. And bears it to Klysium’s happy grove ; You best can tell the rapture Psyche feels. When Love’s ambrosial liji the vows of Hymen seals. ‘ ’Tis he, ’tis my deliverer! deep imprest Upon my heart those sounds 1 well recall,’ The blushing maid exclaimed, and on his breast A tear of trembling ecstacy let fall. But, ere the breezes of the morning call Aurora from her purple, humid bed. Psyche in vain explores the vacant hall ; Her tender lover from her arms is fled. While sleep his downy wings had o’er her eyeliil spread. * * * Illumined bright now shines the splendid dome. Melodious accents her arrival hail : But not the torch’s blaze can chase the gloom. And all the soothing powers of music fail ; Trembling she seeks her couch with horror pale. But first a lamp conceals in secret shade. While unknown terrors all her soul assail. Thus half their treacherous counsel is obeyed. For still her gentle soul abhors the murderous blade. And now with softest whispers of delight, Love welcomes Psyche still more fondly dear ; Not unobserved, though hid in deepest night. The silent anguish of her secret fear. He thinks that tenderness excites the tear. By the late image of her parent’s grief. And half offended seeks in vain to eheer ; Yet, while he speaks, her sorrows feel relief. Too soon more keen to sting from this suspension brief I Allowed to settle on celestial eyes. Soft sleep, exulting, now exerts his sway. From Psyche’s anxious pillow gladly flies To veil those orbs, whose pure and lambent ray The powers of heaven submissively obey. Trembling and breathless then she softly rose. And seized the lamp, where it obscurely lay. With hand too rashly daring to disclose The sacred veil which hung mysterious o’er her woes. Twice, as with agitated step she went. The lamp expiring shone with doubtful gleam. As though it warned her from her rash intent : And twice she paused, and on its trembling beam Gazed with suspended breath, while voices seem With murmuring sound along the roof to sigh ; As one just waking from a troublous dream. With palpitating heart and straining eye. Still fixed withfearremains,still thinks the danger nigh. Oh, daring Muse ! wilt thou indeed essay To paint the wonders which that lamp could show I And canst thou hope in living words to say The dazzling glories of that heavenly viewl Ah ! well I ween, that if with ]iencil true That splendid vision could be well expressed. The fearful awe imprudent Psyche knew Would seize with rapture every wondering breast. When Love’s all-potent charms divinely stood confesseii, 282 ENGLISH LITERATURE. roir^. All imperceptible to human touch. His wings display celestial essence light; The clear effulgence of the blaze is such. The brilliant plumage shines so heavenly bright, That mortal eyes turn dazzled from the sight ; A youth he seems in manhood’s freshest years ; Round his fair neck, as clinging with delight, Each golden curl resplendently appears, Or shades his darker b-nw, which grace majestic wears : Or o’er his guileless front the ringlets bright Their rays of sunny lustre seem to throw. That front than polished ivory more white 1 His blooming cheeks with deeper blushes glow Than roses scattered o’er a bed of snow : While on his lips, distilled in balmy dews, (Those lips divine, that even in silence know The heart to touch), persuasion to infuse. Still hangs a rosy charm that never vainly sues. The friendly curtain of indulgent sleep Disclosed not yet his eyes’ resistless sway. Rut from their silky veil there seemed to peep Some brilliant glances with a softened ray. Which o’er his features exquisitely play. And all his polished limbs suffuse with light. Thus through some narrow space the azure da}-, Sudden its cheei-ful rays diffusing bright. Wide darts its lucid beams, to gild the brow of night. Ilis fatal arrows and celestial bow Beside the couch were negligently thrown. Nor needs the god his dazzling arms to show Ilis glorious birth ; such beauty round him shone As sure could spring from Beauty’s self alone ; The bloom which glowed o'er all of soft desire Could well proclaim him Beauty’s cherished son : And Beauty’s self will oft those charms admire. And steal his witching smile, his glance’s living fire. Speechless with awe, in tr.ansport strangely lost. Long Psyche stood with fixed adoring eye; Her limbs immovable, her senses tossed Between amazement, fear, and ecstacy. She hangs enamoured o’er the deity. Till from her trembling hand extinguished falls The fatal lamp — he starts — and suddenly Tremendous thunders echo through the halls. While ruin’s hideous crash bursts o’er the affrighted walls. Dread horror seizes on her sinking heart, A mortal chillness shudders at her breast. Her soul shrinks fainting from death’s icy d.art. The groan scarce uttered dies but half expressed. And down she sinks in deadly swoon oppressed : But when at length, awaking from her trance. The terrors of her