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 want 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 Armies at Salamis. O sun! thou o'er Athenian towers, More new, more wondrous to thy piercing eye Is thronged with millions, male and female race, On horses, camels, cars. Ægaleos tall, Half down his long declivity, where spreads Displays the king, environed by his court, By warriors covered, like some trophy huge, The arrangement, shelving downward to the beach, To mount the rolling deck. The younger dames A popular vitality has been awarded to a ballad of Glover's, while his epics have sunk into oblivion: As near Portobello lying Admiral Hosier's Ghost.* On the gently swelling flood, On a sudden, shrilly sounding, Hideous yells and shrieks were heard; Which for winding-sheets they wore, On them gleamed the moon's wan lustre, 'Heed, oh heed our fatal story! I am Hosier's injured ghost; You now triumph free from fears, See these mournful spectres sweeping I. by twenty sail attended, I had cast them with disdain, Written on the taking of Carthageng from the Spaniards. 1739. The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented was briefly this: In April 1726. that commander was sent with 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 Bastimentos. near Portobello; but being restricted by his orders from obeying the dictates of his courage, lay inactive on that sta tion until he became the jest of the Spaniards. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and continued crusing 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 ship exposed to inevitable destruction, and him. self made the sport of the enemy. is said to have died of a broken heart, -PERCY. For resistance I could fear none; Of this gallant train had been • Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, Of a grieved and broken heart. 'Unrepining at thy glory, Thy successful arms we hail; Sent in this foul clime to languish, 'Hence with all my train attend We recall our shameful doom, 'O'er these waves for ever mourning WILLIAM MASON. WILLIAM MASON, the friend and literary 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 acquainted with Gray, who assisted him in obtaining his degree of M. A. His first literary production was a poem, entitled 'Isis,' being an attack on the Jacobitism of Oxford, to which Thomas Warton replied in his Triumph of Isis.' In 1753 appeared his tragedy.of 'Elfrida,'' written,' says Southey, 'on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had precluded 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 accompaniment of the chorus. A second drama, 'Caractacus,' is of a higher cast than Elfrida:' more noble and spirited in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and character. Mason also wrote a series of odes on Independence,'' Memory,'' Melancholy,' and the Fall of Tyranny,' in which his gorgeousness of diction swells into extravagance and bombast. His greatest poetical work is his English Garden,' a long descriptive poem in blank verse, extended over four books, which were published separately between 1772 and 1782. He wrote odes to the naval officers of Great Britain, to the Honourable William Pitt, and in commemoration of the Revolution of 1688. Mason, under the name of Malcolm Macgregor, published a lively satire, entitled An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knight,' 1773. The taste for Chinese pagodas and Eastern bowers is happily ridiculed in this production, so different from the other poetical works of Mason. Gray having left Mason a legacy of £500, together with his books and manuscripts, the latter discharged the debt due to his friend's memory, by publishing, in 1775, the poems of Gray with memoirs of his life. As in his dramas Mason had made an innovation on the established taste of the times, he ventured, with greater success, to depart from the practice of English authors, in writing the life of Gray. Instead of presenting a continuous narrative, in which 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. The plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his 'Life of Jolinson,' and has been sanctioned by subsequent usage, in all cases where the subject is of importance enough to demand copious information and minute personal details. The circumstances of 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 simplicity, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his English Garden,' though verbose and languid as a whole, there are some exquisite images. Gray quotes the following lines in one of Mason's odes as superlative :' While through the west, where sinks the crimson day, In thy fair domain, Yes, my loved Albion! many a glade is found, The haunt of wood-gods only, where if Art E'er dared to tread, 'twas with unsandalled foot, Printless, as if the place were holy ground. And there are scenes where, though she whilome trod, And ruthless Superstition, we now trace Her footsteps with delight, and pleased revere What once had roused our hatred. But to Time, Not her, the praise is due: his gradual touch Has moulded into beauty many a tower Which, when it frowned with all its battlements, Monastic, which, when decked with all its spires, Mount Snowdon.-From 'Caractacus.' Mona on Snowdon calls: Meet upon thy front of snow; And burst thy base with thunder's shock: Shall Mona use, than those that dwell Round and round, and round they go, Mount the oak's majestic head, Epitaph on Mrs. Mason, in the Cathedral of Bristol. Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. 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 the pure in heart behold their God.' FRANCIS FAWKES. He FRANCIS FAWKES (1721-1777) translated Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, and other classic poets, and wrote some pleasing original verses. was a clergyman, and died vicar of Hayes, in Kent. Fawkes enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and Warton; but, however classic in his tastes and studies, he seems to have relished a cup of English ale. The following song is still, and will always be, a favourite: The Brown Jug Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the vale Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul, It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease, His body when long in the ground it had lain, A potter found out in its covert so snug. And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug; |