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While sparkling rage inflames the father's eyes, He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries, 'Detested wretch !'-but scarce his speech began, When the strange partner seemed no longer man! His youthful face grew more serenely sweet; His robe turned white, and flowed upon his feet; Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair; Celestial odours breathe through purpled air; And wings, whose colours glittered on the day, Wide at his back their gradual plumes display. The form ethereal bursts upon his sight, And moves in all the majesty of light. Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion grew, Sudden he gazed, and wist not what to do; Surprise, in secret chains, his words suspends, And in a calm, his settling temper ends, But silence here the beauteous angel broke (The voice of Music ravish'd as he spoke): Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown, In sweet memorial rise before the throne: These charms success in our bright region find, And force an angel down to calm thy mind; For this commissioned, I forsook the sky: Nay, cease to kneel-thy fellow servant I. Then know the truth of government divine, And let these scruples be no longer thine. The Maker justly claims that world he made; In this the right of Providence is laid; Its sacred majesty through all depends On using second means to work his ends: 'Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye, The power exerts his attributes on high; Your action uses, nor controls your will, And bids the doubting sons of men be still. What strange events can strike with more surprise, Than those which lately struck thy wondering eyes? Yet, taught by these, confess the Almighty just, And, where you can't unriddle, learn to trust. The great vain man, who fared on costly food, Whose life was too luxurious to be good; Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine, And forced his guests to morning draughts of wine; Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost, And still he welcomes, but with less of cost. The mean suspicious wretch, whose bolted door Ne'er moved in pity to the wandering poor; With him I left the cup, to teach his mind That Heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind. Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl, And feels compassion touch his grateful soul. Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead, With heaping coals of fire upon its head; In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow, And, loose from dross, the silver runs below. Long had our pious friend in virtue trod,

But now the child half-weaned his heart from God;
(Child of his age) for him he lived in pain,
And measured back his steps to earth again.

To what excesses had his dotage run!
But God, to save the father, took the son.
To all but thee, in fits he seemed to go,
And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow.
The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust,
Now owns in tears the punishment was just.
But how had all his fortunes felt a wrack,
Had that false servant sped in safety back?
This night his treasured heaps he meant to steal,
And what a fund of charity would fail!
Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er,
Depart in peace, resign, and sin no more.'

On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew,
The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew;
Thus looked Elisha, when, to mount on high,
His inaster took the chariot of the sky;
The fiery pomp ascending left the view;
The prophet gazed, and wished to follow too.

The bending Hermit here a prayer begun, 'Lord, as in heaven, on earth thy will be done.' Then, gladly turning, sought his ancient place, And passed a life of piety and peace.

MATTHEW GREEN.

MATTHEW GREEN (1696-1737) was author of a poem, The Spleen, which received the praises of Pope and Gray. He was born in 1696, of dissenting parentage, and enjoyed a situation in the customhouse. His disposition was cheerful; but this did not save him from occasional attacks of low spirits, or spleen, as the favourite phrase was in his time. Having tried all imaginable remedies for his malady, he conceived himself at length able to treat it in a philosophical spirit, and therefore wrote the abovementioned poem, which adverts to all its forms, and their appropriate remedies, in a style of comic verse resembling Hudibras, but which Pope himself allowed to be eminently original. Green terminated a quiet inoffensive life of celibacy in 1737, at the age of forty-one.

'The Spleen' was first published by Glover, the author of Leonidas,' himself a poet of some pretensions in his day. Gray thought that even the wood-notes of Green often break out into strains of real poetry and music.' As The Spleen' is almost unknown to modern readers, we present a few of its best passages. The first that follows contains one

line (marked by Italic) which is certainly one of the happiest and wisest things ever said by a British author. It seems, however, to be imitated from Shakspeare

Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires.

[Cures for Melancholy.]

To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green;
Some hilly walks; all exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies;

Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kitten, if the humour hit,
Has harlequined away the fit.