fate stand all confessed. In vain she casts around her timid glance ; The rudely frowning scenes her former joys enhance. No traces of those joys, alas, remain! A desert solitude alone appears ; No verdant shade relieves the sandy plain. The wide-spread waste no gentle fountain cheers ; One barren face the dreary prospect wears ; Nought through the vast horizon meets her eye To calm the dismal tumult of her fears ; No trace of human habitation nigh ; A sandy wild beneath, above a threatening sky. The Lily. • [By Mrs Tighe.] How withered, perished seems the form Of yon obscure unsightly root ! Yet from the blight of wintry storm. It hides secure the precious fruit. nODERT m,OOMPIKI,» The careless eye can find no grace. No beauty in the scaly folds. Nor see within the dark embrace What latent loveliness it holds. Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales. The lily wraps her silver vest. Till vernal suns and vernal gales Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast. Yes, hide beneath the mouldering heap The undelighting slighted thing ; There in the cold earth buried deep. In silence let it wait the spring. Oh! many a stormy night shall close In gloom upon the barren earth. While still, in undisturbed repose. Uninjured lies the future birth : And Ignorance, with sceptic eye, Hope’s patient smile shall wondering view; Or mock her fond credulity. As her soft tears the spot bedew. Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear 1 The sun, the shower indeed shall come ; The promised verdant shoot appear. And nature bid her blossoms bloom. And thou, 0 virgin queen of spring ! Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed. Bursting thy green sheath’s silken string. Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed; Unfold thy robes of purest white. Unsullied from their darksome grave. And thy soft petals’ silvery light In the mild breeze unfettered wave. So Faith shall seek the lowly dust Where humble Sorrow loves to lie. And bid her thus her hopes intrust. And watch with patient, cheerful eye; And bear the long, cold wintry night. And bear her own degraded doom ; And wait till Heaven’s reviving light. Eternal spring! shall burst the gloom. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. Robert Bloomfield, author of The Farmer's Boy. and other poems illustrative of English rural life and customs, was born at Honington, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in the year 1766. His father, a tailor, died whilst the poet was a child, and he was placed under his uncle, a farmer. Here he remained only two years, being too weak and diminutive for field labour, and he was taken to London by .an elder brother, and brought up to the trade of a shoe- maker. His two years of country service, and oc- casional visits to his friends in Suffolk, were of in- estimable importance to him as a poet, for they afforded materials for his ‘ E’armer’s Boy,’ and gave a freshness and reality to his descriptions. It was in the shoemaker’s garret, however, that his poetry was chiefly composed ; and the merit of introducing it to the world belongs to Mr Capel Lofft, a lite- rary gentleman residing at Troston, near Bury, to whom the manuscript was shown, after being re- jected by several London booksellers. Mr Loflft warmly befriended the poet, and had the s.atisfactioo of seeing his prognostications of success fully verified. At this time Bloomfield was thirty-two years of age, was married, and had three children. The ‘ Far mer’s Boy’ immediately became popular ; the Duke of Grafton patronised the poet, settling on. him a 28 i FllOM 17ti0 CYCLOPAEDIA OE TILL THE I'EESENT TIME. iiiimiity, and thruugli tlic iidlucncti of tlii.s iiuliloiimn he was ap]iointed to a situation in the Seal ofliee. In 1810 Hloonifielil iniblislied a collee- tion of Itural Tales, which fully supported his re- putation ; and to these were afterwards added Wild Fluiccm, llazlciuoud Hull, a villatje drama, 'and May- Austin’s Farm, the early residence of Bloomfield. day with the 3fuses. The last was published in the year of his death, and opens with a fine burst of poetical, though melancholy feeling — 0 for the strength to paint my joy once more! That joy I feel when winter’s reign is o’er; When the dark despot lifts his hoary brow, And seeks his polar realm’s eternal snow : Though bleak November’s fogs oppress ray brain, Shake every nerve, and struggling fancy chain ; Though time creeps o’er me with his palsied hand. And frost-like bids the stream of passion stand. The worldly circumst.ances of the author seem to have been such as to confirm the common idea as to the infelicity of poets. His situation in the Seal- oflace was irksome and laborious, and he was forced to resign it from ill health. He engaged in the bookselling business, but was unsuccessful. In his latter years he resorted to making jEolian harps, which he sold among his friends. We have been informed by the poet’s son (a modest and intelligent man, a printer), that Mr Itogers exerted himself to procure a pension for Bloomfield, and Mr Southey also took much interest in his welfare ; but his last days were imbittered by ill health and poverty. So severe were the sufferings of Bloomfield from con- tinual headache and nervous irritability, that fears were entertained for his reason, when, happily, death stepped in. and released him from ‘ the world’s poor strife.’ He died at Shefford, in Bedfordshire, on the 19th of August 1823. The first remarkable feature in the poetry of this humble bard is the easy smooth- ness and correctness of his versification. His ear was attuned to harmony, and his taste to the beauties of expression, before he had learned anything of criticism, or had enjoyed opportunities for study. This may be seen from the opening of his pr.ncipal poem : — O come, blest Spirit ! whatsoe’er thou art. Thou kindling warmth that hover’st round my heart] Sweet inmate, hail ! thou source of sterling joy. That poverty itself can not destroy. Be thou my Muse, and faithful still to me, Kevrace the stejis of wild obscurity. No deeds of arms my humble lines rehearse; No Alpine wonders thunder through my verse, The roaring cataract, the snow-topt hill. Inspiring awe till breath itself stands still : Nature’s sublimer scenes ne’er charmed mine eyes, Nor science led me through the boundless skies; From meaner objects far my raptures flow : 0 point these raptures ! bid my bosom glow. And lead my soul to ecstacies of praise For all the blessings of my infant days ! Bear me through regions where gay Fancy dwells ; But mould to Truth’s fair form what memory teUj. Live, trifling incidents, and grace my song, That to the humblest menial belong: To him whose drudgery unheeded goes. His joys unreckoned, as his cares or woes: Though joys and cares in every |>ath are sown. And youthful minds h.ave feelings of their own, Quick-springing sorrows, transient as the dew. Delights from trifles, trifles ever new. ’Twas thus with Giles, meek, fatherless, and pool, Labour his portion, but he felt no more ; No stripes, no tyranny his stejis pursued. His life was constant cheerful servitude ; Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look. The fields his study, nature was his book ; And as revolving seasons ch.anged the scene From heat to cold, tempestuous to serene. Through every change still varied his employ. Yet each new duty brought its share of joy. It is interesting to contrast the cheerful tone of Bloomfield’s descriptions of rural life in its hardest and least inviting forms, with those of Crabbe, also a native of Suftidk. Both are true, but coloured with the respective peculiarities, in their style of i observation and feeling, of the two poets. Bloom- | field describes the various occupations of a farm boy ; in seed-time, at harvest, tending cattle and sheep, and other occupations. In his tales, he embodies more moral feeling and painting, and his inciilents are pleasing and well arranged. His want of vigour and passion, joined to the humility of his themes, is perhaps the cause of his being now little read ; but he is one of the most characteristic and faithful of our national poets. [Tumlp-Smeiny — }Yhcnt Iili>cniny — Sparrows — TnsecU — The Sky-Lark — Reayiny, ing scythe now rips along; Each .sturd}' mower, emulous and strong. Whose writhing form meridian heat defies, Bends o’er his work, and every sinew tries ; Prostrates the waving treasure at his feet. But .spares the rising clover, short and sweet. Come Health! come Jollity ! light-footed come ; Here hold your revels, and make this your home. Each heart awaits and hails you as its own ; Each moistened brow that scorns to wear a frowm : The unpeopled dwelling mourns its tenants strayed: E’en the domestic laughing dairymaid Hies to the field the general toil to share. Meanwhile the farmer quits his elbow-chair. His cool brick floor, his pitcher, and his case. And braves the sultry beams, and gladly sees His gates thrown open, and his team abroad. The ready group attendant on his word To turn the swath, the quivering load to rear. Or ply the busy rake the land to clear. Summer’s light garb itself now cumbrous grown. Each his thin doublet in the shade throw's down; Where oft the mastilf skulks with half-shut eye. And rouses at the stranger passing by ; While unrestrained the social converse flows. And every breast Love’s powerful impulse know*, And rival wits with more than rustic grace Confess the presence of a pretty face. FROM 1700 CYCLOPAEDIA OF Rosy Hannah, A spring, o’crhung with many a flower, Tlie gray sand dancing in its bed, Embanked beneath a hawthorn bower. Sent forth its waters near my head. A rosy lass approached iny view ; I caught her blue eyes’ modest beam; The stranger nodded ‘ llow-d’ye-doP And leaped across the infant stream. Tne water heedless