%> ^\% J~"^ 2 JT department of 2 c gZ 0.^35 5 ! !LaS3ttASlV OF Vcr^^^5%. Illinois Industrial University, 3 CHAMPAIGN, ILiL. 3) ) V* are no f f 0 } je ta-sen frcm the Library I£oom ^ IOC is bV£ CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE A HISTORY, CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL, OP BRITISH AUTHORS, FROM THE EARLIEST TO THE PRESENT TIMES. EDITED BY ROBERT CHAMBERS. IN TWO VOLUMES. YOL. II. PHILADELPHIA : J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1867 . ) Sfat jof Page Page Page Portrait of Oliver Goldsmith, 2 Portrait of George Crabbe, . 266 View of Miss Edgeworth’s House, 463 View of the Ruins of the House at Autograph of Crabbe, 266 Autograph of Sir Walter Scott, 476 Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent his View of the Birthplace of Crabbe, . 266 Portrait of Washington Irving, . 486 Youth, . 2 Portrait of Samuel Rogers, 273 View of Washington Irving’s Cottage, 486 Portrait of Dr Thomas Percy, 11 Autograph of Rogers, 273 Portrait of John Gibson Lockhart, . 489 View of the Deanery, Carlisle, 12 View of the House of Mr Rogers in Portrait of James Morier, 496 Portrait of James Macpherson, . 13 St James’s Place, . 273 Autograph of Morier, . . 496 Portrait of Thomas Chatterton, 18 Portrait of William Wordsworth, 279 Portrait of Theodore Edward Hook, 499 View of Bruce’s Monument in Port- Autograph of Wordsworth, 279 Autograph of Hook, . 499 moak Churchyard, . 32 View of Rydal Lake and Words- Portrait of Mary Russell Mitford, 508 View of Windsor Castle, . 36 worth’s House, . . . 281 Portrait of Sir James Mackintosh, . 514 Portrait of James Beattie, 40 View of Tin tern Abbey, . 285 Portrait of George Combe, 525 Portrait o f Sir William Jones, 53 Portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 292 Portrait of Rev. Robert Hall, 528 Portrait of William Cowper, 56 View of Mr Gillman’s House, Highgate ; Portrait of Dr Thomas Chalmers, 532 View of Olney Church, 57 the last Residence of Coleridge, . 294 Portrait of William Cobbett, . 536 Cowper’s Monument, 58 View of Bremhill Rectory, in Wilt- Portrait of Rev. Sydney Smith, 541 Portrait of Dr Erasmus Darwin, 68 shire, . . . . 303 Portrait of Francis Jeffrey, . 544 , View of Balcarres House, Fifeshire, Portrait of Robert Southey, 305 Portrait of Henry Lord Brougham, 548 where Auld Robin Gray was Autograph of Southey, 305 Portrait of Isaac Disraeli, 549 composed, .... 88 View of Southey’s House, 308 Portrait of Jeremy Bentham, 554 Portrait of Robert Fergusson, 90 Portrait of Charles Lamb, . 313 View of the Coliseum, 560 Fergusson’s Tomb, 91 Portrait of Thomas Moore, 321 Portrait of Sir John Franklin, . 565 View of Edinburgh from the Castle, 93 Autograph of Moore, . 321 Tail-piece, . 571 Portrait of Robert Burns, 95 View of Moore’s Cottage near Devizes, , 325 Initial Letter, 572 Autograph of Burns, 95 Portrait of Thomas Campbell, 328 Portrait of Thomas Hood, . 577 View of Burns’s Birthplace, . 96 Autograph of Campbell, . 328 Portrait of David Macbeth Moir, 580 View of Ellisland, . 97 View of Alison Square, Edinburgh, 329 Portrait of Alfred Tennyson, 586 View of the Banks of Doon, with the Portrait of Sir Walter Scott, 338 Portrait of Charles Mackay, 597 Old Bridge and Burns’s Monument, 98 View of Abbotsford, 340 Autograph of Charles Mackay, 597 View of Lincluden Abbey, . 104 Portrait of Lord Byron, 346 Portrait of Lord Macaulay, 599 Mausoleum of Burns, Dumfries, . 105 Autograph of Byron, 346 Portrait of Douglas Jerrold, . 623 Portrait of Alexander Wilson, 106 View of Newstead Abbey, 347 Portrait of James Fenimore Cooper, 624 Portrait of George Colman, 115 Lord Byron’s Tomb, 349 Portrait of Captain Frederick Marryat, , 626 Portrait of George Colman, the Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley, . 355 Portrait of Mrs Trollope, 630 ; Younger, .... 122 View of Shelley’s House, . 357 Portrait of Mrs S. C. Hall, 632 Portrait of Laurence Sterne, 134 Portrait of John Keats, 363 Autograph of Mrs Hall, 632 Autograph of Horace Walpole, 139 View of Heber’s Parish Church, 369 View of Mrs Hall’s former Residence, View of Strawberry Hill, near Twick- Portrait of Robert Pollok, 372 Brompton, .... 633 enham ; the Residence of Horace View of Mid Muirhouse, the Resi- Portrait of George P. R. James, . 634 Walpole, .... 139 dence of Pollok in Boyhood, 373 Portrait of Sir Edward Bulwer Portrait of Henry Mackenzie, 141 Portrait of James Montgomery, . 375 Lytton, .... 635 Portrait of Frances Burney, . 144 Portrait of Leigh Hunt, 383 Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli, . 640 Portrait of Matthew Gregory Lewis, 168 Portrait of James Smith, 390 Portrait of Samuel Warren, . 643 Portrait of Edward Gibbon, . 179 Portrait of John Wilson, 395 Portrait of Charles Dickens, 645 View of the Residence of Gibbon at Portrait of Mrs Hemans, . 398 Portrait of William Makepeace Lausanne, .... 181 Autograph of Mrs Hemans, . 398 Thackeray, .... 650 Portrait of William Roscoe, 188 View of Rhyllon, the Residence of Portrait of Charles James Lever, 662 View of House of Lord Karnes, Canon- Mrs Hemans in Wales, 398 Portrait of Sir Archibald Alison, 679 gate, Edinburgh, . 190 Portrait of Henry Hart Milman, 404 Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, 720 i Tomb of Bishop Porteous at Sun- Portrait of Miss Landon, 407 Portrait of John Kitto, 736 , bridge, Kent, 198 Autograph of Miss Landon, 407 Autograph of Kitto, 736 ; Portrait of Edmund Burke, 210 View of the Birth place of Miss Landon, 408 Portrait of Sir John Herschel, 742 : View of Beaconsfield, . 211 View of Joanna Baillie’s House, Autograph of Herschel, . 742 Portrait of Hannah More, 235 Hampstead, 409 Portrait of Sir David Brewster, 749 Autograph of Hannah More, 235 Autograph of Joanna Baillie, 409 Autograph of Brewster, . 749 Staircase at Kinnaird House, Stir- Portrait of Ebenezer Elliott, 414 Portrait of Dr Buckland, 751 lingshire— Scene of Bruce’s Fatal Portrait of Robert Tannahill, 424 Portrait of Sir Henry Thomas De La Accident, .... 244 Portrait of James Hogg, 429 Beche, .... 753 Initial Letter, 246 Portrait of Allan Cunningham, . 432 Portrait of Hugh Miller, . 755 Portrait of Robert Bloomfield, 250 Autograph of Cunningham, . 432 Autograph of Miller, . 755 View of Austin’s Farm, the early Autograph of Charles Robert Maturin, 445 Portrait of Thomas Chandler Hali- Residence of Bloomfield, . 251 Portrait of James Sheridan Knowles, 447 burton, . . 769 View of Birthplace of II. K. White, Autograph of Knowles, 447 Portrait of Harriet Martineau, . 775 Nottingham, 259 Portrait of William Godwin, 454 Portrait of Austen Henry Layard, . 796 Portrait of James Grahame, 261 Autograph of Godwin, 454 Portrait of David Livingstone, . 798 "b'bt'b'k ^£frntt|r ^ztiob. REIGN OF GEORGE III. FIRST SECTION. [1760 TO 1800 .]. POETS. Oliver Goldsmith, Page 2 Italians and Swiss contrasted, 4 France contrasted with Holland, . 5 Description of Auburn, . 5 Edwin and Angelina, 7 Extracts from Retaliation , . 8 William Mason, .... 9 From Caractacus, 9 Epitaph on Mrs Mason, . 10 Dr John Langhorne, . 10 Appeal to Country Justices, 10 Advice to the Married, 11 The Dead, ..... 11 Farewell Hymn to the Valley of Irwan, 11 Dr Thomas Percy, 11 O Nancy, wilt thou go with Me ? 12 The Friar of Orders Gray, . . 12 James Macpherson, 13 Ossian’s Address to the Sun, 15 Fingal’s Airy Hall, 15 Address to the Moon, 15 Desolation of Balclutha, 15 Description of Female Beauty, . 15 The Songs of Selma, . 16 The Cave, ..... 17 Fragment from Belleville Manuscripts, 17 Thomas Chatterton, 17 Fragment of Hymn, 17 Extracts from Satirical Poems, . 19 Bristow Tragedy, 20 The Minstrel’s Song in Ella, 23 Resignation, .... 24 William Falconer, . . 24 Extracts from The Shipwreck , 25 Robert Lloyd, .... 28 The Miseries of a Poet’s Life, 28 Wretchedness of a School Usher, 29 Charles Churchill, 29 Extract from Prophecy of Famine, 30 Extracts from The Rosciad, . 31 Michael Bruce, .... 31 A Rural Picture, 32 Elegy— Written in Spring, 32 John Logan, .... 33 To the Cuckoo, .... 34 Written in a Visit to the Country in Autumn, 34 Complaint of Nature, 35 Thomas Warton, 36 Written after Seeing Windsor Castle, . 36 Written in a Blank Leaf of Dugdale’s Monasticon, 37 On Revisiting the River Loddon, 37 On Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Painted Window at Oxford, 37 The Hamlet, an Ode, . . . 38 Joseph Warton, 38 To Fancy, ..... 38 Thomas Blacklock, 39 Terrors of a Guilty Conscience, . 40 Ode to Aurora, 40 James Beattie, .... 40 Opening of the Minstrel, 42 Description of Edwin, Morning Landscape, . Life and Immortality, Retirement, . The Hermit, Christopher Smart, . Song to David, William Julius Mickle. Cumnor Hall, The Mariner’s Wife, . The Spirit of the Cape, Christopher Anstey, . The Public Breakfast, Mrs Thrale, The Three Warnings, Thomas Moss, . The Beggar, Sir William Jones, Ode in imitation of Alcaeus, A Persian Song of Hafiz, Concluding Sentence of Berkeley’s Siris imitated, Tetrastic, from the Persian, . Nathaniel Cotton, The Fireside, .... William Cowper, .... Character of Chatham, The Greenland Missionaries, Rural Sounds, The Diversified Character of Creation, From Conversation, . On the Receipt of his Mother’s Picture, Voltaire and the Lace-worker, To Mary (Mrs Unwin), . Winter Evening in the Country, Love of Nature, .... English Liberty, John Gilpin, .... William Hayley, . . Tribute to a Mother, Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper, On the Tomb of Mrs Unwin, Dr Erasmus Darwin, . Extracts from Loves of the Plants , Invocation to the Goddess of Botany, Destruction of Sennacherib’s Army, The Belgian Lovers and the Plague, Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden, Philanthropy— Mr Howard, . Song to May, Song to Echo, .... The Rolliad, ... Character of Mr Pitt, . William Gifford, .... Extracts from The Baviad , . Extract from The Mceviad, The Grave of Anna, . . . Greenwich Hill, ... To a Tuft of Early Violets, . ** . The Anti-Jacobin Poetry, The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder, Song by Rogero in The Rovers , . Canning’s Epitaph on his Son, Dr John Wolcot, . Advice to Landscape Painters, The Pilgrims and the Peas, The Apple Dumplings and a King, Page 42 43 44 44 45 45 45 47 48 49 49 50 50 51 51 52 52 53 54 54 55 55 55 55 56 58 58 59 59 59 60 61 61 61 64 64 65 67 67 63 68 68 69 70 70 71 71 71 72 72 72 73 73 73 74 75 75 76 76 77 77 77 78 79 79 80 CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Whitbread’s Brewery Visited by their Majesties, Lord Gregory, .... May Day, ...... Epigram on Sleep, .... POETESSES. Charlotte Smith, . Flora’s Horologe, Sonnets, .... Recollections of English Scenery, . Miss Blamiee, The Nabob, .... What Ails this Heart o’ Mine? . Auld Robin Forbes, . Mbs Baebauld, Stanza on Life, Ode to Spring, To a Lady with some Painted Flowers, Hymn to Content, Miss Sewabd, .... Page 80 82 82 82 SCOTTISH POETS. Alexander Ross, ...... 87 Woo’d, and Married, and a’, . . . . 87 John Lowe, .... ... 87 Mary’s Dream, ..... 87 Lady Anne Babnabd, .... 88 Auld Robin Gray, ..... 88 Miss Jane Elliot and Mbs Cockburn, ... 88 The Flowers of the Forest, .... 89 Baroness Nairn, ...... 89 The Land o’ the Leal, .... 89 The Laird o’ Cockpen, ..... 89 Robert Fergusson, ..... 90 Braid Claith, ...... 91 To the Tron Kirk Bell, .... 91 Scottish Scenery and Music, .... 92 Cauler Water, ...... 92 A Sunday in Edinburgh, .... 94 Robert Burns, ...... 94 Extract from The Vision, .... 98 From Burns’s Epistles, .... 100 To a Mountain Daisy, ..... 101 On Captain Matthew Henderson, ... 101 Songs : Macpherson’s Farewell ; Menie ; Ae Fond Kiss ; My Bonny Mary; MaryMorison; Bruce’s Address, 102,103 A Vision, ...... 104 Man was made to Mourn, .... 104 Alexander Wilson, ..... 106 The Bald Eagle, ..... 106 A Village Scold, ...... 107 A Pedler’s Story, ..... 107 Hector Macneill, ..... 108 Extracts from Scotland's Skaith, . . . 108 Mary of Castle-Cary, ..... 109 Richard Gall, ...... 109 My Only Jo and Dearie O, . . . 109 Farewell to Ayrshire, . . . . .110 DRAMATISTS. Murphy— Jephson— Walpole— Sheridan— Lewis, 110, 111 Rolla’s Address to the Peruvian Army, . . Ill Joanna Baillie, ...... Ill Scene from De Montfort, . . . 112 Female Picture of a Country Life, . . . 114 Fears of Imagination, .... 114 Speech of Prince Edward in his Dungeon, . . 114 Description of Jane de Montfort, ... 114 George Colman— Murphy— Cumberland— Goldsmith, 114, 115 A Deception, from She Stoops to Conquer, . . 115 Arrival at the Supposed Inn, . . 116 R. B. Sheridan, ...... 117 A Sensitive Author, from The Critic , . 118 Anatomy of Character, from The School for Scandal, 120 Mbs Cowley— George Colman, the Younger, . 122 Scene from the Heir at Lave, .... 123 From The Poor Gentleman, . The Newcastle Apothecary, Lodgings for Single Gentlemen, Mbs Elizabeth Inchbald, . Thomas Holcroft, Page 125 127 128 128 129 NOVELISTS. Robert Pdltock, ..... Peter Wilkins and his Flying Bride, Laurence Sterne, ..... The Story of Le Fevre, The Starling— Captivity, A French Peasant’s Supper, . Horace Walpole — Clara Reeve— Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Brooke— Henry Mackenzie, Negro Servitude, .... Harley sets out on his Journey, . The Death of Harley, Frances Burney, ..... A Game of Highway Robbery, Miss Burney and George III., . Sarah Harriet Burney, William Beckford, .... Caliph Vathek and his Palaces, The Hall of Eblis, .... Richard Cumberland— Mrs Frances Sheridan Thomas Holcroft, .... Gaffer Gray, ..... Robert Bage— Sophia and Harriet Lee, Introduction to the Canterbury Tales, Dr John Moore, ..... Dispute and Duel between Two Scotch Servants, Mrs Inchbald, ..... Service in London, .... Estimates of Happiness, .... The Judge and the Victim, . . # Charlotte Smith, ..... Ann Radcliffe, .... English Travellers Visit a Neapolitan Church, Description of the Castle of Udolpho, Hardwick, in Derbyshire, An Italian Landscape, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Scene of Conjuration by the Wandering Jew, HISTORIANS. David Hume, ...... State of Parties at the Reformation, The Middle Ages— Progress of Freedom, Death and Character of Queen Elizabeth, . Dr William Robertson, ..... Character of Mary Queen of Scots, . Martin Luther, ...... Discovery of America, .... Chivalry, ....... Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V., Goldsmith — Lyttelton — Birch — Henry — Stuart — Warner— Leland — Whittaker— Granger— Orme — Macphebson — Lord Hailes — Watson — Rus- sell, ...... 178, Edward Gibbon, ..... Opinion of the Ancient Philosophers on the Immortality of the Soul, ...... The City of Bagdad, ..... Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders,' Appearance and Character of Mohammed, Conquest of Timour or Tamerlane, Invention and Use of Gunpowder, . Gibbon’s mode of Life at Lausanne, Remarks on Reading, .... Gillies— Roscoe— Laixg— Pinkerton, . METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. Dr Reid, ...... Lord Kames, ..... Pleasures of the Eye and the Ear, 130 131 133 135 137 138 139 140 141 141 142 144 145 147 148 148 150 151 154 155 155 156 158 159 161 162 162 162- 163 164 165 166 167 167 167 168 171 171 172 173 174 175 1T5 177 178 179 179 1S2 183 183 1S4 185 186 187 187 183 189 199 190 CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME. Dr Beattie, On the Love of Nature, . On Scottish Music, . Abraham Tucker — Dr Priestley, THEOLOGIANS. Dr Paley, Of Property, . The World was made with a Benevolent Design, Dr Watson — Dr Horsley — Dr Porteous —Gilbert Wakefield, ...... Mr Wilberforce, ..... On the Effects of Religion, .... Jortin— Hurd— Horne, .... Dr Hugh Blair, ... • On the Cultivation of Taste, Difference between Taste and Genius, . Dr George Campbell, .... Page 192 192 193 194 195 195 196 197 198 198 199 199 199 200 200 MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. Earl of Chesterfield, .... 201 On Good Breeding, ..... 201 Charlotte Lennox— Catherine Macauley, . 202 Dr Richard Farmer— George Steevens, . . 202 Jacob Bryant, ..... 202 Thomas Amory, ...... 202 Picture of Arcadia, ..... 203 Portrait of Marinda Bruce, .... 203 Dr Samuel Johnson, ..... 203 From the Preface to the Dictionary, . . 204 Reflections on Landing at Iona, . . . 205 Parallel between Pope and Dryden, . . . 205 Picture of the Miseries of War, . . . 206 Oliver Goldsmith, . . . . .206 Scenery of the Alps, ..... 206 A Sketch of the Universe, .... 207 Scenery of the Sea-coast, .... 208 On the Increased Love of Life with Age, . . 208 A City Night Piece, ... .209 Edmund Burke, ...... 209 On Conciliation with America, 1775, . . 212 Dependence of English on American Freedom, . 213 Destruction of the Carnatic, . . . 214 Mr Burke’s Account of his Son, . . .214 The British Monarchy, . . . . 215 Marie Antoinette, .... 215 The Order of Nobility, .... 215 Difference between Mr Burke and the Duke of Bedford, 216 Character of Howard the Philanthropist, . . 217 Junius and Sir Philip Francis, . . . 217 Extracts from Letters to Duke of Grafton and Duke of Bedford, 218 Extracts from Francis’s Letters and Speeches, . 219 Junius’s Letter to the King, . . . .221 John Horne Tooke, ..... 224 Speech of Beckford the Lord Mayor, . . .225 De Lolme, .... . 225 Popular Agitation in England, . . . .226 The Earl of Chatham, .... 226 Speech on being taunted with his Youth, . . 226 Speech against the Employment of Indians in the War with America, . . . . *■ . . 227 Last Public Appearance of Chatham, . 227 Character of Chatham by Grattan, . . 228 Sir William Blackstone, .... 228 On the Right of Property, . . . .229 Dr Adam Smith, ..... 230 The Division of Labour, ..... 231 Adam Ferguson — Lord Monboddo, . . 231 Horace Walpole, ...... 232 Strawberry Hill, ..... 232 Politics and Evening Parties, .... 233 The Scottish Rebellion, 1745, . . . 233 London Earthquakes and London Gossip, . . 234 Mbs Montagu and Mrs Chapone, . . . 235 Hannah More, Interviews with Dr Johnson, Death and Character of Garrick, Samuel and W. H. Ireland, Lines from Vortigern, Edmund Malone— Richard Porson, WORKS ON TASTE, NATURAL HISTORY, ANTIQUITIES. Sir Joshua Reynolds— Pennant— Grose— Gough — Gilbert White, ..... The Rooks returning to their Nests, Joseph Ritson— Rev. W. Gilpin— Sir Uvedale Price, Sunrise and Sunset in the Woods, The Rev. Archibald Alison, Memorials of the Past, ..... The Effect of Sounds, .... 239 240 240 241 242 BIOGRAPHERS. Boswell— Gibbon— Currie, TRAVELLERS. Macartney— Staunton— Bruce— Mungo Park, Bruce at the Source of the Nile, Park sheltered by the African Women, Park’s Fortitude under Suffering, . 242, 243 243 244 245 245 ®i S&tjj fJtiffi*. CONCLUSION OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III., AND REIGN OF GEORGE IY. [1800 TO 1830.] POETS. Mrs Opie— Mrs Hunter— Mrs Grant— Mrs Tighe, The Orphan Boy’s Tale, Song— (Go, youth beloved), Song— (The season comes when first we met) Song— (O tuneful voice!) The Death-song, written for an Indian Air, To my Daughter, .... The Lot of Thousands, On a Sprig of Heath, The Highland Poor, . Extract from Mrs Tighe’s Psyche , The Lily, by Mrs Tighe, Robert Bloomfield, Extracts from The Farmer's Boy , Rosy Hannah, .... Lines Addressed to my Children, Description of a Blind Youth, . . Banquet of an English Squire, The Soldier’s Home, . . . John Leyden, .... Sonnet on Sabbath Morn, Ode to an Indian Gold Coin, The Mermaid, .... Henry Kirke White, . . . To an Early Primrose, . Sonnet, .... The Star of Bethlehem, . A Hymn for Family Worship, The Christiad, .... James Grahame, Extracts from The SabbatJi, Spring and Summer Sabbath Walks, Autumn and Winter Sabbath Walks, The Impressed Sailor Boy, . To my Son, .... The Thanksgiving off Cape Trafalgar, George Crabbe, . ' . The Parish Workhouse and Apothecary Isaac Ashford, .... 247 247 247 247 248 248 248 248 248 248 249 250 250 251 252 253 253 254 254 255 256 256 257 259 260 260 260 260 261 261 262 263 264 265 265 265 265 268 268 CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Page Page Phoebe Dawson, .... 269 Thomas Moore, . . . . 321 Dream of the Condemned Felon, 270 Extract from Odes and Epistles, 322 Betrothed Pair in Humble Life, 270 Literary Advertisement, 322 An English Fen— Gipsies, 271 When He who Adores Thee, 323 v Gradual Approaches of Age, . . . 272 I saw from the Beach, . 323 Song of the Crazed Maiden, 272 Extracts from Lalla Rookh, . 323 Sketches of Autumn, .... 272 John Hookham Frere, 325 Samuel Rogers, 272 Extracts from Whistlecraft, 326 Extracts from the Pleasures of Memory , 274 Passage from Version of one of the Romances of the Cid, 327 Extract from Human Life, 276 Thomas Campbell, . 328 Ginevra, . . 276 Elegy written in Mull, 1795, 331 An Italian Song, 277 Picture of Domestic Love, 331 To the Butterfly, .... 277 Death of Gertrude, . . . 331 Written in the Highlands, 277 Ye Mariners of England, 332 Paestum, . • . 278 Battle of the Baltic, . . 333 To , .... 278 Hohenlinden, . . . 333 A Wish, ..... 278 From The Last Man, 334 On a Tear, .... 278 Matthew Gregory Lewis, 334 William Wordsworth, 279 Durandarte and Belerma, 336 Extracts from The Excursion, . 281 Alonzo the Brave, 336 Sonnets : London, 1802 ; The World is Too Much with The Hours, .... 337 Us; Composed upon Westminster Bridge and On Sir Walter Scott, 337 King’s College Chapel, 283, 284 On the Setting Sun, . 338 Lines, ...... 284 Portrait of * The Last Minstrel,’ 341 Lucy, ..... 284 Description of Melrose Abbey, 342 A Portrait, ..... . 285 Love of Country, 342 Tintern Abbey, . 285 * Day set on Norham’s castled steep,’ 342 Picture of Christmas Eve, 286 Battle of Flodden, 343 Ruth, ..... 287 Death of Marmion, 343 To a Highland Girl, .... . 289 Young Lochinvar, 344 Laodamia, .... 289 Coronach, from Lady of the Lake, . 345 Samuel Tatlor Coleridge, . 291 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, . 345 Extract from Wallenstein , 293 Time, from The Antiquary, . 345 Epitaph on Himself, 294 Hymn of the Hebrew Maid, 346 Extracts from Christdbel, 295 Song, from The Pirate, . , 346 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 296 Lord Byron, 346 Ode to the Departing Year, 299 Picture of Modern Greece, . 349 Hymn in the Yale of Chamouni, . 301 Image of War, 350 Love, ..... 301 Ancient Greece, 350 From Frost at Midnight, . 302 Descriptive extracts from Childe Harold, 351 Love, Hope, and Patience, 302 Temple of Clitumnus, 351 Youth and Age, .... 302 The Gladiator, 351 Rev. William Lisle Bowles, 303 Apostrophe to the Ocean, 352 Sonnets : To Time ; Winter Evening ; and Hope, 303, 304 An Italian Evening, 352 South American Scenery, 304 Midnight Scene in Rome, 352 Sun-dial in a Churchyard, . 304 The Shipwreck, from Don Juan, 353 The Greenwich Pensioners, 304 Description of Haidee, . . 353 Robert Southey, .... 305 Haidee and Juan at the Feast, . 354 Extract from Joan of Arc, . 305 The Death of Haidee, 354 Extract from Thalaba, 306 Percy Bysshe Shelley, 355 Extracts from Curse of Kehama, 307 Extract from Revolt of Islam, 355 Extracts from Roderick, 307 Extract from The Cenci, 358 Epitaph on Southey by Wordsworth, . 303 Flight of the Hours, from Prometheus, 359 The Holly Tree, .... 309 Opening of Queen Mab, . 359 Walter Savage Landor, 309 The Cloud, .... 359 Description of Clifton, 310 To a Skylark, . . . 360 The Maid’s Lament, 310 From The Sensitive Plant, . » 361 Sixteen, . . . 310 Forest Scenery, . 362 Conversation between Lords Chatham and Chesterfield, 311 Stanzas written in Dejection, 362 •Grandiloquent Writing, . 312 On a Faded Violet, 363 Milton, ..... 312 Lines to an Indian Air, 363 Edwin Atherstone, 312 To , . 363 Extract from The Fall of Nineveh, 312 John Keats, .... 363 Charles Lamb, .... 313 Saturn and Thea, 365 Extract from John Woodvil, 314 The Lady Madeline at her Devotions, 365 To Hester, .... 315 Hymn to Pan, . . 366 The Old Familiar Faces, . 315 Ode to a Nightingale, 366 A Farewell to Tobacco, . 315 To Autumn, 367 Dream Children, .... 316 Sonnets : On Chapman’s Homer, The Human Seasons, Poor Relations, .... 317 and On England, 367 William Sotheby, .... 319 Lines— (There is a charm in footing slow), 367 Staffa, ..... 319 Dr Reginald Hebkr, 368 Approach of Saul and his Guards, . 320 Extracts from Palesiitte, . 368 Song of the Virgins, 320 Missionary Hymn, 869 Edward Lord Thurlow, . . . 321 From Bishop Heber’s Journal, 369 Song to May, .... 321 Evening Walk in Bengal, 370 Sonnets, ... 321 Charles Wolfe, . . . . 370 X CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME. Page Page The Burial of Sir John Moore, . 370 Jerusalem before the Siege, 404 Song— (0 say not that my heart is cold), . 371 Hymn of the Captive Jews, . 405 Song — (If I had thought thou couldst have died), 371 Summons of the Destroying Angel, 405 Herbert Knowles, .... 371 The Fair Recluse, . 405 Lines Written in Richmond Churchyard, 371 The Day of Judgment, . 406 Robert Pollok, .... 372 Rev. George Croly, 406 Love, ...... 373 Pericles ,and Aspasia, 406 Morning, ..... 373 The French Army in Russia, 407 Friendship, ..... 374 Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 407 Happiness, ..... 374 Change, 408 James Montgomery, .... 375 From the Improvisatrice, 408 Greenland, ..... 376 Last Verses of L. E. L., . 409 Night, ...... 377 Joanna Baillie, ' . 409 Picture of a Poetical Enthusiast, . . 377 The Kitten, . \ 409 The Pelican Island, .... 378 From Address to Miss Agnes Baillie, 410 The Recluse, ..... 378 William Knox — Thomas Pringle, 411 The Field of the World, .... 379 Conclusion of Songs of Israel, 411 Aspirations of Youth, 379 Afar in the Desert, 411 The Common Lot, ..... 379 Robert Montgomery, 412 Prayer, ..... 379 Description of a Maniac, 412 Home, ...... 380 The Starry Heavens, 412 The Hon. William Robert Spencer, 380 William Herbert, 413 Beth Gelert, . . . * . 380 Lines from Helga, 413 Wifg, Children, and Friends, 381 Musings on Eternity, from Attila, . 413 To 381 Ebenezer Elliott, . . 413 Stanzas, ..... 381 To the Bramble Flower, 414 Henry Luttrell, ..... 382 The Excursion, ^ . 414 London in Autumn, .... 382 Pictures of Native Genius, 415 November Fog of London, 382 Apostrophe to Futurity, . 415 Henry Gally Knight— Crowe— Sayers— Helen Maria A Poet’s Prayer, . . ^ 416 Williams, .... 382 Thomas Haynes Bayly, . 416 Sonnet to Hope, ..... 383 Verses to his Wife, 416 Leigh Hunt, ..... 383 Rev. John Keble, 416 May Morning at Ravenna, 384 Extracts from The Christian Tear , . 416 Funeral of the Lovers in Rimini, 385 Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, 416 To T. L. H., Six Years Old, 385 Noel Thomas Carrington, . 417 Dirge, ...... 385 The Pixies of Devon, 417 To the Grasshopper and the Cricket, 385 Fitzgreene Halleck, 417 Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel, 385 Marco Bozzaris, . . . 418 The Celebrated Canzone of Petrarch, 386 William Cullen Bryant, 419 John Clare, ..... 386 From Thanatopsis, 419 Sonnet to the Glowworm, 387 The Wind-flower, 419 Extract from ballad, The Fate of Amy, 388 The Disinterred Warrior, 419 What is Life? .... 388 The Indian at the Burying-place of his Fathers, . 420 Summer Morning, .... 388 Archdeacon W rangham — H. F. Cary 9 • 420 Sonnets : The Primrose, and The Thrush’s Nest, 388 Francesca of Rimini, • • 421 First-love’s Recollections, 388 Ugolini and his Sons in the Tower of Famine, . 421 Dawnings of Genius, .... 389 William Stewart Rose, 422 Scenes and Musings of the Peasant Poet, 389 Sonnet : Dedication to Sir Walter Scott, 422 James and Horace Smith, . . . 390 Stanzas from translation of Ariosto, 422 The Theatre, by the Rev. G. C., . 392 William Taylor— The Earl of Ellesmere, . 422 The Baby’s Debut, by W. W., . 392 The Military Execution, 423 A Tale of Drury Lane, by W. S., 393 Thomas Mitchell— Viscount Strangford, 423 The Upas in Marybone Lane, 394 Address to the Mummy in Belzoni’s Exhibition, 394 John Wilson, ..... 395 SCOTTISH POETS. A Home among the Mountains, 395 Robert Tannahill, 423 A Sleeping Child, .... 396 The Braes o’ Balquhither, 424 Address to a Wild Deer, . . 396 The Braes o’ Gleniffer, . • • 424 Lines Written in a Burial-ground in the Highlands, 397 The Flower o’ Dumblane, . . • • 425 The Shipwreck, .... 397 Gloomy Winter ’s now Awa’, • • 425 Mrs Hemans, ..... 398 John Mayne, .... • 425 The Voice of Spring, .... 399 Logan Braes, • • 425 The Homes of England, .... 399 Helen of Kirkconnel, . . • • 426 The Graves of a Household, . . 400 Shooting for the Siller Gun, 426 Bernard Barton, ..... 400 Sir Alexander Boswell, • • 427 To the Evening Primrose, . . 400 Jenny Dang the Weaver, • •* 427 Stanzas on the Sea, .... 401 Jenny’s Bawbee, » • 427 Power and Gentleness, ... 401 Good-Night, and Joy be wi’ ye a’, 428 Bryan Walter Procter, .... 401 The High Street of Edinburgh, 428 Address to the Ocean, 401 James Hogg, 428 Marcelia, ...... 402 Bonny Kilmeny, 430 Night, ...... 402 To the Comet of 1811, 431 The Sleeping Figure of Modena, 402 Song— When the Kye comes Hame, 432 An Invocation to Birds, . . . 403 The Skylark, • • 432 Death of Amelia Wentworth, ... 403 Allan Cunningham, . . • 1 432 Henry Hart Milman, .... 404 The Young Maxwell, . . • • ’xi 433 CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Hame, Hame, Hame, . ... Fragment— (Gane were but the winter cauld), She’s Gane to Dwall in Heaven, A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, My Nannie 0, ... The Poet’s Bridal-day Song, .... William Tennant, ..... Extracts from Anster Fair, .... William Motherwell, .... Jeanie Morrison, ..... The Midnight Wind, ..... Sword Chant, ...... Robert Nicoll, ..... We are Brethren a’, Thoughts of Heaven, ..... Death, ....... Kobert Gilfillan, ..... The Exile’s Song, ..... In the Days o’ Langsyne, . . . v Detached Scottish Poems— The Hills o’ Gallowa’, by T. Cunningham, Lucy’s Flittin’, by William Laidlaw, The Brownie of Blednoch, by W. Nicholson, . Song, by Joseph Train, .... The Cameronian’s Dream, by J. Hislop, DRAMATISTS. William Godwin— William Sothebt— S. T. Coleridge, Scene from Remorse, ..... Rev. C. R. Maturin, ..... Scene from Bertram, .... Page 433 433 434 434 434 434 435 435 436 437 437 438 438 438 439 439 Athanasia in Prison, .... Description of an Old English Mansion, Professor Wilson, .... The * Flitting,’ or Removal of the Lyndsays, Mrs Johnstone — Sir T. Dick Lauder— Hamilton — A. Picken, ..... Mary Ferrier, ...... A Scotch Lady of the Old School, . . . James Morier, ..... James Baillie Fraser, ..... Meeting of Eastern Warriors in the Desert, Desolation of War, ..... Theodore Edward Hook, .... Thomas Collet Grattan — T. H. Lister— Marquis of Normanby, ..... London at Sunrise, ..... Page 489 49t) 491 492 Hook 492, 493 494 496 497 497 498 509 500 439 439 440 440 440 441 442 442 443 443 445 445 Lady Caroline Lamb — Lady Dacre — Countess of Morley — Lady Charlotte Bury, R. Plumer Ward, ...... Power of Literary Genius, .... John Banim, . . . . . Burning of a Croppy’s House, Eyre Evans Crowe— Rev. Cesar Otway— Gerald Griffin, ...... Verses by Gerald Griffin, .... William Carleton, . . ; Irish Village and School-house, . . Miss Mary Russell Mitford, .... Tom Cordery, the Poacher, .... Mr J. L. Peacock, ... , Freebooter Life in the Forest, 501 501 501 503 504 504 505 505 506 50S 509 510 519 Richard L. Sheil— J. H. Payne— B. W. Procter— James Haynes, ...... 446 Extracts from Eoadne, Mirandola, and Conscience, 446, 447 James Sheridan Knowles, .... 447 Scene from Virginias, .... 448 Scene from The Wife, ..... 449 Thomas Lovell Beddoes— Dr Thomas Beddoes, . 450 From The Bride's Tragedy, .... 450 John Tobin, ...... 451 Passage from The Honeymoon, .... 451 John O’Keefe— Frederick Reynolds— Thomas Morton — Maria Edgeworth, .... 451 NOVELISTS. William Godwin, . . . . Concluding Scene of Caleb Williams, St Leon’s Escape from the Auto de Fe, Mrs Opie— Anna Marla Porter, Miss Jane Porter— Miss Edgeworth, . An Irish Landlord and Scotch Agent, An Irish Postilion, ..... English Shyness, or ‘ Mauvaise Honte,’ Miss Austen — Mrs Brunton, ...» Final Escape of Laura, .... Mrs Hamilton, ...... Picture of Glenburnie, .... Lady Morgan, ...... Mrs Shelley, ...... Creation of the Monster Frankenstein, Love, ....... Rev. C. R. Maturin, ..... Extract from Women, .... A Lady’s Chamber in the Thirteenth Century, Sir Walter Scott, ..... John Galt, . . . Placing of a Scottish Minister, The Windy Yule, or Christmas, Thomas Hope, ...... The Death of Anastasius’s Son, Washington Irving, ..... Manners in New York in the Dutch Times, Feelings of an American on First arriving in England, A Rainy Sunday in an Inn, .... John Gibson Lockhart, . . . . xii 453 456 459 461 462 464 465 465 466 467 471 472 472 474 474 474 475 476 480 481 463 483 484 485 486 488 488 4SS HISTORIANS. William Mitford, ...... Condemnation and Death of Socrates, Dr John Gillies— Sharon Turner— William Coxe— George Chalmers— C. J. Fox, Sir James Mackintosh, .... Chivalry and Modern Manners, .... Speech in Defence of Mr Peltier, Dr John Lingard, ..... Cromwell’s Expulsion of the Parliament, . Brodie— Godwin— Southey, .... Henry Hallam, ..... Effects of the Feudal System, .... Shakspeare’s Self-Retrospection, Milton’s Blindness and Early Reading, P. Fraser Tytler — Colonel Napier — &c., . 510 511 513 514 515 515 516 516 517 517 518 519 519 519 BIOGRAPHERS. Hayley— Lord Holland— Scott— Moore, &c., . 520 METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. Dugald Stewart— Dr Thomas Brown, . . 522, 523 Desire of the Happiness of Others, . . . 523 Mackintosh — Mill — Abercrombie — George Combe, 524 Distinction between Power and Activity, . . 525 THEOLOGIANS. Dr Samuel Parr— Dr Edward Maltby, . . 526 Dr Thomas H. Horxe— Dr Herbert Marsh — Archbishop and Bishop Sumner— Dr D’Oyly, &c., Bev. Robert Hall, ..... On Wisdom, ...... Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte, Rev. John Foster, ...... Changes in Life and Opinions, Dr Adam Clarke— Rev. Archibald Alison, From Alison’s Sermon on Autumn, . Dr Andrew Thomson— Dr Thomas Chalmers, . Inefficacy of mere Moral Preaching, . . Picture of the Chase— Cruelty to Animals, . Insignificance of this Earth, . . . The Statute-book not necessary towards Christianity, 527 527 528 52S 529 529 530 530 531 532 534 535 535 CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENCYCLOPAEDIAS AND SERIAL WORKS. Page Page "William Cobbett, ..... 536 Rees’s Cyclopjedta— Encyclopedia Britannica— Edin- Boyish Scenes and Recollections, . 537 burgh Encyclopaedia— Lardner’s Cyclopaedia — On Field Sports, ..... 537 Constable’s Miscellany— Family Library, &c. — William Combe— Robert Southey, 537 Reviews and Magazines, . . . 569-571 Effects of the Mohammedan Religion, 538 Effects of the Death of Nelson, . 539 William Hazlitt, ..... 539 The Character of Falstaff, 540 Stinife ^ * r i a b. The Character of Hamlet, .... 540 Rev. Sydney Smith, .... 541 REIGNS OF GEORGE IV.. WILLIAM IV., AND The Edinburgh Review projected, 541 Extracts from Peter Plymley's Letters , 542 QUEEN VICTORIA [1830 TO 1859]. Story of Mrs Partington, .... 542 Wit the Flavour of the Mind, 543 POETS. Difficulty of Governing a Nation, . 543 Hartley, Derwent, and Sara Coleridge, . 572 Means of Acquiring Distinction, 543 Sonnets by Hartley Coleridge, .... 573 Locking in on Railways, .... 543 Address to certain Gold Fishes, 573 A Real Bishop, ..... 544 History and Biography, . . v . . 573 All- Curates hope to draw Great Prizes, 544 The Opposing Armies on Marston Moor, 573 Francis Jeffrey, ..... 544 Discernment of Character, .... 574 Origin of the Editiburgh Review , 544 J. A. Heraud— Mrs Southey, 574 On the Genius of Shakspeare, . 545 Mariner’s Hymn, 575 The Perishable Nature of Poetical Fame, . 547 Once upon a Time, ..... 575 Henry Lord Brougham, .... 547 The Pauper’s Death-bed, .... 575 Isaac Disraeli, ...... 549 John Edmund Reade, ..... 576 Caleb C. Colton, ..... 550 WlNTHROP MACKWORTH PrAED, .... 576 True Genius always united to Reason, 550 Quince, ...... 576 Error only to be Combated by Argument, 550 Thomas Hood, ...... 577 Mvstery and Intrigue, .... 550 Lines Written a few Weeks before his Death, 577 Magnanimity in Humble Life, . 551 Extract from Lament for Chivalry , 578 Avarice, ...... 551 Extract from Ode to the Moon, 578 William Ellery Channing, 551 Parental Ode to my Son, 579 The Intellectual and Moral Character of Napoleon, 551 The Song of the Shirt, .... 579 Great Ideas, . : . . . 552 The Death-bed, .... . . 580 John Nichols— Arthur Young, 552 David Macbeth Moir, .... 580 Sir John Carr— Rev. James Beresford— Brydges— Casa Wappy, ...... 580 Douce, &c., ..... 553 Hon. Mrs Norton, ..... 581 To the Duchess of Sutherland, .... 582 Extracts from Winter's Walk, 583 Picture of Twilight, ..... 583 POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. Thomas K. Hervey— Alaric A. Watts, 583 Jeremy Bentham — Malthus — Ricardo — Mill - - Dr The Convict Ship, ..... 583 Whately — Mrs Marcet — Rev. Dr Chalmers— Ten Years Ago, . . . ... 5S4 \ J. R. M'Culloch— Sadler— Senior, 554, , 555 George Darley— Sir Aubrey and Aubrey S. de Vere— R. C. Trench— Thomas Aird, 584 From The Devil's Dream on Mount Aksbeck, 585 The Swallow, ...... 586 TRAVELLERS. Alfred Tennyson, ..... 586 Denham and Clapperton, .... 555 Extracts from Locksley Hall, .... 587 R. Lander — Bowdich— Campbell — Burchell— J. L. Extracts from the Talking Oak, Godiva , The Lotus Burckhardt— Belzoni, 556 Eaters, &c., ..... 588, , 589 The Ruins at Thebes, .... 557 Lyric— (The splendour falls on castle walls), 589 Opening a Tomb at Thebes, .... 557 Extracts from In Memoriam and Maud , 590 Dr E. D. Clarke, ..... 558 Mrs Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 591 Description of the Pyramids, 558 Extract from Flush, my Dog, .... 591 Classic Travellers : Forsyth— Eustace— &c., 559 Extracts from The Drama of Exile and Vision of Poets, 592 The Coliseum, ..... 560 Extract from The Cry of the Children, 593 Funeral Ceremony at Rome, 561 Sonnet— (I thought once how Theocritus had sung), 593 Statue of the Medicean Venice at Florence, 561 An English Landscape, from Aurora Leigh, . 594 A Morning in Venice, .... 562 From Cowper's Grave, .... 595 Description of Pompeii, .... 562 Philip James Bailey— Robert Browning— R. H. Horne, 595 Arctic Discovery : Ross— Parry— Franklin— &c., 563 Detached Extracts from Bailey's Poems , 595 Description of the Esquimaux, 563 Picture of the Grape Harvest, 596 Eastern Travellers : W. Rae Wilson— Claudius J. From Old Pictures in Florence, . . . 596 Rich — J. S. Buckingham — Dr Madden— Carne — Charles Mackay, ..... 597 Richardson— Sir John Malcolm— Sir W. Ouseley Apologue from Egeria, ..... 597 —Sir Robert Ker Porter— &c., . 565 , 566 Street Companions, ..... 597 View of Society in Bagdad, .... 566 Song — Tubal Cain, ..... 598 A Persian Town, ..... 567 Lord Macaulay, ..... 598 Sir George Staunton— Sir John Barrow— Mr Ellis— Desolation of the Cities whose Warriors marched against Dr Abel, ..... 567 Rome, ....... 600 Scene at Pekin, described by Mr Ellis, 567 The Fate of the first Three who advanced against the Captain Basil Hall— Mr H. D. Inglis, 568 Heroes of Rome, ..... 600 M. SlMOND, ...... . 569 How Horatius was Rewarded, .... 601 Swiss Mountain and Avalanche, 569 Ivry, xiii 601 CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Page Page W. E. Aytoun— Theodore Martin, . 602 Richard H. Barham— Capt. Frederick Marry at, 626 The Burial March of Dundee, 602 A Prudent Sea-Captain — Abuse of Ship’s Stores, . 627 Sonnet to Britain, . . . . 604 Captain Glasscock— Howard— Chamier — Micblael Scott Frances Brown, .... . 604 — James Hannay, ..... 628 The Last Friends, . 604 Nights at Sea, from Eustace Conyers , . 628 Richard Monckton Milnes, . 604 Mrs Catherine F. Gore, .... 628 The Men of Old, . . . . 605 Character of a Prudent Worldly Lady, 629 The Long-ago, .... # 605 Exclusive London Life, .... 630 Edgar Poe, ..... 605 Mrs Trollope — Adolphus and Anthony Tbollopb, 630 The Raven, ..... 605 Marguerite Countess of Blessington, 631 R. H. Dana— N. P. Willis— 0. W. Holmes— H. W. Long- Mrs S. C. Hall, ..... 632 fellow, .... 607 Depending upon Others, .... 633 A Psalm of Life, .... 607 G. P. R. James, . . 634 The Ladder of St Augustine, . 608 Sir Edward Bulweb Lytton, .... 634 Charles Swain, .... 608 Extract from Bulwer’s poetry, . . 635 The Death of the Warrior King, # 608 Admiration of Genius, ..... 636 Sydney Dobell — Alex. Smith — George Macdonald — Death of Gawtrey, the Coiner, . . . 637 Gerald Massey, .... m 609 Talent and Genius, ..... 637 The Italian Brothers, . 609 Extract from King Arthur, a portrait of Guizot, . 639 The Ruins of Ancient Rome, 609 Imagination on Canvas and in Books, . 639 Autumn, ..... . 610 Power and Genius— Idols of Imagination, . 640 Unrest and Childhood, . . # 610 William Harrison Ainsworth, .... 640 Conclusion of Babe Christabel, . # 610 Benjamin Disraeli, ..... 640 Thomas Ragg — Thomas Cooper, # 611 The Principle of Utility, .... 642 The Earth Full of Love, . 611 The Hebrew Race, ..... 642 Matthew Arnold— Rev. J. Mitford, &c., 611 Pictures of Swiss Scenery and of the City of Venice, . 643 W. C. Bennett— D. F. M'Cabthy— William Allingham, 612 Samuel Warren, ...... 643 The Seasons, .... 612 Mbs Bray— Thomas Crofton Croker, . 644 Summer Rain, .... . 612 The Last of the Irish Serpents, 644 A Young Female taking the Veil, . . 612 Charles Dickens, ...... 644 Lady Alice, ..... . 612 Death and Funeral of a Pauper, . . . 646 Eliza Cook, ..... . . 613 A Man from the Brown Forests of Mississippi, . 648 Old Songs, ..... . 613 The Bustling, Affectionate, little American Woman, 648 Coventry Patmore— E. R. Edlwer Lytton, . 613 The Coliseum, . . . . . .. 649 Detached extracts from Patmore’s Poems, . . 613 William M. Thackeray, .... 650 The Chess-board, .... . 614 Car-travelling in Ireland, .... 651 Changes, ..... . 614 Extract from Thunder and Small Beer, 652 James Hedderwick, . . . . 614 Decay of Matrimonial Love, .... 653 Middle Age, ..... . 614 Lady Clara Newcome, .... 654 John Ramsay, .... 615 Detached extracts from The Virginians, 655, My Grave, ..... . 615 The Ballad of Bouillabaisse, .... 655 Miss Parkes— Miss Hijme— Miss Procter— Mis s Craig, 615 The Rev. Charles Kingsley, .... 656 Robin Hood, .x . 615 Three Fishers went Sailing, 657 A Dream of Love, V . . 616 Scene in the Indian Forest, .... 658 A Doubting Heart, . . ■ 616 Charlotte Bronte, ..... 659 Prize Poem in Honour of Burns, . 616 Description of Yorkshire Moors, 659 Translators : Bowsing— Blackie— &c., • • 617 Emily Bronte and her Dog ‘ Keeper,’ 660 Extracts from poetry of Rev. P. Bronte— note, 661 SCOTTISH POETS. Death of Emily and Anne Bronte, . 662 William Thom, ..... 617 Charles James Lever— Samuel Lover, . 662 The Mitherless Bairn, . . 617 Leitch Ritchie— Mrs Crowe, .... 663 David Vedder, ..... 617 The Priest of St Quentin, .... 664 The Temple of Nature, . . . 618 Miss Pardoe, ...... 666 Living Contributors to Scottish Song, 618 Mrs Marsh— Lady Georgina Fullerton— Miss Kava- From The Widow, by A. Maclagan, 618 nagh — Mrs Gaskell, .... 667 Ilka Blade o’ Grass Keps its ain Drap o’ Dew, by James Picture of Green Heys Fields, Manchester, 667 Ballantine, .... 618 Wilkie Collins— Captain Mayne Reid, 668 When the Glen all is Still, by H. S. Riddell, 619 Miss Mulock, ...... 669 Florence Nightingale, by F. Bennoch, 619 Death of Leigh Pennythorne, . . ' . 669 Nathaniel Hawthorne— Mrs Stowe, . 670 DRAMATISTS. American Law of Slavery, .... 671 Thomas Noon Talfourd, . 620 English Trees— Warwick Castle, 671 Extracts from Ion, .... 620 Mrs Ellis, ....... 671 Henry Taylor— Leigh Hunt— William Smith, I 622 Miss C. M. Yonge — Miss Sewell — Miss Jewsbury— Lines from Athelwold, 622 Selina Bunbury— Mrs Oliphant— Miss Catharine Douglas Jerbold, .... 622 Sinclair— Mbs Cowden Clarke— Charles Reade, 672 Fancy Fair in Guildhall, 623 Newhaven Fisherwomen, .... 673 Time’s Changes, .... 624 G. R. Gleig— W. H. Maxwell— James Grant, 673 Retired from Business, . 624 Samuel Phillips— Angus B. Reach— Albert Smith, 674 Gilbert A. a Beckett — Tom Taylor — Charles Dickens The South of France, .... 674 —Shirley Brooks— Mark Lemon— Wilkie Collins, G. H. Lewes, ...... 675 &c., 624 Superiority of the Moral over the Intellectual Nature of Man, ..... 675 NOVELISTS. Real Men of Genius resolute Workers, 675 James Feximore Cooper, 624 The Brothers Mayhew— Williams— Brooks— Cupples A Virgin Wilderness— Lake Otsego, 625 — Hughes — &c., . . . . . 676 Death of Long Tom Coffin, . xiv • 625 The Browns, ...... 677 REIGN OF GEORGE III.— FIRST SECTION— [1760 TO 1800.] POETS. The great variety and abundance of the literature of this period, especially towards its close, might, in some measure, have been predicted from the progress made during the previous thirty or forty years, in which, as Johnson said, almost every man had come to write and to express himself correctly, and the number of readers had been vastly multiplied. The increase in national wealth and population naturally led, in a country like Great Britain, to the improvement of litera- ture and the arts, and accordingly we find that a more popular and general style of composition began to supplant 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 writing 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 char- acter of our literature should become assimilated to it, and partake of the onward movement, the popular feeling, and rising energy of the nation. There were, however, some great public events, and accidental circumstances, which assisted in bringing about a change. The American war, by exciting the eloquence of Chatham and Burke, awakened the spirit of the nation. The enthusiasm was continued by the poet Cowper, who sympathised keenly with his fellow-men, and had a warm love of his native country. Cowper wrote from no system; lie had 53 not read a poet for seventeen years ; but he drew the distinguishing features of English life and scenery with such graphic power and beauty, that the mere poetry of art and fashion, and the stock images of descriptive verse, could not but appear mean, affected, and commonplace. Warton’s History of Poetry , and Percy’s Reliques, threw back the imagin- ation to the bolder and freer era of our national literature, and in the Scottish poetry of Burns, a new world of rustic life, humour, tenderness, and pathos was opened up. Even the German imagin- ative literature — which began to be cultivated in this country — was, with all its horrors and extrava- gance, something better than mere delineations of manners 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 was to enter on a new course of free and glorious action. This dream passed away ; but it had sunk deep into some ardent minds, and its fruits were seen in bold speculations 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. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and Campbell had each commenced his poetical career, but they belong distinctively to the nineteenth century. One remarkable peculiarity in the period is, that it comprises the most striking and memorable of our literary frauds or forgeries — those of Macpherson, Chatterton, and Ireland. Macpherson had some foundation for his Ossianic poems, though assuredly he discovered no entire epic in the Hebrides. The two others were sheer fabricators — Chatterton l FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. possessing, while yet a boy, the genius of a true poet, combined with the taste and acquirements of the antiquary; while Ireland excelled only in the mechanical imitation of ancient writings, and was destitute of the talent or knowledge to give them verisimilitude and animation. It is some apology for these literary felonies or misdemeanours, that the oldest of the culprits was barely of age when he entered on his perilous and discreditable enterprise, and that all of them were cheered and encouraged by popular applause. In the case of the Shakspeare forgeries, public credulity was strongly displayed, but the Celtic and Rowley imitations had many redeeming and attractive qualities. At the opening of this section, Johnson was the great literary dictator, and he had yet to produce his best work, the Lives of the Poets. The exquisite poetry of Goldsmith was the most precious product of the age. In fiction, Sterne was triumphantly successful, and he found many imitators, the best of whom was Henry Mackenzie. Several female writers — as Miss Burney, Mrs Inchbald, Charlotte Smith, and Mrs Radcliffe — also enjoyed great popu- larity, though they are now comparatively little read. The more solid departments of literature were well supported. Hume and Robertson com- pleted their historical works, and a fitting rival or associate appeared in Gibbon, the great historian of the Roman Empire. In theological literature we have the names of Paley, and Campbell, and Blair — the latter highly popular, if not profound. In metaphysics or mental philosophy, the writings of Reid formed a sort of epoch ; and Smith’s Wealth of Nations first explained to the world, fully and sys- tematically, the principles upon which the wealth and prosperity of states must ever rest. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 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 Oliver Goldsmith. rural and domestic life, and for a certain vein of pensive philosophic reflection. His countryman Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas of liberty not too high, that they might last him 2 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, benevolence, and simple pathos, which 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 Ruins of the house at Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent his youth. 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 profession, 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 of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Gold- smith’s youth was spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. After a good country education, Oliver was admitted a sizer of Trinity College, Dublin, June 11, 1745. The expense of his education was chiefly defrayed by i his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarini, an excellent man, son to an Italian of the Contarini 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 j occasion before a party of friends, the poet left I college, and wandered about the country for some j time in the utmost poverty. His brother Henry > clothed and carried him back to college, and oil i the 27th of February 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and returned to Lissoy. His father was dead, but he idled away two years among his rela- tions. 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 Dublin, but he lost the whole in a gaming-house. A second contribution was raised, and the poet next ENGLISH LITERATURE. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. POETS. proceeded to Edinburgh, where he continued a year and a half studying medicine. He then drew upon his uncle for £20, and embarked for Bordeaux. The vessel was driven into Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and whilst there, Goldsmith and his fellow-passengers were arrested and put into prison, where the poet was kept a fortnight. It appeared that his com- panions were Scotsmen, in the French service, and had been in Scotland enlisting soldiers for the French army. Before he was released the ship sailed, and was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, the whole of the crew having perished. He embarked in a vessel bound for Rotterdam, and arriving there in nine days, travelled by land to Leyden. These particulars (which have a very apocryphal air) rest upon the authority of a letter written from Leyden by Goldsmith to his uncle, Contarine. At Leyden he appears to have remained, without making an effort for a degree, about a twelvemonth ; and in February 1755, he set off on a continental pedestrian tour, provided, it is said, with a guinea in his pocket, one shirt to his back, and a flute in his hand. 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 ! 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, Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, 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 seem to have had no permanent effect on the character or direction of his genius. He visited Florence, Verona, Venice, and stopped at Padua some months, where he is supposed to have taken his medical degree. In 1756 the poet reached England, after one year of wandering, lonely, and in poverty, yet buoyed up by dreams of hope and fame. Many a hard struggle he had yet to encounter! He was some time assistant to a chemist in a shop at the corner of Monument Yard on Fish Street Hill. A college- friend, Dr Sleigh, enabled him to commence prac- tice as a humble physician in Bankside, Southwark : but this failed ; and after serving for a short time as a reader and corrector of the press to Richardson the novelist, he was engaged as usher in a school at Peckliam, kept by Dr Milner. At Milner’s table he met Griffiths the bookseller, proprietor of the Monthly Review; and in April 1757, Goldsmith agreed to leave Dr Milner’s, to board and lodge with Griffiths, to have a small salary, and devote himself to the Review. Whatever he wrote is said to have been tampered with by Griffiths and his wife ! In five months the engagement abruptly closed. For a short time he was again at Dr Milner’s as usher. In 1758 he presented himself at Surgeons’ Hall for examination as a hospital mate, with the view of entering the army or navy, but he had the mor- tification of being rejected as unqualified. That he might appear before the examining surgeon suitably dressed, Goldsmith obtained a new suit of clothes, for which Griffiths 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 threatened, and the poet replied: ‘I know of no misery but a jail, to which my own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as a favour — as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being — with all that contempt and indi- gence brings with it — with all those strong passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has a jail that is formidable?’ Such was the almost hopeless condition, the deep despair, of this imprudent but amiable author, who has added to the delight of millions, and to the glory of English literature. Henceforward the life of Goldsmith was that of a man of letters. He lived solely by his pen. Besides numerous contributions to the Monthly and Critical Reviews , the Lady’s Magazine , the British Magazine , &c., he published an Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759), his admirable Chinese Letters , afterwards published with the title of The Citizen of the World , a Life of Beau Nash, and the History of England in a series of letters from a nobleman to his son. The latter was highly successful, and was popularly attributed to Lord Lyttelton. In December 1761 appeared his poem of The Traveller, the chief corner-stone of his fame, ‘ without one bad line,’ as has been said ; 1 without one of Dryden’s careless verses.’ Charles Fox pro- nounced it one of the finest poems in the English language; and Dr Johnson — then numbered among Goldsmith’s friends — said that the merit of The Traveller was so well established, that Mr Fox’s praise could not augment it, nor his censure diminish it. The periodical critics were unanimous in its praise. In 1766 he published his exquisite novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, which had been written two years before, and sold to Newberry, the bookseller, to discharge a pressing debt. His comedy of The Good-natured Man was produced in 1767, his Roman History next year, and The Deserted Village in 1770. The latter was as popular as The Traveller, and speedily ran through a number of editions. In 1773, Goldsmith’s comedy, She Stoops to Conquer, was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre with immense applause. He was now at the summit of his fame and popularity. The march had been long and toilsome, and he was often nearly fainting by the way ; but his success was at length complete. His name stood among the foremost of his contemporaries: the booksellers courted him, and his works brought him in large sums. Diffi- culty and distress, however, still clung to him : poetry had found him poor at first, and she kept him so. From heedless profusion and extrava- gance, chiefly in dress, and from a benevolence which knew no limit while his funds lasted, Gold- smith was scarcely ever free from debt. The gaming-table also presented irresistible attractions. He hung loosely on society, without wife or domestic tic ; and his early habits and experience were ill calculated to teach him strict conscien- tiousness or regularity. He continued to write task-work for the booksellers, and produced a History of England in four volumes. This was succeeded by a History of Greece in two volumes, for which he was paid £250. lie had contracted to 3 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. write a History of Animated Nature in eight volumes, at the rate of a hundred guineas for each volume; but this work he did not live to complete, though the greater part was finished in his own attractive and easy manner. In March 1774, he was attacked by a painful complaint (strangury) caused by close study, which was succeeded by a nervous fever. Contrary to the advice of his apothecary, he per- sisted in the use of James’s powders, a medicine to which he had often had recourse; and gradually getting worse, he expired in strong convulsions on the 4th of April. The death of so popular an author, at the age of forty-six, was a shock equally to his friends and the public. The former knew his ster- ling worth, and loved him with all his foibles — his undisguised vanity, his national proneness to blun- dering, his thoughtless extravagance, his credulity, and his frequent absurdities. Under these ran a current of generous benevolence, of enlightened zeal 'for the happiness and improvement of mankind, and of manly independent feeling. He died £2000 in debt : ‘Was ever poet so trusted before ! 