Since mirth is good in this behalf,
At some particulars let us laugh.
Witlings, brisk fools-

Who buzz in rhyme, and, like blind flies,
Err with their wings for want of eyes.
Poor authors worshipping a calf;
Deep tragedies that make us laugh;
Folks, things prophetic to dispense,
Making the past the future tense;
The popish dubbing of a priest;
Fine epitaphs on knaves deceased;
A miser starving to be rich;
The prior of Newgate's dying speech;
A jointured widow's ritual state;
Two Jews disputing tête-à-tête;
New almanacs composed by seers;
Experiments on felons' ears;
Disdainful prudes, who ceaseless ply
The superb muscle of the eye;
A coquette's April-weather face;
A Queen'brough mayor behind his mace,
And fops in military show,

Are sovereign for the case in view.

If spleen-fogs rise at close of day,
I clear my evening with a play,
Or to some concert take my way.
The company, the shine of lights,
The scenes of humour, music's flights,
Adjust and set the soul to rights.

In rainy days keep double guard,
Or spleen will surely be too hard;
Which, like those fish by sailors met,
Fly highest while their wings are wet.
In such dull weather, so unfit
To enterprise a work of wit;
When clouds one yard of azure sky,
That's fit for simile, deny,

I dress my face with studious looks,
And shorten tedious hours with books.
But if dull fogs invade the head,
That memory minds not what is read,
I sit in window dry as ark,
And on the drowning world remark:
Or to some coffeehouse I stray
For news, the manna of a day,
And from the hipped discourses
That politics go by the weather.
Sometimes I dress, with women sit,
And chat away the gloomy fit;
Quit the stiff garb of serious sense,
And wear a gay impertinence,
Nor think nor speak with any pains,
But lay on fancy's neck the reins.

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Law, licensed breaking of the peace,
To which vacation is disease;
A gipsy diction scarce known well
By the magi, who law-fortunes tell,
I shun; nor let it breed within
Anxiety, and that the spleen.

I never game, and rarely bet,
Am loath to lend or run in debt.
No Compter-writs me agitate;
Who moralising pass the gate,

And there mine eyes on spendthrifts turn,
Who vainly o'er their bondage mourn.
Wisdom, before beneath their care,

Pays her upbraiding visits there,
And forces folly through the grate
Her panegyric to repeat.

This view, profusely when inclined,
Enters a caveat in the mind:
Experience, joined with common sense,
To mortals is a providence.

Reforming schemes are none of mine;
To mend the world's a vast design:
Like theirs, who tug in little boat
To pull to them the ship afloat,
While to defeat their laboured end,
At once both wind and stream contend:
Success herein is seldom seen,
And zeal, when baffled, turns to spleen.
Happy the man, who, innocent,
Grieves not at ills he can't prevent;
His skiff does with the current glide,
Not puffing pulled against the tide.
He, paddling by the scuffling crowd,
Sees unconcerned life's wager rowed,
And when he can't prevent foul play,
Enjoys the folly of the fray. *
Yet philosophic love of ease
I suffer not to prove disease,
But rise up in the virtuous cause
Of a free press, and equal laws.

Since disappointment galls within,
And subjugates the soul to spleen,
Most schemes, as money snares, I hate,
And bite not at projector's bait.
Sufficient wrecks appear each day,
And yet fresh fools are cast away.
Ere well the bubbled can turn round,
Their painted vessel runs aground;
Or in deep seas it oversets

By a fierce hurricane of debts;

Or helm-directors in one trip,

Freight first embezzled, sink the ship.

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When Fancy tries her limning skill
To draw and colour at her will,
And raise and round the figures well,
And show her talent to excel,

I guard my heart, lest it should woo
Unreal beauties Fancy drew,
And, disappointed, feel despair
At loss of things that never were.

[Contentment-A_Wish.]

Forced by soft violence of prayer,
The blithsome goddess soothes my care;
I feel the deity inspire,

And thus she models my desire :
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,

A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids that never saw the town,
A serving-man not quite a clown,
A boy to help to tread the mow,

And drive, while t'other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper formed to please,
Fit to converse and keep the keys;
And better to preserve the peace,
Commissioned by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size,
To think their master very wise.
May heaven (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cupboard, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land:

A pond before full to the brim,

Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;
Behind, a green, like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet;
Where odorous plants in evening fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air;
From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenced by a slope with bushes crowned,
Fit dwelling for the feathered throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;
With opening views of hill and dale,
Which sense and fancy do regale,
Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds:

And woods impervious to the breeze,
Thick phalanx of embodied trees;
From hills through plains in dusk array,
Extended far, repel the day;

Here stillness, height, and solemn shade,
Invite, and contemplation aid:
Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of fate:
And dreams, beneath the spreading beech
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;
While soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle through the mind:
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,
While Pan melodious pipes away,
In measured motions frisk about,
Till old Silenus puts them out.
There see the clover, pea, and bean,
Vie in variety of green;

Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep,
Brown fields their fallow Sabbaths keep,
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,

And poppy top-knots deck her hair,

And silver streams through meadows stray,
And Naiads on the margin play,

And lesser nymphs on side of hills,
From plaything urns pour down the rills.