passed away ; With me her glowing image stayed ; 1 strove, from that auspicious day. To meet and bless the lovely maid. I met her where beneath our feet Through downy moss the wild thyme grew; Nor moss elastic, flowers though sweet. Matched Hannah’s cheek of rosy hue. I met her where the dark woods wave. And shaded verdure skirts the plain ; And when the pale moon rising gave New glories to her rising train. From her sweet cot upon the moor. Our plighted vows to heaven are flown; Truth made me welcome at her door. And rosy Hannah is my own. IAv.es addressed to my Children. [OccisioncJ by a visit to ttTiittlebury Forest, Northampton- ehire, in August 1800.] Genius of the forest shades. Lend thy power, and lend thine ear; A stranger trod thy lonely glades, Amid.st thy dark and bounding deer; Inquiring childhood claims the verse, 0 let them not inquire in vain; Be with me while 1 thus rehearse The glories of thy sylvan reign. , Thy dells by wintry currents worn, Secluded haunts, how dear to me I From all but nature’s converse borne. No ear to hear, no eye to .see. Their honoured leaves the green oaks reared. And crowned the upland’s graceful swell ; While answering through the vale was heard Each distant heifer’s tinkling bell. Hail, greenwood shades, that, stretching far, Defy e’en summer’s noontide power. When August in his burning car Withholds the clouds, withholds the shower. The deep-toned low from either hill, Down hazel aisles and arches green (The herd’s rude tracks from rill to rill). Roared echoing through the solemn scene. From my charmed heart the numbers sprung. Though birds had ceased the choral lay; I poured wild raptures from my tongue. And gave delicious tears their way. Then, darker shadows seeking still. Where human foot had seldom strayed, I read aloud to every hill Sweet Emma’s love, ‘ the Nut-brown maid.’ Shaking his matted mane on high. The gazing colt would raise his head. Or timorous doe would rushing fly. And leave to me her grassy bed ; Where, as the azure sky appeared Through bowers of ever varying form. Midst the deep gloom methought 1 heard The daring progress of the storm. TIU. THE rUESENT TIMK. How would each sweeping ponderous bough Resist, when straight the whirlwind cleaves. Dashing in strengthening eddies through A roaring wilderne.ss of leaves ? How would the prone descending shower From the green canopy rebound ? How would the lowland torrents pour? How deep the pealing thunder sound ? But peace was there : no lightnings blazed; No clouds obscured the face of heaven ; Down eaqli green opening whiie I gazed. My thoughts to home and you were given. 0, tender minds ! in life’s gay morn, Some clouds must dim your coming day; Y et bootless, pride and falsehood scorn. And peace like this shall cheer your way. Now, at the dark wood’s stately side. Well pleased I met the sun again ; Here fleeting fancy travelled wide ; My seat was destined to the main. For many an oak lay stretched at length. Whose trunks (with bark no longer sheathed) Had reached their full meridian strength Before your father’s father breathed 1 Perhaps they’ll many a conflict brave, And many a dreadful storm defy ; Then, groaning o’er the adverse wave. Bring home the flag of victory. Go, then, proud oaks ; we meet no more ! Go, grace the scenes to me denied. The white cliffs round my native shore, And the loud ocean’s swelling tide. ‘Genius of the forest shades,’ Sweet from the heights of thy domain, When the gray evening shadow fade.s. To view the country’s golden grain ; To view the gleaming village spire ’Midst distant groves unknown to me — Groves that, grown bright in borrowed fire, Bow o’er the peopled vales to thee. Where was thy elfin train, that play Round Wake’s huge oak, their favourite tree. Dancing the twilight hours away? Why were they not revealed to me ? Yet, smiling fairies left behind. Affection brought you all to view; To love and tendernes.s resigned. My heart heaved many a sigh for you. When morning still unclouded rose. Refreshed with sleep and joyous dreams, Where fruitful fields with woodlands close, I traced the births of various streams. From beds of clay, here creeping rills. Unseen to parent Ouse, would steal ; Or, gushing from the northward hills. Would glitter through Tove’s winding dale. But ah 1 ye cooling springs, farewell ! Herds, I no more your freedom share; But long my grateful tongue shall tell What brought your gazing stranger them. ‘ Genius of the forest shades,’ Lend thy power, and lend thine ear ; But dreams still lengthen thy long glades. And bring thy peace and silence here. \_Dcscription of a Blind Youth.'] For from his cradle he had never seen Soul-cheering sunbeams, or wild nature’s gresn. But all life’s blessings centre not in sight ; For Providence, that dealt him one long night. Had given, in pity, to the blooming boy Feelings more exquisitely tuned to joy. 286 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. Fond to e.