5 ex- claimed Johnson. His remains were interred in the Temple burying-ground, and a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, next the grave of Gay, whom he somewhat resembled in character, and far surpassed in genius. The fame of Goldsmith has been constantly on the increase, and two copious lives of him have lately been produced — one by Prior, in 1837, and another, The Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith , by John Forster, in two volumes, 1854. The latter is a valuable and interesting work. The plan of The Traveller is simple, yet compre- hensive and philosophical. The poet represents himself as sitting among Alpine solitudes, looking down on a hundred realms — Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide, The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride. He views the whole with delight, yet sighs to think that the hoard of human bliss is so small, and he wishes to find some spot consigned to real happiness, where his ‘ worn soul ’ Might gather bliss to see his fellows blessed. But where is such a spot to be found ? The natives of each country think their own the best — the patriot boasts — His first, best country, ever is at home. If nations are compared, the amount of happiness in each is found to be about the same ; and to illustrate this position, the poet describes the state of manners and government in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, and England. In general correctness and beauty of expression, these sketches have never been surpassed. The politician may think that the poet ascribes too little importance to the influence of government on the happiness of mankind, seeing that in a despotic state the whole must depend on the individual character of the governor ; yet in the cases cited by Goldsmith, it is difficult to resist his conclusions ; while his short sententious reasoning is relieved and elevated by bursts of true poetry. His character of the men of England used to draw tears from Dr Johnson : Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her state, With daring aims irregularly great. Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by ; Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature’s hand. 4 Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, True to imagined right, above control, While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to venerate himself as man. Goldsmith was a master of the art of contrast in heightening the effect of his pictures. In the follow- ing quotation, the rich scenery of Italy, and the effeminate character of its population, are placed in striking juxtaposition with the rugged mountains of Switzerland and their hardy natives. [. Italians and Swiss Contrasted .] Far to the right, where Apennine ascends, Bright as the summer, Italy extends ; Its uplands sloping deck the mountain’s side, Woods over woods in gay theatric pride ; While oft some temple’s mouldering tops between, With venerable grandeur mark the scene. Could nature’s bounty satisfy the breast, The sons of Italy were surely blest. Whatever fruits in different climes were found, That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground ; Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, Whose bright succession decks the varied year ; Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives, that blossom but to die ; These, here disporting, own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter’s toil ; While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand, To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, And sensual bliss is all the nation knows. In florid beauty groves and fields appear, Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. Contrasted faults through all his manners reign : Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain ; Though grave, yet trifling ; zealous, yet untrue ; . And even in penance planning sins anew. All evils here contaminate the mind, That opulence departed leaves behind ; For wealth was theirs, not far removed the date, When commerce proudly flourished through the state; At her command the palace learned to rise, Again the long-fallen column sought the skies ; The canvas glowed beyond even nature warm, The pregnant quai*ry teemed with human form, Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, Commerce on other shores displayed her sail ; While nought remained of all that riches gave, But towns unmanned, and lords without a slave ; And late the nation found with fruitless skill, Its former strength was but plethoric ill. Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride ; From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind An easy compensation seem to find. Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed, The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade ; Processions formed for piety and love, A mistress or a saint in every grove. By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child ; Each nobler aim, repressed by long control, Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul ; While low delights, succeeding fast behind, In happier meanness occupy the mind : As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway, Defaced by time and tottering in decay, There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed ; And, wondering man could want the larger pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. My soul turn from them, turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread ; No product here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the soldier and his sword ; No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May ; No zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast, But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small, He sees his little lot the lot of all ; Sees no contiguous palace rear its head, To shame the meanness of his humble shed ; No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal, To make him loathe his vegetable meal ; But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes ; With patient angle trolls the finny deep, Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep ; Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, And drags the struggling savage into day. At night returning, every labour sped, He sits him down the monarch of a shed ; Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys His children’s looks, that brighten at the blaze ; While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, Displays her cleanly platter on the board : And haply, too, some pilgrim thither led, With many a tale repays the nightly bed. Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart ; And even those ills that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms ; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind’s roar, But bind him to his native mountains more. [. France Contrasted with Holland .] So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, Thus idly busy rolls their world away : Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, For honour forms the social temper here. Honour, that praise which real merit gains, Or even imaginary worth obtains, Here passes current ; paid from hand to hand, It shifts in splendid traffic round the land. From courts to camps, to cottages it strays, And all are taught an avarice of praise ; They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem, Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. But while this softer art their bliss supplies, It gives their follies also room to rise : For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought, Enfeebles all internal strength of thought ; And the weak soul, within itself unblest, Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast. Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art, Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart ; Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, And trims her robe of frieze with copper lace ; Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer, To boast one splendid banquet once a year ; The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws. Nor weighs the solid worth of self -applause. To men of other minds my fancy flies, Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies. Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land, And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, Lift the tall rampire’s artificial pride. Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, The firm connected bulwark seems to grow ; Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore : While the pent ocean, rising o’er the pile, Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile ; The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale, The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, A new creation rescued from his reign. Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil Impels the native to repeated to Industrious habits in each bosom reign, And industry begets a love of gain. Hence all the good from opulence that springs, With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts ; But view them closer, craft and fraud appear, Even liberty itself is bartered here. At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies, The needy sell it, and the rich man buys ; A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves ; Here wretches seek dishonourable graves, And calmly bent, to servitude conform, Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm. The Deserted Village is limited in design, and, according to Macaulay, is incongruous in its parts. The village in its happiest days is a true English village, while in its decay it is an Irish village. ‘ The felicity and the misery which he has brought close together belong to two different countries and to two different stages in the progress of society.’ But there is no poem in the English language more universally popular than the Deserted Village. Its best passages are learned in youth, and never quit the memory. Its delineations of rustic life accord with those ideas of romantic purity, seclusion, and happiness, which the young mind associates with the country and all its charms, before modern manners and oppression had driven them away — To pamper luxury, and thin mankind. Political economists may dispute the axiom, that luxury is hurtful to nations ; and curious speculators, like Mandeville, may even argue that private vices are public benefits ; but Goldsmith has a surer advocate in the feelings of the heart, which yield a spontaneous assent to the principles he inculcates, when teaching by examples, with all the efficacy of apparent truth, and all the effect of poetical beauty and excellence. [Description of Auburn — The Village Preacher , the Schoolmaster , and Ale-house — Reflections.'] Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain ; Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed ; Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please ; How often have I loitered o’er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene ! How often have I paused on every charm ! The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm ; The never-failing brook, the busy mill. The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill ; The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made ! How often have I blessed the coming day, When toil remitting lent its turn to play ; FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. And all the village train, from labour free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree ; While many a pastime circled in the shade, The young contending as the old surveyed ; And many a gambol frolicked o’er the ground, And sleights of art and feats of strength went round. And still, as each repeated pleasure tired, Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired : The dancing pair that simply sought renown, By holding out to tire each other down ; The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter tittered round the place ; The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love, The matron’s glance that would those looks reprove — These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, With sweet succession, taught e’en toil to please. Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening’s close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ; There as I passed, with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below ; The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young ; The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school ; The watch-dog’s voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind : These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher’s modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year ; Remote from towns, he ran his godly race, Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change, his place ; Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train ; He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain. The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; The ruined spendthrift now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed ; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away ; Wept o’er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch, and shewed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings leaned to virtue’s side ; But, in his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; And, as a bird each fond endearment tries, To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed, The reverend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise. And his last faltering accents whispered praise. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place ; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway ; And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, "With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran ; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man’s smile ; His ready smile a parent’s warmth expressed, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed ; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm ; Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school ; A man severe he was, and stern to view ; I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day’s disasters in his morning’s face ; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; Full well the busy whisper circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned ; Yet he was kind ; or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault ; The village all declared how much he knew ; ’Twas certain he could write, and cipher too ; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage ; And even the story ran that he could gauge ; In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For even, though vanquished, he could argue still ; While words of learned length, and thundering sound, Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, That one small head could carry all he knew. But past is all his fame : the very spot Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot. Near yonder thorn that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired ; Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlour splendours of that festive place ; The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door ; The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; The pictures placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay ; While broken tea- cups, wisely kept for show, Ranged o’er the chimney, glistened in a row. Vain transitory splendour ! could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall ! Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart. Thither no more the peasant shall repair, To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; No more the farmer’s news, the barber’s tale, No more the woodman’s ballad shall prevail ; No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear ; The host himself no longer shall be found Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, These simple blessings of the lowly train ; To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art. Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway : Lightly they frolic o’er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; And even while fashion’s brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this be joy ? Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man’s joys increase, the poor’s decay, ’Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting folly hails them from her shore ; Hoards, even beyond the miser’s wish, abound, And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name, That leaves our useful product still the same. Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; Space for his lake, his parks extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds ; The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth, Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth; His seat, where solitary sports are seen, Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies. While thus the land adorned for pleasure all, In barren splendour feebly waits the fall. As some fair female, unadorned and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; But when those charms are past, for charms are frail, When time advances, and when lovers fail, She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress : Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed, In nature’s simplest charms at first arrayed ; But verging to decline, its splendours rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; While, scourged by famine from the smiling land, The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; And while he sinks, without one arm to save, The country blooms — a garden, and a grave. Edwin and Angelina. ‘ Turn, gentle hermit of the dale, And guide my lonely way, To where yon taper cheers the vale With hospitable ray. ‘ For here forlorn and lost I tread, With fainting steps and slow ; ' Where wilds immeasurably spread, Seem lengthening as I go.’ ‘ Forbear, my son,’ the hermit cries, ‘ To tempt the dangerous gloom ; For yonder phantom only flies To lure thee to thy doom. ‘ Here, to the houseless child of want, My door is open still : And though my portion is but scant, I give it with good-will. ‘ Then turn to-night, and freely share Whate’er my cell bestows ; My rushy couch and frugal fare, My blessing and repose. ‘ No flocks that range the valley free, To slaughter I condemn ; Taught by that power that pities me, I learn to pity them. ‘ But from the mountain’s grassy side, A guiltless feast I bring ; A scrip, with herbs and fruits supplied, And water from the spring. ‘ Then, Pilgrim, turn, thy cares forego ; All earth-born cares are wrong : “ Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.” ’ * Soft as the dew from heaven descends, His gentle accents fell ; The modest stranger lowly bends, And follows to the cell. Far in a wilderness obscure, The lonely mansion lay ; A refuge to the neighbouring poor, And strangers led astray. No stores beneath its humble thatch Required a master’s care ; The wicket, opening with a latch, Received the harmless pair. And now, when busy crowds retire, To take their evening rest, The hermit trimmed his little fire, And cheered his pensive guest : And spread his vegetable store, And gaily pressed and smiled ; And, skilled in legendary lore, The lingering hours beguiled. Around, in sympathetic mirth, Its tricks the kitten tries ; The cricket chirrups in the hearth, The crackling fagot flies. But nothing could a charm impart, To soothe the stranger’s woe ; For grief was heavy at his heart, And tears began to flow. His rising cares the hermit spied, With answering care opprest : ‘ And whence, unhappy youth,’ he cried, ‘ The sorrows of thy breast ? ‘ From better habitations spurned, Reluctant dost thou rove ? Or grieve for friendship unreturned, Or unregarded love ? ‘ Alas ! the joys that fortune brings Are trifling, and decay ; And those who prize the paltry things More trifling still than they. £ And what is friendship but a name : A charm that lulls to sleep ! A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep ! * And love is still an emptier sound, The modern fair-one’s jest ; On earth unseen, or only found To warm the turtle’s nest. * From Young— “ Man wants but little, nor that little long.” Goldsmith, in the original copy, marked the passage as a quotation. FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. ‘ For shame, fond youth, thy sorrows hush, And spurn the sex,’ he said : But while he spoke, a rising blush His love-lorn guest betrayed. Surprised, he sees new beauties rise, Swift mantling to the view, Like colours o’er the morning skies, As bright, as transient too. The bashful look, the rising breast, Alternate spread alarms ; The lovely stranger stands confest A maid in all her charms. * And ah ! forgive a stranger rude, A wretch forlorn,’ she cried, ‘ Whose feet unhallowed thus intrude Where heaven and you reside. ‘ But let a maid thy pity share, Whom love has taught to stray : Who seeks for rest, but finds despair Companion of her way. ‘ My father lived beside the Tyne, A wealthy lord was he ; And all his wealth was marked as mine ; He had but only me. ‘ To win me from his tender arms, Unnumbered suitors came ; Who praised me for imputed charms, And felt, or feigned, a flame. ‘ Each hour a mercenary crowd With richest proffers strove ; Amongst the rest young Edwin bowed, But never talked of love. ‘ In humblest, simplest, habit clad, No wealth nor power had he ; Wisdom and worth were all he had ; But these were all to me. ‘ The blossom opening to the day, The dews of heaven refined, Could nought of purity display, To emulate his mind. ‘ The dew, the blossoms of the tree, With charms inconstant shine ; Their charms were his ; but, woe to me, Their constancy was mine. ‘ For still I tried each fickle art, Importunate and vain ; And while his passion touched my heart, I triumphed in his pain. * Till quite dejected with my scorn, He left me to my pride ; And sought a solitude forlorn, In secret, where he died ! ‘ But mine the sorrow, mine the fault, And well my life shall pay : I ’ll seek the solitude he sought, And stretch me where he lay. ‘And there, forlorn, despairing, hid. I’ll lay me down and die : ’Twas so for me that Edwin did, And so for him will I.’ ‘ Forbid it, Heaven ! ’ the hermit cried, And clasped her to his breast : The wondering fair one turned to chide : ’Twas Edwin’s self that prest ! ‘ Turn, Angelina, ever dear, My charmer, turn to see Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here, Restored to love and thee. ‘ Thus let me hold thee to my heart, And every care resign ; And shall we never, never part, My life— my all that ’s mine ? ‘No, never from this hour to part, We’ll live and love so true ; The sigh that rends thy constant heart, Shall break thy Edwin’s too.’ [ Extracts from Retaliation .] [Goldsmith and some of his friends occasionally dined to- gether at the St James’s Coffee-house. One day it was proposed to write epitaphs upon him. His country, dialect, and blunders, furnished subjects for witticism. He was called on for retalia- tion, and, at the next meeting, produced part of this poem (which was left unfinished at his death), in which we find much of the shrewd observation, wit, and liveliness which distinguish the happiest of his prose writings.] * * * * Here lies our good Edmund,* whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much ; Who, bom for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 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 right 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 Garrick, describe him who can, ' An abridgment of all that was pleasant 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, and an exqellent 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. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came ; And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; Till his relish grown callous almost to disease, Who peppered the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind ; If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. * Burke. POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM MASON. Ye Kenricks, 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 praise 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 stuff, He shifted his trumpet,* and only took snuff. By flattery unspoiled * * 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 extra- vagance 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 commemo- ration 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 * Sir Joshua was so remarkably deaf, as to be under the necessity of using an ear-trumpet in company. This portrait was the last sketched by Goldsmith. 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, and enabling the reader to judge more fully and correctly of his situation, thoughts, and feelings. 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 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 simpli- city, 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. Thus, he says of Time, its Gradual touch Has mouldered into beauty many a tower Which, 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, Printless, as if ’twere holy ground. Gray quotes the following lines in one of Mason’s odes as ‘ superlative : ’ 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 shock : 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, Rustling 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. 9 from 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. 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 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, read the line ? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm ? Speak, dead Maria ! 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 ‘the pure in heart behold their Cod.’ DR JOHN LANQHORNE. Dr John Langhorne, an amiable and excellent clergyman, has long lost the popularity which he possessed in his own day as a poet ; but his name, nevertheless, claims a place in the history of English literature. He was born at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland, in 1735, and held the curacy and lectureship of St John’s, Clerkenwell, in London. He afterwards obtained a prebend’s stall in Wells Cathedral, and was much admired as a preacher. He died in 1779. Langhorne wrote various prose works, the most successful of which was his Letters of Theodosius and Constantia; and in conjunction with his brother, he published a translation of Plutarch’s Lives, which still maintains 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 Scottish tale of Gil Morrice, is smoothly versified, but in poetical merit is inferior to the original. The only poem of Langhorne’s which has a cast of originality is his Country Justice. Here he seems to have anticipated Crabbe in painting the rural life of England in true colours. His picture of the gipsies, and his sketches of venal clerks and rapacious overseers, are genuine likenesses. He has not the raciness or the distinctness of Crabbe, but is equally faithful, and as sincerely a friend to humanity. He 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 faff For 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 ; 10 Believe with social mercy and with me, Folly’s misfortune in the first degree. Perhaps on some inhospitable shore The 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 ; Bent 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 B unbury, under which were engraved the pathetic lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott has mentioned, that the only time he saw Burns, the Scottish poet, this picture was in the room. Bums 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 emb alm and preserve it for ever. [Appeal to Country Justices in Behalf of the Rural Poor.] Let age no longer toil 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, 0 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 resort 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, Kuthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust ! When the poor hind, with length of years decayed, Leans feebly on his once-subduing spade, Forgot the service of his abler days, His profitable toil, and honest praise, Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread, This slave, whose board his former labours spread ? 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 pale 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 ! Referred — to perish ! Is my verse severe ? Unfriendly to the human character? Ah ! to this sigh of sad experience trust : The truth is rigid, but the tale is just. If in thy courts this caitiff wretch appear, Think not that patience were a virtue here. ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. His low-born pride with honest rage control ; Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul. But, hapless ! oft through fear of future woe, And certain vengeance of the insulting foe ; Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their prayer, The last extremes of penury they bear. Wouldst thou then raise thy patriot office higher? To something more than magistrate aspire ! And, left each poorer, pettier chase behind, Step nobly forth, the friend of humankind ! The game I start courageously pursue ! Adieu to fear ! to insolence adieu ! And first we ’ll range this mountain’s stormy side, Where the rude winds the shepherd’s roof deride, As meet no more the wintry blast to bear, And all the wild hostilities of air. That roof have I remembered many a year ; It once gave refuge to a hunted deer — Here, in those days, we found an aged pair ; But time untenants — ha ! what seest thou there ? ‘ Horror ! — by Heaven, extended on a bed Of naked fern, two human creatures dead ! Embracing as alive ! — ah, no ! — no life ! Cold, breathless !’ ’Tis the shepherd and his wife. I knew the scene, and brought thee to behold What speaks more strongly than the story told — They died through want — 4 By every power I swear, If the wretch treads the earth, or breathes the air, Through whose default of duty, or design, These victims fell, he dies.’ They fell by thine. 4 Infernal ! Mine ! — by ’ Swear on no pretence : A swearing justice wants both grace and sense. [An Advice to the Married .] Should erring nature casual faults disclose, Wound not the breast that harbours your repose ; For every grief that breast from you shall prove, Is one link broken in the chain of love. Soon, with their objects, other woes are past, But pains from those we love are pains that last. Though faults or follies from reproach may fly, Yet in its shade the tender passions die. Love, like the flower that courts the sun’s kind ray, Will flourish only in the smiles of day ; Distrust’s cold air the generous plant annoys, And one chill blight of dire contempt destroys. 0 shun, my friend, avoid that dangerous coast, Where peace- expires, and fair affection ’s lost ; By wit, by grief, by anger urged, forbear The speech contemptuous and the scornful air. The Dead. Of them, who wrapt in earth are cold, No more the smiling day shall view, Should many a tender tale be told, For many a tender thought is due. Why else the o’ergrown paths of time, Would thus the lettered sage explore, With pain these crumbling ruins climb, And on the doubtful sculpture pore ? Why seeks he with unwearied toil, Through Death’s dim walks to urge his way, Reclaim his long-asserted spoil, And lead Oblivion into day ? ’Tis nature prompts by toil or fear, Unmoved to range through Death’s domain ; The tender parent loves to hear Her children’s story told again 1 PR THOMAS PERCY. [A Farewell Hymn to the Valley of Irwan .] Farewell the fields of Irwan’ s vale, My infant years where Fancy led, And soothed me with the western gale, Her wild dreams waving round my head, While the blithe black-bird told his tale. Farewell the fields of Irwan’s vale ! The primrose on the valley’s side, The green thyme on the mountain’s head, The wanton rose, the daisy pied, The wilding’s blossom blushing red ; No longer I their sweets inhale. Farewell the fields of Irwan’s vale ! How oft, within yon vacant shade, Has evening closed my careless eye ! How oft, along those banks I ’ve strayed, And watched the wave that wandered by ; Full long their loss shall I bewail. Farewell the fields of Irwan’s vale ! Yet still, within yon vacant grove, To mark the close of parting day ; Along yon flowery banks to rove, And watch the wave that winds away ; Fair Fancy sure shall never fail, Though far from these and Irwan’s vale. DR THOMAS PERCY. Dr Thomas Percy, afterwards bishop of Dromore, in 1765 published his Reliques of English Poetry , in which several excellent old songs and ballads were revived, and a selection made of the best lyrical pieces scattered through the works of modern authors. The learning and ability with which Percy executed his task, and the sterling value of his materials, recommended his volumes to public favour. They found their way into the hands of poets and poetical readers, and awakened a love of nature, simplicity, and true passion, in FROM 1760 contradistinction to that coldly correct and senti- mental style which pervaded part of our literature. The influence of Percy’s collection was general and extensive. It is evident in many contemporary authors. It gave the first impulse to the genius of Sir Walter Scott; and it may he seen in the writings of Coleridge and Wordsworth. A fresh fountain of poetry was opened up — a spring of sweet, tender, and heroic thoughts and imaginations, which could never be again turned back into the artificial channels in which the genius of poesy had been too long and too closely confined. Percy was himself a poet. His ballad, 0 Nancy, wilt thou go with Me ? the Hermit of Warkworth, and other detached pieces, evince both taste and talent. We subjoin a cento, The Friar of Orders Gray , which Percy says he compiled from fragments of ancient ballads, to which he added supplemental stanzas to connect them together. The greater part, however, is his own, and it must be admitted that he was too prone to tamper with the old ballads. Dr Percy was bom at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, in 1728, and was successively chaplain to the king, dean of Carlisle, and bishop of Dromore : the latter dignity The Deanery, Carlisle. he possessed from 1782 till his death in 1811. He enjoyed the friendship of Johnson, Goldsmith, and other distinguished men of his day, and lived long enough to hail the genius of Sir Walter Scott. 0 Nancy, wilt thou go with Mel* 0 Nancy, wilt thou go with me, Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town ? Can silent glens have charms for thee, The lowly cot and russet gown ? No longer drest in silken sheen, No longer decked with jewels rare, Say, eanst thou quit each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? * From Dodslev’s Collection of Poemt, 1758. In Johnson's Musical Museum it is printed as a Scottish production. * It is too barefaced,’ says Burns, * to take I)r Percy’s charming song, and, by means of transposing a few English words into Scots, to offer to pass it for a Scots song.’ 12 to 1800 . 0 Nancy, when thou ’rt far away, Wilt thou not cast a wish behind ? Say, canst thou face the parching ray, Nor shrink before the wintry wind? 0 can that soft and gentle mien Extremes of hardship learn to bear, Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? 0 Nancy, canst thou love so true, Through perils keen with me to go ? Or, when thy swain mishap shall rue, To share with him the pang of woe ? Say, should disease or pain befall, Wilt thou assume the nurse’s care, Nor, wistful, those gay scenes recall, Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath ? Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh, And cheer with smiles the bed of death ? And wilt thou o’er his breathless clay Strew flowers, and drop the tender tear ? Nor then regret those scenes so gay, Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? The Friar of Orders Gray. It was a friar of orders gray Walked forth to tell his beads, And he met with a lady fair, Clad in a pilgrim’s weeds. ‘ Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar ! I pray thee tell to me, If ever at yon holy shrine My true love thou didst see.’ ‘ And how should I know vour true love From many another one ? ’ ‘ Oh ! by his cockle hat and staff, And by his sandal shoon : ‘ But chiefly by his face and mien, That were so fair to view, His flaxen locks that sweetly curled. And eyes of lovely blue.’ ‘ 0 lady, he is dead and gone ! Lady, he ’s dead and gone ! At his head a green grass turf, And at his heels a stone. ‘Within these holy cloisters long He languished, and he died, Lamenting of a lady’s love, And ’plaining of her pride. ‘ Here bore him barefaced on his bier Six proper youths and tall ; And many a tear bedewed his grave Within yon kirkyard walL’ ‘ And art thou dead, thou gentle youth — And art thou dead and gone? And didst thou die for love of me ? Break, cruel heart of stone ! ’ ‘ 0 weep not, lady, weep not so, Some ghostly comfort seek : Let not vain sorrow rive thy heart, Nor tears bedew thy cheek.’ CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. . JAMES MACPHERSON. POETS. ‘ 0 do not, do not, holy friar, My sorrow now reprove ; For I have lost the sweetest youth That e’er won lady’s love. ‘ And now, alas ! for thy sad loss I ’ll evermore weep and sigh ; For thee I only wished to live, For thee I wish to die.’ ‘ Here, forced by grief and hopeless love, These holy weeds I sought ; And here, amid these lonely walls, To end my days I thought. ‘ But haply, for my year of grace Is not yet passed away, Might I still hope to win thy love, No longer would I stay.’ ‘ Weep no more, lady, weep no more ; Thy sorrow is in vain : For violets plucked, the sweetest shower Will ne’er make grow again. ‘Now farewell grief, and welcome joy Once more unto my heart ; For since I’ve found thee, lovely youth, We never more will part.’ * ‘ Our joys as winged dreams do fly ; Why then should sorrow last ? Since grief but aggravates thy loss, Grieve not for what is past.’ * 0 say not so, thou holy friar ! I pray thee say not so ; For since my true love died for me, ’Tis meet my tears should flow. ‘ And will he never come again — Will he ne’er come again? Ah, no ! he is dead, and laid in his grave, For ever to remain. ‘ His cheek was redder than the rose — The comeliest youth was he ; But he is dead and laid in his grave, Alas ! and woe is me.’ ‘ Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more, Men were 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, I pray thee say not so ; My love he had the truest heart — 0 he was ever true ! ‘ And art thou dead, thou much-loved youth ? And didst thou die for me ? Then farewell home ; for evermore A pilgrim I will be. JAMES MACPHERSON. The translator of Ossian stands in a dubious light with posterity, and seems to have been willing that his contemporaries should be no better informed. With the Celtic Homer, however, the name of James Macpherson. Macpherson is inseparably connected. They stand, as liberty does with reason, ‘ 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, I pray ; No drizzly rain that falls on mo, Can wash my fault away.’ ‘ Yet stay, fair lady, turn again, And dry those pearly tears ; For see, beneath this gown of gray, Thy own true love appears. Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being. Time and a better taste have abated the pleasure with which these productions were once read ; but poemsl* which engrossed so much attention, which were translated into many different languages, which were hailed with delight by Gray, by David Hume, John Home, and other eminent persons, and which, in a bad Italian translation, formed the favourite reading of Napoleon, cannot be considered as unworthy of notice. James Macpherson was born at Kingussie, a village in Inverness-shire, on the road northwards from Perth, in 1738. lie was intended for the church, and received the necessary education at Aberdeen. At the age of twenty, he published a * As this ballad resembles Goldsmith’s Edwin and Angelina, it is but right to mention that Goldsmith (as Percy has stated) had the priority. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. heroic poem, in six cantos, entitled The Highlander , which at once proved his ambition and his inca- pacity. It is a miserable production. For a short time Macpherson taught the school of Ruthven, near his native place, whence he was glad to remove as tutor in the family of Mr Graham of Balgowan. While attending his pupil (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) at the spa of Moffat, he became acquainted, in the autumn of 1759, with Mr John Home, the author of Douglas , to whom he shewed what he represented as translations of some frag- ments of ancient Gaelic poetry, which he said were still floating in the Highlands. He stated that it was one of the favourite amusements of his country- men to listen to the tales and compositions of their ancient bards, and he described these fragments as full of pathos and poetical imagery. Under the patronage of Mr Home’s friends — Blair, Carlyle, and Fergusson — Macpherson published next year a small volume of sixty pages, entitled Fragments of Ancient Poetry; translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language. The publication attracted general attention, and a subscription was made to enable Macpherson to make a tour in the Highlands to collect other pieces. His journey proved to be highly successful! In 1762 he presented the world with Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem , in Six Books; and in 1763, Temora , 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 remote mountains of Scotland, there- existed a people exhibiting all the high and chivalrous feelings of refined valour, generosity, magnanimity, and virtue, was eminently calculated to excite astonishment ; while the idea of the poems being handed down by tradition through so many centuries among rude, savage, and barbarous tribes, was no less astounding. Many doubted — others dis- believed — but a still greater number ‘ indulged the pleasing supposition that Fingal fought and Ossian sang.’ Macpherson realised £1200, it is said, by these productions. In 1764 the poet accompanied Governor Johnston to Pensacola as his secretary, but quarrelling with his patron, he returned, and fixed his residence in London. He became one of the literary supporters of the administration, pub- lished some historical works, and was a popular pamphleteer. In 1773 he published a translation of the Iliad in the same style of poetical prose as Ossian, which was a complete failure, unless as a source of ridicule and personal opprobrium to the translator. He was more successful as a politician. A pamphlet of his in defence of the taxation of America, and another on the opposition in parlia- ment in 1779, were much applauded. He attempted, as we have seen from his manuscripts, to combat the Letters of J unius, writing under the signatures of ‘Musaeus,’ ‘Scsevola,’ &c. He was appointed agent for the Nabob of Arcot, and obtained a seat in parliament as representative for the borough of Camelford. It does not appear, however, that, with all his ambition and political zeal, Macpherson ever attempted to speak in the House of Commons. In 1789 the poet, having realised a handsome fortune, purchased the property of Raitts, in his native parish, and having changed its name to the more euphonious and sounding one of ^gjlevillg v he built upon it a splendid residence designedly the Adelphi Adams, in the style of an Italian villa, in which he hoped to spend an old age of ease and dignity. He died at Belleville on the 17tli of February 1796, leaving a handsome fortune, which is still enjoyed by his family. His eldest daughter, Miss Mac- pherson, is at present (1858) proprietrix of the 14 estate. The eagerness of Macpherson for posthu- mous distinction was seen by some of the bequests of his will. He ordered that his body should be interred in Westminster Abbey, and that a sum of £300 should be laid out in erecting a monument to his memory in some conspicuous situation at Belleville. Both injunctions .were duly fulfilled ; the body was interred in Poets’ Corner, and a marble obelisk, containing a medallion portrait of the poet, may be seen gleaming amidst a clump of trees by the roadside near Kingussie. The fierce controversy which raged for some time as to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian, the incredulity of Johnson, and the obstinate silence of Macpherson, are circumstances well known. There seems to be no doubt that a great body of tradi- tional poetry was floating over the Highlands, which Macpherson collected and wrought up into regular poems. It would seem also that Gaelic manuscripts were in existence, which he received from different families to aid in his translation. One of these has been preserved in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh. It refers to a dialogue between Ossian and St Patrick on Christianity — a fact which Macpherson suppressed, as his object was to repre- sent the poems as some centuries older. The Irish antiquaries have published many of these Celtic fragments, and they appear to have established a good claim to Ossian. The poetry was common equally in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scot- land, varied to suit localities, or according to the taste, knowledge, and abilities of the reciter. The people, the language, and the legends were the same in both countries. How much of the pub- lished work is ancient, and how much fabricated, cannot now be ascertained. The Highland Society instituted a regular inquiry into the subject; and in their report, the committee 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 down to a comparatively 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 adapted to transmit from one generation to another the fragments of ancient song which had beguiled their infancy and youth, and which flattered their love of their ancestors. No person, however, now believes that Macpherson found entire epic poems in the Highlands. The original materials were probably as scanty as those on which Shakspeare founded the marvellous superstructures 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 supposition countenanced by many circumstances, that, after enjoying the pleasure of duping so many critics, Macpherson 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 with 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 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES MACPHEKSON. 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 Macpherson ; 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 distinct, yet nothing defined into absolute inde- pendent singleness. In Macpherson’s work it is exactly the reverse ; everything, that is not stolen, is in this manner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadened — yet nothing distinct. It will always be so when words are substituted for things.’ Part of this censure may perhaps be owing to the style and diction of Macpherson, which have a broken abrupt appearance and sound. The imagery is drawn from the natural appearances of a rude mountainous country. The grass of the rock, the flower of the heath, the thistle with its beard, are, as Blair observes, the chief ornaments of his landscapes. The desert, with all its woods and deer, was enough for Pingal. 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 and incidents of the poem. That there is something poetical and striking in Ossian — a wild solitary magnificence, pathos, and tenderness — is undeniable. The Desolation of Balclutha, and the 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. They are like the Quixotic encounters of knightly romance, and 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. [Qssiarfs Address to the Sun.] I feel the sun, 0 Malvina! leave me to my rest. Perhaps they may come to my dreams ; I think I hear a feeble voice ! The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave of Carthon : I feel it warm around. 0 thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers ! Whence are thy beams, 0 sun ! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful I beauty ; the stars hide themselves in the sky ; the ( moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall ; the mountains themselves decay with years ; the ocean shrinks and grows again ; the moon herself is lost in heaven, but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more ; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou trem- blest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps like me for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds careless of the voice of the morning. Exult, then, 0 sun, in the strength of thy youth ! Age is dark and unlovely ; it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills : the blast of the north is on the plain ; the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey. [FingaVs Airy Hall.] His friends sit around the king, on mist ! They hear the songs of Ullin : he strikes the half -viewless harp. He raises the feeble voice. The lesser heroes, with a thousand meteors, light the airy hall. Malvina rises in the midst ; a blush is on her cheek. She beholds the unknown faces of her fathers. She turns aside her humid eyes. ‘ Art thou come so soon ? ’ said Fingal, ‘ daughter of generous Toscar. Sadness dwells in the halls of Lutha. My aged son is sad ! I hear the breeze of Cona, that was wont to lift thy heavy locks. It comes to the hall, but thou art not there. Its voice is mournful among the arms of thy fathers ! Go, with thy rustling wing, 0 breeze ! sigh on Malvina’s tomb. It rises yonder beneath the rock, at the blue stream of Lutha. The maids are departed to their place. Thou alone, 0 breeze, mournest there ! ’ [ Address to the Moon .] Daughter of heaven, fair art thou ! the silence of thy face is pleasant ! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, 0 moon ! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows ? hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? have thy sisters fallen from heaven ? are they who rejoiced with thee, at night, no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light ! and thou dost often retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail, one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads : they, who were ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, 0 wind ! that the daughter of night may look forth ! that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves in light. [Desolation of Balclutha.] I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls ; and the voice of the people is heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook there its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows ; the rank grass of the wall waved round its head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina ; silence is in the house of her fathers. Raise the song of mourn- ing, 0 bards ! over the land of strangers. They have but fallen before us : for one day we must fall. Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days ? Thou lookest from thy towers to-day : yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes ; it howls in thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. And let the blast of the desert come ! we shall be renowned in our day ! The mark of my arm shall be in battle ; my name in the song of bards. Raise the song, send round the shell : let joy be heard in my hall. When thou, sun of heaven, shalt fail ! if thou shalt fail, thou mighty light ! if thy brightness is but for a season, like Fingal, our fame shall survive thy beams. Such was the song of Fingal in the day of his joy. [A Description of Female Beauty.] The daughter of the snow overheard, and left the hall of her secret sigh. She came in all her beauty, like the moon from the cloud of the east. Loveliness was around her as light. Her steps were like the music of songs. She saw the youth and loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul. Her blue eyes rolled on him in secret; and she blest the chief of Morven. 15 from 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF ' to 1800. [The Songs of Selma.] Star of descending night ! fair is thy light in the west ! thou liftest thy unshorn head from thy cloud : thy steps are stately on thy hill. What dost thou behold in the plain? The stormy winds are laid. The murmur of the torrent comes from afar. Roaring waves climb the distant rock. The flies of evening are on their feeble wings ; the hum of their course is on the field. What dost thou behold, fair light ? But thou dost smile and depart. The waves come with joy around thee : they bathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thou silent beam ! Let the light of Ossian’s soul arise ! And it does arise in its strength ! I behold my departed friends. Their gathering is on Lora, as in the days of other years. Fingal comes like a watery column of mist ; his heroes are around : And see the bards of song, gray-haired Ullin ! stately Ryno ! Alpin, with the tuneful voice ! the soft complaint of Minona ! How are ye changed, my friends, since the days of Selma’s feast ? when we contended, like gales of spring, as they fly along the hill, and bend by turns the feebly whistling grass. Minona came forth in her beauty, with downcast look and tearful eye. Her hair flew slowly on the blast, that rushed unfrequent from the hill. The souls of the heroes were sad when she raised the tuneful voice. Often had they seen the grave of Salgar, the dark dwelling of white-bosomed Colma. Colma left alone on the hill, with all her voice of song ! Salgar promised to come : but the night descended around. Hear the voice of Colma, when she sat alone on the hill ! Colma. It is night ; I am alone, forlorn on the hill of storms. The wind is heard in the mountain. The torrent pours down the rock. No hut receives me from the rain ; forlorn on the hill of winds ! Rise, moon ! from behind thy clouds. Stars of the night, arise ! Lead me, some light, to the place where my love rests from the chase alone ! his bow near him, unstrung: his dogs panting around him. But here I must sit alone, by the rock of the mossy stream. The stream and the wind roar aloud. I hear not the voice of my love ! Why delays my Salgar, why the chief of the hill his promise? Here is the rock, and here the tree ! here is the roaring stream ! Thou didst promise with night to be here. Ah ! whither is my Salgar gone ? With thee I would fly from my father ; with thee from my brother of pride. Our race have long been foes ; we are not foes, 0 Salgar ! Cease a little while, 0 wind ! stream, be thou silent a while ! let my voice be heard around ! Let my wan- derer hear me ! Salgar, it is Colma who calls ! Here is the tree and the rock. Salgar, my love ! I am here. Why delayest thou thy coming ? Lo ! the calm moon comes forth. The flood is bright in the vale. The rocks are gray on the steep. I see him not on the brow. His dogs come not before him with tidings of his near approach. Here I must sit alone ! Who lie on the heath beside me? Are they my love and my brother ? Speak to me, 0 my friend ! To Colma they give no reply. Speak to me : I am alone ! My soul is tormented with fears ! Ah ! they are dead ! Their swords are red from the fight. 