Thus sheltered free from care and strife, May I enjoy a calm through life;

See faction, safe in low degree,
As men at land see storms at sea,
And laugh at miserable elves,
Not kind, so much as to themselves,
Cursed with such souls of base alloy,
As can possess, but not enjoy;
Debarred the pleasure to impart
By avarice, sphincter of the heart;
Who wealth, hard earned by guilty cares,
Bequeath untouched to thankless heirs;
May I, with look ungloomed by guile,
And wearing virtue's livery-smile,
Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive;
With income not in fortune's power,
And skill to make a busy hour;
With trips to town, life to amuse,
To purchase books, and hear the news,
To see old friends, brush off the clown,
And quicken taste at coming down,
Unhurt by sickness' blasting rage,
And slowly mellowing in age,
When fate extends its gathering gripe,
Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe,
Quit a worn being without pain,
Perhaps to blossom soon again.

ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA.

'It is remarkable,' says Mr Wordsworth, 'that excepting The Nocturnal Reverie, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of "Paradise Lost" and the "Seasons," does not contain a single new image of external nature.' The 'Nocturnal Reverie' was written by ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA, the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, Southampton, who died in 1720. Her lines are smoothly versified, and possess a tone of calm and contemplative observation:

A Nocturnal Reverie.

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel still waking sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, holloaing clear, directs the wanderer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face;
When in some river overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbine, and the bramble rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright:
When odours which declined repelling day,
Through temperate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When through the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose;

While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;

When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their short-lived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,

Joys in the inferior world, and thinks it like her own.
In such a night let me abroad remain,

Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renewed,
Or pleasures seldom reached again pursued.

The following is another specimen of the correct and smooth versification of the countess, and seems to us superior to the Nocturnal Reverie :'

Life's Progress.

How gaily is at first begun

Our life's uncertain race!
Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun,
With which we just set out to run,
Enlightens all the place.

How smiling the world's prospect lies,
How tempting to go through!
Not Canaan to the prophet's eyes,
From Pisgah, with a sweet surprise,
Did more inviting show.
How soft the first ideas prove

Which wander through our minds!
How full the joys, how free the love,
Which does that early season move,

As flowers the western winds!
Our sighs are then but vernal air,
But April drops our tears,
Which swiftly passing, all grows fair,
Whilst beauty compensates our care,
And youth each vapour clears.
But oh! too soon, alas! we climb,

Scarce feeling we ascend

The gently-rising hill of Time,
From whence with grief we see that prime,
And all its sweetness end.

The die now cast, our station known,
Fond expectation past:

The thorns which former days had sown,
To crops of late repentance grown,
Through which we toil at last.
Whilst every care's a driving harm,

That helps to bear us down;
Which faded smiles no more can charm,
But every tear's a winter storm,
And every look's a frown.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE.

The author of The Chase is still included in our editions of the poets, but is now rarely read or consulted. WILLIAM SOMERVILLE (1682-1742), was, as he tells Allan Ramsay, his brother-poet,

A squire well born, and six foot high.

Wormervile.