\cess was he of all that grew ; The morning blossom sjirinkled o’er with dew, Across his path, as if in playful freak, Would dash his brow and weep upon his cheek ; Each varying leaf that brushed where’er he came. Pressed to his rosy lip he called by name ; He grasped the saplings, measured every bough. Inhaled the fragrance that the spring’s months throw Profusely round, till his young heart confessed That all was beauty, and himself was blessed. Yet when he traced the wide extended plain. Or clear brook side, he felt a transient pain ; The keen regret of goodness, void of pride. To think he could not roam without a guide. May-Day with tht Muta. [Banquet of an English Squire.'\ Then came the jovial day, no streaks of red O’er the broad portal of the morn were spread, But one high-sailing mist of dazzling white, A screen of gossamer, a magic light, Doomed instantly, by simplest shepherd’s ken. To reign awhile, and be exhaled at ten. O’er leaves, o’er blossoms, by his power restored. Forth came the conquering sun and looked abroad; Millions of dew-drops fell, yet millions hung. Like words of transport trembling on the tongue. Too strong for utterance. Thus the infant boy. With rosebud cheeks, and features tuned to joy, Weeps while he struggles with restraint or pain ; But change the scene, and make him laugh again. His heart rekindles, and his cheek appears A thousand times more lovely through his tears. From the first glimpse of day, a busy scene Was that high-swelling lawn, that destined green. Which shadowless expanded far and wide. The mansion’s ornament, the hamlet’s pride ; To cheer, to order, to direct, contrive. Even old Sir Ambrose had been up at five ; There his whole household laboured in his view — But light is labour where the task is new. Some wheeled the turf to build a grassy throne Round a huge thorn that spread his boughs alone, Rough-rined and bold, as master of the place ; Five generations of the Higham race Had plucked his flowers, and still he held his sway, Waved his white head, and felt the breath of May. Some from the greenhouse ranged exotics round. To bask in open day on English ground : ‘And ’midst them in a line of splendour drew Long wreaths and garlands gathered in the dew. Some spread the snowy canvass, propped on high O’er sheltering tables with their whole supply ; Some swung the biting scythe with merry face. And cropped the daisies for a dancing space ; Some rolled the mouldy barrel in his might. From prison darkness into cheerful light. And fenced him round with cans ; and others bore The creaking hamper with its costly store ; Well corked, well flavoured, and well taxed, that came From Lusitanian mountains dear to fame. Whence Gama steered, and led the conquering way To eastern triumphs and the realms of day. A thousand minor tasks filled every hour. Till the sun gained the zenith of his power. When every path was thronged with old and young. And many a skylark in his strength upsprung To bid them welcome. Not a face was there But, for May-day at least, had banished care ; No cringing looks, no pauper tales to tell, No timid glance — they knew their host too well — Freedom was there, and joy in every eye : Such scenes were England’s boast in days gone by. Beneath the thorn was good Sir Ambrose found. His guests an ample crescent formed around ; Nature’s oivn carpet spread the space between. Where blithe domestics plied in gold and green. The venerable chaplain waved his wand. And silence followed as he stretched his hand : The deep carouse can never boast the bliss. The animation of a scene like this. At length the damasked cloths were whisked away Like fluttering sails upon a summer’s day ; The hey-day of enjoyment found repose ; The worthy baronet majestic rose. They viewed him, while' his ale was filling round. The monarch of his own paternal ground. His cup was full, and where the blossoms bowed Over his head. Sir Ambrose spoke aloud. Nor stopped a dainty form or phrase to cull. His heart elated, like his cup was full: — ‘ Full be your hopes, and rich the crops that fall ; Health to my neighbours, happiness to all.’ Dull must that clomi be, dull as winter’s sleet. Who would not instantly be on his feet : An echoing health to mingling shouts give place, ‘ Sir Ambrose Higham and his noble race !’ May-Day with the Muaet, [The Soldier’s Home.'] [‘ The topic is trite, hut in Mr Bloomfield's hands it almost assumes a character of novelty. Burns’s Soldier's Return is not, to our taste, one whit superior.’ — Professor inison.] My untried Muse shall no high tone assume. Nor strut in arms — farewell my cap and plume ! Brief be my verse, a task within my power ; I tell my feelings in one happy hour : But what an hour was that ! when from the main I reached this lovely valley once again ! A glorious harvest filled my eager sight. Half shocked, half waving in a flood of light ; On that poor cottage roof where I was boi'n. The sun looked dotvn as in life’s early mom. I gazed around, but not a soul appeared ; I listened on the threshold, nothing heard ; I called liny father thrice, but no one came ; It was not fear or grief that shook my frame. But an o’erpowering sense of peace and home. Of toils gone by, perhaps of joys to come. The door invitingly stood open wide ; I shook my dust, and set my staff aside. How sweet it was to breathe that cooler ail. And take possession of my father’s chair! Beneath ray elbow, on the solid frame, Appeared the rough initials of my name. Cut forty years before ! The same old clock Struck the same bell, and gave my heart a shick I never can forget. A short breeze sprung. And while a sigh was trembling on my tongue. Caught the old dangling almanacs behind. And up they flew like banners in the winartiid;'e in the field, And ticking clock, were all at once become The siihstitute for clarion, fife, and drum. While thus 1 mused, still gazing, gazing still, On beds of moss that spread the window sill, 1 tleemed no moss my eyes had ever seen Had been so lovely, brilliant, fresh, and green-. And guessed some infant hand had placed it there, And prized its hue, so exquisite, so rare. Feelings on feelings mingling, doubling rose; My heart felt everything but calm repose ; 1 could not reckon minutc.s, hours, nor years, lint rose at once, and bursted into tears ; Then, like a fool, confused, sat down again. And thought upon the past with shame and pain; 1 raved at war and all its horrid cost. And glory’s quagmire, where the brave are lost. On carnage, hre, and plunder long 1 mused. And cursed the murdering weapons 1 had used. Two shadows then 1 saw, two voices heard. One bespoke age, and one a child’s appeared. In stepped my father with convulsive start. And in an instant clasped me to his heart. Close by him stooil a little blue-eyed maid; And stooping to the child, the old man said, ‘ Come hither, Nancy, kiss me once again. This is your uncle Charles, come home from Spain.’ The child approached, and with her fingers light, Stroked my old eyes, almost deprived of sight. I5ut why thus spin my tale — thus tedious be? Happy old soldier! what’s the world to mel [Tolas Wife.'] I rise, dear Mary, from the soundest rest, A wandering, way-worn, musing, singing,guest. I claim the privilege of hill and plain ; Mine are the woods, and all that they contain ; The unpolluted gale, which sweeps the glade; All the cool blessings of the solemn shade; Health, and the flow of happiness sincere ; Yet there’s one wish — I wisli that thou wert here; Free from the trammels of domestic care. With me these dear autumnal sweets to share ; To share my heart’s ungovernable joy. And keep the birthday of our poor lame boy. Ah ! that’s a tender string ! Yet since I find That scenes like these can soothe the harassed mind, Trust me, ’twould set thy jaded spirits free. To wander thus through vales and woods with me. I'hou know'st how much 1 love to steal away From noise, from uproar, and the blaze of day; With double transport would my heart rebound To lead thee where the clustering nuts are found; No toilsome efforts would our task demand. For the brown treasure stoops to meet the hand. Hound the tall hazel beds of moss appear In green swards nibbled by the forest deer. Sun, and alternate shade; while o’er our heads The caving rook his glossy pinions spreads ; The noisy jay, his wild woods dashing through; The ring-dove’s chorus, and the rustling bough ; 1'he far resounding gate; the kite’s shrill scream; 'The distant ])loughman’s halloo to his team. This is the chorus to my soul so dear ; It would delight thee too, wert thou but here: For w’e might talk of home, and muse o’er days Of sad distress, and Heaven’s mysterious ways; Our chequered fortunes with a smile retrace. And build new hopes upon our infant race; Four our thanksgivings forth, and weep the while; Or pray for blessings on our native isle. Rut vain the wish! ^lary, thy sighs forbear. Nor grudge the pleasure which thou canst not share; Make home delightful, kindly wish for me. And I’ll leave hills, and dales, and woods for thee. JOHN I.EYDE.V. .Tohn Leyden, a distinguished orient.al scholar as well as a poet, was a native of Denholm, Roxburgh- shire. He was the son of humble parent.s, hut the ardent borderer fought his way to learning and eele- brity. His parents, seeing his desire for instruction, determined to educate him for the church, and he was entered of Fdinburgh college in 1790, in the fif- teenth year of his age. He made rapid progress ; was an excellent Latin and Greek scholar, and acquired also the F'reneh, Spanish, Italian, and German, be- sides studying the Ilebrew, Arabic, and I'ersian. He became no mean proficient in mathematics and va- rious branches of science. Indeed, every difliculty seemed to vanish before his commanding talents, his retentive