0 my brother ! my brother ! why hast thou slain my Salgar ? why, 0 Salgar ! hast thou slain my brother ? Dear were ye both to me ! what shall I say in your praise ? Thou wert fair on the hill among thousands ! he was terrible in fight. Speak to me ; hear my voice ; hear me, sons of my love ! They are silent ; silent for ever ! Cold, cold are their breasts of clay ! Oh ! from the rock on the hill ; from the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead ! speak, I will not be afraid ! Whither are you gone to rest ? In what cave of the hill shall I find the departed? No feeble voice is on the gale: no answer half-drowned in the storm ! 16 I sit in my grief ! I wait for morning in my tears ! Rear the tomb, ye friends of the dead. Close it not till Colma come. My life flies away like a dream : why should I stay behind? Here shall I rest with my friends by the stream of the sounding rock. When night comes on the hill, when the loud winds arise, my ghost shall stand in the blast, and mourn the death of my friends. The hunter shall hear from his booth ; he shall fear, but love my voice ! for sweet shall my voice be for my friends: pleasant were her friends to Colma ! Such was thy song, Minona, softly blushing daughter of Torman. Our tears descended for Colma, and our souls were sad ! Ullin came with his harp ; he gave the song of Alpin. The voice of Alpin was pleasant ; the soul of Ryno was a beam of fire ! But they had rested in the narrow house ; their voice had ceased in Selma. Ullin had returned one day from the chase before the heroes fell. He heard their strife on the hill ; their song was soft but sad ! They mourned the fall of Morar, first of mortal men ! His soul was like the soul of Fingal ; his sword like the sword of Oscar. But he fell, and his father mourned ; his sister’s eyes were full of tears. Minona’ s eyes were full of tears, the sister of car-borne Morar. She retired from the song of Ullin, like the moon in the west, when she foresees the shower, and hides her fair head in a cloud. I touched the harp, with Ullin ; the song of mourning rose ! Ryno. The wind and the rain are past ; calm is the noon of day. The clouds are divided in heaven. Over the green hills flies the inconstant sun. Red through the stony vale comes down the stream of the hill. Sweet are thy murmurs, 0 stream ! but more sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead ! Bent is his head of age ; red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? why complainest thou, as a blast in the wood ; as a wave on the lonely shore ? ■ Alpin. My tears, 0 Ryno ! are for the dead ; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar ; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more ; thy bow shall lie in the hall, unstrung ! Thou wert swift, 0 Morar ! as a roe on the desert ; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was a stream after rain ; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were con- sumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow ! Thy face was like the sun after rain ; like the moon in the silence of night ; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid. Narrow is thy dwelling now ; dark the place of thine abode ! With three steps I compass thy grave, 0 thou who wast so great before ! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter’s eye the grave of the mighty Morar. Morar ! thou art low indeed. Thou hast no mother to mourn thee ; no maid with her tears of love. Dead is she that brought thee forth. Fallen is the daughter of Morglan. Who on his staff is this? who is this, whose head is white with age ? whose eyes are red with tears ? who quakes at every step ? It is thy father, 0 Morar ! the father of no son but thee. He heard of thy fame in war ; he heard of foes dispersed ; he heard of Morar’ s renown ; why did he not hear of his wound ? Weep, thou father of Morar ! weep ; but thy son heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead ; low their pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice ; no more awake at thy call. When shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake? Farewell, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS CHATTERTON. thou bravest of men ! thou conqueror in the field ! but the field shall see thee no more ; nor the dark wood be lightened with the splendour of thy steel. Thou hast left no son. The song shall preserve thy name. Future times shall hear of thee ; they shall hear of the fallen Morar ! * * Such were the words of the bards in the days of song, when the king heard the music of harps, the tales of other times ! The chiefs gathered from all their hills, and heard the lovely sound. They praised the voice of Cona ! the first among a thousand bards ! But age is now on my tongue ; my soul has failed ! I hear, at times, the ghosts of bards, and learn their pleasant song. But memory fails on my mind. I hear the call of years ! They say, as they pass along, why does Ossian sing ? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, and no bard shall raise his fame ! Roll on, ye dark-brown years ; ye bring no joy on your course ! Let the tdmb open to Ossian, for his strength has failed. The sons of song are gone to rest. My voice remains, like a blast that roars, lonely on a sea-surrounded rock, after the winds are laid. The dark moss whistles there ; the distant mariner sees the waving trees ! When Macplierson had not the groundwork of Ossian to build upon, he was a very indifferent poet. The following, however, shews that, though his taste was defective, he had poetical fancy : The Cave — Written in the Highlands. The wind is up, the field is bare, Some hermit lead me to his cell, Where Contemplation, lonely fair, With blessed content has chose to dwell. Behold ! it opens to my sight, Dark in the rock, beside the flood ; Dry fern around obstructs the light ; The winds above it move the wood. Reflected in the lake, I see The downward mountains and the skies, The flying bird, the waving tree, The goats that on the hill arise. The gray-cloaked herd drives on the cow ; The slow-paced fowler walks the heath ; A freckled pointer scours the brow ; A musing shepherd stands beneath. Curved o’er the ruin of an oak, The woodman lifts his axe on high ; The hills re-echo to the stroke ; I see — I see the shivers fly ! Some rural maid, with apron full, Brings fuel to the homely flame ; I see the smoky columns roll, And, through the chinky hut, the beam. Beside a stone o’ergrown with moss, Two well-met hunters talk at ease ; Three panting dogs beside repose ; One bleeding deer is stretched on grass. A lake at distance spreads to sight, Skirted with shady forests round ; In midst, an island’s rocky height Sustains a ruin, once renowned. One tree bends o’er the naked walls ; Two broad-winged eagles hover nigh ; By intervals a fragment falls, As blows the blast along the sky. 54 The rough-spun hinds the pinnace guide With labouring oars along the flood ; An angler, bending o’er the tide, Hangs from the boat the insidious wood. Beside the flood, beneath the rocks, On grassy bank, two lovers lean ; Bend on each other amorous looks, And seem to laugh and kiss between. The wind is rustling in the oak ; They seem to hear the tread of feet ; They start, they rise, look round the rock ; Again they smile, again they meet. But see ! the gray mist from the lake Ascends upon the shady hills ; Dark storms the murmuring forests shake, Rain beats around a hundred rills. To Damon’s homely hut I fly ; I see it smoking on the plain ; When storms are past and fair the sky, I ’ll often seek my cave again. From Macpherson’s manuscripts at Belleville we copy the following fragment, marked An Address to Venus , 1785 : Thrice blest, and more than thrice, the morn Whose genial gale and purple light Awaked, then chased the night, On which the Queen of Love was born ! Yet hence the sun’s unhallowed ray, With native beams let Beauty glow ; What need is there of other day, Than the twin-stars that light those hills of snow ? THOMAS CHATTERTON. Tlie success of Macpherson’s Ossian seems to have prompted the remarkable forgeries of Chatterton — The marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.* Such precocity of genius was never perhaps before witnessed. We have the poems of Pope and Cowley written, one at twelve , and the other at fifteen years of age, but both were inferior to the verses of Chat- terton at eleven ; and his imitations of the antique, executed when he was fifteen and sixteen, exhibit a vigour of thought and facility of versification — to say nothing of their antiquarian character, which puzzled the most learned men of the day, and stamp him a poet of the first class. His education also was miserably deficient ; yet when a mere boy, eleven years of age, this obscure youth could write as follows : Almighty Framer of the skies, 0 let our pure devotion rise Like incense in thy sight ! Wrapt in impenetrable shade, The texture of our souls was made, Till thy command gave light. The sun of glory gleamed, the ray Refined the darkness into day, And bid the vapours fly : Impelled by his eternal love, He left his palaces above, To cheer our gloomy sky. * Wordsworth. 17 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. How shall we celebrate the day, When God appeared in mortal clay, The mark of worldly scorn. When the archangel’s heavenly lays Attempted the Redeemer’s praise, And hailed Salvation’s morn ? A humble form the Godhead wore, The pains of poverty he bore, To gaudy pomp unknown : Though in a human walk he trod, Still was the man Almighty God, In glory all his own. Despised, oppressed, the Godhead bears The torments of this vale of tears, Nor bids his vengeance rise : He saw the creatures he had made Revile his power, his peace invade, He saw with Mercy’s eyes. Thomas Chatterton was born at Bristol, Novem- ber 20, 1752. His father, who had taught the Free School there, died before his birth, and he was educated at a charity school, where nothing but English, writing, and accounts were taught. His Thomas Chatterton. first lessons were said to have been from a black- letter Bible, which may have had some effect on his youthful imagination. At the age of fourteen he was put apprentice to an attorney, where his situation was irksome and uncomfortable, but left him ample time to prosecute his private studies. He was passionately devoted to poetry, antiquities, and heraldry, and ambitious of distinction. His ruling passion, he says, was ‘unconquerable pride.’ He now set himself to accomplish his various imposi- tions by pretended discoveries of old manuscripts. In October 1768 the new bridge at Bristol was finished; and Chatterton sent to a newspaper in the town a pretended account of the ceremonies on opening the old bridge, introduced by a letter to the printer, intimating that ‘ the description of the friars first passing over the old bridge was taken from an ancient manuscript.’ To one man, fond of heraldic honours, he gave a pedigree reaching up to the time of William the Conqueror ; to another he presents an ancient poem, the Romaunt of the Cnyghte , written by one of his ancestors 450 years before; to a religious citizen of Bristol he gives an ancient fragment of a sermon on the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, as wroten by Thomas Rowley, a monk of the fifteenth century ; to another, solicitous of obtaining information about Bristol, he makes the valuable present of an account of all the churches of the city, as they appeared three hundred years before, and accompanies it with drawings and descriptions of the castle, the whole pretended to be drawn from writings of the ‘ gode prieste Thomas Rowley.’ Horace Walpole was engaged in ■writing the History of British Painters , and Chatterton sent him an account of eminent ‘ Carvellers and Peync- ters,’ who once flourished in Bristol. These, with various impositions of a similar nature, duped the citizens of Bristol. Chatterton had no confidant in his labours ; he toiled in secret, gratified only by ‘ the stoical pride of talent.’ He frequently wrote by moonlight, conceiving that the immediate pre- sence of that luminary added to the inspiration. His Sundays were commonly spent in walking alone into the country about Bristol, and drawing sketches of churches and other objects. He would also lie down on the meadows in view of St Mary’s Church, Bristol, fix his eyes upon the ancient edifice, and seem as if he were in a kind of trance. He thus nursed the enthusiasm which destroyed him. Though correct and orderly in Ills conduct, Chat- terton, before he was sixteen, imbibed principles of infidelity, and the idea of suicide was familiar to his mind. It was, however, overruled for a time by his passion for literary fame and distinction. It was a favourite maxim with him, that man is equal to anything, and that everything might be achieved by diligence and abstinence. His alleged discoveries having attracted great attention, the youth stated that he found the manuscripts in his mother’s house. ‘In the muniment room of St Mary Redcliffe Church of Bristol, several chests had been anciently deposited, among which was one called the “Coffre” of Mr Canynge, an eminent merchant of Bristol, who h^d rebuilt the church in the reign of Edward IV. About the year 1727 those chests had been broken open by an order from proper authority: some ancient deeds had been taken out, and the remaining manuscripts left exposed as of no value. Chatterton’s father, whose uncle was sexton of the church, had carried off great numbers of the parchments, and had used them as covers for books in his school. Amidst the residue of his father’s ravages, Chatterton gave out that he had found many writings of Mr Canynge, and of Thomas Rowley — the friend of Canynge — a priest of the fifteenth century.’* These fictitious poems were published in the Town and Country Magazine , to which Chatterton had become a contributor, and occasioned a warm controversy among literary antiquaries. Some of them he had submitted to Horace Walpole, who shewed them to Gray and Mason; but these competent judges pro- nounced them to be forgeries. After three years spent in the attorney’s office, Chatterton obtained his release from his apprenticeship, and went to London, where he engaged in various tasks for the booksellers, and wrote for the magazines and news- papers. He obtained an introduction to Beckford, the patriotic and popular lord-mayor, and his own * Campbell’a Specimens. POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS CHATTERTON. inclinations led him to espouse the opposition party. ‘ But no money/ he says, ‘ is to he got on that side of the question ; interest is on the other side. But he is a poor author who cannot write on both sides’ He boasted that his company was courted every- where, and ‘ that he would settle the nation before he had done.’ The splendid visions of promotion and wealth, however, soon vanished, and even his labours for the periodical press failed to afford him the means of comfortable subsistence. He applied for the appointment of a surgeon’s mate to Africa, but was refused the necessary recommenda- tion. This seems to have been his last hope, and he made no further effort at literary composition. His spirits had always been unequal, alternately gloomy and elevated — both in extremes ; he had cast off the restraints of religion, and had no steady principle to guide him, unless it was a strong affection for his mother and sister, to whom he sent remittances of money, while his means lasted. Habits of intem- perance, succeeded by fits of remorse, exasperated his constitutional melancholy ; and after being reduced to actual want — though with character- istic pride he rejected a dinner offered him by his landlady the day before his death — he tore all his papers, and destroyed himself by taking arsenic, August 25, 1770. At the time of his death he was aged seventeen years nine months and a few days. 1 No English poet/ says Campbell, ‘ ever equalled him at the same age.’ The remains of the unhappy youth were interred in a shell in the burying-ground of Shoe-Lane workhouse. His unfinished papers he had destroyed before his death, and his room, when broken open, was found covered with scraps of paper. The citizens of Bristol have erected a monument to the memory of their native poet. The poems of Chatterton, published under the name of Rowley, consist of the tragedy of Ella , the Execution of Sir Charles Bawdin , Ode to Ella , the Battle of Hastings , the Tournament , one or two Dialogues, and a description of Canynge’s Feast. Some of them, as the Ode to Ella (which we sub- join), have exactly the air of modern poetry, only disguised with antique spelling and phraseology. The avowed compositions of Chatterton are equally inferior to the forgeries in poetical powers and diction ; which is satisfactorily accounted for by Sir Walter Scott by the fact, that his whole powers and energies must, at his early age, have been con- verted to the acquisition of the obsolete language and peculiar style necessary to support the deep- laid deception. ‘ He could have had no time for the study of our modern poets, their rules of verse, or modes of expression ; while his whole faculties were intensely employed in the Herculean task of creat- ing the person, history, and language of an ancient poet, which, vast as these faculties were, were suffi- cient wholly to engross, though not to overburden them.’ A power of picturesque painting seems to be Chatterton’s most distinguishing feature as a poet. The heroism of Sir Charles Bawdin, who Summed the actions of the day Each night before he slept, and who bearded the tyrant king on his way to the scaffold, is perhaps liis most striking portrait. The following description of Morning in the tragedy of Ella , is in the style of the old poets : Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight, From the red east he flitted with his train ; The Houris draw away the gate of Night, Her sable tapestry was rent in twain : The dancing streaks bedecked heaven’s plain, And on the dew did smile with skimmering eye, Like gouts of blood which do black armour stain, Shining upon the bourn which standeth by ; The soldiers stood upon the hillis side, Like young enleaved trees which in a forest bide. A description of Spring in the same poem : The budding floweret blushes at the light, The meads be sprinkled with the yellow hue, In daisied mantles is the mountain dight, The fresh young cowslip bendeth with the dew ; The trees enleafed, into heaven straight, When gentle winds do blow, to whistling din is brought. The evening comes, and brings the dews along, The ruddy welkin shineth to the eyne, Around the ale-stake 1 minstrels sing the song, Young ivy round the door-post doth entwine; I lay me on the grass, yet to my will Albeit all is fair, there lacketh something still. In the epistle to Canynge, Chatterton has a striking censure of the religious interludes which formed the early drama ; but the idea, as Warton remarks, is the result of that taste and discrimination which could only belong to a more advanced period of society : Plays made from holy tales I hold unmeet ; Let some great story of a man be sung ; When as a man we God and Jesus treat, In my poor mind we do the Godhead wrong. 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 Ills original genius. In his 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 your interest in the town advance, Above the reach of muses or romance. In a poem, entitled The Prophecy , are some vigorous j 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 ! 1 The sign-post of an ale-house. 19 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800 . The entrance safe, by current led, Sir Canterlone then bended low, Tiding round G — ’s jetty head ; Look up, ye Britons ! cease to sigh, For your redemption draweth nigh. With heart brimful of woe ; He journeyed to the castle-gate, And to Sir Charles did go. 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, 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. 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 ; ‘ 0 good Sir Charles ! ’ said Canterlone, ‘ Bad tidings I do bring.’ ‘Speak boldly, man,’ said brave Sir Charles ; ‘ What says the traitor- king ?’ 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, ‘ I grieve to tell : before yon sun Does from the welkin fly, He hath upon his honour sworn, That thou shalt surely die.’ And doomed a victim for the sins Of half the outs and all the ins ; Look up, ye Britons ! cease to sigh, For your redemption draweth nigh. ‘ 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. 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 right demand — For your redemption ’s in your hand. ‘ 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 is your time to strike the blow, And let the slaves of Mammon know, Britain’s true sons a bribe can scorn, Then Canterlone he did go out, To tell the mayor straight To get all things in readiness For good Sir Charles’s fate. And die as free as they were bora. Virtue again shall take her seat, And your redemption stand complete. The boy who could thus write at sixteen, might soon have proved a Swift or a Dryden. Yet in Then Mr Canynge sought the king, And fell down on his knee ; ‘I’m come,’ quoth he, ‘ unto your grace, To move your clemency.’ satire, Chatterton evinced but a small part of his power. His Rowleian poems have a compass of invention, and a luxuriance of fancy, that promised a great chivalrous or allegorical poet of the stamp of Spenser. ‘ Then,’ quoth the king, ‘ your tale speak out, You have been much our friend ; Whatever you request may be, We will to it attend.’ Bristow Tragedy , or the Death of Sir Charles B aw din* The feathered songster chanticleer Had wound his bugle-horn, ‘ My noble liege ! all my request Is for a noble knight, Who, though mayhap he has done wrong, He thought it still was right. 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, ‘ He has a spouse and children twain ; All ruined are for aye, If that you are resolved to let Charles Bawdin die to-day.’ Proclaim the fated day. ‘ Thou ’rt right,’ quoth he, ‘ for by the God That sits enthroned on high ! Charles Bawdin, and his fellows twain, ‘ Speak not of such a traitor vile,’ The king in fury said ; ‘ Before the evening-star doth shine, Bawdin shall lose his head : 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 ‘ Justice does loudly for him call, And he shall have his meed : Speak, Mr Canynge ! what thing else At present do you need V He leaves this mortal state.’ * The antiquated orthography affected by Chatterton being evidently no advantage to his poems, but rather an impedi- ment to their being generally read, we dismiss it in this and ‘ My noble liege !’ good Canynge said, ‘Leave justice to our God, And lay the iron rule aside ; Be thine the olive rod. other specimens. The diction is, in reality, almost purely modern, and Chatterton’s spelling in a great measure arbi- trary, so that there seems no longer any reason for retaining what was only designed at first as a means of supporting a deception. 20 ‘ 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. poets. ENGLISH LITERATURE. thomas chatterton. ‘ Let mercy rule thine infant reign, ’Twill fix thy crown full sure ; From race to race thy family All sovereigns shall endure : ‘ 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. ‘ But if with blood and slaughter thou Begin thy infant reign, Thy crown upon thy children’s brows Will never long remain.’ ‘ 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. ‘ Canynge, away ! this traitor vile Has scorned my power and me ; How canst thou, then, for such a man Entreat my clemency ? ’ ‘ 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. ‘ My noble liege ! the truly brave Will valorous actions prize ; Respect a brave and noble mind, Although in enemies.’ ‘ In London city was I born, Of parents of great note ; My father did a noble arms Emblazon on his coat : ‘ 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 ! ‘ 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 woe. ‘ By Mary, and all saints in heaven, This sun shall be his last ! ’ Then Canynge dropped a briny tear, And from the presence passed. ‘ 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 : With heart brimful of gnawing grief, He to Sir Charles did go, And sat him down upon a stool, And tears began to flow. ‘ He taught me with a prudent hand To feed the hungry poor, Nor let my servants drive away The hungry from my door : ‘ 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. * 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. ‘ 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 V ‘ 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. Saith godly Canynge : ‘ I do weep, That thou so soon must die, And leave thy sons and helpless wife ; ’Tis this that wets mine eye.’ ‘ In Lent, and on the holy eve, From flesh I did refrain ; Why should I then appear dismayed To leave this world of pain ? ‘ Then dry the tears that out thine eye From godly fountains spring ; Death I despise, and all the power Of Edward, traitor-king. ‘ No, hapless Henry ! I rejoice I shall not see thy death ; Most willingly in thy just cause Do I resign my breath. ‘ When through the tyrant’s welcome means I shall resign my life, The God I serve will soon provide For both my sons and wife. ‘ Oh, fickle people ! ruined land ! Thou wilt ken peace no moe ; While Richard’s sons exalt themselves, Thy brooks with blood will flow. ‘ Before I saw the lightsome sun, This was appointed me ; Shall mortal man repine or grudge What God ordains to be ? * 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 ? ‘ How oft in battle have I stood, When thousands died around ; When smoking streams of crimson blood Imbrued the fattened ground : ‘ 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 : ‘ How did 1 know that every dart That cut the airy way, Might not find passage to my heart, And close mine eyes for aye ? * What though, uphoisted on a pole, My limbs shall rot in air, .And no rich monument of brass Charles Bawdin’s name shall bear ; 21 J from 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. ‘ Yet in the holy hook above, Which time can’t eat away, There with the servants of the Lord My name shall live for aye. ’Till tired out with raving loud, She fell upon the floor ; Sir Charles exerted all his might, And marched from out the door. ‘ Then welcome death ! for life eterae I leave this mortal life : Farewell, vain world, and all that ’s dear, My sons and loving wife ! Upon a sledge he mounted then, With looks full brave and sweet ; Looks that enshone no more concern Than any in the street. ‘ 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.’ Before him went the council-men, In scarlet robes and gold, And tassels spangling in the sun, Much glorious to behold : Saith Canynge : *’Tis a goodly thing To be prepared to die ; And from tins world of pain and grief To God in heaven to fly.’ The friars of Saint Augustine next Appeared to the sight, All clad in homely russet weeds, Of godly monkish plight : And now the bell began to toll, And clarions to sound ; Sir Charles he heard the horses’ feet A -prancing on the ground. In different parts a godly psalm Most sweetly they did chant ; Behind their back six minstrels came, Who tuned the strange bataunt. And just before the officers His loving wife came in, Weeping unfeigned tears of woe With loud and dismal din. Then five-and-twenty archers came ; Each one the bow did bend, From rescue of King Henry’s friends Sir Charles for to defend. ‘ Sweet Florence ! now I pray forbear, In quiet let me die ; Pray God that every Christian soul May look on death as L Bold as a lion came Sir Charles, Drawn on a cloth-laid sledde, By two black steeds in trappings white, With plumes upon their head. ‘ Sweet Florence ! why these briny tears ? They wash my soul away, And almost make me wish for life, With thee, sweet dame, to stay. Behind him five-and-twenty more Of archers strong and stout, With bended bow each one in hand, Marched in goodly rout. ‘ ’Tis but a journey I shall go Unto the land of bliss ; Now, as a proof of husband’s love Receive this holy kiss.’ Saint James’s friars marched next, Each one his part did chant ; Behind their backs six minstrels came, Who tuned the strange bataunt. Then Florence, faltering in her say, Trembling these wordis spoke : ‘Ah, cruel Edward ! bloody king ! My heart is well-nigh broke. Then came the mayor and aldermen, In cloth of scarlet decked ; And their attending men each one, Like eastern princes tricked. ‘ 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 after them a multitude Of citizens did throng ; The windows were all full of heads, As he did pass along. And now the officers came in To bring Sir Charles away, Who turned to his loving wife, And thus to her did say : And when he came to the high cross, Sir Charles did turn and say : ‘ 0 thou that savest man from sin, Wash my soul clean this day.’ ‘ 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. At the great minster window sat The king in mickle state, To see Charles Bawdin go along To his most welcome fate. ‘ Teach them to run the noble race That I their father run. Florence ! should death thee take — adiea ! Ye officers lead on.’ Soon as the sledde drew nigh enough, That Edward he might bear, The brave Sir Charles he did stand up, And thus his words declare : Then Florence raved as any mad, And did her tresses tear ; ‘0 stay, my husband, lord, and life !’— Sir Charles then dropped a tear. 22 ‘ Thou seest me, Edward ! traitor vile ! Exposed to infamy ; But be assured, disloyal man, I ’m greater now than thee. POETS. • ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS CHATTERTON. ‘ By foul proceedings, murder, blood, Thou wearest now a crown ; And hast appointed me to die By power not thine own. ‘Thou thinkest I shall die to-day; I have been dead till now, And soon shall live to wear a crown For aye upon my brow ; ‘ Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few years, Shalt rule this fickle land, To let them know how wide the rule ’Twixt king and tyrant hand. ‘ Thy power unjust, thou traitor slave ! Shall fall on thy own head ’ — From out of hearing of the king Departed then the sledde. King Edward’s soul rushed to his face, He turned his head away, And to his brother Gloucester He thus did speak and say : ‘ To him that so-much-dreaded death No ghastly terrors bring ; Behold the man ! he spake the truth ; He’s greater than a king !’ ‘ 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.’ And now the horses gently drew Sir Charles up the high hill ; The axe did glister in the sun, His precious blood to spill. Sir Charles did up the scaffold go, As up a gilded car Of victory, by valorous chiefs Gained in the bloody war. And to the people he did say : ‘ Behold you see me die, For serving loyally my king, My king most rightfully. ‘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. ‘ You leave your good and lawful king, When in adversity ; Like me, unto the true cause stick, And for the true cause die.’ Then he, with priests, upon his knees, A prayer to God did make, Beseeching him unto himself His parting soul to take. Then, kneeling down, he laid his head Most seemly on the block ; Which from his body fair at once The able headsman stroke : And out the blood began to flow, And round the scaffold twine ; And tears, enough to wash ’t away, Did flow from each man’s eyne. The bloody axe his body fair Into four partis cut ; And every part, and eke his head, Upon a pole was put. One part did rot on Kinwulph-hill, One on the minster-tower, And one from off the castle-gate The crowen did devour. The other on Saint Paul’s good gate, A dreary spectacle ; His head was placed on the high cross, In high street most noble. 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 ! [The MinstreVs Song in Ella.] Oh ! sing unto my roundelay ; Oh ! 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. 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, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. 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, 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 thei willow-tree. With my hands I ’ll bind the briers, Round his holy corse to gre ; 1 Elfin-fairy, light your fires, Here my body still shall be. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. My love is dead, Gone to liis 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, 1 Bear me to your deadly tide. I die — I come — my true-love waits. Thus the damsel spake, and died. Resignation. 0 God, whose thunder shakes the sky, Whose eye this atom globe surveys ; To Thee, my only rock, I fly, Thy mercy in thy justice praise. 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. 0 teach me 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 bat 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. 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. WILLIAM FALCONER. Tlie terrors and circumstances of a shipwreck had been often described by poets, ancient and modem, but never with any attempt at professional j accuracy or minuteness of detail before the poem j of that name by Falconer. It was reserved for a I genuine sailor to disclose, in correct and harmonious verse, the ‘secrets of the deep,’ and to enlist the J sympathies of the general reader in favour of the I daily life and occupations of his brother- seamen, ; and in all the movements, the equipage, and tracery I of those magnificent vessels which have carried the 1 British name and enterprise to the remotest 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 con- sultations and resolutions as the ship labours in distress — and the brave unselfish piety and gene- rosity 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 recommenda- tions to the British public, whose national pride and honour, and commercial greatness, are so closely identified with the sea, and so many of whom have ‘ some friend, some brother there.’ William Falconer was born in Edinburgh on the 11th of February 1732, 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 merchant-ship, and was 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 sliipwrecked off Cape Colonna, as described in his poem. In 1751 he was living in Edinburgh, where he published his first poetical attempt, a monody on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The choice of such a subject by a young friendless Scottish sailor, was as singular as the depth of grief he describes in his poem ; for Falconer, on this occasion, wished, with a zeal worthy of ancient Pistol, To assist the pouring rains with brimful eyes, And aid hoarse howling Boreas with his sighs ! He continued in the merchant-service for about ten years. In 1762 appeared his poem of The Shipwreck , preceded by a dedication to the Duke of York. The work was eminently successful, and his royal 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 dictionary. In October 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 Mozambique Channel. No ‘tuneful Arion’ was left to commemorate this calamity, the poet having died under the circumstances he had formerly described in the case of his youthful associates of the Britannia. Three editions of the Shipwreck were published during the author’s life. The second (1764) was greatly enlarged, having about nine hundred new lines added. Before embarking on his last fatal voyage, Falconer published a third edition, dated October 1, 1769— the day preceding his departure from England. About two hundred more lines were added to the poem in this edition, and various alterations and transpositions made in the text. These were not all improvements: some of the , most poetical passages were injured, and parts of ; the narrative confused. Hence one of the poet’s editors, Mr Stanier Clarke, in a splendid illustrated POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM FALCONER. copy of the poem, 1804, restored many of the dis- carded lines, and presented a text compounded of the three different editions. This version of the poem is that now generally printed ; hut in a sub- sequent illustrated edition, by the Messrs Black, Edinburgh, 1858, Falconer’s third and latest edition is more closely followed. Mr Clarke conjectured — and other editors have copied his error — that Falconer, overjoyed at his appointment to the Aurora, and busy preparing for his voyage, had intrusted to his friend David Mallet the revision of the poem, and that Mallet had corrupted the text. Now, it is sufficient to say that Mallet had been four years dead, and that Falconer, in the advertisement prefixed to the work, expressly states that he had himself subjected it to a strict and thorough revision. Unfortunately, as in the case of Akenside, the success of the poet had not been commensurate with his anxiety and labour. The Shipwreck has the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and a safe guide to practical seamen. Its nautical rules and directions are approved of by all experienced naval officers. At first, the poet does not seem to have done more than describe in nautical phrase and simple narrative the melancholy disaster he had witnessed. The characters of Albert, Rodmond, Palemon, and Anna, were added in the second edition of the work. By choosing the shipwreck of the Britannia, Falconer imparted a train of interesting recollec- tions 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 Marathon, there is no scene more interesting 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 beauty of the prospect over “ isles that crown the JEgean deep ; ” but for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer’s Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell — Here in the dead of night by Lonna’s steep, The seaman’s cry was heard along the deep.’ Falconer was not insensible to the charms of these historical and classic associations, and he was still more alive to the 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 narrative where its interest is most engrossing, besides being occasionally feeble and affected. The characters of his naval officers are finely discrimi- nated: Albert, the commander, is brave, liberal, and just, softened and refined by domestic ties and superior information; Rodmond, the next in rank, is coarse and boisterous, a hardy, weather-beaten son of Northumberland, yet of a kind compassionate nature, 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 eldest born. The truth of the whole poem is indeed one of its 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 liber- ally made for the peculiar situation of the author, while he rivets our attention to the scenes of trial and distress which he so fortunately survived to describe. [From the Shipwreck] The sun’s bright orb, declining all serene, Now glanced obliquely o’er the woodland scene. Creation smiles around ; on every spray The warbling birds exalt their evening lay. Blithe skipping o’er yon hill, the fleecy train Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain ; The golden lime and orange there were seen, On fragrant branches of perpetual green. The crystal streams, that velvet meadows lave, To the green ocean roll with chiding wave. The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar, But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore : 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, Or genial wine, awake their homely strain : Then some the watch of night alternate keep, The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep. Deep midnight now involves the livid skies, While infant breezes from the shore arise. The waning moon, behind a watery shroud, Pale-glimmered o’er the long-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. 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 Palemon 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, While 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 boisterous cry : ‘ All hands unmoor ! ’ the caverned rocks reply. 25 FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OP Roused from repose, aloft the sailors swarm, And with their levers soon the windlass arm. The order given, upspringing with a hound They lodge their bars, and wheel their engine round : At every turn the clanging pauls resound. Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave, The ponderous anchor rises o’er the wave. Along their slippery masts the yards ascend, And high in air the canvas wings extend : Redoubling cords the lofty canvas 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 die away. 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 stud-sails 1 now their wings extend, Then stay- sails sidelong to the breeze ascend : While all to court the wandering breeze are placed ; With yards now thwarting, now obliquely braced. 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 their rules of art apply, The mystic needle’s devious aim to try. The compass placed to catch the rising ray , 2 The quadrant’s shadows studious they survey ! Along the arch the gradual index slides, While Phoebus down the vertic circle glides. Now, seen on ocean’s utmost verge to swim, He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb. Their sage experience thus explores the height, And polar distance of the source of light ; Then through the chiliad’s triple maze they trace The analogy that proves the magnet’s place. The wayward steel, to truth thus reconciled, No more the attentive pilot’s eye beguiled. 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 , 3 that close above in contrast shone, Clasp the long fabric with a jetty zone. 1 Studding-sails are long narrow sails, which are only used in fine weather and fair winds, on the outside of the larger square-sails. Stay-sails are three-cornered sails, which are hoisted up on the stays, when the wind crosses the ship’s course either directly or obliquely. 2 The operation of taking the sun’s azimuth, in order to dis- cover the eastern or western variation of the magnetical needle. 3 The wales here alluded to are an assemblage of strong planks, which envelop the lower part of the ship’s side, TO 1800. Britannia, riding awful on tbe prow, Grazed o’er tbe vassal-wave that rolled below : Where’er she moved, the vassal-waves were seen To yield obsequious, and confess their queen. * * High o’er the poop, the flattering winds unfurled The imperial flag that rules the watery world. Beep-blushing armours all the tops invest; And warlike trophies either quarter drest : Then towered the masts ; the canvas swelled on high ; 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 Egean 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 at 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 unknown 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. * * Thus 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 wreck. The balanced mizzen, rending to the head, In streaming ruins from the margin fled. The sides convulsive shook on groaning beams, And, rent with labour, yawned the pitchy seams. They sound the well , 1 and terrible to hear’ ! Five feet immersed along the line appear. At either pump they ply the clanking brake , 2 And turn by turn the ungrateful office take. Rodmond, Arion, and Palemon, here, At this sad task all diligent appear. wherein they are broader and thicker than the rest, and appear somewhat like a range of hoops, which separates the bottom from the upper works. 1 The well is an apartment in the ship’s hold, serving to enclose the pumps. It is sounded by dropping a graduated iron rod down into it by a long line. Hence the increase or diminution of the leaks are easily discovered. 2 The brake is the lever or handle of the pump, by which it is wrought. POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM FALCONER. As some fair castle, shook by rude alarms, Opposes long the approach of hostile arms ; Grim war around her plants his black array, And death 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, Resolved 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, Updrawn, 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 w r ave. 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 , 1 The cordage of the leeward guns unbraced, And pointed crows beneath the metal placed. Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew, And from their beds the reeling cannon threw ; Then, from the windward battlements unbound, Rodmond’s associates wheel the artillery round ; Pointed with iron fangs, their bars beguile The ponderous arms across the steep defile ; Then hurled from sounding hinges o’er the side, Thundering, they plunge into the flashing tide. [The tempest increases, and 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 ; 1 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 having the upper-deck for its base or platform. 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, Y oked their infernal horses to the prore. 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 tlie 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 ; 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. The hostile waters close around their head, They sink for ever, numbered with the dead ! Those who remain their fearful doom await, Nor longer mourn their lost companions’ fate. The heart that bleeds •frith 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. Enclosed with all the demons of the main, They viewed the adjacent shore, but viewed in vain. * * 27 prom 17C0 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1S00. And now, lashed on by destiny severe, "With horror fraught the dreadful scene drew near ! 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 ! 0 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 di-ead concussion feels, And quivering with the wound, in torment reels ; So reels, convulsed with agonising throes, The bleeding bull beneath the murderer’s blows. Again she plunges ; hark ! a second shock Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock ! Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes In wild despair ; while 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 tom her frame divides, And crashing spreads in ruin o’er the tides. * * 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 billows’ 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 Palemon 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, 0 unhappy chief ! the eternal doom Of heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb : What scenes of misery torment thy view ! "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 ; While 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 woe ; 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 ; 23 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 clenching 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. ROBERT LLOYD. Robert Lloyd, the friend of Cowper and j Churchill, was born in London in 1733. His lather : was under-master at Westminster School. He dis- tinguished himself by his talents at Cambridge, but i was irregular in his habits. After completing his j education, he became an usher under his father. The wearisome routine of this life soon disgusted I him, and he attempted to earn a subsistence by his | literary talents. His poem called The Actor attracted j some notice, and was the precursor of Churchill’s I 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 theatrical pieces, published his poems by subscrip- tion, and edited the St . Janies’ 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 his death was somewhat abruptly announced to him, as he was sitting at dinner, he was seized with a sudden sickness, 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 : Churchill’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 Colman, 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 satirists ; 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 : [The Miseries of a Poets Life.] Tbe harlot muse, so passing gay, Bewitches only to betray. Though for a while with easy air She smooths the rugged brow of care, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHARLES CHURCHILL. 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 turns protected and caressed, Defamed, dependent, and distressed. 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 — Repeat 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 shew My utmost vengeance on my foe, To punish with extremest 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, what perhaps is drudgery worse, The links, and points, and rules of verse ; To deal out authors by retail, Like penny pots of Oxford ale ; Ob, ’tis a service irksome more Than tugging at the slavish oar ! Yet 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. ‘Yet still he’s on the road,’ you say, ‘ Of learning.’ Why, perhaps 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 CHURCniLL. A second Dryden was supposed to have arisen in Churchill, Avlien he published his satirical poem, the Rosciad, in 1761. The impression was 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 off 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 Churchill, 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 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 Collins, 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 distinguished for his devotion to Wilkes. That he misapplied strong original talents in following out these pitiful or unworthy objects of his ambition, is undeniable; but as a satirical poet — the only character in which he appears as an author — he is immeasurably inferior to Rope or Dryden. The ‘fatal facility’ of his verse, and his unscrupulous satire of living individuals and passing events, had, however, the effect of making all London ‘ring from side to side’ with his applause, at a time when the real poetry of the age could hardly obtain either publishers or readers. Excepting Marlowe, the dramatic poet, 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 Westminster, where he was born in 1731. After attending Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge — which he quitted abruptly — he made a clandestine marriage with, a young lady in Westminster, and was assisted by his father, till he was ordained and settled in the curacy of Rainham, in Essex. His father died in 1758, and the poet was appointed his successor in the curacy and lectureship of St John’s at West- minster. This transition, which promised an acces- sion of comfort and respectability, proved the bane of poor Churchill. He was in his twenty-seventh year, and his conduct had been up to this period irreproachable. He now, however, renewed his intimacy with Lloyd and other school-companions, and launched into a career of dissipation 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 fashion, with a blue coat, gold-laced hat, and ruffles. The dean of Westminster remon- strated with him against this breach of clerical propriety, and his animadversions were seconded by the poet’s parishioners. Churchill 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 yon mean? ’Tis shameful, irreverent — you must keep to church rules. 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. Ilis ready pen still threw off at 29 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. ■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 world 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 example alforded 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 messengers 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 warm 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 Prophecy 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 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 have caused him the most exquisite pain. After separating from his wife, and forming an unhappy connection with another female, the daughter of a Westminster tradesman, whom he had seduced, Churchill’s career drew to a sad and premature 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 pro- fession Churchill had thrown off his belief in Chris- tianity, and Mr Southey mentions, that though he made his will only the day 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 * Life of Churchill 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. * How does Mrs Thomson do ? Does she dine in the country?’ Churchill took the hint as readily as it had been given. He replied that Mrs Thomson was 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 his papers, retired into the country, and eluded all search. 30 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. The enjoyment may be doubted, and still more the taste of this inscription. It is certain that Churchill expressed his compunction for parts 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, Where 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 heartfelt groan, And hates that form she knows to be her own. The Conference . The most ludicrous, and, on the whole, the best of Churchill’s satires, is his Prophecy of Famine , a Scots pastoral, 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 descended to this petty national prejudice, and Churchill revelled in it with such undisguised exaggeration and broad humour, that the most saturnine or sensitive 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 mist, The mountain’s top with usual dulness kissed, 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 meikle art could on the bagpipes play, Even 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 Highland 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, Earth, 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, But 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 : POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MICHAEL BRUCE. Rebellion’s spring, which thTough 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 ; By 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 By prattling streams, o’er flower- impurpled meads ; Who 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 Rosciad, have now ceased to interest; but some of these rough pen-and-ink sketches of Churchill are happily executed. 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 ? What 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 crown, Which with more justice blooms upon thine own. Compared with thee, be all life-writers dumb, But he who wrote the Life of Tommy Thumb. Whoever read the Regicide but swore The author wrote as man ne’er wrote before ? Others for plots and under-plots may call, Here ’s the right method— have no plot at all ! Of Hogarth : In walks of humour, in that cast of style, Which, probing to the quick, yet makes us smile ; 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 : What 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, But must I bellow too, who sit at ease ? By custom safe, the poet’s numbers flow Free as the light and air some years ago. * The birthday of the old Chevalier. It used to be a great object with the gardener of a Scottish Jacobite family of those days to have the Stuart emblem in blow by the tenth of June. No statesman e’er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains. Burdens like these, vile earthly buildings bear ; No tribute ’s laid on castles in the air ! The reputation of Churchill was also an aerial structure. 1 No English poet,’ says Southey, * had ever enjoyed so excessive and so short-lived a popu- larity; 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 anything better than the thing he did. To Wilkes he said that nothing came out till he began to be pleased 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. Nothing of books, and little known of men, When the mad fit comes on, I seize the pen ; 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 spices preserve a mummy, and that the individuals whom he had eulogised or stigmatised would go down to posterity in his verse, 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 Potiphars were embalmed, wasted their sweetness in the catacombs. But, in this part of his conduct, there was no want of worldly pru- dence : he was enriching himself by hasty writings, for which the immediate sale was in proportion to the bitterness and personality of the satire.’ MICHAEL BRUCE. Michael Bruce 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 man, and trained 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. His 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 £11, 2.9. 