His estate lay in Warwickshire, and brought him in £1500 per annum. He was generous, but extravagant, and died in distressed circumstances, plagued

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Urn erected by Shenstone to Somerville. blank verse, and contains practical instructions and admonitions to sportsmen. The following is an animated sketch of a morning in autumn, preparatory to 'throwing off the pack:'

Now golden Autumn from her open lap
Her fragrant bounties showers; the fields are shorn;
Inwardly smiling, the proud farmer views
The rising pyramids that grace his yard,

And counts his large increase; his barns are stored,
And groaning staddles bend beneath their load.
All now is free as air, and the gay pack
In the rough bristly stubbles range unblamed;
No widow's tears o'erflow, no secret curse
Swells in the farmer's breast, which his pale lips
Trembling conceal, by his fierce landlord awed:
But courteous now he levels every fence,
Joins in the common cry, and halloos loud,
Charmed with the rattling thunder of the field.
Oh bear me, some kind power invisible !
To that extended lawn where the gay court
View the swift racers, stretching to the goal;
Games more renowned, and a far nobler train,
Than proud Elean fields could boast of old.
Oh! were a Theban lyre not wanting here,
And Pindar's voice, to do their merit right!
Or to those spacious plains, where the strained eye,
In the wide prospect lost, beholds at last
Sarum's proud spire, that o'er the hills ascends,
And pierces through the clouds. Or to thy downs,
Fair Cotswold, where the well-breathed beagle climbs,
With matchless speed, thy green aspiring brow,
And leaves the lagging multitude behind.

Hail, gentle Dawn! mild, blushing goddess, hail!
Rejoiced I see thy purple mantle spread
O'er half the skies; gems pave thy radiant way,
And orient pearls from every shrub depend.
Farewell, Cleora; here deep sunk in down,
Slumber secure, with happy dreams amused,
Till grateful streams shall tempt thee to receive
Thy early meal, or thy officious maids;
The toilet placed shall urge thee to perform

The important work. Me other joys invite;
The horn sonorous calls, the pack awaked,
Their matins chant, nor brook thy long delay.
My courser hears their voice; see there with ears
And tail erect, neighing, he paws the ground;
Fierce rapture kindles in his reddening eyes,
And boils in every vein. As captive boys
Cowed by the ruling rod and haughty frowns
Of pedagogues severe, from their hard tasks,
If once dismissed, no limits can contain
The tumult raised within their little breasts,
But give a loose to all their frolic play;
So from their kennel rush the joyous pack;
A thousand wanton gaieties express
Their inward ecstacy, their pleasing sport
Once more indulged, and liberty restored.
The rising sun that o'er the horizon peeps,
As many colours from their glossy skins
Beaming reflects, as paint the various bow
When April showers descend. Delightful scene!
Where all around is gay; men, horses, dogs;
And in each smiling countenance appears
Fresh blooming health, and universal joy.

Somerville wrote a poetical address to Addison, on the latter purchasing an estate in Warwickshire. 'In his verses to Addison,' says Johnson, 'the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of those happy strokes that are seldom attained.' Addison, it is well-known, signed his papers in the 'Spectator' with the letters forming the name of Clio. The couplet which gratified Johnson so highly is as follows:

When panting virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio to the virgin's aid.

In welcoming Addison to the banks of Avon, Somerville does not scruple to place him above Shakspeare as a poet!

In heaven he sings; on earth your muse supplies
The important loss, and heals our weeping eyes:
Correctly great, she melts each flinty heart
With equal genius, but superior art.

Gross as this misjudgment is, it should be remembered that Voltaire also fell into the same. The cold marble of Cato was preferred to the living and breathing creations of the myriad-minded' magician.

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ALLAN RAMSAY.

The Scottish muse had been silent for nearly a century, excepting when it found brief expression in some stray song of broad humour or simple pathos, chanted by the population of the hills and dales. The genius of the country was at length revived in all its force and nationality, its comic dialogue, Doric simplicity and tenderness, by ALLAN RAMSAY, whose very name is now an impersonation of Scottish scenery and manners. The religious austerity of the Covenanters still hung over Scotland, and damped the efforts of poets and dramatists: but a freer spirit found its way into the towns, along with the increase of trade and commerce. The higher classes were in the habit of visiting London, though the journey was still performed on horseback; and the writings of Pope and Swift were circulated over the North. Clubs and taverns were rife in Edinburgh, in which the assembled wits loved to indulge in a pleasantry that often degenerated to excess. Talent was readily known and appreciated; and when Ramsay appeared as an author, he found the nation ripe for his native humour, his mannerspainting strains,' and his lively original sketches

of Scottish life. Allan Ramsay was born in 1686, in the village of Leadhills, Lanarkshire, where his

Allan Ramsay.