memory, and robust application. His college vacations were spent at home ; and as his father’s cottage afforded him little opportunity for quiet and seclusion, he looked out for accommoda- tions abroad. ‘In a wild recess,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘ in the den or glen wide h gives name to the village of Denholm, he contrived a sort of furnace for the purpose of such chemical experiments as he was adequate to performiTig. Rut his chief place of retirement was the small parish church, a gloomy and ancient building, generally believed in the neighbourhood to be haunted. To this chosen place of study, usually hadeed during week days, Leyden made entrance by means of a window, read there for many hours in the day, and depo- sited his books and specimens in a retired pew. It was a w'ell-chosen spot of seclusion, for the kirk I (excepting during divine service) is rather a place of terror to the Scottish rustic, and that of Cavers was rendered more so by many a tale of ghosts ano witchcraft, of which it was the supposed .scene, and to which Leyden, partly to indulge his humour, and partly to secure his retirement, contrived to make some modern additions. The nature of his abstruse studies, some specimens of natural history’, as toads and adders, left exposed in their spirit-vials, and one or two pnietieal jests j)Iayed off upon the more curious of the pe.asantry. rendered his gloomy haunt not only venerated by the wise, but feared by the simple of the parish.’ F'rom this singular and ro- mantic study, I.eyden sallied forth, with his curious and various stores, to astonish his college associates. He already numbered among his friends the most distinguished literary and scientific men of Edin- burgh. On the expiration of his college studies, Leyden accepted the situation of tutor to the sons of Mr Camphell of Fairfielil, whotn he accompanied to the university of St Andrews. '1 here he pur- sued his own researches connected with oriental letirning, and in 1799 imblished a sketch of the Discoveries and Settlements of the Kuropeiws in Northern and Western Africa. He wrote also vari- ous copies of verses and translations from the northern and oriental latuinages, which he pub- lished in the Edinburgh M.igazine. In 1800 Ley- den was ordaitied for the church. He continued, however, to study atid compose, tind contributed to Lewis’s Tales of Wonder and Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Horder. So ardent was he in assisting the editor of the Minstrelsy, that he on one occa- sion walked between forty and fifty tniles, atid back again, for the sole purpose of visiting tin old person who pos.sessed an ancient historicid balbid. His next publication was a new edition of The Comphn/nt of Scotland, an ancient work written about 1.548, which Leyden enriched with a preliminary disser- tation, notes, and a glossary. He also undertook the management, for otie year, of the Scots Maga- zine, His strong desire to visit foreign countrie* 288 ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOHN I F-VnEN. I ; induced his friends to apidyto government for some I ' apiKiintment for him connected with tlie learning ! and languages of the East. The only situation whicli they couhi i)nK‘ure was tliat of surgeon’s assistant ; i anci in live or six months, by incredible labour, Leyden qualified himself, and obtained his diploma. 1 ‘ The sudden change of his profession,’ says Scott, ] ‘ gave great amusement to some of his friends.’ In 1 l)eceml>er 1802, Leyden was summoned to join the I Christmas fleet of Indiamen, in consequence of his ajipointtnent as assistant-surgeon on the Madras 1 establishment. lie finished his poem. The Scenes of j Infavct/, descriptive of his native vale, and left I ' Scotland for ever. After his arrival at Madras, the I ' health of laiyden gave way, and he was obliged to 1 1 remove to Prince of Wales Island. He resided there j for some time, visiting Sumatra and the Malayan 1 1 peninsula, and amassing the curious information I concerning the language, literature, and descent of j i the Indo-Chinese tribes, which afterwards enabled him to lay a most vahiable dissertation before the Asiatic Society at Calcutta. Leyden quitted Prince of Wales Island, and was appointed a professor in the Bengal college. This was soon exchanged for a more lucrative appointment, namely, that of a judge in Calcutta. Ills spare time was, as usual, devoted to oriental manuscripts and antiquities. ‘ I may die in the attempt,’ he wrote to a friend, ‘ but if I die without surpassing Sir Wjlliam Jones a hun- dredfold in oriental learning, let never a tear for me profane the eye of a borderer.’ The possibility of an early death in a distant land often crossed the mind of the ambitious student. In his ‘ Scenes of Infancy,’ he expresses his anticipation of such an event in a passage of great melody and pathos. The silver moon at midnight cold and still. Looks, sad and silent, o’er you western hill ; While largo and pale the ghostly structures grow, Reared on the confines of the world below. Is that dull sound the hum of Teviot’s stream ? j Is that blue light the moon’s, or tomb-fire’s gleam? I By which a mouldering pile is faintly seen, 1 The old deserted church of Hazeldean, Where slept my fathers in their natal clay. Till Teviot’s waters rolled their bones away ? Their feeble voices from the stream they raise — ‘ Rash youth ! unmindful of thy early days. Why didst thou quit the peasant’s simple lot ? M’hy didst thou leave the peasant’s tui-f-built cot, The ancient graves where all thy fathers lie. And Teviot’s stream that long has murmured by? And we — when death so long has closed our eyes, How wilt thou bid us from the dust arise. And bear our mouldering bones across the main. From vales that knew our lives devoid of stain? 1 Rash youth ! beware, thy home-bred virtues save, I And sweetly sleep in thy paternal grave.’ j In 181 1 Leyden accompanied the governor-general j 1 to Java. ‘ His spirit of romantic adventure,’ says ! Scott, ‘ led him literally to rush upon death ; for, ! with another volunteer who attended the expedition, I he threw himself into the surf, in order to be the first Briton of the expedition who should set foot 1 upon Java. When the success of the well -concerted I movements of the invaders had given them posses- sion of the town of Batavia, Leyden displayed the same ill-omened precipitation, in his haste to exa- mine a library, or rather a warehouse of books, in which many Indian manuscripts of value were said to be deposited. A library in a Dutch settlement was not, as might have been expected, in the best order ; the apartment had not been regularly venti- lated, and either from this circumstance, or already affected by the fatal sickness peculiar to Batavia, 61 Leyden, when he left the place, had a fit of shiver- ing, ami declared the atmosphere was enough to give any' mortal a fever. The presage was too just : he took his bed, and died in three days (August 28, 1811), on the eve of the battle which gave .Java to the British empire.’ The Poetical Remains of Ley- den were published in 1819, with a Memoir of his Life, by the Rev. James Morton. Sir John Malcolm and Sir Walter Scott both honoured his memory with notices of his life and genius. The Great Minstrel has also alhided to his untimely death in his ‘ Lord of the Isles.’ Scarba’s Isle, whose tortured shore Still rings to Corrievreckin’s roar. And lonely Colonsay ; Scenes sung by him who sings no more, His bright and brief career is o’er. And mute his tuneful strains ; Quenched is his lamp of varied lore. That loved the light of song to pour: A distant and a deadly shore Has Leyden’s cold remains. The allusion here is to a ballad by Leyden, en- titled The Mermaid, the scene of which is laid at Corrievreckin, and which was published with an- other, The Cout of Keeldar, in the Border Min- strelsy. His longest poem is his ‘ Scenes of In- fancy,’ descriptive of his native vale of Teviot. His versification is soft and musical ; he is an elegant rather than a forcible poet. His ballad strains are greatly superior to his ‘ Scenes of Infancy.’ Sir Walter Scott has praised the opening of ‘The Mer- maid,’ as exhibiting a jxiwer of numbers which, for mere melody of sound, has seldom been excelled in EngUsh poetry. Sonnet on Sahhath Mom. With silent awe I hail the sacred morn. That scarcely wakes while all the fields are still ; A soothing calm on every breeze is borne, A graver murmur echoes from the hill. And softer sings the linnet from the thorn ; The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. Hail, light serene ! hail, sacred Sabbath mon. I The sky a placid yellow lustre throws ; The gales that lately sighed aiong the grove Have hushed their drowsy wings in dead repose ; The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move : So soft the day when the first morn arose 1 * Ode to an Indian Gold Coin. [Written in Cherical, Malabar.] Slave of the dark and dirty mine ! What vanity has brought thee here ? How can I love to see thee shine So bright, whom I have bought so dear? The tent-ropes flapping lone I hear For twilight converse, arm in arm ; The jackal’s shriek bursts on mine ear When mirth and music wont to cheer. By Cherical’s dark wandering streams. Where cane-tufts shadow all the wild. Sweet visions haunt my waking dreams Of Teviot loved while still a child. Of castled rocks stupendous piled By Esk or Eden’s classic wave. Where loves of youth and friendships smiled. Uncursed by thee, vile yellow slave ! * A writer in the Edinburgh Review (1805) considers that Grahame borrowed the opening description in his Sabbath from the above sonnet by Leyden. The images are common to poetry, besides being congenial to Scottish habits and feel- ings. 289 FROM 1700 CYCLOPAEDIA OF till the present tim