2d. sterling. This sum the old man piously devoted 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 Gairncy Bridge, where he received for his labours about £11 per annum ! He afterwards 81 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. removed to Porest Hill, near Alloa, where he taught for some time with no better success. His school- room was low-roofed and damp, and the poor youth, confined for five or six hours a day in this unwholesome atmosphere, depressed by poverty and I disappointment, soon lost health and spirits. He wrote his 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 Elegy , 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 was 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, j but its premature termination must have been a I heavy blow to his aged parents, who had struggled I 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 subscription 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, Kinross- 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 poeti- cal fame by his early friend Logan. Had Bruce lived, it is probable he would have taken a higher place among our national poets. 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 32 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 original and pleasing in the poem : [A Rural Picture .] Behold the village rise, In rural pride, ’mong intermingled trees ! Above whose aged tops the joyful swains, At eventide descending from the hill, With eye enamoured, mark the many wreaths 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 ! 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, Large droves of oxen, and the fleecy flocks, Feed undisturbed ; and fill the echoing air With music, grateful to the master’s ear. The traveller stops, and gazes round and round O’er all the scenes, that animate his heart With mirth and music. Even the mendicant, Bowbent with age, that on the old gray stone, Sole sitting, suns him in the public way, Feels his heart leap, and to himself he sings. The Last Day is another poem by Bruce in blank verse, but is inferior to Lochleven. In poetical beauty and energy, as in biographical interest, his latest effort, the Elegy, must ever rank the first in his productions. With many weak lines and borrowed ideas, this poem 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 Spring. ’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 course : Before his beams all noxious vapours fly. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOHN LOGAN. POETS. Far to the north grim Winter draws his train, To his own clime, to Zemhla’s frozen shore ; Where, throned on ice, he holds eternal reign ; Where whirlwinds madden, and where tempests roar. Loosed from the hands 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 houghs ; Their ample leaves, the hospitable plane, The taper elm, and 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 sits, and tricks his glossy plumes, While o’er the wild his broken notes resound. While the sun journeys down the western sky, Along the greensward, marked with Roman mound, Beneath the blithesome 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 them 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 morn. 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. Starting and shivering in the inconstant wind, Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was, Beneath some blasted tree I lie reclined, And count the silent moments as they pass : 55 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 woe ? 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 morn 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 had 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. Erom 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, educated him for the church, and, after he had obtained a licence to preach, he distinguished himself so much by his pulpit eloquence, that he was appointed one of the ministers of South Leith. He afterwards 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 Runnimede, 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 December 1788. During his residence in London, Logan was a contributor to the English Review , and wrote a pamphlet on the Charges Against Warren Hastings , which attracted some notice. Among his manuscripts were found several unfinished tragedies, thirty lectures on Roman history, portions of a periodical work, and a collec- tion of sermons, from which two volumes were selected and published by his executors. The sermons are warm and passionate, full of piety and fervour, and must have been highly impressive when delivered. 33 from 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. One act in the literary life of Logan we have already adverted to — his publication of the poems of Michael Bruce. His conduct as an editor cannot he justified. He left out several pieces by Bruce, and, as he states in his preface, ‘to make up a miscellany,’ poems by different authors were inserted. The best of these he claimed, and published afterwards as his own. The friends of Bruce, indignant at his conduct, have since endeavoured to snatch this laurel from his brows, and considerable uncertainty hangs over the ques- tion. 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 — with 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 shewn it in manuscript to several friends before its publi- cation, 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 Natural and Civil History, Aberdeen, that he saw a copy of the ode in the possession of a friend of Bruce, Mr Bickerton, who assured liim it was in the handwriting 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 bis conduct throughout the whole affair was careless and unsatisfactory. Bruce’s friends also claim for him some of the hymns published by Logan as his own, and they shew that the unfortunate young bard had applied h i m self 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 these exquisite devotional strains: the former supplied stanzas which the latter extended into poems, imparting 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 On 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 ! Thou messenger of Spring ! Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, And woods thy welcome sing. 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 ? Delightful visitant ! with thee I hail the time of flowers, And hear the sound of music sweet From birds among the bowers. The school-boy, 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 ! Oh, could I fly, I ’d fly with thee ! We’d make, with joyful wing, Our annual visit o’er the globe, Companions of the Spring. [ Written in a Visit to the Country in Autumn.'] ’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 ! * This line 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 the 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 strikmg, nor does it connect either with the start or imitation .’ — Note by Lord Mackenzie ( son of the 1 Man of Feeling ’) in Bruce's Poems , by Rev . W. Mackelvie. POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOHN LOGAN. Companions of the youthful scene, Endeared from earliest days ! With whom I sported on the green, Or roved the woodland maze ! 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 air ! 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 ! 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 ! Complaint of Nature. 1 Few are thy days, and full of woe, 0 man, of woman born ! 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 ; Yet black with thousand hidden ills To miserable man. Gay is thy morning, flattering hope Thy sprightly step attends ; But soon the tempest howls behind, And the dark night descends. 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 woe, 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. 1 When mortal man resigns his breath, And falls a clod of clay, The soul immortal wings its flight To never-setting day. Before its splendid hour the cloud Comes o’er the beam of light ; A pilgrim in a weary land, Man tarries but a night. 1 Prepared of old for wicked men The bed of torment lies ; The just shall enter into bliss Immortal in the skies.’ 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. The above liymn has been claimed for Michael Bruce by Mr Mackelvio, 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. 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. Nipt by the year the forest fades ; And, shaking to the wind, The leaves toss to and fro, and streak The wilderness behind. 35 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. ‘ 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 modem 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 following : Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring or shady grove, or sunny hill. Par. Lost, Book iii, Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove afield. Lycidas. THOMAS WARTON. The Wartons, like the Beaumonts, were a poeti- cal race. As literary antiquaries, they were also honourably distinguished. Thomas, the historian Windsor Castle. of English poetry, was the second son of Dr Warton ’ of Magdalen College, Oxford, who was twice chosen Professor of Poetry by his university, and who wrote some pleasing verses, half scholastic and half sentimental. A sonnet by the elder Warton is worthy being transcribed, for its strong family- likeness : [ Written after seeing Windsor Castle.'] From beauteous Windsor’s high and storied halls, Where Edward’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; 36 Sips the warm fragrance of the greenhouse bowers, And tastes the myrtle and the citron’s flowers ; 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 of Melancholy , published when he was nineteen, gave a promise of excellence which his riper productions did not fulfil. Having taken his degree, Warton obtained a fellowship, and in 1757 was appointed Professor of Poetry. He was also curate of Wood- stock, and rector of Kiddington, a small living near Oxford. The even tenor of his life was only varied by his occasional publications, one of which Avas an elaborate Essay on Spenser’s Faery Queen. He also edited the minor poems of Milton, an edition which ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS WARTON. POETS. Leigh Hunt 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 Warton’s taste for antiquities, for architecture, superstition, and his intimate acquaintance with the old Elizabethan writers. A still more important work, 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 antiquarian lore, his love of antique manners, and his chivalrous 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 be arranged according to their style and merits. Warton adopted the chronological arrangement, as giving freer exertion for research, and as enabling hi m to exhibit, without transposition, the gradual improvement in our poetry, and the progression of our language. The untiring industry and learning of the poet-historian accumulated a mass of materials equally valuable and curious. His work is a vast storehouse of facts connected with our 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 journeyed, and into which the usual pioneers of literature had scarcely penetrated.’ It is to be regretted that Warton’s plan excluded the drama, which forms so rich a source of our early imaginative literature ; but 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 which in our day has been wisely converted into a sinecure. The same year he was made Camden Professor of History. While pursuing his antiquarian and literary researches, Warton was attacked with gout, and his enfeebled health yielded to a stroke of paralysis in 1790. Notwithstanding the classic stiffness of his poetry, and his full-blown academical honours, Warton appears to have been an easy companionable man, who delighted to unbend in common society, and especially with boys. ‘ During his visits to his brother, Dr J. Warton — master of Winchester School — the reverend professor became an associate and confidant in all the sports of the school-boys. When engaged with them in some culinary occupation, and when 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 disguise the assist- ance.’* If there was little dignity in this, there was something better — a kindliness of disposition and freshness of feeling which all would wish to retain. The poetry of Warton is deficient in natural ex- pression and general interest, but some of his longer pieces, by their martial spirit and Gothic fancy, arc calculated to awaken a stirring and romantic enthusiasm. Hazlitt considered some of his sonnets the finest in the language, and they seem to have * Vide Campbell’s Specimens, second edition, p. 620. caught the fancy of Coleridge and Bowles. The following are picturesque and graceful : Written in a Blank Leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon. Deem not devoid of elegance the sage, By Fancy’s genuine feelings unbeguiled Of painful pedantry, the poring child, Who turns of these proud domes the historic page, 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 nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers. On Revisiting the River Lodclon. 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 ground, 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 flowed From youth’s gay dawn to manhood’s prime mature, Nor with the muse’s laurel unbestowed. On Sir Joshua Reynolds's Painted Window at Oxford. Ye brawny Prophets, that in robes so rich, At distance due, possess 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 patient 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 unwary 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 canvas 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 alchemy’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 : Not of its pomp to strip this ancient shrine, But bid that pomp with purer radiance shine : With arts unknown before, to reconcile The willing Graces to the Gothic pile. I FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. The 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 fed, 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. JOSEPH WAKTON. The elder brother of Thomas Warton closely resembled him in character and attainments. He was born in 1722, and was the schoolfellow of Collins at Winchester. He was afterwards a com- moner of Oriel College, Oxford, and ordained on his father’s curacy at Basingstoke. He was also rector of Tamworth. In 1766 he was appointed head- master of Winchester School, to which were subsequently added a prebend of St Paul’s and of Winchester. He survived his brother ten years, dying in 1800. Dr Joseph Warton early appeared as a poet, but is considered by Mr Campbell as 38 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 Warton’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. O 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. O nymph with loosely flowing hair, With buskined leg, and bosom bare, Thy waist with myrtle-girdle bound, Thy brows with Indian feathers 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 With 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 ! 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 Youth each evening meet* And lightly trip with nimble feet, Nodding their lily-crowned heads, Where Laughter rose-lipped 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 woe, ENGLISH LITERATURE. THOMAS BLACKLOCK. POETS. To Gothic churches, vaults, and tombs, Where each sad night some virgin comes, With throbbing breast, and faded cheek, Her promised 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 ; I feel, I feel, with sudden heat, My big tumultuous bosom beat ! The trumpet’s clangours pierce mine ear, A thousand widows’ shrieks I hear ; ‘ Give me another horse,’ I ciy ; Lo ! the base Gallic squadrons fly. Whence is this rage ? What spirit, say, To battle hurries me away ? ’Tis Fancy, in her fiery car, Transports me to the thickest war, * There whirls me o’er the hills of slain, Where Tumult and Destruction reign ; Where, 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 I 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 ordinary degree. We read all concerning him with strong interest, except his poetry , for this is generally tame, languid, and commonplace. He was an amiable and excellent man, of warm and generous sensi- bilities, eager for knowledge, and proud to com- municate it. TnoMAS Blacklock was the son of a Cumberland bricklayer, who had settled in the town 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 reading 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 Ramsay. 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. His father was accidentally killed when the poet was about the age of nineteen ; but some of his attempts at verse having been seen by Dr Stevenson, 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 volume of his poems, which was reprinted 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 was appointed minister of Kirkcudbright. The parishioners, however, were opposed 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 moderate annuity. He now resided in Edinburgh, and took boarders into his house. His family was a scene of peace and happi- ness. To his literary pursuits 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 generous ardour he evinced in 1786, in the case of Burns, shews 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 supposed 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 Encyclopaedia 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, reflec- tion, 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 wonderful phenomenon in 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 described. 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. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. In a man to whom all external phenomena were, and had ever been, one ‘ universal blank,’ this union of taste and memory was certainly remarkable. Poetical feeling he must have inherited from nature, which led him to take pleasure even from his infancy in descriptive poetry ; and the language, expressions, and pictures thus imprinted on his mind by habitual acquaintance with the best authors, and in literary conversation, seem to have risen spontaneously 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, Yet finds his soul to fears a prey, In busy crowds and open day. If night his lonely walks surprise, What horrid visions round him rise ! The blasted oak which meets his way, Shewn 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 A urora 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 Mackenzie. Of time and nature eldest born, Emerge, thou rosy-fingered morn ; Emerge, in purest dress arrayed, And chase from heaven night’s envious shade, That I once more may pleased survey, And hail Melissa’s natal-day. Of time and nature eldest born, Emerge, thou rosy -fingered morn ; 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 ; 40 Though less conspicuous, not less dear, Long may they Bion’s prospect cheer ; So shall his heart no more repine, Blessed with her rays, though robbed of thine. 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 was a child, but an elder brother, seeing signs of talent in the boy, assisted him in procuring a good education ; and in his fourteenth year he obtained a bursary or exhibition (always indicating some proficiency in Latin) in Marischal 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 roman- tic scenery, which increased his passion for nature and poetry. The scenes which he afterwards deline- ated 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. In 1758, he was elected usher of the Grammar School of Aber- deen ; and in 1760, professor of moral philosophy and logic in Marischal College. About the same time, he published in London a collection of his poems, with some translations. One piece, Retire- ment, displays poetical feeling and taste; but the collection, as a whole, gave little indication of the Minstrel. The poems, without the translations, were reprinted in 1766, and a copy of verses 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 wliich good principles were advanced, though with an unphilo- sophical spirit, and in language which suffered greatly POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES BEATTIE. from comparison with that 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 universal approbation. Honours flowed in on the fortunate author. He visited London, and was admitted to all its brilliant and distinguished circles. Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, and Reynolds, were numbered among his friends. On a second visit in 1773, 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 Eolly ! Need we wonder that poor Goldsmith was envious of his brother-poet? To the honour of Beattie, it must be recorded, that he declined entering the Church of England, in which preferment was promised him, and no doubt would have 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 obliged to be confined in an asylum. He had two sons, both amiable and accomplished youths. The eldest lived till he was twenty-two, and was asso- ciated 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 con- solation of the now lonely poet was, that he could not have borne to see their ‘ elegant minds mangled with madness ’ — an allusion to the hereditary insanity of their mother. By nature, Beattie was a man of quick and tender sensibilities. A fine landscape, or music— in which he was a proficient — affected 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 almost 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 morbid aversion to that cheerful household and rural sound, the crowing of a cock ; and in his Minstrel he anathematises ‘ fell chanticleer ’ with burlesque fury : 0 to thy cursed scream, discordant still, Let harmony aye shut her gentle ear : Thy boastful mirth let jealous rivals spill, Insult thy crest, 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 done 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 different 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 such informa- tion, and because I had learned, from my own experience, that to be made to repeat words not understood, is extremely detrimental to the faculties of a young mind. In a corner of a little garden, without informing any person of the circumstance, I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the three initial 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, told 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 happened. “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, said with some earnestness : “ It could not be mere chance, for that somebody must have contrived matters so as to produce it.” I pretend not to give his words or my own, for I have forgotten both, but I give the substance 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 use- ful to you ? ” He said they were. “ Came you then hither,” said I, “by chance?” “No,” he answered ; “ that cannot be ; something must have made me.” “ And who is that something ? ” I asked. He said he did not know. (I took parti- cular 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 express it — that 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 affected 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, designed 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 phil- osophy 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 I the wing in the same lofty region ; and Edwin PROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. would have contracted some earthly taint in his descent. Gray thought there was too much des- cription in the first part of the Minstrel , but who would exchange 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 described : 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 days 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 explore ; 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, Yet 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, But sing what Heaven inspires, and wander where they will. 42 Liberal, not lavish, 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 woe. 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 Youchsafes 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 ? 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 forgiven ? * * * There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell, A shepherd swain, a man of low degree, Whose sires, perchance, in Fairyland might dwell, Sicilian groves, or vales of Arcady ; 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, whei*esoe’er they went. [Description of Edwin . ] And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy. Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye. Dainties he heeded not, nor gaud, 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, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JAMES BEATTIE. 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 Phoebus’ 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 woe 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, 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 embossed ! And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound, Flocks, herds, and water-falls, along the hoar profound ! 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 sheen. 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, ffe 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 autumiial 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 ! To the pure soul by Fancy’s fire refined, Ah, what is mirth but turbulence unholy, When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy ! Is there a heart that music cannot melt ? Alas ! 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 twine ; Mope o’er the schoolman’s peevish rage; or mourn, And delve for life in Mammon’s dirty mine ; 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 offered 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 pry. At last, though long by penury controlled, And solitude, his soul her graces ’gan unfold. 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, Where 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 hollow 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 ! Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings ; FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1800. Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs ; Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour ; The partridge hursts 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 flourishes and fades majestic man. Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth, And fostering gales a while the nursling fan. O smile, ye heavens, 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 burn, 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? Shall 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. — 1 758. 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 whose windings wild Murmurs the solemn gale : Where Melancholy strays forlorn, And Woe 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. 0 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. ‘ Oh, while to thee the woodland pours Its wildly warbling song, And balmy from the bank of flowers The zephyr breathes along ; Let no rude sound invade from far, No vagrant foot be nigh, No ray from Grandeur’s gilded car Flash on the startled eye. ‘ But if some pilgrim through the glade Thy hallowed bowers explore, 0 guard from harm his hoary head, And listen to his lore ; For he of joys divine shall tell, That wean from earthly woe, 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.’ POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHRISTOPHER SMART. 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 darkness and woe, 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 urn — 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 morn. 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 irregular man of genius, was born in 1722 at Shipbourne, in Kent. His father was steward to Lord Barnard — afterwards Earl of Darlington — and dying when his son was eleven years of age, the patronage of Lord Barnard was generously continued to his family. Through the influence of this nobleman, Christopher procured from the Duchess of Cleveland an allowance of £40 per annum. He was admitted of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1739, elected a fellow of Pembroke in 1745, and took his degree of M.A. in 1747. At college, Smart was remarkable for folly and extravagance, and his distinguished contemporary Gray prophesied truly that the result of his conduct would be a jail or bedlam. In 1747, he wrote a comedy called a Trip to Cambridge , or The Grateful Fair , which 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. 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 wars with the Royal Society, with Fielding, &c., are well known, and who closed his life by becoming a quack-doctor — having insidiously attacked Smart, the latter replied by a spirited satire, entitled The Hilliad. Among his various tasks was a metrical translation of the Fables of Phaedrus. He also translated the psalms and parables into verse, but the version is destitute of talent. He had, however, in his better days, translated with success, and to Pope’s satisfaction, the Ode on St Cecilia’s Dag. In 1756, Smart was one of the conductors of a monthly periodical called The Universal Visitor; 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 madhouse. ‘He has partly as much exercise,’ said J ohnson, ‘ 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 knees and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place ; and I ’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen ; and I have no passion 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, possesses passages of considerable power, and must be considered one of the greatest curio- sities of our literature. What the unfortunate 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 retained from memory alone. Smart was afterwards released from his confinement ; but his ill-fortune— following, we suppose, his intemperate habits — again pursjj£d~-|--~~ , him. He was committed to the K\n&r?&cnc}\ prison for debt, and died there, after ss, in 1770. The following is part of Song to David. 0 thou, that sit’st upon a tf With harp of high, majestic Of FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. To praise the King of kings : And voice of heaven, ascending swell, Which, while its deeper notes excel, • Clear as a clarion rings : How sweetly Kidron purled — To further knowledge, silence vice, And plant perpetual paradise, Wheir God had calmed the world. To hless 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 : 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. 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. Constant — in love to God, the Truth, Age, manhood, infancy, and youth — To J onathan his friend Constant, beyond the verge of death ; And Ziba, and Mephibosheth, His endless fame attend. 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 ! 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. Great — from the lustre of his crown, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. He sang of God — the mighty source Of all things — the stupendous force On which all strength depends ; From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes, All period, power, and enterprise Commences, reigns, and ends. 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. 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. 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„ 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. Sublime — invention 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. The world — the clustering spheres he made, The glorious light, the soothing shade, Dale, champaign, grove, and hill ; The multitudinous abyss, Where secrecy remains in bliss, And wisdom hides her skill. Contemplative — on God to fix His musings, and above the six The Sabbath-day be blest ; ’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned, And heavenly melancholy tuned, To bless and bear the rest. 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. Serene — to sow the seeds of peace, Remembering when he watched the fleece, 46 Of fowl — e’en every beak and wing Which cheer the winter, hail the spring, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE. 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 glancing sun. Of beasts — the beaver plods his task ; While the sleek tigers roll and bask, Nor yet the shades arouse ; Her cave the mining coney 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. 0 David, scholar of the Lord ! Such is thy science, whence reward, And infinite degree ; 0 strength, 0 sweetness, lasting ripe ! 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.’ WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE. An admirable translation of the Lusiad of Camoens, the most distinguished poet of Portugal, was executed by William Julius Mickle, himself a poet of taste and fancy, but of no great originality or energy. Mickle was son of the minister of Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, where he was born in 1731.* 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 poetical efforts, and Mickle was buoyed 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 Pollio , an elegy, and The Concubine , a moral poem in the manner of Spenser, which he afterwards reprinted with the title of Syr Martyn. Mickle adopted the obsolete phraseology of Spenser, which was too antiquated even for the age of the Faery Queen, and which Thomson had almost wholly dis- carded 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, 1 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 balmy 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 press is quite separate from the mechanical operations of the printer. Mickle’s poem was highly successful— not the less, perhaps, because it was printed anonymously, and was ascribed to different authors — and it went through three editions. In 1771, he published the first canto of his great translation, which was completed in 1776 ; 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 J ohnston, 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 distribu- tion of the prizes. His own share was consider- able ; and having received some money by his marriage with a lady whom he had known in his obscure sojourn at Oxford, the latter days of the poet were spent in ease and leisure. He died at Forest Hill, near Oxford, in 1788. * The poet altered the spelling of his name from Meiklo to Mickle, ‘without,’ as Johnson says of Mallet’s change of name, ‘ any imaginable reason of preference which the eye or ear can discover.’ Telford the engineer (a native of the same parish as Mickle) changed his name from Telfer, and John Moyne (also a Dumfriesshire man) was originally John Mein. 47 FR03I 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. The most popular of Mickle’s original poems is his ballad of Cumnor Hall, which has attained additional celebrity by its having suggested to Sir Walter Scott the groundwork of his romance of Kenilworth* The plot is interesting, and the versification easy and musical. Mickle assisted in Evans’s Collection of Old Ballads — in which Cumnor Hall and other pieces of his first appeared; and though in this style of composition he did not copy the direct simplicity 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 found among his manuscripts after his death; and his widow being applied to, confirmed the external evidence in his favour, by an express declaration that her husband had said the song was his own, and that he had explained to her the Scottish words. It is the fairest flower in his poetical chaplet. The delineation of humble matrimonial happiness and affection which the song presents, is almost unequalled : Sae sweet his voice, sae smooth his tongue ; His breath ’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 ? I ’m downright dizzy wi’ the thought : In troth, I ’m like to greet. Beattie added a stanza to tliis song, containing a happy Epicurean fancy, elevated by the situation and the faithful love of the speaker — which Burns says is ‘ worthy of the first poet ’ — The present moment is our ain, The neist we never saw. Mickle would 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. How 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, stem 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. * Sir Walter intended to have named his romance Cumnor Hall, but was persuaded — wisely, we think— by Mr Constable, his publisher, to adopt the title of Kenilworth. 4S ‘ I rose up with the cheerful mom, 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-ladies 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 when those gauds are by ? ‘ ’Along 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 ; Bather 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 ! then leave them to decay ? Why didst thou win me to thy arms, Then leave me to mourn the live-long day ? ‘ The village maidens of the plain Salute me lowly as they go : Envious they mark my silken train, Nor think a countess can have woe. ‘ The simple nymphs ! they little know How far more happy ’s their estate ; To smile for joy, than sigh for woe; 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 ! can I enjoy The humble charms of solitude ; Your minions proud my peace destroy, By sullen frowns, or pratings rude. POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE. ‘ 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.” 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. ‘ 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 ; Woe 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 Have 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. Full many a traveller has sighed, And pensive wept the Countess’ fall, As wandering onwards they ’ve espied The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall. The Mariner's Wife. But are ye sure the news is true ? And are ye sure he ’s weel ? Is this a time to think o’ wark ? Ye jauds, fling by your wheel. 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 ? Rax 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. * In the author’s manuscript ‘button gown.’ 56 Bring down to me my bigonet, My bishop’s sattin gown, For I maun tell the bailie’s wife, That Colin’s come to town. My Turkey slippers I ’ll put on, My stockins pearl blue — It ’s a,’ to pleasure our gudeman, For he ’s baith leal and true. Sae true his heart, sae smooth his tongue ; His breath ’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 ? I ’m downright dizzy wi’ the thought : In troth, I ’m like to greet. In the author’s manuscript, another verse is added : If Colin’s weel, and weel content, I hae nae mair to crave, And gin I live to mak him sae, I ’m blest aboon the lave. The following is the addition made by Dr Beattie : The cauld blasts of the winter wind That thrilled through my heart, They ’re a’ blawn by ; I hae him safe, Till death we ’ll never part. But what puts parting in my head ? It may be far awa’ ; The present moment is our ain, The neist we never saw. [The Spirit of the Cape] [From the Lusiad .] Now prosperous gales the bending canvas 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 far 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 terhpest given. Amazed we stood — 0 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 aspect lowered. Unearthly paleness o’er his cheeks was spread, Erect uprose his hairs of withered red ; Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose, Sharp and disjoined, his gnashing teeth’s blue rows ; 43 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800 . His haggard heard 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 black lips trembling, thus the Fiend 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 waves 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 war my rocks and storms shall wage ; 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 perish 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, 0 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 prolonged the dismal yell ; Faint and more faint the howling echoes die, And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky. CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY. 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 numerous instances, and with great success. Smollett, in his Humphry Clinker, published five years later, may be almost said to have reduced the New Bath Guide to prose. Many 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 attending 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 Brinkeley, in Cambridgeshire, a gentleman who possessed a considerable landed property, which the poet afterwards inherited. He was educated at Eton School, and elected to King’s College, Cam- bridge, and in both places he distinguished himself as a classical scholar. In consequence of his refusal to deliver certain declamations, Anstey quarrelled with the heads of the university, and was denied the usual degree. In the epilogue to the New Bath Guide, he alludes to this circumstance — 50 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 influence 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 fashion- able and literary coteries of the place. In 1766 was published his celebrated poem, which instantly became popular. He wrote various other pieces — A Poem on the Death of the Marquis of Tavistoclc, 1767 ; An Election Ball, in Poetical Letters from Mr Inkle at Bath to his Wife at Gloucester ; a Para- phrase of the Thirteenth Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians ; a satire, entitled The Priest Dis- sected ; Speculation, or a Defence of Mankind (1780); Liberality, or Memoirs of a Decayed Macceroni (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 were neglected by the public, and have never been revived. In the enjoyment of his paternal estate, the poet, however, was independent of the public support, and he took part 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 my 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 liver : 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 : You’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 Greasewrister, And Madam Yan-Twister, Her ladyship’s sister : Lord Cram, and Lord Vulture, Sir Brandish O’Culter, With 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 : POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. 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. * * * * Oh ! 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 true 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 table : I freely will own I the muffins preferred To all the genteel conversation I heard. E’en though I ’d the honour of sitting between My Lady Stuff-damask and Peggy Moreen, Who both flew to Bath in the nightly machine. Cries Peggy : ‘ 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 ; You may talk what you please; you may search London through ; You may go to Carlisle’s, and to Almack’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 ! ’ ‘ These horns,’ cries my lady, ‘ so tickle one’s ear, Lard ! what would I give that Sir Simon was here ! 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 pleased 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 my 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? As homeward we came — ’tis with sorrow you ’ll hear What a dreadful disaster attended the peer ; MRS THRALE. For whether some envious god had decreed That a Naiad should long to ennoble her breed ; Or whether his lordship was charmed to behold His 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 was 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 Florence Miscellany, and afforded a subject for the satire of Gifford, whose Baviad and Mceviad 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 par- ticular as to the accuracy of her relations. Mrs Piozzi died at Clifton in 1822. The 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.’ ‘ With you ! and quit my Susan’s side ? With you ! ’ 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. 51 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 further, 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 I ’ll 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. And now, one night, in musing mood, As all alone he sate, The unwelcome messenger of Fate Once more before him stood. Half-killed with anger and surprise, ‘ So soon returned ! ’ old Dodson cries. ‘ So soon, d’ ye call it ? ’ Death replies : ‘Surely, my friend, you’re but in jest ! Since I was here before ’Tis six-and-thirty years at least, And you are now fourscore.’ ‘ So much the worse,’ the clown rejoined ; ‘ To spare the aged would be kind : However, see your search be legal ; And your authority — is ’t regal ? Else you are come on a fool’s errand, With but a secretary’s warrant.* Beside, you promised me Three Warnings, Which I 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 : Your years have run to a great length ; I wish you joy, though, of your strength !’ ‘ Hold ! ’ says the farmer ; ‘ not so fast ! I 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.’ * An allusion to the illegal warrant used against Wilkes, which was the cause of so much contention in its day. 52 ‘ 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 ; I 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, minister of Brierly Hill, and of Trentham, in Staffordshire, published anonymously, in 1769, a collection of miscellaneous 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 fugi- tive verses. This poem is entitled The Beggar — sometimes called The Beggar's Petition — and con- tains 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 ! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. 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. v 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 shelter in a humbler shed. Oh ! take me to your 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 morn ; But ah ! oppression forced me from my cot ; My cattle died, and blighted was my corn. ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. My daughter — once the comfort of my age ! 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, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; Oh ! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. SIR WILLIAM JONES. ‘It is not Sir William Jones’s poetry,’ says Mr Southey, ‘that can perpetuate his name.’ This is true: it was as an oriental scholar and legislator, an enlightened lawyer and patriot, that he earned his laurels. His varied learning and philological researches — he was master of twenty-eight lan- guages — were the wonder and admiration of his contemporaries. Sir William was born in London in 1746. His father was an eminent mathematician, but died when his son was only three years of age. The care of educating young Jones devolved upon his mother, who was well qualified for the duty by her virtues and extensive learning. When in his fifth year, the imagination of the young scholar was caught by the sublime description of the angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and the impression was never effaced. In 1753 he was placed at Harrow School, where he continued nearly ten years, and became an accomplished and critical classical scholar. He did not confine himself merely to the ancient authors usually studied, but added a knowledge of the Arabic characters, and acquired sufficient Hebrew to read the Psalms. In 1764 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- SIR WILLIAM JONES. 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 con- ferred upon him, and thus the scholar was relieved from the fear of want, and enabled to pursue his favourite and unremitting studies. An opportunity of displaying one branch of his acquirements was afforded in 1768. 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 oriental scholar in England adequate to the per- formance. 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 Jiis 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 details. In 1774, he pub- lished 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 have preferred the labours, studies, and dangers of their orators and illustrious citizens — connected as they were with banishment and even death — to the 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 Commissioners of Bankrupts. In 1778, he published a translation of the speeches of Isaaus, in causes concerning 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 accomplished scholar. He was decidedly opposed to the American war and to the slave-trade, then so prevalent, and in 1781 he produced his noble Alcaic Ode, animated by the purest spirit of patriotism, and a high strain of poetical enthusiasm. He was appointed one of the judges of the supreme court at Fort William, in Bengal, and the honour of knighthood was conferred upon him. He married the daughter of Dr Shipley, bishop of St Asaph; and in April 1783, in his thirty-seventh year, he embarked for India, never to return. Sir William Jones entered upon his judicial functions with all the advantages of a high reputation, unsullied integrity, disinterested bene- volence, and unwearied perseverance. In the intervals of leisure from his duties, he directed his attention to scientific objects, and established a society in Calcutta to promote inquiries by the ingenious, and to concentrate the knowledge to be collected in Asia. In 1784, his health being affected by the climate and the closeness 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 poetical 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 the Pundits, who dealt out Hindoo law as they pleased. Some translations from ori- ental authors, and original poems and essays, he contributed to a periodical established at Calcutta, FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. entitled The Asiatic Miscellany. He meditated an epic poem on the Discovery of England by Brutus, and had matured his design so far as to write the arguments 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, Sacontala , or the Fatal Ring , which exhibits a picture of Hindoo m ann ers in the century preceding the Christian era. He engaged to compile a digest of Hindoo and Mohammedan 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 aid the- benevolent intentions of our legislature in securing to the natives, in a qualified degree, the administration of justice by their own laws. Eager to accomplish liis digest, Sir William Jones j remained in India after the delicate health of Lady Jones compelled her departure in December 1793. | He proposed to follow her in the ensuing season, i but in April 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 profound 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 departments of which he was ignorant: in chemistry, mathematics, botany, and music, he was equally proficient. With respect to the division of his time, Sir William Jones had written in India, on a small piece of paper, j the following lines : Sir Edward Colce: Six hours in sleep, in law’s grave study six, Four spend 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 was 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 I Turkish and Chinese odes, hymns on subjects of Hindoo mythology, Indian Tales, and a few songs j from the Persian. Of these, the beautiful lyric from i Hafiz is the most valuable. The taste of Sir William Jones was early turned towards eastern poetry, in I which he was captivated with new images, expres- ! sions, and allegories, but there is a want of chaste- j ness and simplicity in most of these productions. i The name of their illustrious author ‘ reflects credit,’ as Campbell remarks, ‘on poetical biography, but his secondary fame as a composer shews that the palm of poetry is not likely to be won, even by great genius, without exclusive devotion to the pursuit.’ * As respects sleep, the example of Sir Walter Scott may be added to that of Sir William Jones, for the great novelist has stated that he required seven hours of total unconsciousness to fit him for the duties of the day. 54 A n Ode , in Imitation of Alcaeus. 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, As 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 ? Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave, ’Tis folly'to’decline, And steal inglorious to the silent grave. A Persian Song of Hafiz. Sweet maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight, And bid these arms thy neck enfold ; That rosy cheek, that lily hand, Would give thy poet more delight Than all Bokhara’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 frowning zealots say : Tell them, their Eden cannot shew A stream so clear as Rocnabad, A bower so sweet as Mosellay. Oh ! 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. POETS. 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 ! sweet maid, my counsel hear — Youth should attend when those advise Whom long experience renders sage — While music charms the ravished ear ; While sparkling cups delight our eyes, Be gay, and scorn the frowns of age. What cruel answer have I heard ? And yet, by Heaven, I love thee still : Can aught be cruel from thy lip ? 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 I far sweeter, if they please The nymph for whom these notes are sung ! The Concluding Sentence of Berkeley’s Siris Imitated. 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.* Tetrastic — From the Persian. On parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weeping 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. NATHANIEL COTTON. Nathaniel Cotton (1721-1788) wrote Visions in Verse , for children, and a volume of poetical Miscel- lanies. He followed the medical profession in St Albans, and was distinguished for his skill in the 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 ; * The following is the last sentence 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.’ NATHANIEL COTTON. 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. We’ll ask no long-protracted treat, Since winter-life is seldom sweet ; But 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 checkered paths of joy and woe With cautious steps we ’ll tread ; Quit its vain scenes without a tear, Without a trouble or a fear, And mingle with the dead : ENGLISH LITERATURE. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. "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. WILLIAM COWPER. William Cowper, ‘ the most popular poet of his generation, and the best of English letter-writers,’ as Mr Southey has designated him, belonged empha- tically to the aristocracy of England. His father, the Rev. Dr Cowper, chaplain to George II., was William Cowper. the son of Spencer Cowper, one of the judges of the court of Common Pleas, and a younger brother of the first Earl Cowper, lord chancellor. His mother was allied to some of the noblest families in Eng- land, descended by four different lines from King Henry III. This lofty lineage 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 chaplaincy, held the rectory of Great Berkhamstead, in the county of Hertford, and there the poet was born, November 15, 1731. In his sixth year he lost his mother — whom he tenderly and affectionately remembered 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 seminary, 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 years’ 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 Thurlow for his fellow-clerk — Cowper, in 1754, was called to thg bar. He never, however, made the law a study : in the solicitor’s office he and Thurlow were ‘ con- stantly employed from morning to night in giggling and making giggle,’ and in Ills chambers in the Temple he wrote gay verses, and associated with Bonnel Thornton, Colman, Lloyd, and other wits. He contributed a few papers to the Connoisseur and to the St James’s Chronicle , both conducted by his 5S 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 ‘ unpro- vided with an aim,’ for the law was with him a mere nominal 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 accepted it ; but the labour of studying the forms of procedure, and the dread of qualifying himself by appearing at the bar of the House of Lords, plunged him in the deepest misery and distress. The seeds of insanity were then in his frame ; and after brooding over his fancied ills till reason had fled, he attempted to commit suicide. Happily this des- perate 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 resolved 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 thus 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 whether his reason had been completely restored. He retired to the town of Huntingdon, near Cambridge, 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 sud- denly removed, the same connection 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 world, knew nothing. To the latest generation the name of Mary Unwin will be united with that of Cowper, partaker of his fame as of his sad decline : By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light. After the death 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 northern division of Buckinghamshire, where Mr Newton himself officiated as curate. This 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 corresponding with his friends, and associated only with Mrs Unwin and Newton. The latter engaged his assistance in writing a volume of hymns, but his morbid melancholy gained ground, and in 1773 it became a case of decided insanity. About two years were passed in this unhappy state. On his recovery, Cowper took to gardening, rearing hares, drawing landscapes, and composing poetry. The latter was fortunately the most permanent enjoy- ment ; and its fruits .appeared in a volume of poems published in 1782. The sale of the work w'as slow ; but his friends were eager in its praise, and it received the approbation of Johnson and Franklin. His correspondence was resumed, and cheerfulness again became an inmate of his retreat at Olney. This happy change was augmented by the presence of a third party, Lady Austen, a widow, who came to reside in the immediate neighbourhood of Olney, and whose conversation for a time charmed away the melancholy spirit of Cowper. She told him the POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM COWPER. story of John Gilpin, and ‘the famous horseman and his feats were an inexhaustible source of merri- ment.’ Lady Austen also prevailed upon the poet to try his powers in blank verse, and from her suggestion sprung the noble poem of The Task. This memorable friendship 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 Mrs Unwin, with respect to the superior charms and attractions of her rival, intervened to increase the alienation — and before The Task was finished, its fair inspirer had left Olney without any intention Olney Church. of returning to it. In 1785 the new volume was published. Its success was instant and decided. 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 deli- neated. ‘ The Task ,’ says Southey, ‘ was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bpre evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye ; and the moral sentiment 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 publi- cation 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 after- wards read him critically in the Temple, and he was impressed with but a poor opinion of the trans- lation 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. The work j appeared in 1791, in two volumes quarto. In the interval the poet and Mrs Unwin had removed to Weston, a beautiful village about a mile from Olney. Ilis cousin, Lady Ilesketh, 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 dejected poet/ A careful revision of his Homer, and an engagement to edit a new edition of Milton, 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 settled on his mind, with occa- sionally bright intervals. A visit to his friend Hayley, at Eartham, produced a short cessation of his mental suffering, and in 1794 a pension of £300 was granted to him from the crown. He was induced, in 1795, to remove with Mrs Unwin to Norfolk, on a visit to some relations, and there Mrs Unwin died on the 17th of December 1796. The unhappy poet would not believe that his long-tried friend was actually dead ; he went to see the body, and on witnessing the unaltered placidity of death, flung himself to the other side of the room with a pas- sionate expression of feeling, and from that time he never mentioned her name or 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 Castaway , a strain of touching and beautiful verse, which shewed no decay of his poetical powers : at length death came to his release on the 25th of April 1800. So sad and strange a destiny has never before or since been that of a man of genius. With wit and humour at will, he was nearly all his life plunged in the darkest melancholy. Innocent, pious, and confiding, he lived in perpetual 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 intel- lectual vigour was not subdued by affliction. What he wrote for amusement or relief in the midst of ‘ supreme distress,’ surpasses the elaborate efforts of others made under the most favourable circum- stances ; and in the very winter of his days, his 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 undoubted ; 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 his letters without observing that cheerfulness was inspired by the one, and terror by the other. The iron frame of Newton could stand unmoved amidst shocks that destroyed the shrinking and appre- hensive mind of Cowper. All, however, have now gone to their account — the stern yet kind minister, the faithful Mary Unwin, the gentle high-born relations who forsook ease, and luxury, and society to soothe the misery of one wretched being, and that immortal being himself has passed away, scarcely conscious that he had bequeathed an imperishable treasure to mankind. We have greater and loftier poets than Cowper, but none so entirely incorpor- ated, 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, feelings, and desires which w r e have all felt or would wish to cherish. Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, are spirits of ethereal kind : Cowper 57 PROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. is a steady and valuable 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 Cowper’s Monument. intellectual powers, overflow upon us in secret, and bind us to him for ever. It is scarcely to he wondered at that Cowper’s first volume wa3 coldly received. The subjects of his poems ( Table Talk, the Progress of Error , Truth , Expostulation, Hope, Charity, &c.) did not promise much, and his manner of handling them was not calculated to conciliate a fastidious public. He was both too harsh and too spiritual for general readers. Johnson had written moral poems in the same form of verse, but they possessed a rich declamatory grandeur and brilliancy of illustration which Cowper did not attempt, and probably would, from principle, have rejected. There are passages, however, in these evangelical works of Cowper of masterly execution and lively fancy. His character of Chatham has rarely been surpassed even by Pope or Dryden : A. Patriots, alas ! the few that have been found, Where most they flourish, upon English ground, The country’s need have scantily supplied ; And the last left the scene when Chatham died. B. Not so ; the virtue still adorns our age, Though the chief actor died upon the stage. In him Demosthenes was heard again ; Liberty taught him her Athenian strain ; She clothed him with authority and awe, Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law. His speech, his form, his action full of grace, And all his country beaming in his face, He stood as some inimitable hand Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand. No sycophant or slave that dared oppose Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose ; And every venal stickler for the yoke, Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke. 68 Neither has the fine simile with which the following retrospect closes : Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard ; To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth asked ages more. Thus genius rose and set at ordered times, And shot a dayspring into distant climes, Ennobling every region that he chose. He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose ; And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past, Emerged all splendour in our isle at last. Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main, Then shew far off their shining plumes again. The poem of Conversation in this volume is rich in Addisonian humour and satire, and formed no 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 [The Greenland Missionaries .] That sound bespeaks salvation on her way, The trumpet of a life-restoring day ; ’Tis heard where England’s eastern glory shines, And in the gulfs of her Comubian mines. And still it spreads. See Germany send forth Her sons to pour it on the furthest 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. 0 blessed within the enclosure of your rocks, Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks ; No fertilising streams your fields divide. That shew 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 lands a prey ; Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won, And scorns to share it with the distant sun. Yet 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 unknown 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 poets. ENGLISH LITERATURE. william cowper. the polished uniformity of Pope and his imitators. He was now sensible that he had erred on the opposite side, and accordingly The Task was made to unite strength and freedom with 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, Cowper, as already mentioned, has greatly the advantage of Thomson, whose stately march is never relaxed, however trivial he the theme. The variety of 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, and from this he slides into rural description and moral reflection 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 the poet then elevates the character of his picture by a rapid sketch of still nobler features : [Rural Sounds .] Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds That sweep the skirt of some far- spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music not unlike The dash of ocean on his winding shore, And lull the spirit while they fill the mind, Unnumbered branches waving in the blast, And 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 cawing 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 lie seen Till half their beauties fade ; the weary sight, Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off 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 senseless 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 shews, 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 the Thames for the Ouse, and had ‘grown sober in the vale of years ; ’ his playful satire and tender admonition, his denunciation of slavery, his noble patriotism, his devotional earnestness and sublimity, his warm sympathy with his fellow-men, and his exquisite paintings of domestic peace and happiness, 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 things light and sportive are drawn up with the most solemn truths, and satire, pathos, and reproof alternately mingle or repel each other, are characteristic of his mind and temperament in ordinary life. His inimitable ease and colloquial freedom, 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 prospect of life, ‘ its fluctuations and its vast concerns,’ with a deeper shade than seems consonant with the general welfare and happiness, it also imparted a higher 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 wants 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, As 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 ; I interrupt him with a sudden bow, Adieu, dear sir, lest you should lose it now. A graver coxcomb we may sometimes see, Quito as absurd, though not so light as he : 59 prom 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 parcel 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 present on the spot. Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, Victorious seemed, and now the doctor’s skill ; And now — alas ! for unforeseen mishaps ! They put on a damp night-cap, 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 — Your 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 ; With sole — that ’s just the sort he would not wish. He takes what he at first professed to loathe, And in due time feeds heartily on both ; Yet still o’erclouded with a constant 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 s&orn 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 his Mother's Picture. 0 that those lips had language ! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smiles I see, 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. 60 Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 0 welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 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 ai*t 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 ! But was it such ? It was. Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting sound shall pass my lips no more ! 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, I 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 mightst 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, Adds joy 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 might. But no — what here we call our life is such, So little to be loved, and thou so much, POETS. WILLIAM COWPER. ENGLISH LITERATURE. 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 shew 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 0 the thought, that thou art safe, and he ! 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 ; But higher far my proud pretensions rise — The son of parents passed into the skies. And now, farewell — Time unrevoked has run His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. By contemplation’s help, not sought in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o’er again : To 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 bis theft — Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. [ Voltaire and the Lace- worker.] Yon cottager, 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 livelong day, J ust 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. 0 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, She safe in the simplicity of hers. To Mary (Mrs Unwin). 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 ! • Garth. (See Yol. I. of this work, page 584.) Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, Now rust disused, and shine no more, My Mary ! 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 Mary ! For, could I view nor them nor thee, What sight worth seeing could I 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 Mary ! And still to love, though pressed with ill, In wintry 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 shew, Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe, 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 ! [ 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 un wrinkled 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, Yet 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 61 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Fast as the periods 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 ! 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 utterance 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 sides, Out- scolds the ranting actor on the stage : Nor his who patient stands till his feet throb, And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles. This folio of four pages, happy work ! Which not even critics criticise ; that holds Inquisitive attention, while I 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 the course they take ; The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved To engross a moment’s notice, and yet begs, Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts, However trivial 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, iEthereal journeys, submarine exploits, And Katterfelto," with his hair on end At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. ’Tis pleasant through the loopholes 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 * A noted conjuror of the day. 62 Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear. Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced To some secure and more than mortal height, That liberates and exempts me from them all. * * 0 Winter ! ruler of the inverted year, * * I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st, And dreaded as thou art ! Thou hold’st the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning east, Shortening his journey between mom and noon, And hurrying 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 thee king of intimate delights, Fireside 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, Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, Unfolds its bosom : buds, and leaves, and sprigs, And 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 symphonious, 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, yet 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 impious 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 POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM COWPER. 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 thy votary calm, Or make me so. Composure is thy gift ; And whether I devote thy gentle hours To books, to music, or the poet’s toil ; To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit ; Or twining silken threads round ivory reels, . When they command whom man was born to please, I 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 Gath, Goliath, 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. Not undelightful is an hour to me So spent in parlour twilight : such a gloom Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind, The mind contemplative, with some new theme Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all. Laugh ye who boast your more mercurial powers, That never felt a stupor, know no pause, Nor need one ; I am conscious, and confess Fearless a soul that does not always think. Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild, Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers, Trees, churches, and strange visages, expressed In the red cinders, while with poring eye I gazed, myself creating what I saw. Nor less amused have I quiescent watched The sooty films that play upon the bars Pendulous, and foreboding in the view Of superstition, prophesying still, Though still deceived, some stranger’s near approach. ’Tis thus the understanding takes repose In indolent 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 thp freezing blast, That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home The recollected powers ; and snapping short The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves Her brittle toils, restores me to myself. 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. I 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-morrow brings a change, a total change I Which even now, though silently performed, And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face Of universal nature undergoes. 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 happiness 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 distinguished 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 chests. He, formed to bear The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night, With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks, and teeth Presented bare against the storm, plods on. One hand secures his hat, save when with both He brandishes his pliant length of whip, Resounding oft, and never heard in vain. 0 happy — and in my account denied That sensibility of pain with which Refinement is endued — thrice happy thou ! Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired. The learned finger never need explore Thy vigorous pulse ; and the unhealthful east, That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. Thy days roll on exempt 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 ap^earest, Yet shew that thou hast mercy ! which the great With needless hurry whirled from place to place, Humane as they would seem, not always shew. Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat, Such claim compassion in a night like this, 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, 111 clad, and fed but sparely, time to cool. The frugal housewife trembles while she lights Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear, But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys. The few small embers left she nurses 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 his own distress in theirs. The taper soon extinguished, which I saw Dangled along at the cold finger’s end Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce Of savoury cheese, or butter, costlier still. Sleep seems their only refuge ; for, alas, Where penury is felt the thought is chained, And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few ! FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care Ingenious parsimony takes, hut 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 hands ; but other boast have none To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg, Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love, I 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, But ofbtimes deaf to suppliants who would blush To wear a tattered garb, however coarse, Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth : These ask with painful shyness, and, refused Because deserving, silently retire ! 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 send. I mean the man who, when the distant poor Need help, denies them nothing but his name. [Love of Nature .] [From the same.] ’Tis born 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, Where 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 ! 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 Frenchman’s darling? Are they not all proofs That man, immured in cities, still retains His inborn inextinguishable thirst Of rural scenes, compensating his loss By supplemental shifts the best he may ? The most unfurnished with the means of life, And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds 64 To range the fields and treat their lungs with air, Yet feel the burning instinct; overhead 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 4o 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 offices 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 proper 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 warp 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. We love the man, the paltry pageant you ; We the chief patron of the commonwealth, You the regardless author 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 kingship 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, Where 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, blinds 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, POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM COWPER. 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 nations, seeing thou art free. My native nook of earth ! thy clime is rude, Replete with vapours, 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 address And sweetness, without which no pleasure is In converse, either starved by cold reserve, Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless 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 ! I 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 Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, I would at least bewail it under skies Milder, among a people less austere ; In scenes which, having never known me free, Would not reproach me with the lost I felt. Do I forebode impossible events, And tremble at vain dreams ? Heaven grant I may ! But 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 Where private was not ? Can he love the whole Who loves no paid; ? 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 therefore sober and good men are sad 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 Was registered in heaven ere time began. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works Die too : the deep foundations that we lay, $7 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. The Diverting History of John Gilpin : Shewing how he went further 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, Will 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 had 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 customers come in. 65 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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. Away went Gilpin — who but he ? His fame soon spread around ; He carries weight ! he rides a race ! ’Tis for a thousand pound ! ’Twas long before the customers Were suited to their mind, When Betty screaming came down stairs : ‘ The wine is left behind !’ And still, as fast as he drew near, ’Twas wonderful to view How in a trice the turnpike-men Their gates wide open threw. ‘ Good lack ! ’ quoth he — * yet bring it me, My leathern belt likewise, In which I bear my trusty sword When I do exercise.’ And now, as he went bowing down His reeking head full low, The bottles twain behind his back Were shattered at a blow. Now Mrs Gilpin — careful soul ! — Had two stone-bottles found, To hold the liquor that she loved, And keep it safe and sound. t Down ran the wine into the road, Most piteous to be seen, Which made his horse’s flanks to smoke As they had basted been. Each bottle had a curling ear, Through which the belt he drew, And hung a bottle on each side, To make his balance true. But still he seemed to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced ; For all might see the bottle necks Still dangling at his waist. Then over all, that he might be Equipped from top to toe, His long red cloak, well brushed and neat, He manfully did throw. Thus all through merry Islington These gambols he did play, Until he came unto the Wash Of Edmonton so gay. Now see him mounted once again Upon his nimble steed, Full slowly pacing o’er the stones With caution and good heed. And there he threw the wash about On both sides of the way, Just like unto a trundling mop, Or a wild goose at play. But finding soon a smoother road Beneath his well-shod feet, The snorting beast began to trot, Which galled him in his seat. At Edmonton his loving wife From the balcony spied Her tender husband, wondering much , To see how he did ride. 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. ‘Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! — Here’s the house’ — They all aloud did cry; ‘ The dinner waits, and we are tired !’ Said Gilpin : ‘ So am I !’ So stooping down, as needs he must Who cannot sit upright, He grasped the mane with both his hands, And eke with all his might. But yet his horse was not a whit Inclined to tarry there ; For why ? his owner had a house Full ten miles off at Ware. His horse, which never in that sort Had handled been before, What thing upon his back had got Did wonder more and more. So like an arrow swift he flew, Shot by an archer strong ; So did he fly — which brings me to The middle of my song. Away went Gilpin, neck or nought ; Away went hat and wig ; He little dreamt when he set out Of running such a rig. Away went Gilpin out of breath, And sore against his will, Till at his friend the calender’s His horse at last stood still. The’ wind did blow, the cloak did fly, Like streamer long and gay, Till, loop and button failing both, N At last it flew away. The calender, amazed to see His neighbour in such trim, Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, And thus accosted him : Then might all people well discern The bottles he had slung ; A bottle swinging at each side, As hath been said or sung. ‘ What news ? what news ? your tidings tell — Tell me you must and shall — Say why bareheaded you are come, Or why you come at all ? ’ The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all ; And every soul cried out : ‘ Well done !’ As loud as he could bawl 66 Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, And loved a timely joke ; And thus unto the calender In merry guise he spoke : ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. ‘ I came because your horse would come ; And, if I well forebode, My hat and wig will soon be here — They are upon the road.’ WILLIAM HAYLEY. Six gentlemen upon the road Thus seeing Gilpin fly, With post-boy scampering in the rear, They raised the hue and cry : The calender, right glad to find His friend in merry pin, Returned him not a single word, But to the house went in. ‘ Stop thief ! stop thief ! a highwayman ! ’ Not one of them was mute ; And all and each that passed that way Did join in the pursuit. Whence straight he came with hat and wig ; A wig that flowed behind, A hat not much the worse for wear, Each comely in its kind. And now the turnpike gates again Flew open in short space ; The tollmen thinking as before That Gilpin rode a race. He held them up, and in his turn Thus shewed his ready wit : ‘ My head is twice as big as youts, They therefore needs must fit. And so he did, and won it too, For he got first to town ; Nor stopped till where he had got up He did again get down. ‘ But let me scrape the dirt away That hangs upon your face ; And stop and eat, for well you may Be in a hungry case.’ Said John : ‘ It is my wedding-day, And all the world would stare If wife should dine at Edmonton, And I should dine at Ware.’ So turning to his horse, he said : ‘ I am in haste to dine ; ’Twas for your pleasure you came here, You shall go back for mine.’ Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast ! For which he paid full dear ; For, while he spake, a braying ass Did sing most loud and clear ; Whereat his horse did snort, as he Had heard a lion roar, And galloped off with all his might, As he had done before. Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin’s hat and wig : He lost them sooner than at first ; For why ? — they were too big. Now Mrs Gilpin, when she saw Her husband posting down Into the country far away, She pulled out half-a-crown ; And thus unto the youth she said, That drove them to the Bell : ‘This shall be yours when you bring back My husband safe and well.’ The youth did ride, and soon did meet John coming back amain ! Whom in a trice he tried to stop, By catching at his rein ; 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 ! WILLIAM HATLEY. William LIayley (1745-1820), the biographer of Cowper, wrote various poetical works which enjoyed great popularity in their day. His principal pro- ductions 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 tragedies, a novel, i and an Essay on Old Maids. A gentleman by education and fortune, and fond of literary com- i munication, Hayley enjoyed the acquaintance of most of the eminent men of his times. His over- strained sensibility and romantic tastes exposed him to ridicule, yet he was an amiable and accomplished man. It was through his personal application to Pitt that Cowper received his pension. He had — what appears to have been to him a sort of melancholy pride and satisfaction — the task of writing epitaphs for most of his friends, including Mrs Unwin and Cowper. His life of Cowper appeared in 1803, 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 appeared 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 chaff before the vigorous and natural outpourings of the modern muse. As a specimen of this' once much-praised poet, we 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.] But not performing what he meant, And gladly would have done, The frighted steed he frighted more, And made him faster run. 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. [From the Essay on Epic Poetry.} For mo 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, FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF 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 I wish to make her blessings known, And think those 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 hast 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 tamper 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 con stant love, through lingering years, 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 despair, 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 ! Nature, who decked thy form with beauty’s flowers, Exhausted on thy soul her finer powers ; Taught it with all her energy to feel Love’s melting softness, friendship’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 warmth 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 song. 63 to 1800. On the Tomb of Mrs Unwin. Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, This woman proved magnanimously kind ; Endured affliction’s desolating hail, And watched a poet through misfortune’s vale. Her spotless dust angelic guards defend ! 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. DR ERASMUS DARWIN. Dr Erasmus Darwin, an ingenious philosophical, though fanciful poet, was born at Elston, near Newark, in 1731. Having passed with credit through a course of education at St John’s College, Cambridge, he applied himself to the study of physic, and took his degree of bachelor in medicine at Edinburgh in 1755. 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, hut 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 verse, designed to describe, adorn, and allegorise the Linnman system of botany. The Rosicrucian doctrine of gnomes, sylphs, nymphs., and sala- manders, was adopted by the poet, as ‘ affording a POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR ERASMUS DARWIN. proper machinery for a botanic poem, as it is prob- able they were originally 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 Radbourne Hall, near Derby. An intimacy was thus formed with Mrs Pole ; and the colonel dying, the poetical physician in a few months afterwards, in 1781, married the fair widow, who possessed a jointure of £600 per annum. Darwin was now released from all prudential fears and restraints as to the cultivation of his poetical talents, and he went on adding to his floral gallery. In 1789 appeared the second part of his poem, 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 remained prisoners so long in their respective vegetable 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.* How snow-drops cold, and blue-eyed harebells blend Their tender tears, as o’er the streams they bend ; The love-sick violet, and the primrose pale, Bow their sweet heads, and whisper to the gale ; With secret sighs the virgin lily droops, And jealous cowslips hang their tawny cups. How the young rose, 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 ydnds ; 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 varnished shells ; Ye bee-nymphs, listen in your waxen cells ! j This is exquisitely melodious verse, and ingenious I 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 sisters of the field ! 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 ! ; In another part of the poem, after describing the cassia plant, ‘ cinctured with gold,’ and borne on by I the current to the coasts of Norway, with all its * Linnaeus?, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, has demon- strated that all flowers contain families of males or females, or both ; and on their marriage, has constructed his invaluable system of botany.— Darwin. 1 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 dauntless 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 lips, The salt tears mingling with the milk he sips ; Waits on the reed-crowned brink with 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’s hands, And broke, cursed slavery ! 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 either Ind obeys ; Who right the injured and reward the brave, Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save ! Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort, Inexorable conscience holds his court ; With still small voice the plots of guilt alarms, Bares 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 ! ’ The material images of Darwin are often less happy than the above, being both extravagant and gross, and grouped together without any visible connection or dependence one on the other. lie 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 the reader’s imagination, and the whole passes like a glittering pageant before the eye, exciting wonder, but without touching the heart or feelings. As the poet was then past fifty, the exuberance of his fancy, and his peculiar choice of subjects, are the more remarkable. A third part of the Botanic Garden was added in 1792. Darwin next published his Zoonomia , or the Laws of Organic Life , part of which he had written many years previously. This 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, however, success- fully combated the positions of Darwin, particularly his theory which refers instinct to sensation. In 1801 our author came forward Avith another philosophical disquisition, entitled Phytologia , or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. He also wrote a short treatise on Female Education , intended for the instruction and assistance of part of his own family. This was Darwin’s last publication. He had always been a remarkably temperate man. Indeed, he totally abstained from all fermented and spirituous liquors, and in his Botanic Garden ho compares 69 PROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. their effects to that of the Promethean fire. He was, however, subject to inflammation as well as gout, and a sudden attack carried him off in his seventy-first year, on the 18th of April 1802. Shortly after his death, was published 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 bring- ing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature. It is more metaphysical than its predecessor, 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.’ 4 There is a fashion in poetry,’ observes Sir Walter Scott, 4 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 found to impede its reception when the mode has passed away.’ This has been the fate of Darwin. Besides his coterie at Lichfield, the poet of Flora had considerable influence on the poetical taste of his own day. He may be traced in the Pleasures of Hope of Campbell, and in other young poets of that time. The attempt to unite science with the 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 seconded by his curious and multifarious knowledge. . The effect of the whole, however, was artificial, and destitute of any strong or continuous interest. The Eosicrucian 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 I of variety of cadence, becomes monotonous and | fatiguing. There is no repose, no cessation from j the glare of his bold images, his compound epithets, j and high-toned melody. He had attained to rare perfection in the mechanism of poetry, but wanted , those impulses 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 .] ‘ Stay your rude steps ! whose throbbing breasts infold The legion-fiends of glory and of gold ! 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. 4 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 w r ay ; 70 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. 4 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 woe shall calm her aching breast, And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest. 4 Winds of the north ! 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 ! Hither, emerging from yon orient skies, Botanic goddess, bend thy radiant eyes ; O’er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign, 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, Stretched o’er the marshy vale yon willowy mound, Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground ; Raised the young woodland, smoothed the wavy green, And gave to beauty all the quiet scene. She comes ! the goddess ! through the whispering air, Bright 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 flowers the crimson reins connect. And now on earth the silver axle rings, And the shell sinks upon its slender springs ; Light from her airy seat the goddess bounds, And steps celestial press the pansied grounds. Fair Spring advancing calls her feathered quire, And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre ; Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move, And arms her zephyrs with the shafts of love. [Destruction of Sennacherib’s Army by a Pestilential Wind] [From the Economy of Vegetation .] From Asliur’s vales when proud Sennacherib trod, Poured his swoln heai't, defied the living God, Urged with incessant shouts his glittering powers, And Judah shook through all her massy towers ; Round her sad altars press the prostrate crowd, Hosts beat their breasts, and 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, Spread the blaspheming scroll before the Lord, Raised his pale hands, and breathed his pausing sighs, And fixed on heaven his dim imploring eyes. 4 Oh ! mighty God, amidst thy seraph throng Who sit’st sublime, the judge of right and wrong ; Thine the wide earth, bright sun, and starry zone, That twinkling journey round thy golden throne ; Thine is the crystal source of life and light, And thine the realms of death’s eternal night. ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. Eft ERASMUS EARWIN. Oh ! bend thine ear, thy gracious eye incline, Lo ! Ashur’s king blasphemes thy holy shrine, Insults our offerings, and derides our vows. Oh ! strike the diadem from his impious brows, Tear from his murderous hand the bloody rod, And teach the trembling nations “Thou art Gfod !” ’ Sylphs ! in what dread array with pennons broad, Onward ye floated o’er the ethereal road ; Called each dank steam the reeking marsh exhales, Contagious vapours and volcanic gales ; Gave the soft south with poisonous breath to blow, And rolled the v dreadful whirlwind on the foe ! Hark ! o’er the camp the venomed tempest sings, Man falls on man, on buckler, buckler rings ; Groan answers groan, to anguish, anguish yields, And death’s loud accents shake the tented fields ! High rears the fiend his grinning jaws, and wide Spans the pale nations with colossal stride, “Waves his broad falchion with uplifted hand, And his vast shadow darkens all the land. [The Belgian Lovers and the Plague .] [From the same.] [When the plague raged in Holland in 1636, a young girl was seized with it, and was removed to a garden, where her lover, who was betrothed to her, attended her as a nurse. He remained uninfected, and she recovered, and was married to him.] Thus when the plague, upborne on Belgian air, Looked through the mist, and shook his clotted hair, O’er shrinking nations steered malignant clouds, And rained destruction on the gaping crowds ; The beauteous iEgle felt the envenomed dart, Slow rolled her eye and feebly throbbed her heart ; Each fervid sigh seemed shorter than the last, And starting friendship shunned her as she passed. With weak unsteady step the fainting maid Seeks the cold garden’s solitary shade, Sinks on the pillowy moss her drooping head, And prints with lifeless limbs her leafy bed. On wings of love her plighted swain pursues, Shades her from winds and shelters her from dews, Extends on tapering poles the canvas roof, Spreads o’er the straw- wove mat the flaxen woof ; Sweet buds and blossoms on her bolster strews, And binds his kerchief round her aching brows ; Soothes with soft kiss, with tender accents charms, And clasps the bright infection in his arms. With pale and languid smiles the grateful fair Applauds his virtues and rewards his care ; Mourns with wet cheek her fair companions fled, On timorous step, or numbered with the dead ; Calls to her bosom all its scattered rays, And pours on Thyrsis the collected blaze ; Braves the chill night, caressing and caressed, And folds her hero-lover to her breast. Less bold, Leander, at the dusky hour, Eyed, as he swam, the far love-lighted tower ; Breasted with struggling arms the tossing wave, And sunk benighted in the watery grave. Less bold, Tobias claimed the nuptial-bed, Where seven fond lovers by a fiend had bled ; And drove, instructed by his angel guide, The enamoured demon from the fatal bride. Sylphs ! while your winnowing pinions fanned the air, And shed gay visions o’er the sleeping pair, Love round their couch effused his rosy breath, And with his keener arrows conquered death. [Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden .] [From the Loves of the Plants .] So stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height, O’er Minden’s plain, spectatress of the fight. Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife Her dearer self, the partner of her life ; From hill to hill the rushing host pursued, And viewed his banner, or believed she viewed. Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led ; And one fair girl amid the loud alarm Slept on her kerchief, cradled by her arm ; While round her brows bright beams of Honour dart, And Love’s warm eddies circle round her heart. Near and more near the intrepid beauty pressed, Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest ; Saw on his helm, her virgin hands inwove, Bright stars of gold, and mystic knots of love ; Heard the exulting shout, ‘ They run ! they run ! ’ ‘ Great God !’ she cried, ‘ he ’s safe ! the battle’s won!’ A ball now hisses through the airy tides — Some fury winged it, and some demon guides ! — Parts the fine locks her graceful head that deck, Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck ; The red stream, issuing from her azure veins, Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains. ‘ Ah me ! ’ she cried, and sinking on the ground, Kissed her dear babes, regardless of the wound ; ‘ 0 cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn ! Wait, gushing life, 0 wait my love’s return !’ Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far ! The angel pity shuns the walks of war ! ‘ 0 spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age ; On me, on me,’ she cried, ‘ exhaust your rage ! ’ Then with weak arms her weeping babes caressed, And, sighing, hid them in her blood-stained vest. From tent to tent the impatient warrior flies, Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes ; Eliza’s name along the camp he calls, ‘Eliza’ echoes through the canvas walls ; Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread, O’er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead, Vault o’er the plain, and in the tangled wood, Lo ! dead Eliza 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 dew-cold sand ; Poor weeping babe, with bloody fingers pressed, And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast ; ‘ Alas ! we both with cold and hunger quake — Why do you weep ? — Mamma will soon awake.’ ‘ She’ll wake no more !’ 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, And all the father kindled in his heart ; ‘ 0 heavens ! ’ he cried, ‘ my first rash vow forgive ; These bind to earth, for these I pray to live ! ’ Round his chill babes he wrapped his crimson 'vest, And clasped them sobbing to his aching breast.* [Philanthropy — Mr Howard .] [From the Loves of the Plants.] And now, philanthropy ! thy rays divine Dart round the globe from Zembla to the line ; * Those who have the opportunity may compare this death- scene (much to the advantage of the living author) with that of Gertrude of Wyoming, which may havo been suggested, very remotely and quite unconsciously, by Darwin’s Eliza. Sir Walter Scott excels in painting battle-pieces, as overseen by some 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! — Montgomery's Lectures on Poetry , 1833. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 woe. Down many a winding step to dungeons dank, Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank ; To caves bestrewed with many a moulderiug 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 J ustice to the dark domains, If not to sever, to relax the chains ; Or guides awakened mercy through the gloom, And shews the prison, sister to the tomb ! Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife, To her fond husband liberty and life ! The spirits of the good, who bend from high Wide 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 sunlike glory blaze In arrowy circles of unwearied rays ; Mistook a mortal for an angel guest, And asked what seraph foot the earth impressed. Onward he moves ! Disease and Death retire, And murmuring demons hate him and admire ! Song to May. [From the same.] Born in yon blaze of orient sky, Sweet May ! 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 blossoms 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.] Sweet Echo ! sleeps thy vocal shell, Where this high arch o’erhangs the dell ; While Tweed, with sun-reflecting streams. Checkers thy rocks with dancing beams ? Here may no clamours harsh intrude, No brawling hound or clarion rude ; Here no fell beast of midnight prowl, And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl. 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. . 72 And if, like me, some love-lorn maid Should sing her sorrows to thy shade, Oh ! soothe her breast, ye rocks around, With softest sympathy of sound. THE ROLLIAD. A series of political satires, commencing about 1781, and written by a few men of wit and fashion, attracted much attention, and became extensively popular. They appeared first in a London news- paper, the earliest — from which the name of the | collection was derived — being a satire on Colonel, : afterwards Lord Rolle. The Rolliad — consisting of ! pretended criticism on an imaginary epic poem — was followed by Probationary Odes for the Laureate- ship, and Political Eclogues. The design of the Probationary Odes was probably suggested by Pope’s ridicule of Cibber ; and the death of Whitehead, the poet-laureate, in 1785, was seized upon by the Whig wits as affording an opportunity for satirising some of the political and literary characters of the da}', conspicuous as members or supporters of the government. Pitt, Dundas, Jenkinson (Lord Liver- pool), Lord Thurlow, Kenyon, Sir Cecil Wray, Dr Prettyman (afterwards Bishop of Winchester), and others, were the objects of these humorous sallies and personal invectives ; while among literary men, Thomas Warton, Sir John Hawkins, and Macpher- son (the translator of Ossian), were selected for attack. The contributors to this gallery of bur- lesque portraits and clever caricatures were : 1. Dr Lawrence, the friend of Burke, who was the chief editor or director of the satires : he died in 1807. 2. General Richard Fitzpatrick (1749-1815), a brother of the last Earl of Upper Ossory, who was long in parliament, and held successively the offices of Secretary-at-war and Irish Secretary. Fitz- patrick was the intimate friend of Charles James Fox — a fact recorded on his tomb — and his quatrain on that eminent statesman may be quoted as remarkable for condensed and happy expression : A patriot’s even course he steered, ’Mid faction’s wildest storms unmoved ; By all who marked his mind revered, By all who knew his heart beloved. 3. Richard Tickell, the grandson of Addison’s friend, and the brother-in-law of Sheridan, besides his contributions to the Rolliad , was author of The Wreath of Fashion and other poetical pieces, and of a lively political pamphlet, entitled Anticipation , 1778. Tickell was a commissioner of stamps; he was a great favourite in society ; yet in a moment of despondency he threw himself from a high window in Hampton Court Palace, November 4, 1793, and was killed on the spot. 4. Joseph Richardson (1758-1803) was author of a comedy, called The Fugitive , and was partner with Sheridan in Drury Lane Theatre. Among the other contri- butors to the Rolliad were Lord J ohn Townsend | (1757-1837), Mr George Ellis, the poetical anti- quary and friend of Scott, Sir R. Adair, and General Bcrgoyne, author of some dramatic pieces. All these were gay, fashionable, and some- what hard-living men, whose political satire and malice, as Moore has remarked, ‘from the fancy with which it is mixed up, like certain kinds of fireworks, explodes in sparkles.’ Some of their sallies, however, are coarsely personal, and often irreverend in style and allusion. The topics of their satire are now in a great measure forgotten — superseded by other party-men and party-measures ; and the very qualities which gave it immediate POets. ENGLISH LITERATURE. William gifford. and splendid success, have sunk it sooner in oblivion. [Character of Mr Pitt.] Pert without fire, without experience sage, Young, with more art than Shelburne gleaned from age, Too proud from pilfered greatness to descend, Too humble not to call Dundas his friend, In solemn dignity and sullen state, This new Octavius rises to debate ! Mild and more mild he sees each placid row Of country gentlemen with rapture glow ; He sees, convulsed with sympathetic throbs, Apprentice peers and deputy nabobs. Nor rum-contractors think his speech too long, While words, like treacle, trickle from his tongue. 0 soul congenial to the souls of Holies ! — Whether you tax the luxury of coals, Or vote some necessary millions more To feed an Indian friend’s exhausted store. Fain would I praise — if I like thee could praise — Thy matchless virtue in congenial lays. Crit. on the Rolliad, No. 2. WILLIAM GIFFORD. "William Gifford, a poet, translator, and critic, afforded a remarkable example of successful appli- cation to science and literature under the most unfavourable circumstances. He was born at Ash- burton, in Devonshire, in April 1756. His father had been a painter and glazier, but both the parents of the poet died when he was young; and after some little education, he was, at the age of thirteen, placed on board a coasting- vessel by his godfather, a man who was supposed to have benefited himself at the expense of Gifford’s parents. ‘It will be easily conceived,’ he says, ‘ that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only “ a ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,” but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot : yet if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading; as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing, during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description, except the Coasting Pilot’ Whilst thus pursuing his life of a cabin-boy, Gifford was often seen by the fishwomen of his native town running about the beach in a ragged jacket and trousers. They mentioned this to the people of Ashburton, and never without commiserating his change of condition. This tale, often repeated, awakened at length the pity of the auditors, and as the next step, their resentment against the man who had reduced him to such a state of wretchedness. His godfather was, on this account, induced to recall him from the sea, and put him again to school. He made rapid progress, and even hoped to succeed his old and infirm schoolmaster. In his fifteenth year, however, his godfather, conceiving that he had got learning enough, and that his own duty towards him was fairly discharged, put him apprentice to a shoemaker. Gifford hated his new profession with a perfect hatred. At this time he possessed but one book in the world, and that was a treatise on algebra, of which he had no knowledge; but meeting with Denning’s Introduction , he mastered both works. ‘ This was not done,’ he states, ‘ without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give j me one : pen, ink, and paper, therefore — in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford — were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was indeed a resource, but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl : for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.’ He next tried poetry, and some of his ‘ lamentable doggerel ’ falling into the hands of Mr Cookesley, a benevolent surgeon of Ashburton, that gentleman set about a subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of his apprenticeship, and enabling him to procure a better education. The scheme was successful ; and in little more than two years, Gifford had made such extraordinary application, that he was pronounced fit for the uniyersity. The place of Biblical Lecturer was procured for him at Exeter College, and this, with such occasional assistance from the country as Mr Cookesley undertook to provide, was thought sufficient to enable him to live, at least, till he had taken a degree. An accidental circumstance led to Gifford’s advancement. He had been accustomed to correspond, on literary subjects, with a person in London, his letters being enclosed in covers, and sent, to save postage, to Lord Grosvenor. One day he inadvertently omitted the direction, and his lordship, necessarily supposing the letter to be meant for himself, opened and read it. He was struck with the contents; and after seeing the writer, and hearing him relate the circumstances of his life, undertook the charge of his present support and future establishment; and, till this last could be effected to his wish, invited him to come and reside with him. ‘These,’ says the grateful scholar, ‘were not words of course : they were more than fulfilled in every point. I did go and reside with him, and I experi- enced a warm and cordial reception, and a kind and affectionate esteem, that has known neither diminution nor interruption from that hour to this, a period of twenty years.’ Part of this time, it may be remarked, was spent in attending the earl’s eldest son, Lord Belgrave, on a tour of Europe, which must have tended greatly to inform and expand the mind of the scholar. Gifford appeared as an author in 1794. His first production was a satirical poem, entitled The Baviad, which was directed against a class of sentimental poetasters of that day, usually passing under the collective appellation of the Della Crusca School — Mrs Piozzi, Mrs Robinson, Mr Greathead, Mr Merry, Weston, Parsons, &c. — conspicuous for their affectation and bad taste, and their high-flown compliments on one another. ‘There was a specious brilliancy in these exotics,’ he remarks, ‘which dazzled the native grubs, who had scarce ever ventured beyond a sheep, and a crook, and a rose-tree grove ; with an ostentatious display of “blue hills,” and “crashing torrents,” and “petrifying suns.”’ Gifford’s vigorous exposure completely demolished this set of rliymsters, who were probably the spawn of Darwin and Lichfield. Anna Matilda, Laura Maria, Edwin, Orlando, &c., sunk into instant and irretrievable contempt; and the worst of the number — a man Williams, who assumed the name of Pasquin for his ‘ ribald strains ’ — was nonsuited in an action against Gifford’s publisher. The satire was universally read and admired. In the present day, it seems unnecessarily merciless and severe, yet lines like the following still possess interest. The allusion to Pope is peculiarly appropriate and beautiful : 0 for the good old times ! when all was new, And every hour brought prodigies to view, Our sires in unaffected language told Of streams of amber and of rocks of gold : 73 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Full of their tlieme, they spurned all idle art, And the plain tale was trusted to the heart. Now all is changed ! We fume and fret, poor elves, Less to display our subject than ourselves : Whate’er we paint — a grot, a flower, a bird, Heavens, how we sweat ! laboriously absurd ! Words of gigantic bulk and uncouth sound, In rattling triads the long sentence bound ; While points with points, with periods, periods jar, And the whole work seems one continued war ! Is not this sad ? F. — ’Tis pitiful, heaven knows ; ’Tis wondrous pitiful. E’en take the prose : But for the poetry — oh, that, my friend, I still aspire — nay, smile not — to defend. You praise our sires, but, though they wrote with force, Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse ; We want their strength ; agreed; but we atone For that, and more, by sweetness all our own. For instance — ‘ Hasten to the lawny vale, Where yellow morning breathes her saffron gale, And bathes the landscape ’ P. — Pshaw ; I have it here. ‘ A voice seraphic grasps my listening ear : Wondering I gaze : when lo ! methought afar, More bright than dauntless day’s imperial star, A godlike form advances.’ F. — You suppose These lines perhaps too turgid ; what of those ? ‘ The mighty mother ’ P. — Now, ’tis plain you sneer, For Weston’s self could find no semblance here : Weston ! who slunk from truth’s imperious light, Swells like a filthy toad with secret spite, And, envying the fame he cannot hope, Spits his black venom at the dust of Pope. Eeptile accursed ! — 0 ‘ memorable long, If there be force in virtue or in song,’ 0 injured bard ! accept the grateful strain, Which I, the humblest of the tuneful train, With glowing heart, yet trembling hand, repay, For many a pensive, many a sprightly lay ! So may thy varied verse, from age to age, Inform the simple, and delight the sage. The contributions of Mrs Piozzi to this fantastic garland of exotic verse are characterised in one felicitous couplet : See Thrale’s gay widow with a satchel roam, And bring, in pomp, her laboured nothings home ! The tasteless bibliomaniac is also finely sketched : Others, like Kemble, on black-letter pore, And what they do not understand, adore ; Buy at vast sums the trash of ancient days, And draw on prodigality for praise. These, when some lucky hit, or lucky price, Has blessed them with The Boke of Gode Advice , For ekes and algates only deign to seek, And live upon a whilome for a week. The Baviad was a paraphrase of the first satire of Persius. In the year following, encouraged by its success, Gifford produced the Mceviad, an imitation of Horace, levelled at the corruptors of dramatic poetry. Here also the Della Crusca authors — who attempted dramas as well as odes and elegies — are gibbeted in satiric verse ; but Gifford was more critical than just in including O’Keefe, the amusing farce- writer, among the objects of his condemnation. The plays of Kotzebue and Schiller, then first trans- lated and much in vogue, he also characterises as ‘heavy, lumbering, monotonous stupidity,’ a sentence too unqualified and severe. In the Mceviad are 74 some touching and affectionate allusions to the author’s history and friends. Dr Ireland, dean of Westminster, is thus mentioned : Chief thou, my friend ! who from my earliest years Hast shared my joys, and more than shared my cares. Sure, if our fates hang on some hidden power, And take their colour from the natal hour, Then, Ireland, the same planet on us rose, Such the strong sympathies our lives disclose ! Thou knowest how soon we felt this influence bland, And sought the brook and coppice, hand in hand, And shaped rude bows, and uncouth whistles blew, And paper kites — a last great effort — flew ; And when the day was done, retired to rest, Sleep on our eyes, and sunshine in our breast. In riper years, again together thrown, Our studies, as our sports before, were one. Together we explored the stoic page Of the Ligurian, stern though beardless sage ! Or traced the Aquinian through the Latine road, And trembled at the lashes he bestowed. Together, too, when Greece unlocked her stores, We roved in thought o’er Troy’s devoted shores, Or followed, while he sought his native soil, ‘ That old man eloquent ’ from toil to toil ; Lingering, with good Alcinous, o’er the tale, Till the east reddened and the stars grew pale. Gifford tried a third satire, an Epistle to Peter Pindar (Dr Wolcot), which, being founded on personal animosity, is more remarkable for its passionate vehemence and abuse than for its felicity or correct- ness. Wolcot replied with A Cut at a Cobbler , equally unworthy of his fame. These satirical labours of our author pointed him out as a fit person to edit The Anti- Jacobin, a weekly paper set up by Canning and others for the purpose of ridiculing and exposing the political agitators of the times. It was established in November' 1797, and continued only till the July following. The connection thus formed with politicians and men of rank was afterwards serviceable to Gifford. He obtained the situation of paymaster of the gentle- men-pensioners, and was made a commissioner of the lottery, the emoluments of the two offices being about £900 per annum. In 1802, he published a translation of Juvenal, to which was prefixed his sketch of his own life, one of the most interesting and unaffected of autobiographies. He also trans- lated Persius, and edited the plays of Massinger, Ford, and Shirley, and the works of Ben Jonson. In 1808, when Sir Walter Scott and others resolved on starting a review, in opposition to the celebrated one established in Edinburgh, Mr Gifford was selected as editor. In his hands, the Quarterly Review became a powerful political and literary journal, to which leading statesmen and authors equally contributed. He continued to discharge his duties as editor until within two years of his death, which took place on the 31st of December 1826. Gifford claimed for himself A soul That spurned the crowd’s malign control — A fixed contempt of wrong. He was high-spirited, courageous, and sincere. In most of his writings, however, there was a strong tinge of personal acerbity, and even virulence. He was a good hater, and as he was opposed to all poli- tical visionaries and reformers, he had seldom time to cool. His literary criticism, also, where no such prejudices could interfere, was frequently disfigured by the same severity of style or temper ; and who- ever, dead or living, had ventured to say aught POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM GIFFORD. against Ben Jonson, or write what he deemed wrong comments on his favourite dramatists, were assailed with a vehemence that was ludicrously dispropor- tioned to the offence. His attacks on Hazlitt, Lamb, Hunt, and others, in the Quarterly Review , have no pretensions to fair or candid criticism. His object was to crush such authors as were opposed to the government of the day, or who departed from his canons of literary propriety and good taste. Even the best of his criticisms, though acute and spirited, want candour and comprehensiveness of design. As a politician, he looked with distrust and suspicion on the growing importance of America, and kept alive among the English aristocracy a feeling of dislike or hostility towards that country, which was as unwise as it was ungenerous. His best service to literature was his edition of Ben Jonson, in which he successfully vindicated that great English classic from the unjust aspersions of his countrymen. His satirical poetry is pungent, and often happy in expression, but without rising into moral grandeur or pathos. His small but sinewy intellect, as some one has said, was well employed in bruising the butterflies of the Della Cruscan Muse. Some of his short copies of verses possess a quiet plaintive melancholy and tenderness ; but his fame must rest on his influence and talents as a critic and annotator — or more properly, on the story of his life and early struggles — honourable to himself, and ultimately to his country — which will be read and remembered when his other writings are forgotten. The Grave of Anna. I wish I was where Anna lies, For I am sick of lingering here ; And every hour affection cries, Go and partake her humble bier. I wish I could ! For when she died, I lost my all ; and life has proved Since that sad hour a dreary void ; A waste unlovely and unloved. But who, when I am turned to clay, Shall duly to her grave repair, And pluck the ragged moss away, And weeds that have ‘ no business there?’ And who with pious hand shall bring The flowers she cherished, snow-drops cold, And violets that unheeded spring, To scatter o’er her hallowed mould ? And who, while memory loves to dwell Upon her name for ever dear, Shall feel his heart with passion swell, And pour the bitter, bitter tear ? I did it ; and would fate allow, Should visit still, should still deplore — But health and strength have left me now, And I* alas ! can weep no more. Take then, sweet maid ! this simple strain, The last I offer at thy shrine ; Thy grave must then undecked remain, And all thy memory fade with mine. And can thy soft persuasive look, Thy voice that might with music vie, Thy air that every gazer took, Thy matchless eloquence of eye ; Thy spirits frolicsome as good, Thy courage by no ills dismayed, Thy patience by no wrongs subdued, Thy gay good-humour, can they fade ? Perhaps — but sorrow dims my eye ; Cold turf which I no more must view, Dear name which I no more must sigh, A long, a last, a sad adieu ! The above affecting elegiac stanzas were written by Gifford on a faithful attendant who died in his service. He erected a tombstone to her memory in the burying-ground of Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street, with the following inscription and epitaph : ‘Here lies the body of Ann Davies, (for more than twenty years) servant to William Gifford. She died February 6th, 1815, in the forty-third year of her age, of a tedious and painful malady, which she bore with exemplary patience and resignation. Her deeply afflicted master erected this stone to her memory, as a painful testimony of her uncommon worth, and of his perpetual gratitude, respect, and affection for her long and meritorious services. ‘ Though here unknown, dear Ann, thy ashes rest, Still lives thy memory in one grateful breast, That traced thy course through many a painful year, And marked thy humble hope, thy pious fear. Oh ! when this frame, which yet, while life remained, Thy duteous love, with trembling hand sustained, Dissolves — as soon it must — may that blessed Power Who beamed on thine, illume my parting hour ! So shall I greet thee where no ills annoy, And what was sown in grief is reaped in joy : Where worth, obscured below, bursts into day, And those are paid whom earth could never pay.’ Greenwich Hill. First of May. Though clouds obscured the morning hour, And keen and eager blew the blast, And drizzling fell the cheerless shower, As, doubtful, to the skiff we passed : All soon, propitious to our prayer, Gave promise of a brighter day; The clouds dispersed in purer air, The blasts in zephyrs died away. So have we, love, a day enjoyed, On which we both — and yet, who knows ? — May dwell with pleasure unalloyed, And dread no thorn beneath the rose. How pleasant, from that dome-crowned hill, To view the varied scene below, Woods, ships, and spires, and, lovelier still, The circling Thames’ majestic flow ! How sweet, as indolently laid, We overhung that long-drawn dale, To watch the checkered light and shade That glanced upon the shifting sail ! And when the shadow’s rapid growth Proclaimed the noontide hour expired, And, though unwearied, ‘nothing loath,’ We to our simple meal retired ; The sportive wile, the blameless jest, The careless mind’s spontaneous flow, Gave to that simple meal a zest Which richer tables may not know. 75 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP TO 1800, 76 The babe that on the mother’s breast Has toyed and wantoned for a while, And sinking in unconscious rest, Looks up to catch a parting smile ; Feels less assured than thou, dear maid, When, ere thy ruby lips could part — As close to mine thy cheek was laid — Thine eyes had opened all thy heart. Then, then I marked the chastened joy That lightly o’er thy features stole, From vows repaid — my sweet employ — From truth, from innocence of soul : While every word dropt on my ear So soft — and yet it seemed to thrill — So sweet that ’twas a heaven to hear, And e’en thy pause had music still. And oh ! how like a fairy dream To gaze in silence on the tide, While soft and warm the sunny gleam Slept on the glassy surface wide ! And many a thought of fancy bred, Wild, soothing, tender, undefined, Played lightly round the heart, and shed Delicious languor o’er the mind. So hours like moments winged their flight, Till now the boatmen on the shore, Impatient of the waning light, Recalled us by the dashing oar. Well, Anna, many days like this I cannot, must not hope to' share; For I have found an hour of bliss Still followed by an age of care. Yet oft when memory intervenes — But you, dear maid, be happy still, Nor e’er regret, midst fairer scenes, The day we passed on Greenwich Hill. To a Tuft of Early Violets. Sweet flowers ! that from your humble beds Thus prematurely dare to rise, And trust your unprotected heads To cold Aquarius’ watery skies ; Retire, retire ! these tepid airs Are not the genial brood of May ; That Sun with light malignant glares, And flatters only to betray. Stern winter’s reign is not yet past — Lo ! while your buds prepare to blow, , On icy pinions comes the blast, ^ And nips your root, and lays you low. V* Alas, for such ungentle doom ! But I will shield you, and supply A kindlier soil on which to bloom, A nobler bed on which to die. Come then, ere yet the morning ray Has drunk the dew that gems your crest. And drawn your balmiest sweets away ; 0 come, and grace my Anna’s breast. Ye droop, fond flowers ! but, did ye know What worth, what goodness there reside. Your cups with liveliest tints would glow. And spread their leaves with conscious pride ; For there has liberal nature joined Her riches to the stores of art, And added to the vigorous mind The soft, the sympathising heart. Come then, ere yet the morning ray Has drunk the dew that gems your crest, And drawn your balmiest sweets away ; 0 come, and grace my Anna’s breast. Oh ! I should think — that fragrant bed Slight I but hope with you to share — Years of anxiety repaid By one short hour of transport there. More blessed your lot, ye there shall live Your little day; and when ye die, Sweet flowers ! the grateful Muse shall give A verse — the sorrowing maid a sigh. While I, alas ! no distant date, Mix with the dust from whence I came, Without a friend to weep my fate, Without a stone to tell my name. THE ANTI-JACOBIN POETRY. We have alluded to the Anti-Jacobin weekly paper, of which Mr Gifford was editor. In this publication, various copies of verses were inserted, chiefly of a satirical nature. The poetry, like the prose, of the Anti-Jacobin was designed to ridicule and discountenance the doctrines of the French Revolution ; and as party-spirit ran high, those effusions were marked occasionally by fierce person- ality and declamatory violence. Others, however, written in travesty, or contempt of the bad taste and affectation of some of the works of the day, contained well-directed and witty satire, aimed by no common hand, and pointed with irresistible keenness. Among those who mixed in this loyal warfare was Mr J. H. Frere (noticed in a subse- quent section), and George Canning (1770-1827), whose fame as an orator and statesman fills so large a space in the modem history of Britain. Canning Avas then young and ardent, full of hope and ambi- tion. Without family distinction or influence, he relied on his talents for future advancement; and from interest, no less than feeling and principle, he exerted them in support of the existing administra- tion. Previous to this, he had distinguished himself at Eton School for his classical acquirements and literary talents. Entering parliament in 1793, he was, in 1796, appointed under-secretary of state, and it was at the close of the following year that the Anti- Jacobin was commenced. The contribu- tions of Mr Canning consist of parodies on Southey and Darwin, the greater part of The Rovers — a burlesque on the sentimental German drama — and New Morality , a spirited and caustic satire, directed against French principles and their supporters in England. In this poem of New Morality occur four lines often quoted : Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe ; Bold I can meet — perhaps may turn his blow ; But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save, save, oh ! save me from the candid friend ! As party effusions, these pieces were highly popular and effective ; and that they are still read with pleasure on account of their wit and humour, and also perhaps on account of their slashing and fero- cious style, is instanced by the fact, that the Poetry ] of the Anti-Jacobin , collected and published in a POETS. GEORGE CANNING. ENGLISH LITERATURE. separate form, has attained to a sixth edition. The genius of Canning found afterwards a more appro- priate field in parliament. As a statesman, ‘just alike to freedom and the throne,’ and as an orator, eloquent, witty, and of consummate taste, his repu- tation is established. He had, however, a strong bias in favour of elegant literature, and would have become no mean poet and author, had he not embarked so early on public life, and been so incessantly occupied with its cares and duties. The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder. [In this piece, Canning ridicules the youthful Jacobin effusions of Southey, in which, he says, it was sedulously inculcated that there was a natural and eternal warfare between the poor and the rich. The Sapphic rhymes of Southey afforded a tempting subject for ludicrous parody, and Canning quotes the following stanza, lest he should be suspected of painting from fancy, and not from life : « Cold was the night-wind : drifting fast the snows fell ; Wide were the downs, and shelterless and naked ; When a poor wanderer struggled on her journey, Weary and way-sore.’] Friend of Humanity. Needy Knife-grinder ! whither are you going ? Rough is your road, your wheel is out of order ; Bleak blows the blast — your hat has got a hole in ’t, So have your breeches ! Weary Knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- Road, what hard work ’tis crying all day, ‘ Knives and Scissors t(^ grind 0 !’ Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives ? Did some rich man tyrannically use you ? Was it the squire, or parson of the parish, Or the attorney ? Was it the squire, for killing of his game ? or Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining ? Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little All in a lawsuit ? (Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine ?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your Pitiful story. Knife-grinder. Story ! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir ; Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle. Constables came up for to take me into Custody ; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish - Stocks for a vagrant. I should be glad to drink your honour’s health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ; But for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir. Friend of Humanity. I give thee sixpence ! I will see thee d d first — Wretch, whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance — Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast ! [ Kicks the Knife-grinder , overturns his tvheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philan- thropy.] \ [Song by Rogero in 1 The Rovers .’] Whene’er with haggard eyes I view This dungeon that I ’m rotting in, I think of those companions true Who studied with me at the U- niversity of Gottingen, niversity of Gottingen. [ Weeps and pulls out a blue kerchief with which he ivipes his eyes ; gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds :] Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue, Which once my love sat knotting in — Alas, Matilda then was true ! At least I thought so at the U- niversity of Gottingen, niversity of Gottingen. [At the repetition of this line, Rogero clanks his chains in cadence .1 Barbs ! barbs ! alas ! how swift you flew Her neat post-wagon trotting in ! Ye bore Matilda from my view ; Forlorn I languished at the U- niversity of Gottingen, niversity of Gottingen. This faded form ! this pallid hue ! This blood my veins is clotting in, My years are many — they were few When first I entered at the U- niversity of Gottingen, niversity of Gottingen. There first for thee my passion grew, Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen ! Thou wast the daughter of my Tu- tor, law professor at the U- niversity of Gottingen, niversity of Gottingen. Sun, moon, and thou vain world, adieu, That kings and priests are plotting in : Here doomed to starve on water gru- el, never shall I see the U- niversity of Gottingen, niversity of Gottingen. [ During thelast stanza , Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison ; and finally so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throivs himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the music still continuing to play till it is wholly fallen.] The following lines by Canning shew that he could write in a tender and elegiac as well as satirical strain : Lines on the Death of his Eldest Son. Though short thy span, God’s unimpeached decrees, Which made that shortened span one long disease ; Yet, merciful in chastening, gave thee scope For mild redeeming virtues, faith and hope, Meek resignation, pious charity ; And, since this world was not the world for thee, Far from thy path removed, with partial care, Strife, glory, gain, and pleasure’s flowery snare ; Bade earth’s temptations pass thee harmless by, And fixed on Heaven thine unreverted eye ! Oh ! marked from birth, and nurtured for the skies ! In youth, with more than learning’s wisdom wise ! As sainted martyrs, patient to endure ! Simple as unweaned infancy, and pure ! Pure from all stain — save that of human clay, Which Christ’s atoning blood hath washed away ! — By mortal sufferings now no more oppressed, Mount, sinless spirit, to thy destined rest ! While I — reversed our nature’s kindlier doom — Pour forth a father’s sorrows on thy tomb. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800 . A satirical poem, winch attracted much attention in literary circles at the time of its publication, was the Pursuits of Literature , in four parts, the first of which appeared in 1794. Though pub- lished anonymously, this work was written by Mr Thomas James Mathias, a distinguished scholar, who died at Naples in 1835. Mr Mathias was sometime treasurer of the household to her majesty Queen Charlotte. He took his degree of B.A. in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1774. Besides the Pursuits of Literature , Mr Mathias was author of some Runic Odes , imitated from the Norse Tongue , The Imperial Epistle from Kien Long to George III. (1794), The Shade of Alexander Pope , a satirical poem (1798), and various other light evanescent pieces on the topics of the day. Mr Mathias also wrote some Latin odes, and translated into Italian several English poems. He wrote Italian with elegance and purity, and it has been said that no Englishman, since the days of Milton, has cultivated that language with so much success. The Pursuits of Literature contains some pointed satire on the author’s poetical contemporaries, and is enriched with a vast variety of notes, in which there is a great display of learning. George Steevens said the poem was merely ‘a peg to hang the notes on.’ The want of true poetical genius to vivify this mass of erudition has been fatal to Mr Mathias. His works appear to be utterly forgotten. DR JOHN WOLCOT. Dr John Wolcot was a coarse but lively satirist, who, under the name of ‘ Peter Pindar,’ published a variety of effusions on the topics and public men of his times, which were eagerly read and widely circulated. Many of them were in ridicule of the reigning sovereign, George HI., who was a good subject for the poet ; though the latter, as he him- self acknowledged, was a bad subject to the king. Wolcot was born at Dodbrooke, a village in Devon- shire, in the year 1738. His uncle, a respectable surgeon and apothecary at Eowey, took the charge of his education, intending that he should become his own assistant and successor in business. Wolcot was instructed in medicine, and 4 walked the hospitals’ in London, after which he proceeded to Jamaica with Sir William Trelawney, governor of that island, who had engaged him as liis medical attendant. The social habits of the doctor rendered him a favourite in Jamaica; but his time being only partly employed by his professional avocations, he solicited and obtained from his patron the gift of a living in the church, which happened to be then vacant. The bishop of London ordained the grace- less neophyte, and Wolcot entered upon his sacred duties. His congregation consisted mostly of negroes, and Sunday being their principal holiday and mar- ket, the attendance at the church was very limited. Sometimes not a single person came, and Wolcot and his clerk — the latter being an excellent shot — used at such times, after waiting for ten minutes, to proceed to the sea- side, to enjoy the sport of shoot- ing ring-tailed pigeons ! The death of Sir William Trelawney cut off all further hopes of preferment, and every inducement to a longer residence in the island. Bidding adieu to Jamaica and the church, Wolcot accompanied Lady Trelawney to England, and established himself as a physician at Truro, in Cornwall. He inherited about £2000 by the death of his uncle. While resident at Truro, Wolcot discovered the talents of Opie — The Cornish boy in tin-mines bred — 78 whose genius as an artist afterwards became so dis- tinguished. He also materially assisted to form his taste and procure him patronage ; and when Opie’s name was well established, the poet and his protege', forsaking the country, repaired to London, as affording a wider field for the exertions of both. Wolcot had already acquired some distinction by his satirical efforts; and he now poured forth a series of odes and epistles, commencing with the royal academicians, whom he ridiculed with great success and some justice. In 1785 he produced no less than twenty-three odes. In 1786 he published The Lousiad, a Heroi-comic Poem , in five cantos, which had its foundation in the fact, that an ob- noxious insect — either of the garden or the body — had been discovered on the king’s plate among some green peas, which produced a solemn decree that all the servants in the royal kitchen were to have their heads shaved. In the hands of an unscrupu- lous satirist like Wolcot, this ridiculous incident was an admirable theme. The publication of Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides afforded another tempting opportunity, and he indited a humorous poetical epistle to the biographer, commencing : O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate’er thy name, Thou mighty shark for anecdotp and fame ; Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth To eat Macpherson ’midst his native north ; To frighten grave professors with his roar, And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore, AU hail ! Triumphant thou through Time’s vast gulf shalt sail, j The pilot of our literary whale ; Close to the classic Rambler shalt thou cling, Close as a supple courtier to a king ; Fate shall not shake thee off with all its power ; Stuck like a bat to some old ivied tower. Nay, though thy Johnson ne’er had blessed thy eyes, Paoli’s deeds had raised thee to the skies : Yes, his broad wing had raised thee — no bad hack — A tomtit twittering on an eagle’s back. In addition to this effusion, Wolcot levelled another attack on Boswell, entitled Bozzy and Piozzi, or the British Biographers. The personal habits of the king were ridiculed in Peeps at St James’s, Royal Visits, Lyric Odes, &c. Sir Joseph Banks was another subject of his satire : A president, on butterflies profound, Of whom all insect-mongers sing the praises, Went on a day to catch the game profound On violets, dunghills, violet-tops, and daisies, &c. He had also Instructions to a Celebrated Laureate; Peter’s Pension; Peter’s Prophecy ; Epistle to a Fallen Minister ; Epistle to James Bruce, Esq., the Abyssinian Traveller ; Odes to Mr Paine; Odes to Kien Long, Emperor of China ; Ode to the Livery of London, and brochures of a kindred description on most of the celebrated events of the day. From 1778 to 1808, above sixty of these poetical pamphlets were issued by Wolcot. So formidable was he considered, that the ministry, as he alleged, endeavoured to bribe him to silence. He also boasted that his writings had been translated into six different languages. In 1795, he obtained from his booksellers an annuity of £250, payable half-yearly, for the copyright of his works. This handsome allowance he enjoyed, to the heavy loss of the other parties, for upwards of twenty years. Neither old age nor blindness could repress his witty vituperative attacks. He had recourse to an amanuensis, in whose absence, how- ever, he continued to write himself, till within a ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. short period of his death. ‘ His method was to tear a sheet of paper into quarters, on each of which he wrote a stanza of four or six lines, according to the nature of the poem : the paper he placed on a hook held in the left hand, and in this manner not only wrote legibly, but with great ease and celerity.’ In 1796, his poetical effusions were collected and pub- lished in four volumes 8vo, and subsequent editions have been issued ; but most of the poems have sunk into oblivion. Eew satirists can reckon on perma- nent popularity, and the poems of Wolcot were in their nature of an ephemeral description ; while the recklessness of his censure and ridicule, and the want of decency, of principle, and moral feeling, that characterises nearly the whole, precipitated their downfall. He died at his house in Somers’ Town on the 14th January 1819, and was buried in a vault in the churchyard of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, close to the grave of Butler. Wolcot was equal to Churchill as a satirist, as ready and versatile in his powers, and possessed of a quick sense of the ludicrous, as well as a rich vein of fancy and humour. Some of his songs and serious effusions are tender and pleasing ; but he could not write long without slid- ing into the ludicrous and burlesque. His critical acuteness is evinced in his Odes to the Royal Acade- micians , and in various passages scattered through- out his works ; while his ease and felicity, both of expression and illustration, are remarkable. In the following terse and lively lines, we have a good caricature portrait of Dr Johnson’s style : I own I like not Johnson’s turgid style, That gives an inch the importance of a mile, Casts of manure a wagon-load around, To raise a simple daisy from the ground ; Uplifts the club of Hercules — for what ? To crush a butterfly or brain a gnat ; Creates a whirlwind from the earth, to draw A goose’s feather or exalt a straw ; Sets wheels on wheels in motion — such a clatter To force up one poor nipperkin of water ; Bids ocean labour with tremendous roar, To heave a cockle-shell upon the shore ; Alike in every theme his pompous art, Heaven’s awful thunder or a rumbling cart ! [ Advice to Landscape Painters .] Whate’er you wish in landscape to excel, London’s the very place to mar it ; Believe the oracles I tell, There ’s very little landscape in a garret. Whate’er the flocks of fleas you keep, ’Tis badly copying them for goats and sheep ; And if you’ll take the poet’s honest word, A bug must make a miserable bird. A rushlight in a bottle’s neck, or stick, 111 represents the glorious orb of morn ; Nay, though it were a candle with a wick, ’T would be a representative forlorn. I think, too, that a man would be a fool, For trees, to copy legs of a joint stool ; Or even by them to represent a stump : Also by broomsticks — which, though well he rig Each with an old fox-coloured wig, Must make a very poor autumnal clump. You’ll say: ‘ Yet such ones oft a person sees In many an artist’s trees ; And in some paintings we have all beheld Green baize hath surely sat for a green field : DR JOHN WOLCOT. Bolsters for mountains, hills, and wheaten mows ; Cats for ram-goats, and curs for bulls and cows.’ All this, my lads, I freely grant ; But better things from you I want. As Shakspeare says — a bard I much approve — ‘'List, list ! 0 list ! if thou dost painting love.’ Claude painted in the open air ! Therefore to Wales at once repair, Where scenes of true magnificence you ’ll find ; Besides this great advantage — if in debt, You ’ll have with creditors no tete-a-tete ; So leave the bull-dog bailiffs all behind ; Who, hunt you with what noise they may, Must hunt for needles in a stack of hay. The Pilgrims and the Peas. A brace of sinners, for no good, Were ordered to the Virgin Mary’s shrine, Who at Loretto dwelt in wax, stone, wood, And in a curled white wig looked wondrous fine. Fifty long miles had these sad rogues to travel, With something in their shoes much worse than gravel ; In short, their toes so gentle to amuse, The priest had ordered peas into their shoes. A nostrum famous in old popish times For purifying souls that stunk with crimes, A sort of apostolic salt, That popish parsons for its powers exalt, For keeping souls of sinners sweet, Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat. The knaves set off on the same day, Peas in their shoes, to go and pray ; But very different was their speed, I wot : One of the sinners galloped on, Light as a bullet from a gun ; The other limped as if he had been shot. One saw the Virgin, soon peccavi cried ; Had his soul whitewashed all so clever, When home again he nimbly hied, Made fit with saints above to live for ever. In coming back, however, let me say, He met his brother rogue about half-way, Hobbling with outstretched hams and bending knees, Cursing the souls and bodies of the peas ; His eyes in tears, his cheeks and brow in sweat, Deep sympathising with his groaning feet. ‘How now!’ the light-toed whitewashed pilgrim broke, ‘ You lazy lubber ! ’ ‘ Confound it !’ cried the t’ other, ‘’tis no joke ; My feet, once hard as any rock, Are now as soft as blubber. ‘ Excuse me, Virgin Mary, that I swear : As for Loretto, I shall not get there ; No ! to the devil my sinful soul must go, For hang me if I ha’n’t lost every toe ! ‘ But, brother sinner, do explain How ’tis that you arc not in pain — What power hath worked a wonder for your toes — Whilst I, just like a snail, am crawling, Now swearing, now on saints devoutly bawling, Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes ? 79 FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. ‘ How is ’t that you can like a greyhound go, Merry as if nought had happened, burn ye ?’ 1 Why,’ cried the other, grinning, ‘ you must know, That just before I ventured on my journey, To walk a little more at ease, I took the liberty to boil my peas.’ The Apple Dumplings and a King. Once on a time, a monarch, tired with whooping, Whipping and spurring, Happy in worrying A poor defenceless harmless buck — The horse and rider wet as muck — From his high consequence and wisdom stooping, Entered through curiosity a cot, Where sat a poor old woman and her pot. The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny, In this same cot, illumed by many a cranny, Had finished apple dumplings for her pot : In tempting row the naked dumplings lay, When lo ! the monarch, in his usual way, Like lightning spoke : ‘ What ’s this ? what ’s this ? what, what?’ Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, His eyes with admiration did expand ; And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple: he cried : ‘ ’Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed ! What makes it, pray, so hard?’ The dame replied, Low curtsying : ‘ Please your majesty, the apple.’ * Very astonishing indeed ! strange thing !’ — Turning the dumpling round — rejoined the king. ‘ ’Tis most extraordinary, then, all this is — It beats Pinette’s conjuring all to pieces: Strange I should never of a dumpling dream ! But, goody, tell me where, where, where’s the seam?’ 4 Sir, there ’s no seam,’ quoth she ; ‘ I never knew That folks did apple dumplings seiv ‘ No !’ cried the staring monarch with a grin; 4 How, how the devil got the apple in?’ On which the dame the curious scheme revealed By which the apple lay so sly concealed, Which made the Solomon of Britain start ; Who to the palace with full speed repaired, And queen and princesses so beauteous scared All with the wonders of the dumpling art. There did he labour one whole week to shew The wisdom of an apple-dumpling maker ; And, lo ! so deep was majesty in dough, The palace seemed the lodging of a baker ! Whitbread’s Brewery visited by their Majesties. Full of the art of brewing beer, - The monarch heard of Whitbread’s fame ; Quoth he unto the queen : 4 My dear, my dear, Whitbread hath got a marvellous great name. Charly, we must, must, must see Whitbread brew — Rich as us, Charly, richer than a Jew. Shame, shame we have not yet his brew-house seen !* Thus sweetly said the king unto the queen. Bed-hot with novelty’s delightful rage, To Mister Whitbread forth he sent a page, To say that majesty proposed to view, With thirst of wondrous knowledge deep inflamed, His vats, and tubs, and hops, and hogsheads famed, And learn the noble secret how to brew. 80 Of such undreamt-of honour proud, Most rev’rently the brewer bowed ; So Humbly — so the humble story goes — He touched e’en terra firma with his nose ; Then said unto the page, hight Billy Ramus : 4 Happy are we that our great king should name us As worthy unto majesty to shew How we poor Chiswell people brew.’ Away sprung Billy Ramus quick as thought : To majesty the welcome tidings brought, How Whitbread, staring stood like any stake, And trembled ; then the civil things he said ; On which the king did smile and nod his head ; For monarchs like to see their subjects quake ; Such horrors unto kings most pleasant are, Proclaiming reverence and humility : High thoughts, too, all these shaking fits declare, Of kingly grandeur and great capability ! People of worship, wealth, and birth, Look on the humbler sons of earth, Indeed in a most humble light, God knows ! High stations are like Dover’s towering cliffs, Where ships below appear like little skiffs, The people walking on the strand like crows. Muse, sing the stir that happy Whitbread made : Poor gentleman ! most terribly afraid He should not charm enough his guests divine, He gave his maids new aprons, gowns, and smocks ; And lo ! two hundred pounds were spent in frocks, To make the apprentices and draymen fine : Busy as horses in a field of clover, Dogs, cats, and chairs, and stools were tumbled over, Amidst the Whitbread rout of preparation, To treat the lofty ruler of the nation. Now moved king, queen, and princesses so grand, To visit the first brewer in the land ; Who sometimes swills his beer and grinds his meat In a snug corner, christened Chiswell Street ; But oftener, charmed with fashionable air, Amidst the gaudy great of Portman Square. Lord Aylesbury, and Denbigh’s lord also, His Grace the Duke of Montague likewise, With Lady Harcourt joined the raree show, And fixed all Smithfield’s wond’ring eyes : For lo ! a greater show ne’er graced those quarters, Since Mary roasted, just like crabs, the martyrs. Thus was the brew-house filled with gabbling noise, Whilst draymen, and the brewer’s boys, Devoured the questions that the king did ask ; In different parties were they staring seen, Wond’ring to think they saw a king and queen ! Behind a tub were some, and some behind a cask. Some draymen forced themselves — a pretty luncheon — Into the mouth of many a gaping puncheon : And through the bung-hole winked with curious eye, To view and be assured what sort of things Were princesses, and queens, and kings, For whose most lofty station thousands sigh ! And lo ! of all the gaping puncheon clan, Few were the mouths that had not got a man ; Now majesty into a pump so deep Did with an opera-glass so curious peep : Examining with care each wond’rous matter That brought up water ! poets. ENGLISH LITERATURE. dr jo hit wo loot. Thus have I seen a magpie in the street, A chattering bird we often meet, A bird for curiosity well known, With head awry, And cunning eye, Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone. And now his curious majesty did stoop To count the nails on every hoop ; • And lo ! no single thing came in his way, That, full of deep research, he did not say : * What ’s this ? hae hae ? What ’s that ? What ’s this ? What’s that ?’ So quick the words too, when he deigned to speak, As if each syllable would break its neck. Thus, to the world of great whilst others crawl, Our sov’ reign peeps into the world of small: Thus microscopic geniuses explore Things that too oft the public scorn ; Yet swell of useful knowledges the store, By finding systems in a peppercorn. Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare, To make the majesty of England stare, That he had butts enough, he knew, Placed side by side, to reach to Kew ; On which the king with wonder swiftly cried : ■* What, if they reach to Kew, then, side by side, What would they do, what, what, placed end to end ?’ To whom, with knitted calculating brow, The man of beer most solemnly did vow, Almost to Windsor that they would extend : On which the king, with wondering mien, Repeated it unto the wondering queen ; On which, quick turning round his haltered head, The brewer’s horse, with face astonished, neighed ; The brewer’s dog, too, poured a note of thunder, Rattled his chain, and wagged his tail for wonder. Now did the king for other beers inquire, For Calvert’s, Jordan’s, Thrale’s entire ; And after talking of these different beers, Asked Whitbread if his porter equalled theirs. This was a puzzling disagreeing question, Grating like arsenic on his host’s digestion ; A kind of question to the Man of Cask That even Solomon himself would ask. Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took A very pretty memorandum -book, With gilded leaves of asses-skin so white, And in it legibly began to write — Memorandum. A charming place beneath the grates For roasting chestnuts or potates. Mem. ’Tis hops that give a bitterness to beer, Hops grow in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere. Quaere. Is there no cheaper stuff ? where doth it dwell ? Would not horse-aloes bitter it as well ? Mem. To try it soon on our small-beer — ’Twill save us several pounds a year. Mem. To remember to forget to ask Old Whitbread to my house one day. Mem. Not to forget to take of beer the cask, The brewer offered me, away. 58 Now, having pencilled his remarks so shrewd, Sharp as the point, indeed, of a new pin, His majesty his watch most sagely viewed, And then put up his asses-skin. To Whitbread now deigned majesty to say : ‘ Whitbread, are all your horses fond of hay ?’ ‘ Yes, please your majesty,’ in humble notes The brewer answered — ‘ Also, sire, of oats ; Another thing my horses, too, maintains, And that, an’t please your majesty, are grains.’ ‘ Grains, grains !’ said majesty, ‘to fill their crops ? Grains, grains ! — that comes from hops — yes, hops, hops, hops ? ’ Here was the king, like hounds sometimes, at fault — ‘ Sfre,’ cried the humble brewer, ‘give me leave Your sacred majesty to undeceive ; Grains, sire, are never made from hops, but malt.’ ‘ True,’ said the cautious monarch with a smile, ‘ From malt, malt, malt — I meant malt all the while.’ ‘ Yes,’ with the sweetest bow, rejoined the brewer, ‘ An’t please your majesty, you did, I ’m sure.’ ‘ Yes,’ answered majesty, with quick reply, ‘ I did, I did, I did, I, I, I, I.’ Now did the king admire the bell so fine, That daily asks the draymen all to dine ; On which the bell rung out — how very proper ! — To shew it was a bell, and had a clapper. And now before their sovereign’s curious eye — Parents and children, fine fat hopeful sprigs, All snuffling, squinting, grunting in their sty — Appeared the brewer’s tribe of handsome pigs ; On which the observant man who fills a throne, Declared the pigs were vastly like his own ; On which the brewer, swallowed up in joys, Fear and astonishment in both his eyes, His soul brimful of sentiments so loyal, Exclaimed : ‘ 0 heavens ! and can my swine Be deemed by majesty so fine ? Heavens ! can my pigs compare, sire, with pigs royal ?’ To which the king assented with a nod ; On which the brewer bowed, and said : ‘ Good God ! ’ Then winked significant on Miss, Significant of wonder and of bliss, Who, bridling in her chin divine, Crossed her fair hands, a dear old maid, And then her lowest curtsy made For such high honour done her father’s swine. Now did his majesty, so gracious, say To Mister Whitbread in his flying way : ‘ Whitbread, d’ ye nick the excisemen now and then ? Hae ? what ? Miss Whitbread ’s still a maid, a maid ? What, what ’s the matter with the men ? ‘ D’ ye hunt ? — hae, hunt ? No no, you are too old ; You’ll be lord-mayor — lord-mayor one day ; Yes, yes, I’ve heard so ; yes, yes, so I’m told ; Don’t, don’t the fine for sheriff pay ; I’ll prick you every year, man, I declare ; Yes, Whitbread, yes, yes, you shall be lord-mayor. ‘Whitbread, d’ ye keep a coach,' or job one, pray ? Job, job, that’s cheapest; yes, that’s best, that’s best. You put your liveries on the draymen — hae ? Hae, Whitbread, you have feathered well your nest. What, what ’s the price now, hae, of all your stock ? But, Whitbread, what’s o’clock, pray, what’s o’clock?’ Now Whitbread inward said : ‘ May I be cursed If I know what to answer first.’ Then searched his brains with ruminating eye ; But e’er the man of malt an answer found, Quick on his heel, lo, majesty turned round, Skipped off, and balked the honour of reply. PROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Lord Gregory. [Burns admired this ballad of Wolcot’s, and wrote another on the same subject.] ‘ All ope, Lord Gregory, thy door, A midnight wanderer sighs ; Hard rush the rains, the tempests roar, And lightnings cleave the skies.’ ‘ "Who comes with woe at this drear night, A pilgrim of the gloom ? If she whose love did oqce delight, My cot shall yield her room.’ ‘ Alas ! thou heard’ st a pilgrim mourn That once was prized by thee : Think of the ring by yonder burn Thou gav’st to love and me. ‘ But should’ st thou not poor Marion know, I ’ll turn my feet and part ; And think the storms that round me blow, Far kinder than thy heart.’ May -day. The daisies peep from every field, And violets sweet their odour yield ; The purple blossom paints the thorn, And streams reflect the blush of morn. Then lads and lasses all, be gay, For this is nature’s holiday. Let lusty Labour drop his flail, Nor woodman’s hook a tree assail ; The ox shall cease his neck to bow, And Clodden yield to rest the plough. Then lads, &c. Behold the lark in ether float, While rapture swells the liquid note ! What warbles he, with merry cheer ? ‘ Let Love and Pleasure rule the year ! ’ Then lads, &c. Lo ! Sol looks down with radiant eye, And throws a smile around his sky ; Embracing hill, and vale, and stream, And warming nature with his beam. Then lads, &c. The insect tribes in myriads pour, And kiss with zephyr every flower; Shall these our icy hearts reprove, And tell us we are foes to Love ? Then lads, &c. Epigram on Sleep. [Thomas War ton wrote the following Latin epigram to he placed under the statue of Somnus, in the garden of Harris, the philologist, and Wolcot translated it with a beauty and felicity worthy of the original.] Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori ; Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vit& Vivere quam suave est ; sic sine morte mori. Come, gentle sleep ! attend thy votary* s prayer, And, though death’s image, to my couch repair ; How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, And, without dying, 0 how sweet to die ! 82 POETESSES. CHARLOTTE SMITH. Several ladies cultivated poetry with success at this time. Among these was Mrs Charlotte Smith (whose admirable prose fictions will after- wards be noticed). She was the daughter of Mr Turner of Stoke House, in Surrey, and born on the 4th of May 1749. She was remarkable for precocity of talents, and for a lively playful humour that shewed itself in conversation, and 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 ! 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 part of his property, after he had been thrown into prison, and his faithful wife had shared with him the misery and discomfort of his confinement. A numerous family also gathered around them, to add to their solicitude and difficulties. In 1782, Mrs Smith published a volume of sonnets, irregular in structure, but marked by poetical feeling and expression. They were favourably received by the public, and at length passed through no le£s 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 herself to her literary occupations with cheerful assiduity, supplying to her children the duties of both parents. In eight months she completed her novel of Emmeline , published in 1788. In the following year appeared another novel from her pen, entitled Ethelinde; and in 1791, a third under the name of Celestina. She imbibed the opinions of the French Revolution, and embodied them in a romance entitled 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 work was written at Eartham, the residence of Hayley, 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, J 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. I She wrote a valuable little compendium for children, 1 under the title of Conversations; A History of \ British Birds ; a descriptive poem on Beachy Head, i &c. She died at Tilford, near Farnham, on the 28 th ; of October 1806. The poetry of Mrs Smith is j elegant and sentimental, and generally of a pathetic i cast. 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 ENGLISH LITERATURE. eminence which we are disposed to claim for her as authoress 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 Will 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 Declines, 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. 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 sands 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 displayed, But shut their plaits against the dew. On upland slopes the shepherds mark The hour when, as the dial true, Cichorium 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 ; But when the evening crescent shines, Gives all het sweetness to the night. Thus in each flower and simple bell, That in our path betrodden lie, Are sweet remembrancers who tell How fast their winged moments fly. CHARLOTTE SMITH. Sonnets. On the Departure of the Nightingale. Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu ! 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. Whether on spring thy wandering flights await, 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 nest; And shepherd girls from eyes profane shall hide The gentle bird who sings of pity best : For still thy voice shall soft affections move, And still be dear to sorrow and to love ! Written at the Close of Spring. The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove ; Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew. Anemones that spangled every grove, The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. No more shall violets linger in the dell, 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, Are the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion and corrosive care Biel all thy fairy colours fade away ! Another May new buds and flowers shall bring; Ah ! why has happiness no second Spring ? Should the lone wanderer, fainting on his way, Rest for a moment of the sultry hours, And, though his path through thorns and roughness Jay, Pluck the wild rose or 1 woodbine’s gadding flowers ; Weaving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree, The sense of sorrow he a while may lose ; So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy ! So charmed my way with friendship and the Musa But 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 ! [ Recollections of English Scenery .] [From Beachy Head, a Poem.] Haunts of my youth ! Scenes of fond day-dreams, I 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 noonday 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 ease 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. PROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1800. For even those orchards round the Norman farms, Which, as their owners marked the promised fruit, Console them, for the vineyards of the south Surpass not these. 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 rosemary 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 Among these cottage gardens, and how much j Such artless nosegays, knotted with a rush j By village housewife or her ruddy maid, j Were welcome to me ; soon and simply pleased. An early worshipper at nature’s shrine, I loved her rudest scenes — warrens, and heaths, 1 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 Cuuiber- i land lady, was distinguished for the excellence of | her Scottish poetry, which has all the idiomatic ! ease and grace of a native minstrel. Miss Blamire j was born of a respectable family in Cumberland, at j Cardew 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 remained some years, and imbibed that taste j for Scottish melody and music which prompted her | beautiful lyrics, The Nabob, The Siller Croun, &c. j She also wrote some pieces in the Cumbrian dialect, ‘ and a descriptive poem of some length, entitled ! Stoclclewath, or the Cumbrian Village. Miss Blamire ! died unmarried at Carlisle, in her forty-seventh year, j and her name had almost faded from remembrance, j when, in 1842, her poetical works were collected and j published in one volume, with a preface, memoir, I and notes by Patrick Maxwell. The Nabob. When silent time, wi’ lightly foot, Had trod on thirty years, I sought again my native land Wi’ iuony hopes and fears. Wha kens gin the dear friends I left May still continue mine ? Or gin I e’er again shall taste The joys I 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 joys A’ naething to langsyne ! 