father held the situation of manager of Lord Hopeton's mines. When he became a poet, he boasted that he was of the auld descent' of the Dalhousie family, and also collaterally sprung from a Douglas loin. His mother, Alice Bower, was of English parentage, her father having been brought from Derbyshire to instruct the Scottish miners in their art. Those who entertain the theory, that men of genius usually partake largely of the qualities and dispositions of their mother, may perhaps recognise some of the Derbyshire blood in Allan Ramsay's frankness and joviality of character. His father died while the poet was in his infancy; but his mother marrying again in the same district, Allan was brought up at Leadhills, and put to the village school, where he acquired learning enough to enable him, as he tells us, to read Horace faintly in the original.' His lot might have been a hard one, but it was fortunately spent in the country till he had reached his fifteenth year; and his lively temperament enabled him, with cheerfulness

To wade through glens wi' chorking feet, When neither plaid nor kilt could fend the weet; Yet blythely wad he bang out o'er the brae, And stend o'er burns as light as ony rae, Hoping the morn1 might prove a better day. At the age of fifteen, Allan was put apprentice to a wig-maker in Edinburgh-a light employment suited to his slender frame and boyish smartness, but not very congenial to his literary taste. His poetical talent, however, was more observant than creative, and he did not commence writing till he was about twenty-six years of age. He then penned an address to the Easy Club,' a convivial society of young men, tinctured with Jacobite predilections, which were also imbibed by Ramsay, and which probably formed an additional recommendation to the favour of Pope and Gay, a distinction that he afterwards

1 To-morrow.

enjoyed. Allan was admitted a member of this
'bly the society,' and became their poet laureate.
He wrote various light pieces, chiefly of a local and
humorous description, which were sold at a penny
each, and became exceedingly popular. He also
sedulously courted the patronage of the great, sub-
duing his Jacobite feelings, and never selecting a
fool for his patron. In this mingled spirit of pru-
Idence and poetry, he contrived

To theek the out, and line the inside.
Of mony a douce and witty pash,
And baith ways gathered in the cash.

In the year 1712 he married a writer's daughter,
Christiana Ross, who was his faithful partner for
more than thirty years. He greatly extended his
reputation by writing a continuation to King
James's Christ's Kirk on the Green,' executed
with genuine humour, fancy, and a perfect mastery
of the Scottish language. Nothing so rich had ap-
peared since the strains of Dunbar or Lindsay. What
an inimitable sketch of rustic life, coarse, but as true
as any by Teniers or Hogarth, is presented in the
first stanza of the third canto!-

Now frae the east nook of Fife the dawn
Speeled westlins up the lift;

Carles wha heard the cock had craw'n,
Begoud to rax and rift;

And greedy wives, wi' girning thrawn,

Cried lasses up to thrift;

Dogs barked, and the lads frae hand
Banged to their breeks like drift

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By break of day.

Ramsay now left off wig-making, and set up a
bookseller's shop, opposite to Niddry's Wynd.'
He next appeared as an editor, and published two
works, The Tea Table Miscellany, being a collection
of songs, partly his own; and The Evergreen, a col-
lection of Scottish poems written before 1600. He
was not well qualified for the task of editing works
of this kind, being deficient both in knowledge and
taste. In the Evergreen,' he published, as ancient
poems, two pieces of his own, one of which, The
Vision, exhibits high powers of poetry. The genius
of Scotland is drawn with a touch of the old heroic
Muse:-
:-

Great daring darted frae his ee,
A braid-sword shogled at his thie,
On his left arm a targe;
A shining spear filled his right hand,
Of stalwart make in bane and brawnd,
Of just proportions large;

A various rainbow-coloured plaid
Owre his left spaul he threw,
Down his braid back, frae his white head,
The silver wimplers grew.

Amazed, I gazed,

To see, led at command,
A stampant and rampant

Fierce lion in his hand.

In 1725 appeared his celebrated pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd, of which two scenes had previously been published under the titles of Patie and Roger, and Jenny and Meggy. It was received with universal approbation, and was republished both in London and Dublin. When Gay visited Scotland in company with his patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, he used to lounge in Allan Ramsay's shop, and obtain from him explanations of some of the Scottish expressions, that he might communicate them to Pope, who was a great admirer of the poem. This was a delicate and marked compliment, which Allan must have felt, though he

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