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 I left in his prime, And grat to see the lad return He bore about langsyne. I ran to ilka dear friend’s room, 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. Some pensy chiels, a new-sprung race Wad next their welcome pay, Wha shuddered at my Gothic wa’s, And wished my groves away. 4 Cut, cut,’ they cried, ‘ those aged elms ; Lay low yon moumfu’ pine.’ Na ! na ! 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 I missed the youthfu’ bloom. At balls they pointed to a nymph Wham a’ declared divine ; But sure her mother’s blushing cheeks Were fairer far langsyne ! 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. Ye 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 ! What Ails this Heart o’ Mine ? [‘This song seems to have been a favourite with the authoress, 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 Blamire.) What ails this heart o’ mine ? What ails this watery e’e? What gars me a’ turn pale as death When I take leave o’ thee ? ENGLISH LITERATURE. MRS BARBAULD, When thou art far awa’. Thou ’It 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 hush will seem to say I used to meet thee there. Then I ’ll sit down 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 I 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 example of the Cumberland dialect : Anld Robin 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 skipped 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 stevle, 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 e’e. 0 Willy ! dear Willy ! it never can be That age, time, or death, can divide thee and me ! For that spot on earth that ’s aye dearest to me, Is the turf that has covered my Willie frae me. MRS BARBAULD. Anna Letitia Barbauld, the daughter of Dr John Aikin, was born at Kibworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, in 1743. 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 1758, Dr Aikin undertaking the office of classical tutor in a dissenting academy at Warrington, his daughter accompanied him, and resided there 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 were written by her brother. In May 1774, she was married to the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a French Protestant, who was minister of a dissent- ing congregation at Palgrave, near Diss, and who had just opened a boarding-school at the neigh- bouring village of Palgrave, in Suffolk. The poetess participated with her husband in the task of instruc- tion, 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 compiled from the Psalms, and another volume of Hymns in Prose for children. In 1786, after a tour to the continent, Mr and Mrs Barbauld established themselves at Hampstead, and there several tracts proceeded from the pen of our authoress on the topics of the day, in all which she espoused the principles of the Whigs. She also assisted her father in preparing a series of tales for children, entitled Evenings 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 Hampstead, they took up their abode in the village of Stoke Newington. In 1803, Mrs Barbauld compiled a selection of essays from the Spectator , Tatler , and Guardian , to which she prefixed a pre- liminary essay ; and in the following year she edited the correspondence of Richardson, and wrote a life of the novelist. Her husband died in 1808, and Mrs Barbauld has recorded her feelings on this melancholy event in a poetical dirge to his memory, and also in her poem of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. Seeking relief in literary occupation, 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, she 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 elevation of thought. ‘ Her earliest pieces,’ says her niece, Miss Lucy Aikin, ‘ as well as her more recent ones, exhibit in their imagery and allusions the 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 rapid but not unprofitable excursions over almost every field of knowledge. In age, when this activity abated, imagination appeared to exert over her an undiminished sway.’ Charles 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 compositions, being generally artificial, and unimpassioned in their character. The following stanza in a poem entitled Life , was. much admired by Wordsworth and Rogers : Life ! we ’ve been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear ; Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear ; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time, Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime Bid me good-morning. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800 . 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 i^he temperate sun With bashful forehead, through the cool moist air Throws his young maiden beams, And with chaste kisses woos The earth’s fair bosom ; while the streaming veil Of lucid clouds, with kind and frequent shade. 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, Bemorseless shall destroy. .Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell ; For oh ! 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 influence breathes. To a Lady , with some Painted Flower's. 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. 86 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, Were born for pleasure 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 cognoverit utL — Claudian. 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 glide 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, 0 nymph retired and coy ! 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 own modest tints diffuse, And shed thy milder day. SCOTTISH POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ALEXANDER ROSS — JOHN LOWE. 0 bonny are our greensward hows, Where through the birks the burnie rows, And the bee bums, and the ox lows, And saft winds rustle, And shepherd lads on sunny knowes Blaw the blithe whistle. When eve, her dewy star beneath, Thy balmy spirit loves to breathe, And every storm is laid ; If such an hour was e’er thy choice, Oft let me hear thy soothing voice Low whispering through the shade. MISS SEWARD. Anna Seward (1747-1809) was the daughter of the Rev. Mr Seward, canon-residentiary of Lich- field, himself a poet, and one of the editors of Beaumont and Fletcher. This lady was early trained to a taste for poetry, and, before she was nine years of age, she could repeat the three first hooks 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 Major Andre, &c. — which, from the popu- lar nature of the subjects, and the animated though inflated style of the composition, enjoyed great celebrity. Darwin complimented her as ‘ the inven- tress of epic elegy;’ and she was known by the name of the Swan of Lichfield. A poetical novel, entitled Louisa, was published by Miss Seward in 1782, and passed through several editions. After bandying compliments with the poets of one genera- tion, Miss Seward engaged Sir Walter Scott in a literary correspondence, and bequeathed to him for publication three volumes of her poetry, which he pronounced execrable. At the same time she left her correspondence to Constable, and that pub- lisher gave to the world six volumes of her letters. Both collections were unsuccessful. The applauses of Miss Seward’s early admirers were only cal- culated to excite ridicule, and the vanity and affectation which were her besetting sins, destroyed equally her poetry and prose. Some of her letters, however, are written with spirit and discrimination. SCOTTISH POETS. The highest honours of the Scottish muse belong to this period — the period of Burns. As usual, this great original master had a crowd of imitators, but he was also preceded by native poets of no ordinary degree of talent and popularity. ALEXANDER ROSS. Alexander Ross, a schoolmaster in Lochlee, in Angus, when nearly seventy years of age, in 1768, published at Aberdeen, by 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 W odd, and Married, and a', The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow — are still popular in Scotland. Being chiefly written in the Kincardineshire dialect — which 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- humoured, social, happy old man ’ — who was inde- pendent on £20 a year — and to promote the sale of his volume, he addressed a letter and a poetical epistle in praise of it to the Aberdeen Journal. The epistle is remarkable as Beattie’s only attempt in Aberdeenshire Scotch; one verse of it is equal to Burns : Ross died in 1784, at the age of eighty-six. Woo'd, and Married, and a ’. The bride cam’ out o’ the byre, And, oh, as she dighted her cheeks : 4 Sirs, I’m to be married the night, And have neither blankets nor sheets ; Have neither blankets nor sheets, 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’ ! And was she nae very weel off, That was woo’d, and married, and a’ ? Out spake the bride’s father, As he cam’ in frae the pleugh : ‘ Oh, haud your tongue, my dochter, And ye’se get gear eneugh; The stirk stands i’ the tether, And our braw bawsint yaud, Will carry ye hame your corn — What wad ye be at, ye jaud?’ Out spake the bride’s mither : ‘ What deil needs a’ this pride ? I had nae a plack in my pouch That night I was a bride ; My gown was linsey-woolsey, 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 Galloway, was author of the fine pathetic lyric, Mary's Dream , 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 dissipated, and died in great misery near Fredericksburgh. Though Lowe wrote numerous other pieces, prompted by poetical feeling and the romantic scenery of his native glen, this ballad only is worthy of preser- vation. 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 ; 87 5 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 ! * She from her pillow gently raised Her head, to ask who there might he, And saw young Sandy shivering stand, With visage pale, and hollow e’e. ‘ 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 all our striving was in vain. Even then, when horror chilled my blood, My heart was 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 ! ’ 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 I* LADY ANNE BARNARD. Lady Anne Barnard was authoress of Auld Robin Gray , one of the most perfect, tender, and affecting of all our ballads or tales of humble life. Balcarres House, Fifeshire, where Auld Robin Gray was composed. About the year 1771, Lady Anne composed the ballad to an ancient air. It instantly became popular, but the lady kept the 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 88 account of the 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 additions 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 Mr Andrew Barnard, son of the Bishop of Limerick., and afterwards secretary, under Lord Macartney, to the colony at the Cape of Good Hope. She died,, without issue, on the 6th of May 1825. Auld Robin Gray. When the sheep are in the fauld, when the kye’s- come hame, And a’ the weary warld to rest are gane, The waes o’ my heart fa’ in showers frae my e’e, Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me. Young Jamie lo’ed me weel, and sought me for his- bride, But saving ae crown-piece he had naething beside ; To make the crown a pound my J amie gaed to sea, And the crown and the pound — they were baith for- me. He hadna been gane a twelvemonth and a day, When my father brake his arm and the cow was stown. away; My mither she fell sick — my Jamie was at sea, And Auld Robin Gray came a courting me. My father couldna wark — my mither couldna spin — I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna win •. Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi’ tears in his e’e, Said: ‘Jeanie, 0 for their sakes, will ye no marry me?’ My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie back, But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack, His ship was a wrack — why didna Jamie die, Or why am I spared to cry wae is me ? My father urged me sair — my mither didna speak, But she looked in my face till my heart was like to* break ; They gied him my band — my heart was in the sea — And so Robin Gray he was gudeman to me. I hadna been his wife a week but only four, When, mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at my door, I saw my Jamie’s ghaist, for I couldna think it he Till he said : ‘I’m come hame, love, to marry thee !* Oh, sair sair did we greet, and mickle say of a’, I gied him ae kiss, and bade him gang awa’ — I wish that I were dead, but I ’m na like to die, For, though my heart is broken, I ’m but young, wae is me ! I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin, I darena think o’ Jamie, for that wad be a sin, But I’ll do my best a gude wife to be, For, oh ! Robin Gray, he is kind to me. MISS JANE ELLIOT AND MRS COCKBURN. 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 SCOTTISH POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. BARONESS NAIRN. ladies. In minute observation of domestic life, traits of character and manners, and the softer language of the heart, ladies have often excelled the * lords of the 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 Flowers of the Forest. [By Miss Jane Elliot.] I ’ve heard the lilting at our ewe-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 blithe lads are scorning, The lasses are lonely, and dowie, and wae ; Nae daffin’, 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. Dool and wae for the order, sent our lads to the Border ! The English, for ance, by guile wan the day ; The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost, The prime o’ our land, are cauld in the clay. \¥e hear nae mair lilting at our ewe-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 Cockburn.] 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 pleasant and gay ; Sae bonny was their blooming ! 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 mid-day, I’ve seen Tweed’s silver streams, Shining in the sunny beams, Grow drumly and dark as he rowed on his way. 0 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. BARONESS NAIRN. Carolina Olipiiant (1766-1845), of the family of Oliphant of Gask, and justly celebrated for her beauty, talents, and worth, wrote several lyrical pieces, of which two enjoy great popularity. These are the Scottish songs, The Land o’ the Leal and The Laird o’ Cockpen. Shortly before her death, this excellent and accomplished lady gave the Rev. Dr Chalmers a sum of £800, to assist in his schemes for the amelioration of the poorer classes, in Edinburgh. The Land o’ the Leal. I’m wearin’ awa’, John, Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John; I ’m wearin’ awa’ To the land o’ the leal. There’s nae sorrow there, John ; There’s neither cauld nor care, John ; The day’s aye fair I’ the land o’ the leal. Our bonny bairn’s there, John ; She was baith gude and fair, J ohn ; And, oh ! we grudged her sair To the land o’ the leal. But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John — And joy’s a-comin’ fast, John — The joy that’s aye to last In the land o’ the leal. Sae dear’s that joy was bought, John> Sae free the battle fought, John, That sinfu’ man e’er brought To the land o’ the leal. Oh, dry your glistening e’e, J ohn ! My saul langs to be free, J ohn ; And angels beckon me To the land o’ the leal. Oh, haud ye leal and true, J ohn ! Your day it’s wearin’ through, John;, And I’ll welcome you To the land o’ the leal. Now, fare-ye-weel, my ain John, This warld’s cares are vain, John; We’ll meet, and we ’ll be fain, In the land o’ the leal. The Laird o’ Cockpen. The Laird o’ Cockpen he’s proud and he’s great, His mind is ta’en up with the things o’ the state j; He wanted a wife his braw house to keep, But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek. Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell, At his table-head he thought she ’d look well ; M'Clish’s ae daughter o’ Claverse-ha’ Lee, A penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree. His wig was weel pouthered, and as gude as new ^ His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue ; He put on a ring, a sword, and cocked hat, And wha could refuse the Laird wi’ a’ that ? S9 FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF He took tlie gray mair, and rade cannily — And rapped at the yett o’ Cla verse -ha’ Lee : * Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, She ’s -wanted to speak to the Laird o’ Cockpen.’ Mistress Jean -was makin’ the elder-flower wine : * And what brings the Laird at sic a like time ?’ She put aff her apron, and on her silk gown, Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ down. And when she cam’ ben, he bowed fu’ low, And what was his errand he soon let her know ; Amazed was the Laird when the lady said ‘ ISA And wi’ a laigh curtsey she turned awa’. Dumbfoundered he was — nae sigh did he gie ; He mounted his mare — he rade cannily ; And aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen, She ’s daft to refuse the Laird o’ Cockpen. And now that the Laird his exit had made, Mistress Jean she reflected on what she had said ; ‘ Oh ! for ane I ’ll get better, it ’s waur I ’ll get ten, I was daft to refuse the Laird o’ Cockpen.’ Next time that the Laird and the lady were seen, They were gaun arm-in-arm to the kirk on the green; Now she sits in the ha’ like a weel-tappit hen — But as yet there ’s nae chickens appeared at Cockpen. ROBERT FERGUSSON. Robert Fergusson was the poet of Scottish city-life, or rather the laureate of Edinburgh. A happy talent in portraying the peculiarities of local Robert Fergusson. manners, a keen perception of the ludicrous, a vein I of original comic humour, and language at once | copious and expressive, form his chief merits as a , poet. He had not the invention or picturesque I fancy of Allan Ramsay, nor the energy and passion of Burns. His mind was a light warm soil, that threw up early its native products, sown by chance or little exertion ; but it had not strength and so to 1800. tenacity to nurture any great or valuable produc- tion. A few short years, however, comprised his span of literature and of life; and criticism would be ill employed in scrutinising with severity the occasional poems of a youth of twenty-three, written from momentary feelings and impulses, amidst pro- fessional drudgery or midnight dissipation. That compositions produced under such circumstances should still exist and be read with pleasure, is sufficient to shew that Fergusson must have had the eye and fancy of a true poet. His observation, 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 liveli- ness and humour. If his habits had been different, we might have possessed more agreeable delinea- tions, 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 obtained a bursary in St Andrews, where he continued from his thirteenth to his seventeenth year. On quitting college, he seems to have been truly ‘unfitted with an aim,’ and he was glad to take employment as a copying-clerk in a lawyer’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 Avhisky, the choice spirits of Edinburgh used to assemble. Fergusson 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 last two years 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 public, there can be no doubt, from the popu- larity and fame of its author. His dissipations, however, were always on the increase. His tavern- life and boon-companions 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 attentions of his relatives and friends. His recovery was anticipated, but after about two months’ confinement, he died in his cell on the 16th of October 1774. His remains were interred in the Canongate churchyard, where they lay unnoticed for many years, till Burns erected a simple stone to mark the poet’s grave. The heart- lessness of convivial friendships is well known: they literally ‘wither and die in a day.’ It is related, however, that a youthful companion of Fergusson, named Burnet, having gone to the East Indies, and made some money, invited over the poet, sending at the same time a draft for £100 to defray his expenses. This instance of generosity came too late : the poor poet * had died before the letter arrived. SCOTTISH POETS. 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 Fergusson’s Tomb. 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 unborrowed. He had an excessive admiration for the writings of Fergusson, and even preferred them to those of Ramsay, an opinion in which few will concur. 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 have 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 farmhouse, 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 com 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 Burns 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 — he received the same education as the latter — his inferior rank as a general poet will be apparent. ROBERT FERGUSSON. Braid Claith. Ye wha are fain to hae your name Wrote i’ the bonny book o’ fame, Let merit nae 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. Waesucks for him wha has nae feck o ’t ! For he ’s a gowk they ’re sure to geek at ; A chiel that ne’er will be respeckit While he draws breath, Till his four quarters are bedeckit Wi’ guid braid claith. On Sabbath-days the barber spark, When he has done wi’ scrapin’ wark, Wi’ siller broackie in his sark, Gangs trigly, faith ! Or to the Meadows, or the Park, In guid braid claith. Weel might ye trow, to see them there, 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 grien 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 fig 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 unco heeze ; Maks mony kail-worms butterfiees ; 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, dinsome thing, As e’er was framed to jow or ring ! What gared them sic in steeple hing, They ken themsel ; But weel wat I, they couldna bring Waur sounds frae hell. * * * 91 ENGLISH LITERATURE. FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. Fleece-merchants may look bauld, I trow, Sin’ a’ Auld Reekie’s childer 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 deave 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 toomed 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 night 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 hauds, ‘ The deil himsel Has got his due.’ Scottish Scenery and Music. [From Hame Content , a Satire .3 The Arno 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’ bonny Tweed, 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 Yarrow 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 0’ 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 ! 1 now the hills and dales Nae mair gie back thy tender tales ! The birks on Yarrow now deplore, Thy mournfu’ muse has left the shore. Near what bright burn or crystal spring. Bid you your winsome whistle hing? The Muse shall there, wi’ watery e’e, 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 bonny yard 0’ 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 bum o’ siller sheen, Ban 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 0’ 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, Bin 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 eithly she can find the theme O’ aquafont. This is the name that doctors use, Their patients’ noddles to confuse ; Wi’ simples clad in terms abstruse, They labour still In kittle words to gar you roose Their want 0’ skill. 1 Mr Hamilton of Bangour, author of the beautiful ballad The Braes of Yarrow. View op Edinburgh prom the Castle. FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. 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 rung, Your pith wi’ pain be sairly dung, Be you in cauler water flung Out-owre the lugs, ’Twill mak you souple, swack, and young, Without en drugs. Though colic or the heart-scad tease us ; Or ony inward dwaam should seize us ; It masters a’ sic fell diseases That would ye spulzie, And brings them to a canny crisis Wi’ little tulzie. Were ’t no for it, the bonny lasses Wad glower nae mair in keekin’ -glasses; And soon tyne dint o’ a’ the graces That aft conveen In gleefu’ looks, and bonny faces, To catch our een. The fairest, then, might die a maid. And Cupid quit his shootin’ trade ; For wha, through clarty masquerade, Could then discover Whether the features under shade Were worth a lover? As simmer rains bring simmer flowers, And leaves to deed the birken bowers, Sae beauty gets by cauler showers Sae rich a bloom, As for estate, or heavy dowers, Aft stands in room. What maks Auld Reekie’s dames sae fair ? It canna be the halesome air ; But cauler burn, beyond compare, The best o’ ony, That gars them a’ sic graces skair. And blink sae bonny. On May-day, in a fairy ring, We’ve seen them round St Anthon’s spring, 1 Frae grass the cauler dew-draps wring To weet their een, And water, clear as crystal spring, To synd them clean. 0 may they still pursue the way To look sae feat, sae clean, sae gay ! Then shall their beauties glance like May ; And, like her, be The goddess of the vocal spray, The Muse and me. [A Sunday in Edinburgh .] [From Auld Reekie.'] On Sunday, here, an altered scene O’ men and manners meets our een. Ane wad maist trow, some people chose To change their faces wi’ their clo’es, 1 St Anthony’s Well, a beautiful small spring, on Arthur’s Seat, near Edinburgh. Thither it is still the practice of young Edinburgh maidens to resort on May-day. Arthur’s Seat, a hill sBmewhat resembling a lion, is represented in the adjoin- ing view of Edinburgh. 94 And fain wad gar ilk neibour think They thirst for guidness as for drink ; But there ’s an unco dearth o’ grace, That has nae mansion but the face, And never can obtain a part In benmost corner o’ the heart. Why should religion mak us sad, If good frae virtue ’s to be had ? Na : rather gleefu’ turn your face, Forsake hypocrisy, grimace ; And never hae it understood You fleg mankind frae being good. In afternoon, a’ brawly buskit, The joes and lasses lo’e to frisk it. Some tak a great delight to place The modest bon-grace owre 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 : 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 Castle-hill or public way, Where they nae other purpose mean, Than that fool cause o’ being seen, Let me to Arthur’s Seat pursue, Where bonny pastures meet the view, And monv 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 gie to mirth the live-lang day. Or should some cankered biting shower The day and a’ her sweets deflower, To Holyroodhouse let me stray, And gie to musing a’ the day ; Lamenting what auld Scotland knew, Bein days for ever frae her view. 0 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. ROBERT BURNS. After the publication of Fergusson’s poems, in a collected shape, in 1773, there was an interval of about thirteen years, during which no writer of eminence arose in Scotland who attempted to excel in the native language of the country. The intel- lectual taste of the capital ran strongly in favour of metaphysical and critical studies ; but the Doric muse was still heard in the rural districts linked to some popular air, some local occurrence or favourite spot, and was much cherished by the lower and middling classes of the people. In the summer of 1786, Robert Burns, the Shakspeare of Scotland, issued his first volume from the obscure press of Kilmarnock, and its influence was immediately felt, and is still operating on the whole imaginative literature of the kingdom.* Burns was then in his * The edition consisted of 600 copies. A second was pub- lished in Edinburgh in April 1787, no less than 2800 copies being subscribed for by 1500 individuals. After his unexam- pled popularity in Edinburgh, Burns took the farm of EUis- land, near Dumfries, married his ‘bonny Jean,’ and entered SCOTTISH POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BURNS. twenty-seventh year, having been horn in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, on the 25th of January 1759. His father was a poor farmer, a man of sterling worth and intelligence, who gave his son what education he could afford. The whole, however, was but a small foundation on which to erect the miracles of genius ! Robert was taught English well, and ‘ by the time he was ten or eleven years of age, he was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles.’ He was also taught to write, had a fortnight’s Erench, and was one summer-quarter at land-surveying. He had a few books, among which upon his new occupation at Whitsunday 1788. He had obtained —what he anxiously desired as an addition to his means as a farmer — an appointment in the Excise ; but the duties of this office, and his own convivial habits, interfered with his management of the farm, and he was glad to abandon it. In 1791 he removed to the town of Dumfries, subsisting entirely on his situation in the Excise, which yielded £70 per annum. Here he published, in 1793, a third edition of his poems, with the addition of Tam o’ Shunter , and other pieces composed at Ellisland. He died at Dumfries on the 21st of July I79G, aged thirty-seven years and about six months. The story of his life is so well known, that even this brief statement of dates seems unnecessary. In 1798 a fourth edition of his works was pub- lished in Edinburgh. Two years afterwards, in 1800, appeared the valuable and complete edition of Dr Currie, in four volumes, containing the correspondence of the poet, and a number of songs, contributed to Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum, and Thomson’s Select Scottish Melodies. The editions of Burns since 1800 could with difficulty be ascer- tained; they were reckoned a few years ago at about a hundred. His poems circulate in every shape, and have not yet ‘ gathered all their fame.’ were the Spectator , Pope’s works, Allan Ramsay, and a collection of English songs. Subsequently — about his twenty-third year — his reading was enlarged with the important addition of Thomson, Slienstone, Sterne, and Mackenzie. Other standard works soon followed. As the advantages of a liberal education were not within his reach, it is scarcely to be regretted that his library was at first so small. What books he had, he read and studied thoroughly — his attention was not distracted by a multitude of volumes — and his mind grew up with original and robust vigour. It is impossible to contemplate the life of Burns at this time, without a strong feel- ing of affectionate admiration and respect. His manly integrity of character — which, as a peasant, he guarded with jealous dignity — and his warm and true heart, elevate him, in our conceptions, almost as much as the native force and beauty of his poetry. We see him in the veriest shades of obscurity toil- ing, when a mere youth, ‘like a galley-slave,’ to support his virtuous parents and their household, yet grasping at every opportunity of acquiring knowledge from men and books— familiar with the 95 FB03I 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. history of his country, and loving its very soil — wor- | shipping the memory of Scotland’s ancient patriots ! and defenders, and exploring every scene and memo- j rial of departed greatness — loving also the simple peasantry around him, ‘ the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers.’ Burning with a desire to do something for old Scotland’s sake, with a heart beating with warm and generous emotions, a strong and clear under- standing, and a spirit abhorring all meanness, insin- ' cerity, and oppression, Burns, in his early days, j might have furnished the subject for a great and | instructive moral poem. The true elements of ! poetry were in his life, as in his writings. The wild stirrings of his ambition — which he so nobly com- J pared to the ‘blind gropings of Homer’s Cyclops round the walls of his cave ’ — the precocious matu- ! Tity of his passions and his intellect, his manly | frame, that led him to fear no competitor at the plough, and his exquisite sensibility and tenderness, that made him weep over even the destruction of a daisy’s flower, or a mouse’s nest, these are all moral contrasts or blendings that seem to belong to the spirit of romantic poetry. His writings, as we now know, were but the fragments of a great mind — the hasty outpourings of a full heart and intellect. After he had become the fashionable wonder and idol of his day — soon to be cast into cold neglect and poverty! — some errors and frailties threw a shade on the noble and affecting image, but its higher lineaments were never destroyed. The column was defaced, not broken ; and now that the mists of prejudice have cleared away, its just pro- portions and symmetry are recognised with pride and gratitude by his admiring countrymen. Burns came as a potent auxiliary or fellow- worker Burns’s Birthplace. I with Cowper, in bringing, poetry into the channels j of truth and nature. There were only two years j between the Task and the Cotter's Saturday Night. No poetry was ever more instantaneously or univer- sally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. It seemed as if a new realm had been added to the dominions of the British muse— a new and glorious creation, fresh from the hand of nature. There was the humour of Smollett, the pathos and tenderness of Sterne or Bichardson, the real life of Fielding, and the description of Thomson — all | united in delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by an Ayrshire ploughman! The volume contained matter for all minds — for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. So eagerly was the book sought after, that, where copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. The subsequent productions of the poet did not materially affect the estimate of his powers formed from his first volume. His life was at once too idle and too busy for continuous study ; and, alas ! it was too brief for the full matu- rity and development of his talents. Where the intellect predominates equally with the imagination 96 — and this was the case with Bums — increase of years generally adds to the strength and variety of the poet’s powers ; and we have no doubt that, in ordinary circumstances, Burns, like Dryden, would have improved with age, and added greatly to his fame, had he not fallen at so early a period, before his imagination could be enriched with the riper fruits of knowledge and experience. He meditated a national drama ; but we might have looked with more confidence for a series of tales like Tam o’ Shanter , which — with the elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, one of the most highly finished and most precious of his works — was produced in his happy residence at Ellisland. Above two hundred songs were, however, thrown off* by Burns in his latter years, and they embraced poetry of all kinds. Air Moore became a writer of lyrics, as he informs his readers, that he might express what music conveyed to himself. Burns had little or no technical know- ledge of music. Whatever pleasure he derived from it, was the result of personal associations — the words to which airs were adapted, or the locality with which they were connected. His whole soul, however, was full of the finest harmony. So quick and genial were his sympathies, that he was easily stirred into lyrical melody by whatever was. goad SCOTTISH POETS. ROBERT BURNS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. and beautiful in nature. Not a bird sang in a bush, nor a burn glanced in the sun, but it was eloquence and music to his ear. He fell in love with every fine female face he saw ; and thus kindled up, his feelings took the shape of song, and the words fell as naturally into their places as if prompted by the most perfect knowledge of music. The inward melody needed no artificial accompaniment. An attempt at a longer poem would have chilled his ardour ; but a song embodying some one leading idea, some burst of passion, love, patriotism, or humour, was exactly suited to the impulsive nature of Burns’s genius, and to his situation and circum- stances. His command of language and imagery, always the most appropriate, musical, and graceful, was a greater marvel than the creations of a Handel or Mozart. The Scottish poet, however, knew many old airs — still more old ballads ; and a few bars of the music, or a line of the words, served as a key-note to his suggestive fancy. He improved nearly all he touched. The arch humour, gaiety, simplicity, and genuine feeling of his original songs, will be felt as long as ‘rivers roll and woods are green.’ They breathe the natural character and spirit of the country, and must be coeval with it in existence. Wherever the words are chanted, a picture is presented to the mind ; and whether the tone be plaintive and sad, or joyous and exciting, one overpowering feeling takes possession of the imagination. The susceptibility of the poet inspired him with real emotions and passion, and his genius reproduced them with the glowing warmth and truth of nature. Tam o’ Shanter is usually considered to be Burns’s master-piece : it was so considered by himself, and the judgment has been confirmed by Campbell, Wilson, Montgomery, and almost every critic. It displays more various powers than any of his other productions, beginning with low comic humour and Bacchanalian revelry — the dramatic scene at the •commencement is unique, even in Burns — and ranging through the various styles of the descrip- tive, the terrible, the supernatural, and the ludicrous. The originality of some of the phrases and senti- ments, as Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious — O’er a’ the ills of life victorious ! 59 the felicity of some of the similes, and the elastic force and springiness of the versification, must also be considered as aiding in the effect. The poem reads as if it were composed in one transport of inspiration, before the bard had time to cool or to slacken in his fervour; and such we know was actually the case. Next to this inimitable ‘ tale of truth ’ in originality, and in happy grouping of images, both familiar and awful, we should be disposed to rank the Address to the Deil. The poet adopted the common superstitions of the peasantry as to the attributes of Satan; but though his Address is mainly ludicrous, he intersperses passages of the highest beauty, and blends a feeling of tenderness and compunction with his objurgation of the Evil One. The effect of contrast was never more happily displayed than in the conception of such a being straying in lonely glens and rustling among trees — in the familiarity of sly humour with which the poet lectures so awful and mysterious a personage — who had, as he says, almost overturned the infant world, and ruined all; and in that strange and inimitable outbreak of sympathy in which a hope 97 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800, is expressed for the salvation, and pity for the fate, even of Satan himself — But fare -you- weel, auld Nickie-ben ! Oh ! wad ye tak a thought and men’ ! Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — Still hae a stake ; I ’m wae to think upo’ ^on den, Even for your sake ! • The Jolly Beggars is another strikingly original production. It is the most dramatic of his works, and the characters are all finely sustained. Of the Cotter’s Saturday Night , the Mountain Daisy , or the Mouse’s Nest , it would be idle to attempt any eulogy. In these Burns is seen in his fairest colours — not with all his strength, hut in his happiest and most heart-felt inspiration — his brightest sunshine and his tenderest tears. The workmanship of these leading poems is equal to the value of the materials. The peculiar dialect of Burns being a composite of Scotch and English, which he varied at will — the Scotch being generally reserved for the comic and tender, and the English for the serious and lofty — his diction is remarkably rich and copious. No poet is more picturesque in expression. This was the result equally of accurate observation, careful study, and strong feeling. His energy and truth stamp the highest value on his writings. He is as literal as Cowper. The banks of the Boon are described as faithfully as those of the Ouse ; and his views of The Banks oi' D<»on, with the old Bridge and Burns’s Monument. human life and manners are as real and as finely moralised. His range of subjects, however, was infinitely more diversified, including a varied and romantic landscape, the customs and superstitions of his country, the delights of good fellowship and boon society, the aspirations of youthful ambition, and, above all, the emotions of love, which he depicted with such mingled fervour and delicacy. This ecstasy of passion was unknown to the author of the Task. Nor could the latter have conceived anything so truly poetical as the image of Coila, the tutelar genius and inspirer of the peasant youth in his clay-built hut, where Ills heart and fancy overflowed with love and poetry. Cowper read and appreciated Burns, and we can picture his astonishment and delight on perusing such strains as Coila’s address : ‘ With future hope I oft would gaze Fond on thy little early ways, Thy rudely caroled, chiming phrase. In uncouth rhymes, Fired at the simple, artless lays, Of other times. ‘ I saw thee seek the sounding shore, Delighted with the dashing roar ; Or when the north his fleecy store Drove through the sky, . I saw grim nature’s visage hoar Strike thy young eye. ‘ Or when the deep green -mantled earth Warm cherished every flowret’s birth, And joy and music pouring forth In every grove, I saw thee eye the general mirth With boundless love. ‘ When ripened fields and azure skies. Called forth the reapers' rustling noise, ROBERT BURNS. Scottish poets. ENGLISH LITER ATURE. I saw thee leave their evening joys, And lonely stalk. To vent thy bosom’s swelling rise In pensive walk. ‘ When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, The adored Name, I taught thee how to pour in song, To soothe thy flame. I I saw thy pulse’s maddening play, Wild send thee pleasure’s devious way. Misled by Fancy’s meteor-ray, By passion driven ; But yet the light that led astray Was light from Heaven. ‘ I taught thy manners-painting strains. The loves, the ways of simple swains, Till now, o’er all my wide domains Thy fame extends ; And some, the pride of Coila’s plains, Become thy friends. ‘ Thou canst not learn, nor can I shew, To paint with Thomson’s landscape glow ; Or wake the bosom-melting throe, With Shenstone’s art ; Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow Warm on the heart. ‘ Yet, all beneath the unrivalled rose, The lowly daisy sweetly blows ; Though large the forest’s monarch throws His army shade, Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows Adown the glade. ‘ Then never murmur nor repine ; Strive in thy humble sphere to shine ; And trust me, not Potosi’s mine, Nor king’s regard, Can give a bliss o’ermatching thine, A rustic bard. ‘ To give my counsels all in one — Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; Preserve the dignity of man, With soul erect ; And trust, the universal plan Will all protect. * And wear thou this ’ — she solemn said, And bound the holly round my head : The polished leaves, and berries red, Did rustling play ; And, like a passing thought, she fled In light away. Burns never could have improved upon the grace and tenderness of this romantic vision — the finest revelation ever made of the hope and ambition of a youthful poet. Greater strength, however, he un- doubtedly acquired with the experience of manhood. His Tam o’ Shunter, and Bruce’s Address , are the result of matured powers ; and his songs evince a conscious mastery of the art and materials of com- position. His Vision of Liberty at Lincluden is a great and splendid fragment. The reflective spirit evinced in his early epistles is found, in his Lines Written in Friars’ Carse Hermitage, to have settled into a deep vein of moral philosophy, clear and true as the lines of Swift, and informed with a higher wisdom. It cannot be said that Burns abso- lutely fails in any kind of composition, except in his epigrams ; these are coarse without being pointed or entertaining. Nature, which had lavished on him such powers of humour, denied him wit. In reviewing the intellectual career of the poet, his correspondence must not be overlooked. His prose style was more ambitious than that of his poetry. In the latter he followed the dictates of nature, warm from the heart, whereas in his letters he aimed at being sentimental, peculiar, and strik- ing; and simplicity was sometimes sacrificed for effect. As Johnson considered conversation to be an intellectual arena, wherein every man was bound to do his best, Burns seems to have regarded letter- writing in much the same light, and to have considered it necessary at times to display all his acquisitions to amuse, gratify, or astonish his patronising correspondents. Considerable deduc- tions must, therefore, be made from his published correspondence, whether regarded as an index to his feelings and situation, or as models of the epistolary style. In subject, he adapted himself too much to the character and tastes of the person he was addressing, and in style, he was led away by a love of display. A tinge of pedantry and assump- tion, or of reckless bravado, was thus at time§ superinduced upon the manly and thoughtful simplicity of his natural character, which sits as awkwardly upon it as the intrusion of Jove or Danae into the rural songs of Allan Ramsay.* * The scraps of French in his letters to Dr Moore, Mrs Riddel, &c., have an unpleasant effect. ‘ If he had an affecta- tion in anything,’ says Dugald Stewart, ‘ it was in introducing occasionally [in conversation] a word or phrase from that language.’ Campbell makes a similar statement, and relates the following anecdote : ‘ One of his friends, who carried him into the company of a French lady, remarked, with surprise, that he attempted to converse with her in her own tongue. Their French, however, was mutually unintelligible. As far as Burns could make himself understood, he unfortunately offended the foreign lady. He meant to tell her that she was a charming person, and delightful in conversation, but expressed himself so as to appear to her to mean that she was fond of speaking : to which the Gallic dame indignantly replied, that it was quite as common for poets to be impertinent as for women to be loquacious.’ The friend who introduced Burns on this occasion (and who herself related the anecdote to Mr Camp- bell) was Miss Margaret Chalmers, afterwards Mrs Lewis Hay, who died in 1843. The wonder is. that the dissipated aristo- cracy of the Caledonian Hunt, and the ‘ buckish tradesmen of Edinburgh,’ left any part of the original plainness and simplicity of his manners. Yet his learned friends saw no change in the proud self-sustained and self-measuring poet. He kept his ground, and he asked no more. ‘ A somewhat clearer knowledge of men’s affairs, scarcely of their charac- ters,’ says the quaint but true and searching Thomas Carlyle, ‘ this winter in Edinburgh did afford him ; but a sharper feel- ing of Fortune’s unequal arrangements in their social destiny it also left with him. He had seen the gay and gorgeous arena, in which the powerful are born to play their parts; nay, had himself stood in the midst of it; and he felt more bitterly than ever that here he was but a looker-on, and had no part or lot in that splendid game. From this time a jealous indignant fear of social degradation takes possession of him; and perverts, so far as aught could pervert, his private con- tentment, and his feelings towards his richer fellows. It was clear to Burns that he had talent enough to make a fortune, or a hundred fortunes, could he but have rightly willed this. It was clear also that he willed something far different, and therefore could not make one. Unhappy it was that he had not power to choose the one, and reject the other, but must halt for ever between two opinions, two objects; making hampered advancement towards either. But so it is with many men: “we long for the merchandise, yet would fain keep the price ; ” and so stand chaffering with Fate, in vexatious altercation, till the night come, and our fair is over !’ from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF xo 1800. Burns’s letters, however, are valuable as memorials of his temperament and genius. He was often dis- tinct, forcible, and happy in expression — rich in sallies of imagination and poetical feeling — at times deeply pathetic and impressive. He lifts the veil from the miseries of his latter days with a hand struggling betwixt pride and a broken spirit. His autobiography, addressed to Dr Moore, written when his mind was salient and vigorous, is as remarkable for its literary talent as for its modest independence and clear judgment ; and the letters to Mrs Dunlop — in whom he had entire confidence, and whose ladylike manners and high principle rebuked his wilder spirit — are all characterised by sincerity and elegance. One beautiful letter to this lady we are tempted to copy ; it is poetical in the highest degree, and touches with exquisite taste on the mysterious union between external nature and the sympathies and emotions of the human frame : ‘ Ellisland, Neiv-y ear-day Morning, 1789. ‘This, dear madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came under the apostle James’s description ! — the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings : everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self- enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be jmurs. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and sea- sons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little better than mere ■machinery. ‘This day, the first Sunday of May, a breezy, blue-skied noon some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn ; these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday. ‘ I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator — the Vision of Mirza — a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables : “ On the 5tli day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ■ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.” ‘We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that '-one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with parti- cular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the AEolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident ? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities— a God that made all things — man’s imma- terial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave.’ 100 To the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, Burns seems to have clung with fond tenacity: it survived the wreck or confusion of his early impressions, and formed the strongest and most soothing of his beliefs. In other respects, his creed was chiefly practical. ‘Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others,’ he says, ‘ this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my reason of iniquity.’ The same feeling he had expressed in one of his early poems-r- But deep this truth impressed my mind, Through all his works abroad, The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God. Conjectures have been idly formed as to the probable effect which education would have had on the mind of Burns. We may as well speculate on the change which might be wrought by the engineer, the planter, and agriculturist, in assimilating the wild scenery of Scotland to that of England. Who would wish — if it were possible — by successive graftings, to make the birch or the pine approximate to the oak or the elm ? Nature is various in all her works, and has diversified genius as much as she has done her plants and trees. In Burns we have a genuine Scottish poet: why should we wish to mar the beautiful order and variety of nature by making him a Dryden or a Gray? Education could not have improved Burns’s songs, his Tam o’ Shanter, or any other of his great poems. He would never have written them but for his situation and feelings as a peasant — and could he have written anything better? The whole of that world of passion and beauty which he has laid open to us might have been hid for ever ; and the genius which was so well and worthily employed in embellishing rustic life, and adding new interest and glory to his country, would only have placed him in the long procession of English poets, stripped of his originality, and bearing, though proudly, the ensign of conquest and submission. [From Burns's Epistles .] We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains and fells, Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells, Her banks and braes, her dens and dells, Where glorious Wallace Aft bure the gree, as story tells, Frae southron billies. At Wallace’ name what Scottish blood But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace’ side, Still pressing onward, red-wat shod, Or glorious died ! O sweet are Coila’s haughs and woods, When lint whites chant amang the buds, And jinkin’ hares in amorous whids, Their loves enjoy, While through the braes the cushat croods With wailfu’ cry ! Even winter bleak has charms to me When winds rave through the naked tree ; Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree Are hoary gray : Or blinding drifts wild furious flee, Darkening the day ! SCOTTISH POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BURNS. 0 nature ! a’ thy shows and forms To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! Whether the summer kindly warms, Wi’ life and light, Or winter howls in gusty storms The lang, dark night ! The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel he learned to wander, Adown some trotting burn’s meander, And no think lang ; 0 sweet, to stray and pensive ponder A heart-felt sang ! Then farewell hopes o’ laurel-houghs, To garland my poetic brows ! Henceforth I ’ll rove where busy ploughs Are whistling thrang, And teach the lanely heights and howes My rustic sang. 1 ’ll wander on, with tentless heed How never-halting moments speed, Till fate shall snap the brittle thread ; Then, all unknown, I ’ll lay me with the inglorious dead Forgot and gone ! But why o’ death begin a tale ? Just now we’re living sound and hale, Then top and maintop crowd the sail, Heave care o’er side ! And large before enjoyment’s gale, Let ’s tak the tide. This life, sae far ’s I understand, Is a’ enchanted fairy land, Where pleasure is the magic wand, That, wielded right, Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand, Dance by fu’ light. The magic wand then let us wield ; For, ance that five- and-forty ’s speeled, See, crazy, weary, joyless eild, Wi’ wrinkled face, Comes hostin’, hirplin’ owre the field, Wi’ creepin’ pace. When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin’, Then fareweel vacant careless roamin’ ; And fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin’, And social noise ; And fareweel dear, deluding woman ! The joy of joys ! 0 Life ! how pleasant in thy morning, Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning ! Cold-pausing caution’s lesson scorning, We frisk away, Like school-hoys, at the expected warning, To joy and play. We wander there, we wander here, We eye the rose upon the brier, Unmindful that the thorn is near, Among the leaves ! And though the puny wound appear, Short while it grieves. To a Mountain Daisy , On turning one down with the plough in April 178C. Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, Thou ’s met me in an evil hour ; For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem : To spare thee now is past my power, Thou bonny gem. Alas ! it ’s no thy neibor sweet, The bonny lark, companion meet, Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet, Wi’ spreckled breast, When upward-springing, blithe, to greet The purpling east ! Cauld blew the hitter-biting north Upon thy early, humble birth ; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce reared above the parent earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High sheltering woods and wa’s maun shield : But thou, beneath the random bield O’ clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There in thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise ; But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies ! Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow’ret of the rural shade ! By love’s simplicity betrayed, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid Low i’ the dust. Such is the fate of simple bard, On life’s rough ocean luckless starred ! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o’er ! Such fate to suffering worth is given, Who long with wants and woes has striven, By human pride or cunning driven To misery’s brink, Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven, He, ruined, sink ! Even thou who mourn’st the daisy’s fate, That fate is thine — no distant date ; Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crushed beneath the furrow’s weight, Shall be thy doom. On Captain Matthew Henderson , A gentleman who held the patent for his honours immediately from Almighty God. • Should the poor be flattered V—Slialsspeare. But now his radiant course is run, For Matthew’s course was bright; Ill's soul was like the glorious sun, A matchless heavenly light! 0 Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! The meikle devil wi’ a woodie 101 FROil 17 GO CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800 . Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie, O’er hui’cheon hides, And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie Wi’ thy auld sides ! He ’s gane ! he ’s gane ! he ’s frae ns torn, The ae best fellow e’er was bom ! Thee, Alatthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn By wood and wild, Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn, Frae man exiled ! Ye hills, near neibors o’ the stams, That proudly cock your cresting cairns ! Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, 1 Where echo slumbers ! Come join, ye Nature’s sturdiest bairns, lily wailing numbers ! Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens ! Ye burnies, wimpling down your glens Wi’ toddlin’ din, Or foaming strang, wi’ hasty stens, Frae lin to lin ! Mourn, little harebells o’er the lea ; Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; Ye woodbines hanging bonnilie In scented bowers ; Ye roses on your thorny tree, The first o’ flowers. At dawn, when every grassy blade Droops with a diamond at its head, At even, when beans their fragrance shed, F the rustling gale, Ye maukins, whiddin through the glade, Come join my wail. Mourn, ye wee songsters o’ the wood ; Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; Ye curlews calling through a clud ; Ye whistling plover; And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood ! He ’s gane for ever ! Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals, Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; Ye duck and drake, wi’ airy wheels Circling the lake ; Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, Bair for his sake. Mourn, clamering craiks at close o’ day, ’Mang fields o’ flowering clover gay ; And when ye wing your annual way Frae our cauld shore, Tell thae far worlds wha lies in clay Wham we deplore. Ye houlets, frae your ivy bower, In some auld tree, or eldritch tower, What time the moon, wi’ silent glower Sets up her horn, Wail through the dreary midnight hour Till waukrife mom ! 0 rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! Oft have ye heard my canty strains : But now, what else for me remains But tales of woe ? And frae my een the drapping rains Maun ever flow. 102 Eagles. Mourn, spring, thou darling of the year, Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear : Thou, simmer, while each corny spear Shoots up its head. Thy gay, green, flowery tresses shear For him that ’s dead. Thou, autumn, wi’ thy yellow hair, In grief thy sallow mantle tear ! Thou, winter, hurling through the air The roaring blast, Wide o’er the naked world declare The worth we’ve lost ! Mourn him, thou sun, great source of light ! Mourn, empress of the silent night ! And you, ye twinkling stamies bright, My Matthew mourn ! For through your orb he ’s ta’en his flight* Ne’er to return. 0 Henderson ! the man — the brother ! And art thou gone, and gone for ever ? And hast thou crossed that unknown river, Life’s dreary bound ? Like thee, where shall we find another, The world around ? Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great, In a’ the tinsel trash o’ state ! But by thy honest turf I ’ll wait, Thou man of worth ! And weep the ae best fellow’s fate E’er lay in earth. [Sbftyw.] Macpherson' s Farewell. Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, The wretch’s destinie ! Macpherson’ s time will not be long On yonder gallows-tree. Sae rantinglv, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he ; He played a spring, and danced it round, Below the gallows-tree. Oh, what is death but parting breath ! On many a bloody plain I ’ve dared his face, and in this place I scorn him yet again ! Untie these bands from off my hands, And bring to me my sword ; And there ’s no a man in all Scotland, But I ’ll brave him at a word. I ’ve lived a life of sturt and strife ; I die by treacherie ; It bums my heart I must depart And not avenged be. Now farewell light — thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky ! May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dares not die ! Menie. Again rejoicing nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues, Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steeped in morning dews. SCOTTISH POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BURNS. In vain to me the cowslips blaw. In vain to me the violets spring ; In vain to me, in glen or shaw, The mavis and the lintwhite sing. The merry plough-boy cheers his team, "Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks ; But life to me ’s a weary dream, A dream of ane that never wauks. The wanton coot the water skims, Amang the reeds the ducklings cry, The stately swan majestic swims, And everything is blessed but L The shepherd steeks his faulding slap, And owre the moorland whistles shrill ; Wi’ wild, unequal, wandering step, I meet him on the dewy hill. And when the lark, ’tween light and dark, Blithe waukens by the daisy’s side, And mounts and sings on flittering wings, A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide. Come, "Winter, with thine angry howl, And raging bend the naked tree : Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul, When nature all is sad like me ! Ae Fond Kiss. £* These exquisitely affecting stanzas contain the essence of a thousand love-tales.’— Scott.] Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; Ae fareweel, alas ! for ever ! Deep in heart- wrung tears I ’ll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I ’ll wage thee. Who shall say that fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him ? Me, nae cheerfu’ twinkle lights me ; Dark despair around benights me. I ’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy, Naething could resist my Nancy ; But to see her was to love her ; Love but her, and love for ever. Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met — or never parted, We had ne’er been broken-hearted. Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest ! Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest ! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure ! Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; Ae fareweel, alas ! for ever ! Deep in heart-wrung tears I ’ll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee ! My Bonny Mary. Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine, And fill it in a silver tassie ; That I may drink, before I go, A service to my bonny lassie ; The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith, Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry ; The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my bonny Mary. The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are ranked ready ; The shouts o’ war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody ; But it ’s not the roar o’ sea or shore Wad make me langer wish to tarry ; Nor shouts o’ war that ’s heard afar — It ’s leaving thee, my bonny Mary. Mary Morison. [‘One of my juvenile works.’ — Burns. ‘Of all the produc- tions of Burns, the pathetic and serious love-songs which he has left behind him in the manner of old ballads, are perhaps those which take the deepest and most lasting hold of the mind. Such are the lines of Mary Morison , &c .’—Hazlitt.] 0 Mary, at thy window be, It is the wished, the trysted hour ! Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser’s treasure poor : How blithely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison. Yestreen when to the trembling string The dance gaed through the lighted ha’, To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw. Though this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a’ the town, 1 sighed, and said amang them a’, 4 Ye are na Mary Morison.’ 0 Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only faut is loving thee? If love for love thou wilt na gie, At least be pity to me shewn ; A thought ungentle canna be The thought o’ Mary Morison. Bruce's Address. Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ; Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory ! Now’s the day, and now ’s the hour; See the front o’ battle lour ; See approach proud Edward’s power — Chains and slavery ! Wha will be a traitor knave ? Wha can fill a coward’s grave? Wha sae base as be a slave ? Let him turn and flee ! Wha for Scotland’s king and law Freedom’s sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa’, Let him follow me ! By oppression’s woes and pains ! By your sons in servile chains ! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free ! Lay the proud usurpers low ! Tyrants fall in every foe ! Liberty’s in every blow ! Let us do, or die ! 103 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Lincluden Abbey. A Vision* As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa’ -flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care ; The winds were laid, the air was still, The stars they shot alang the sky ; The fox was howling on the hill, And the distant echoing glens reply. The stream, adown its hazelly path, Was rushing by the ruined was, Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, Whose distant roaring swells and fa’s. The cauld blue north was streaming forth Her lights, wi’ hissing eerie din ; Athort the lift they start and shift, Like fortune’s favours, tint as win. * A favourite walk of Burns during his residence in Dumfries was one along the right bank of the river above the town, terminating at the ruins of Lincluden Abbey and Church, which occupy a romantic situation on a piece of rising ground in the angle at the junction of the Cluden Water with the Nith. These ruins include many fine fragments of ancient decorative architecture, and are enshrined in a natural scene of the utmost beauty. Burns, according to his eldest son, often mused amidst the Lincluden ruins. There is one position on a little mount, to the south of the church, where a couple of landscapes of witching loveliness are obtained, set, as it were, in two of the windows of the ancient building. It was probably the * Calvary ’ of the ancient church precinct. This the younger Burns remembered to have been a favourite resting-place of the poet. Such is the locality of the grand and thrilling ode, entitled A Vision, in which he hints— for more than a hint could not be ventured upon— his sense of the degradation of the ancient manly spirit of his country under the conservative terrors of the passing era. — Chambers's Burns. 104 By heedless chance I turned mine eyes, And, by the moonbeam, shook to see A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, Attired as minstrels wont to be. Had I a statue been o’ stane, His dariu’ look had daunted me ; And on his bonnet graved was plain. The sacred posy — ‘ Libertie ! ’ And frae his harp sic strains did flow, Might roused the slumb’ring dead to hear ; But oh ! it was a tale of woe, As ever met a Briton’s ear. He sang wi’ joy the former day, He weeping wailed his latter times ; But what he said it was nae play — I winna ventur ’t in my rhymes. Man was Made to Mourn — a Dirge. "When chill November’s surly blast Made fields and forests bare, One evening, as I wandered forth Along the banks of Ayr, I spied a man whose aged step Seemed weary, worn with care ; His face was furrowed o’er with years, And hoary was his hair. ‘ Young stranger, whither wanderest thou ?* Began the reverend sage : ‘ Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, Or youthful pleasure’s rage ! Or haply, prest with cares and woes, Too soon thou hast began To wander forth, with me, to mourn The miseries of man. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BURNS. 4 The sun that overhangs yon moors, Out-spreading far and wide, Where hundreds labour to support A haughty lordling’s pride : I ’ve seen yon weary winter-sun Twice forty times return, And eveiy time has added proofs That man was made to mourn. 4 0 man ! while in thy early years, How prodigal of time ; Misspending all thy precious hours, Thy glorious youthful prime ! Alternate follies take the sway ; Licentious passions burn ; Which tenfold force gives nature’s law, That man was made to mourn. 4 Look not alone on youthful prime. Or manhood’s active might ; Man then is useful to his kind, Supported is his right : But see him on the edge of life, With cares and sorrows worn ; Then age and want — 0 ill-matched pair ! — Shew man was made to mourn. 4 A few seem favourites of fate, In pleasure’s lap carest ; Yet think not all the rich and great Are likewise truly blest. But, oh ! what crowds in every land, All wretched and forlorn ! Through weary life this lesson learn — That man was made to mourn. ‘ Many and sharp the numerous ills Inwoven with our frame ! More pointed still we make ourselves Regret, remorse, and shame ; And man, whose heaven- erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn ! 4 See yonder poor, o’erlaboured wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil ; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful though a weeping wife And helpless offspring mourn. 4 If I ’m designed yon lordling’s slave — By Nature’s law designed — Why was an independent wish E’er planted in my mind ? If not, why am I subject to His cruelty or scorn ? Or why has man the will and power To make his fellow mourn? 4 Yet let not this too much, my son, Disturb thy youthful breast ; This partial view of human-kind Is surely not the last ? The poor, oppressed, honest man, Had never, sure, been born, Had there not been some recompense To comfort those that mourn ! 4 0 Death ! the poor man’s dearest friend- The kindest and the best ! Welcome the hour, my aged limbs Are laid with thee at rest ! The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, From pomp and pleasure torn ! But, oh ! a blest relief to those That weary-laden mourn ! ’ from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. ALEXANDER WILSON. Alexander Wilson, a distinguished naturalist, was also a good Scottish poet. He was a native of Paisley, and born July 6, 1766. He was brought up to the trade of a weaver, but afterwards preferred Alexander Wilson. that of a pedler, selling muslin and other , wares. In 1789, he added to his other commodities a prospectus of a volume of poems, trusting, as he said, If the pedler should fail to be favoured with sale, Then I hope you ’ll encourage the poet. He did not succeed in either character; and after publishing his poems, he returned to the loom. In 1792, he issued anonymously his best poem, Watty and Meg , which was at first attributed to Burns.* A foolish personal satire, and a not very wise admir- ation of the principles of equality disseminated at the time of the French Devolution, drove Wilson to America in the year 1794. There he was once more a weaver and a pedler, and afterwards a schoolmaster. A love of ornithology gained upon him, and he wandered over America, collecting specimens of birds. In 1808, appeared his first volume of the American Ornithology , and he con- tinued collecting and publishing, traversing swamps and forests in quest of rare birds, and undergoing the greatest privations and fatigues, till he had committed an eighth volume to the press. He sank under his severe labours on the 23d of August 1813, and was interred with public honours at Philadelphia. In the Ornithology of Wilson we see the fancy and descriptive powers of the poet. The following extract is part of his account of the bald eagle, and is extremely vivid and striking : * As Burns was one day sitting at his desk by the side of the window, a well-known hawker, Andrew Bishop, went past crying : * Watty and Meg , a new ballad, by Robert Burns.’ The poet looked out and said : ‘That’s a lee, Andrew, but I would make your plack a bawbee if it were mine.’ This we heard Mrs Burns, the poet’s widow, relate. 106 [The Bald Eaglet] The celebrated cataract of Niagara is a noted place of resort for the bald eagle, as well on account of the fish procured there, as for the numerous carcasses of squirrels, deer, bears, and various other animals that, in their attempts to cross the river above the falls, have been dragged into the current, and precipitated down that tremendous gulf, where, among the rocks that bound the rapids below, they furnish a rich repast for the vulture, the raven, and the bald eagle, the subject of the present account. He has been long known to naturalists, being common to both continents, and occasionally met with from a very high northern lati- tude to the borders of the torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea, and along the shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers. Formed by nature for braving the severest cold, feeding equally on the produce of the sea and of the land, possessing powers of flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves, unawed by anything but man, and, from the ethereal heights to which he soars, looking abroad at one glance on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes, and ocean deep below him, he appears indifferent to the little localities of change of seasons, as in a few minutes he can pass from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the atmosphere, the abode of eternal cold, and from thence descend at will to the torrid or the arctic regions of the earth. In procuring these, he displays, in a very singular manner, the genius and energy of his character, which is fierce, contemplative, daring, and tyrannical; attri- butes not exerted but on particular occasions, but when put forth, overpowering all opposition. Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree that commands a wide view of the neighbouring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below ; the snow- white gulls slowly winnowing the air ; the busy tringse coursing along the sands ; trains of ducks streaming over the surface ; silent and watchful cranes intent and wading ; clamorous crows ; and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. High over all these, hovers one whose action instantly arrests his whole attention. By his wide curv- ature of wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the fish-hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and balancing himself with half-opened wings on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around. At this moment the eager looks of the eagle are all ardour; and, levelling his neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mount- ing in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase, and soon gains on the fish-hawk ; each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, dis- playing in these rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish : the eagle, poising himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods. By way of preface, ‘to invoke the clemency of the reader,’ Wilson relates the following exquisite trait of simplicity and nature : ‘ In one of my late visits to a friend in the country, I found their youngest son, a fine boy of SCOTTISH POETS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ALEXANDER WILSON. eight or nine years of age, who usually resides in town for his education, just returning from a ramble through the neighbouring woods and fields, where he had collected a large and very handsome bunch of wild-flowers, of a great many different colours ; and, presenting them to his mother, said : “ Look, my dear mamma, what beautiful flowers I have found growing on our place ! Why, all the woods are full of them! red, orange, and blue, and ’most every colour. Oh ! I can gather you a whole parcel of them, much handsomer than these, all growing in our own woods ! Shall I, mamma ? Shall I go and bring you more ? ” The good woman received the bunch of flowers with a smile of affectionate complacency; and, after admiring for some time the beautiful simplicity of nature, gave her willing consent, and the little fellow went off on the wings of ecstasy to execute his delightful commission. ‘ The similarity of this little boy’s enthusiasm to my own struck me, and the reader will need no explanations of mine to make the application. Should my country receive with the same gracious indulgence the specimens which I here humbly present her ; should she express a desire for me to go and bring her more, the highest wishes of my ambition will be gratified ; for, in the language of my little friend, our whole woods are full of them, and I can collect hundreds more, much handsomer than these.’ The ambition of the poet-naturalist was amply gratified. [A Village Scold.] Y the thrang o’ stories tellin, Shakin hands and jokin queer, Swifch ! a chap comes on the hallan — ‘Mungo ! is our Watty here V Maggy’s weel-kent tongue and hurry Darted through him like a knife : Up the door flew — like a fury In came Watty’s scoldin wife. ‘Nasty, gude-for-naething being ! 0 ye snuffy drucken sow ! Bringin wife and weans to ruin, Drinkin here wi’ sic a crew ! ‘ Rise ! ye drucken beast o’ Bethel ! Drink’s your night and day’s desire; Rise, this precious hour ! or faith I ’ll Fling your whisky i’ the fire !’ Watty heard her tongue unhallowed, Paid his groat wi’ little din, Left the house, while Maggy followed, Flyting a’ the road bellin’. Folk frae every door came lampin, Maggy curst them ane and a’, Clapped wi’ her hands, and stampin, Lost her bauchels 1 i’ the snaw. Hame, at length, she turned the gavel, Wi’ a face as white ’s a clout, Ragin like a very devil, Kickin stools and chairs about. ‘Ye’ll sit wi’ your limmers round ye — Hang you, sir, I ’ll be your death ! Little hauds my hands, confound you, But I cleave you to the teeth ! ’ 1 Old shoes. Watty, wha, ’midst this oration, Eyed her whiles, but durst na speak, Sat, like patient Resignation, Trembling by the ingle-cheek. Sad his wee drap brose he sippet — Maggy’s tongue gaed like a bell — Quietly to his bed he slippet, Sighin aften to himsel — ‘ Nane are free frae some vexation, Ilk ane has his ills to dree ; But through a’ the hale creation Is nae mortal vexed like me.’ [A Pedler’s Story .] I wha stand here, in this bare scowry coat, Was ance a packman, worth mony a groat ; I ’ve carried packs as big ’s your meikle table ; I ’ve scarted pats, and sleepit in a stable : Sax pounds I wadna for my pack ance ta’en, And I could bauldly brag ’twas a’ mine ain. Ay ! thae were days indeed, that gared me hope, Aiblins, through time to warsle up a shop ; And as a wife aye in my noddle ran, I kenned my Kate wad grapple at me than. Oh, Kate was past compare ! sic cheeks ! sic een ! Sic smiling looks ! were never, never seen. Dear, dear I lo’ed her, and whene’er we met, Pleaded to have the bridal-day but set ; Stapped her pouches fu’ o’ preens and laces, And thought mysel weel paid wi’ twa three kisses : Yet still she put it aff frae day to day, And aften kindly in my lug would say : ‘ Ae half-year langer ’s no nae unco stop, We’ll marry then, and syne set up a shop.’ Oh, sir, but lasses’ words are saft and fair, They soothe our griefs and banish ilka care : Wha wadna toil to please the lass he lo’es ? A lover true minds this in all he does. Finding her mind was thus sae firmly bent, And that I couldna get her to relent, There was nought left but quietly to resign, To heeze my pack for ae lang hard campaign ; And as the Highlands was the place for meat, I ventured there in spite o’ wind and weet. Cauld now the winter blew, and deep the snaw For three hale days incessantly did fa’ ; Far in a muir, amang the whirling drift, Where nought was seen but mountains and the lift, I lost my road, and w r andered mony a mile, Maist dead wi’ hunger, cauld, and fright, and toil. Thus wandering, east or west, I kenned na where, My mind o’ercome wi’ gloom and black despair, Wi’ a fell ringe I plunged at ance, forsooth, Down through a wreath o’ snaw up to my mouth — • Clean owre my head my precious wallet flew, But whar it gaed, Lord kens — I never knew ! What great misfortunes are poured down on some ! I thought my fearfu’ hinder-end was come ! Wi’ grief and sorrow was my saul owercast, Ilk breath I drew was like to be my last ; For aye the mair I warsled roun’ and roun’, I fand mysel aye stick the deeper down ; Till ance, at length, wi’ a prodigious pull, I drew my puir cauld carcass frae the hole. Lang, lang I sought and graped for my pack, Till night and hunger forced me to come back. For three lang hours I wandered up and down, Till chance at last conveyed me to a town ; There, wi’ a trembling hand, I wrote my Kate A sad account of a’ my luckless fate, But bade her aye be kind, and no despair, Since life was left, I soon would gather mair, 107 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. from 1760 Wi’ whilk I hoped, within a towmont’s date, To he at hame, and share it a’ wi’ Kate. Fool that I was ! how little did I think That love would soon he lost for faut o’ clink ! The loss o’ fair-won wealth, though hard to hear, Afore this — ne’er had power to force a tear. I trusted time would bring things round again, And Kate, dear Kate ! would then he a’ mine ain : Consoled my mind in hopes o’ better luck — But, oh ! what sad reverse ! how thunderstruck ! "When ae black day brought word frae Rab my brither, That — Kate was cried and married on anither! Though a’ my friends, and ilka comrade sweet, At ance had drapped cauld dead at my feet ; Or though I ’d heard the last day’s dreadful ca’, Nae deeper horror owre my heart could fa’ : I cursed mysel, I cursed my luckless fate, And grat — and sabbing cried, ‘0 Kate ! 0 Kate !’ Frae that day forth I never mair did weel, But drank, and ran headforemost to the deil ! My siller vanished, far frae hame I pined, But Kate for ever ran across my mind ; In her were a’ my hopes — these hopes were vain, And now I’ll never see her like again. HECTOR 31 ACNEILL. Hector Macneill (1746-1818) was brought up to a mercantile life, but was unsuccessful in most of his business affairs. He cultivated in secret an attachment to the muses, which at length brought him fame, though not wealth. In 1789, he published a legendary poem, The Harp , and in 1795, his moral tale, Scotland’s Sfcaith, or the History o’ Will and Jean . The object of this production was to depict the evil effects of intemperance. A happy rural pair are reduced to ruin, descending by gradual steps till the husband is obliged to enlist as a soldier, and the wife to beg with her children through the country. The situation of the little ale-house where Will begins his unlucky potations is finely described. In a howm whose bonny burnie Whimpering rowed its crystal food, Near the road where travellers turn aye, Neat and beild a cot-house stood : White the wa’s wi’ roof new theekit, Window broads just painted red ; Lown ’mang trees and braes it reekit, Haflins seen and haflins hid. Up the gavel-end thick spreading Crap the clasping ivy green, Back owre firs the high craigs cleadin, Raised a’ round a cosey screen. Down below a flowery meadow Joined the burnie’s rambling line ; Here it was that Howe the widow That same day set up her sign. Brattling down the brae, and near its Bottom, Will first marvelling sees * Porter, Ale, and British Spirits,’ Painted bright between twa trees. ‘Godsake, Tam ! here’s walth for drinking ! Wha can this new-comer be ?’ ‘Hout,’ quo’ Tam, ‘there’s drouth in thinking — Let ’s in, Will, and syne we ’ll see.’ The rustic friends have a jolly meeting, and do not separate till ‘’tween twa and three’ next morning. 108 A weekly club is set up at Maggy Howe’s, a news- paper is procured, and poor Will, the hero of the tale, becomes a pot-house politician, and soon goes to ruin. His wife also takes to drinking. Wha was ance like Willie Gairlace ? Wha in neebouring town or farm ? Beauty’s bloom shone in his fair face, Deadly strength was in his arm. Whan he first saw Jeanie Miller, Wha wi’ Jeanie could compare? Thousands had mair braws and siller, But war ony half sae fair ? See them now! — how changed wi’ drinking ! A’ their youthfu’ beauty gane ! Davered, doited, daized, and blinking — Worn to perfect skin and bane ! In the cauld month o’ November — Claise and cash and credit out — Cowering o’er a dying ember, Wi’ ilk face as white ’s a clout ! Bond and bill and debts a’ stoppit, Ilka sheaf selt on the bent ; Cattle, beds, and blankets roupit Now to pay the laird his rent. No anither night to lodge here — No a friend their cause to plead ! He ’s ta’en on to be a sodger, She wi’ weans to beg her bread ! The little domestic drama is happily wound up: j Jeanie obtains a cottage and protection from the j Duchess of Buccleuch ; and Will, after losing a leg j in battle, returns, ‘ placed on Chelsea’s bounty,’ and finds his wife and family. Sometimes briskly, sometimes flagging Sometimes helpit, Will gat forth ; On a cart, or in a wagon, Hirpling aye towards the north. Tired ae e’ening, stepping hooly, Pondering on his thraward fate, In the bonny month o’ July, Willie, heedless, tint his gate. Saft the southland breeze was blawing, Sweetly sughed the green aik wood ; Loud the din o’ streams fast fa’ing, Strack the ear wi’ thundering thud : Ewes and lambs on braes ran bleating ; Linties chirped on ilka tree ; Frae the west the sun, near setting, Flamed on Roslin’s towers sae hie. Roslin’s towers and braes sae bonny ! Craigs and water, woods and glen ! Roslin’s banks unpeered by ony, Save the Muses’ Hawthomden ! Ilka sound and charm delighting, Will — though haruly fit to gang — Wandered on through scenes inviting. Listening to the mavis’ sang. Faint at length, the day fast closing, On a fragrant strawberry steep, Esk’s sweet dream to rest composing, Wearied nature drapt asleep. SCOTTISn POETS. RICHARD GALL. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ‘ Soldier, rise ! — the dews o’ e’ening Gathering, fa’ wi’ deadly skaith ! — Wounded soldier ! if complaining, Sleep na here, and catch your death.’ * * * Silent stept he on, poor fellow ! Listening to his guide before, O’er green knowe and flowery hollow, Till they reached the cot-house door. Laigh it was, yet sweet and humble ; Decked wi’ honeysuckle round ; Clear below Esk’s waters rumble, Deep glens murmuring back the sound. Melville’s towers sae white and stately, Dim by gloaming glint to view ; Through Lasswade’s dark woods keek sweetly, Skies sae red and lift sae blue. Entering now, in transport mingle Mother fond and happy wean, Smiling round a canty ingle Bleezing on a clean hearth stane. ‘ Soldier, welcome ! come, be cheerie — Here ye ’se rest and tak’ your bed — Faint, w'ae’s me ! ye seem, and weary, Pale ’s your cheek sae lately red !’ ‘ Changed I am,’ sighed Willie till her ; ‘ Changed, nae doubt, as changed can be ! Yet, alas ! does Jeanie Miller Nought o’ Willie Gairlace see?’ Hae ye marked the dews o’ morning Glittering in the sunny ray, Quickly fa’, when, without warning, Rough blasts came and shook the spray ? Hae ye seen the bird fast fleeing, Drap when pierced by death mair fleet ? Then see Jean wi’ colour deeing, Senseless drap at Willie’s feet. After three lang years’ affliction — A’ their waes now hushed to rest — Jean ance mair, in fond affection, Clasps her Willie to her breast. The simple truth and pathos of descriptions like these appealed to the heart, and soon rendered Macneill’s poem universally popular in Scotland. Its moral tendency was also a strong recommend- ation, and the same causes still operate in procuring readers for the tale, especially in that class best fitted to appreciate its rural beauties and homely pictures, and to receive benefit from the lessons it inculcates. Macneill -wrote several Scottish lyrics, but he wanted the true genius for song-writing — the pathos, artlessness, and simple gaiety which should accompany the flow of the music. lie published a descriptive poem, entitled The Links of Forth , or a Parting Peep at the Carse of Stirling ; and some prose tales, in which he laments the effect of modern change and improvement. The latter years of the poet were spent in comparative comfort at Edin- burgh, where he enjoyed the refined and literary society of the Scottish capital till an advanced age. Mary of Castle- Cary. 1 Saw ye my wee thing, saw ye my ain thing, Saw ye my true love down on yon lea — Crossed she the meadow yestreen at the gloaming, Sought she the burnie where flowers the haw-tree ; Her hair it is lint-white, her skin it is milk-white, Dark is the blue of her soft rolling e’e ; Red, red are her ripe lips, and sweeter than roses, Where could my wee thing wander frae me ? ’ ‘ I saw nae your wee thing, I saw nae your ain thing, Nor saw I your true love down by yon lea ; But I met my bonny thing late in the gloaming, Down by the burnie where flowers the haw-tree : Her hair it was lint-white, her skin it was milk-white, Dark was the blue of her soft rolling e’e ; Red were her ripe lips, and sweeter than roses — Sweet were the kisses that she gave to me.’ ‘ It was nae my wee thing, it was nae my ain thing, It was nae my true lov| ye met by the tree : Proud is her leal heart, and modest her nature, She never loved ony till ance she lo’ed me. Her name it is Mary, she’s frae Castle-Cary, Aft has she sat when a bairn on my knee : Fair as your face is, wert fifty times fairer, Young bragger, she ne’er wad gie kisses to thee.’ ‘ It was then your Mary ; she ’s frae Castle-Cary, It was then your true love I met by the tree ; Proud as her heart is, and modest her nature, Sweet were the kisses that she gave to me.’ Sair gloomed his dark brow, blood-red his cheek grew, Wild flashed the fire frae his red rolling e’e : ‘Ye’se rue sair this morning your boasts and your scorning ; Defend ye, fause traitor ; fu’ loudly ye lie.’ ‘ Away wi’ beguiling,’ cried the youth smiling — Off went the bonnet, the lint-white locks flee, The belted plaid fa’ing, her white bosom shawing, Fair stood the loved maid wi’ the dark rolling e’e. ‘ Is it my wee thing, is it my ain thing, Is it nly true love here that I see ? ’ ( 0 Jamie, forgie me ; your heart’s constant to me ; I ’ll never mair wander, dear laddie, frae thee.’ RICHARD GALL. Richard Gall (1776-1801), whilst employed as a printer in Edinburgh, threw off* some Scottish songs that became favourites. My only Jo and Dearie 0 , for pleasing fancy and musical expression, is not unworthy Tannahill. ‘I remember,’ says Allan Cunningham, ‘ when this song was exceedingly popular: its s-weetness and ease, rather than its originality and vigour, might be the cause of its success. The third verse contains a very beautiful picture of early attachment — a sunny bank, and some sweet soft school-girl, will appear to many a fancy when these lines are sung.’ My Only Jo and Dearie 0. Thy cheek is o’ the rose’s hue, My only jo and dearie 0 ; Thy neck is like the siller-dew Upon the banks sae briery 0 ; Thy teeth are o’ the ivory, 0 sweet’s the twinkle o’ thine e’e ! Nae joy, nae pleasure, blinks on me, My only jo and dearie 0. The birdie sings upon the thorn Its sang o’ joy, fu’ cheerie 0, Rejoicing in the summer morn, Nae care to mak it eerie 0 ; But little kens the sangster sweet Aught o’ the cares I hae to meet, That gar my restless bosom beat, My only jo and dearie 0. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. "Whan we were bairnies on yon brae, And youtb was blinking bonny 0, Aft we wad daff the lee-lang day, Our joys fu’ sweet and mony 0 ; Aft I wad cbase thee o’er the lea, And round about the thorny tree, Or pu’ the wild-flowers a’ for thee, My only jo and dearie 0. I hae a wish I canna tine, ’Mang a’ the cares that grieve me 0 ; I wish thou wert for ever mine, And never mair to leave me 0 : Then I wad daut thee night and day, Nor ither warldly care wad hae, Till life’s warm stream forgot to play. My only jo and dearie O. Farewell to Ayrshire. [This song of Gall’s has been often printed— in consequence of its locality — as the composition of Burns.] Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, Scenes that former thoughts renew ; Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, Now a sad and last adieu ! Bonny Boon, sae sweet at gloaming, Fare-thee-weel before I gang — Bonny Boon, where, early roaming, First I weaved the rustic sang ! Bowers, adieu ! where love decoying, First enthralled this heart o’ mine ; There the saftest sweets enjoying, Sweets that memory ne’er shall tine ! Friends so dear my bosom ever, Ye hae rendered moments dear ; . But, alas ! when forced to sever, Then the stroke, oh ! how severe ! Friends, that parting tear reserve it, Though ’tis doubly dear to me ; Could I think I did deserve it, How much happier would I be ! Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, Scenes that former thoughts renew; Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, Now a sad and last adieu ! DRAMATISTS. The popular dramatic art or talent is a rare gift. Some of the most eminent poets have failed in attempting to portray actual life and passion in interesting situations on the stage ; and as Fielding and Smollett proved unsuccessful in comedy — though the former wrote a number of pieces — so Byron and Scott were found wanting in the qualities requisite for the tragic drama. ‘ It is evident,’ says Campbell, ‘ that Melpomene demands on the stage something, and a good deal more, than even poetical talent, rare as that is. She requires a potent and peculiar faculty for the invention of incident adapted to theatric effect ; a faculty which may often exist in those who have been bred to the stage, but which, generally speaking, has seldom been shewn by any poets who were not professional players. There are exceptions to the remark, but there are not many. If Shakspeare had not been a player, he would not have been the dramatist that he is.’ Dryden, Addison, and Congreve, are conspicuous exceptions to this rule ; also Goldsmith in comedy, and, in our own day, Sir Edward Ly tton Bulwer in the romantic no drama. The Colmans, Sheridan, Morton, and Reynolds, never, we believe, wore the sock or buskin ; but they were either managers, or closely connected with the theatre. One of the most popular tragedies at* the com- mencement of this period was Murphy’s Grecian Daughter , produced in 1772. This was a classic subject treated in the French style, but not desti- tute of tenderness. Robert Jephson (1736-1803) produced his tragedy of The Count of Narhonne 7 copied from Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, and it was highly attractive on the stage. In 1785, Jephson brought out another tragedy, The Duke of Braganza , which was equally successful. He wrote three other [ tragedies, some farces, and operas ; but the whole are now utterly neglected. Jephson was no great dramatic writer ; but a poetical critic has recorded j to his honour, that, ‘ at a time when the native ! genius of tragedy seemed to be extinct, he came I boldly forward as a tragic poet, and certainly with ! a spark of talent ; for if he has not the full flame of , genius, he has at least its scintillating light.’ The j dramatist was an Irishman by birth, a captain in I the army, and afterwards a member of the Irish ; House of Commons. Horace Walpole was author of a tragedy, The j Mysterious Mother (1768), which, though of a ! painful and revolting nature as to plot and inci- j dent, abounds in vigorous description and striking i imagery. As Walpole had a strong predilection for j 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 German drama. The Mysterious Mother has never been ventured on the stage. The stage was aroused from a state of insipidity j or degeneracy by the introduction of plays from the | German, which, amidst much false and exaggerated j sentiment, appealed to the stronger sympathies of j our nature, and drew crowded audiences to the j theatres. One of the first of these was The Stranger , j said to be translated by Benjamin Thompson ; but | the greater part of it, as it was acted, was the production of Sheridan. It is a drama of domestic life, not very moral or beneficial in its tendencies — for it is calculated to palliate our detestation of | adultery — yet abounding in scenes of tenderness and surprise, well adapted to produce effect on the stage. The principal characters were acted by Kemble and Mrs Siddons, and when it was brought out in the season of 1797-8, it was received with immense applause. In 1799, Sheridan adapted another of Kotzebue’s plays, Pizarro, which expe- rienced still greater success. In the former drama, the German author had violated the proprieties of our moral code, by making an injured husband take back his guilty though penitent wife; and in Pizarro he has invested a fallen female with tenderness, compassion, and heroism. The obtrusion of such a character as a prominent figure in the scene was at least indelicate ; but, in the hands of Mrs Siddons, the taint was scarcely perceived, and Sheridan had softened down the most objectionable parts. The play was produced with all the aids of splendid scenery, music, and fine acting, and these, together with its displays of generous and heroic feeling on the part of Rolla, and of parental affection in Alonzo and Cora, were calculated to lead captive a general audience. ‘ Its subject was also new, and peculiarly fortunate. It brought the adventures of the most romantic kingdom of Christendom — Spain — into picturesque combination with the simplicity and superstitions of the transatlantic world; and ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOANNA BAILLIE. DRAMATISTS. gave the imagination a new and fresh empire of paganism, with its temples, and rites, and altars, without the stale associations of pedantry.’ Some of the sentiments and descriptions in Pizarro are said to have originally formed part of Sheridan’s famous speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings ! They are often inflated and bombastic, and full of rhetorical glitter. Thus Rolla soliloquises in Alonzo’s dungeon: ‘O holy Nature! thou dost never plead in vain. There is not of our earth a creature, hearing form and life, human or savage, native of the forest wild or giddy air, around whose parent bosom thou hast not a cord entwined of power to tie them to their offspring’s claims, and at thy will to draw them back to thee. On iron pinions borne, the blood-stained vulture cleaves the storm, yet is the plumage closest to her heart soft as the cygnet’s down ; and o’er her unshelled brood the murmuring ring-dove sits not more gently.’ Or the speech of Rolla to the Peruvian army at the consecration of the banners : [ Rolla' s Address to the Peruvian Army .] My brave associates ! partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame ! Can Rolla’ s words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No ! you have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They , by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule. We, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and a power which they hate. We serve a monarch whom we love — a God whom we adore ! Where’er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress ; where’er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship. They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error. Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride ! They offer us their protection ; yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs — covering and devouring them ! They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain answer this : The throne we honour is the people’s choice ; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers’ legacy ; the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hopes of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them, too, we seek no change, and least of all such change as they would bring us. Animated apostrophes like these, rolled from the lips of Kemble, and applied, in those days of war, to British valour and patriotism arrayed against France, could hardly fail of an enthusiastic recep- tion. A third drama by Kotzebue was some years afterwards adapted for the English stage by Mrs Inchbald, and performed under the title of Lovers' Vows. ‘The grand moral of the play is to set forth the miserable consequences which arise from the neglect, and to enforce the watchful care of illegitimate offspring ; and surely as the pulpit has not had eloquence to eradicate the crime of seduc- tion, the stage may be allowed a humble endeavour to prevent its most fatal effects.’ Lovers' Vows also became a popular acting play, for stage-effect was carefully studied, and the scenes and situa- tions skilfully arranged. While filling the theatres, Kotzebue’s plays were generally condemned by the critics. They cannot be said to have produced any permanent bad effect on our national morals, but they presented many false and pernicious pictures to the mind. ‘There is an affectation,’ as Scott remarks, ‘ of attributing noble and virtuous senti- ments to the persons least qualified by habit or education to entertain them ; and of describing the higher and better educated classes as uniformly deficient in those feelings of liberality, generosity, and honour, which may be considered as proper to their situation in life. This contrast may be true in particular instances, and being used sparingly, might afford a good moral lesson ; but in spite of truth and probability, it has been assumed, upon all occasions, by those authors as the groundwork of a sort of intellectual Jacobinism.’ Scott himself, it will be recollected, was fascinated by the German drama, and translated a play of Goethe. The excesses of Kotzebue were happily ridiculed by Canning and Ellis in their amusing satire, The Rovers. At length, after a run of unexampled suc- cess, these plays ceased to attract attention, though one or two are still occasionally performed. With all their absurdities, we cannot but believe that they exercised an inspiring influence on the rising genius of that age. They dealt with passions, not with manners, and awoke the higher feelings and sensibilities of the people. Good plays were also mingled with the bad : if Kotzebue was acted, Goethe and Schiller were studied. The Wallenstein was translated by Coleridge, and the influence of the German drama was felt by most of the young poets. One of those who imbibed a taste for the marvellous and the romantic from this source was Matthew Gregory Lewis, whose drama, The Castle Spectre , was produced in 1797, and was per- formed about sixty successive nights. It is full of supernatural horrors, deadly revenge, and assassina- tion, with touches of poetical feeling, and some well- managed scenes. In the same year, Lewis adapted a tragedy from Schiller, entitled The Minister ; and this was followed by a succession of dramatic pieces — Rolla , a tragedy, 1799 ; The East Indian , a comedy, 1800; Adelmorn , or the Outlaw, & drama, 1801 ; Rugantio, a melodrama, 1805 ; Adelgitha, a play, 1806; Venoni, a drama, 1809; One o’ Clock, or the Knight and Wood-demon , 1811 ; Timour the Tartar, a melodrama, 1812 ; and Rich and Poor, a comic opera, 1812. The Castle Spectre is still occa- sionally performed ; but the diffusion of a more sound and healthy taste in literature has banished the other dramas of Lewis equally from the stage and the press. To the present generation, they are unknown. They were fit companions for the ogres, giants, and Blue-beards of the nursery tales, and they have shared the same oblivion. JOANNA BAILLIE. The most important addition to the written drama at this time was the first volume of Joanna Baillie’s plays on the passions, published in 1798 under the title of A Series of Plays : in which it is attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind, each Passion being the Subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy. To the volume was prefixed a long and interesting introductory discourse, in which the authoress discusses the subject of the drama in all its bearings, and asserts the supremacy of simple nature over 'all decoration and refinement. ‘Let one simple trait of the human heart, one expression of passion, genuine and true to nature, be intro- duced, and it will stand forth alone in the boldness of reality, whilst the false and unnatural around it fades away upon every side, like the rising FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF exhalations of the morning.’ This theory — which anticipated the dissertations and most of the poetry of Wordsworth — the accomplished dramatist illus- trated in her plays, the merits of which were instantly recognised, and a second edition called for in a few months. Miss Baillie was then in the thirty -fourth year of her age. In 1802 she pub- lished a second volume, and in 1812 a third. In the interval, she had produced a volume of miscel- laneous dramas (1804), and The Family Legend (1810), a tragedy founded on a Highland tradition, and brought out with success at the Edinburgh theatre. In 1836 this authoress published three more volumes of plays, her career as a dramatic writer thus extending over the long period of thirty- eight years. Only one of her dramas has ever been performed on the stage ; De Montfort was brought out by Kemble shortly after its appearance, and was acted eleven nights. It was again introduced in 1821, to exhibit the talents of Kean in the char- acter of De Montfort ; but this actor remarked that, though a fine poem, it would never be an acting play. The author who mentions this circumstance, remarks: ‘If Joanna Baillie had known the stage practically, she would never have attached the importance which she does to the development of single passions in single tragedies ; and she would have invented more stirring incidents to justify the passion of her characters, and to give them that air of fatality which, though peculiarly predominant in the Greek drama, will also be found, to a certain extent, in all successful tragedies. Instead of this, she contrives to make all the passions of her main ■characters proceed from the wilful natures of the beings themselves. Their feelings are not precipi- tated by circumstances, like * a stream down a declivity, that leaps from rock to rock; but, for want of incident, they seem often like water on a level, without a propelling impulse.’* The design of Miss Baillie in restricting her dramas each to the elucidation of one passion, appears certainly to have been an unnecessary and unwise restraint, as tending to circumscribe the business of the piece, ■and exclude the interest arising from varied emo- tions and conflicting passions. It cannot be said to have been successful in her own case, and it has never been copied by any other author. Sir Walter Scott has eulogised ‘ Basil’s love and Montfort’s hate’ as something like a revival of the inspired strain of Shakspeare. The tragedies of Count Basil and De Montfort are among the best of Miss Baillie’s plays ; but they are more like the works of Shirley, or the serious parts of Massinger, than the glorious dramas of Shakspeare, so full of life, of incident, and imagery. Miss Baillie’s style is smooth and regular, and her plots are both original and carefully constructed ; but she has no poetical luxu- riance, and few commanding situations. Her tragic scenes are too much connected with the crime of murder, one of the easiest resources of a tragedian ; and partly from the delicacy of her sex, as well as from the restrictions imposed by her theory of com- position, she is deficient in that variety and fulness of passion, the ‘form and pressure’ of real life, which are so essential on the stage. The design and plot of her dramas are obvious almost from the first act — a circumstance that would be fatal to their suc- cess in representation. The unity and intellectual •completeness of Miss Baillie’s plays are their most striking characteristics. Her simple masculine style, so unlike the florid or insipid sentimentalism then prevalent, was a bold innovation at the time of her * Campbell’s Life of Mrs Siddons. 112 TO 1800. two first volumes ; but the public had fortunately taste enough to appreciate its excellence. Miss Baillie was the daughter of a Scottish minister, and was born in the manse of Bothwell, county of Lanark, in 1762. Her latter years were spent in comparative retirement at Hampstead, where she died in 1851. Besides her dramas, Miss Baillie wrote some admirable Scottish songs and other poetical pieces, which were collected and pub- lished under the title of Fugitive Verses. In society, as in literature, this lady was regarded with affec- tionate respect and veneration, enjoying the friend- ship of most of her distinguished contemporaries. Lockhart, in his Life of Scott, states that Miss Baillie and her brother, I)r Matthew Baillie, were among the friends to whose intercourse Sir Walter looked forward with the greatest pleasure, when about to visit the metropolis. [Scene from De Montfort .] [De Montfort explains to his sister Jane his hatred of Rezen- velt, which at last hurries him into the crime of murder. The gradual deepening of this malignant passion, and its frightful catastrophe, are powerfully depicted. "We may remark, that the character of De Montfort, his altered habits and appear- ance after his travels, his settled gloom, and the violence of his passions, seem to have been the prototype of Byron’s Manfred and Lara.] De Montfort. No more, my sister; urge me not again ; My secret troubles cannot be revealed. From all participation of its thoughts My heart recoils : I pray thee, be contented. Jane. What ! must I, like a distant humble friend. Observe thy restless eye and gait disturbed In timid silence, whilst with yearning heart I turn aside to weep ? O no, De Montfort ! A nobler task thy nobler mind will give ; Thy true intrusted friend I still shall be. De Mon. Ah, Jane, forbear ! I cannot e’en to thee. Jane. Then fie upon it ! fie upon it, Montfort ! There was a time when e’en with murder stained, Had it been possible that such dire deed Could e’er have been the crime of one so piteous, Thou wouldst have told it me. De Mon. So would I now — but ask of this no more. All other troubles but the one I feel I have disclosed to thee. I pray thee, spare me. It is the secret weakness of my nature. Jane. Then secret let it be : I urge no further. The eldest of our valiant father’s hopes, So sadly orphaned : side by side we stood, Like two young trees, whose boughs in early strength Screen the weak saplings of the rising grove, And brave the storm together. I have so long, as if by nature’s right, Thy bosom’s inmate and adviser been, I thought through life I should have so remained, Nor ever known a change. Forgive me, Montfort; A humbler station will I take by thee ; The close attendant of thy wandering steps, The cheerer of this home, with strangers sought, The soother of those griefs I must not know. This is mine office now : I ask no more. De Mon. Oh, Jane, thou dost constrain me with thy love — Would I could tell it thee ! Jane. Thou shalt not tell me. Nay, I’ll stop mine ears, Nor from the yearnings of affection wring What shrinks from utterance. Let it pass, my brother. I ’ll stay by thee ; I ’ll cheer thee, comfort thee ; Pursue with thee the study of some art, Or nobler science, that compels the mind DEAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JOANNA BAILLTE. To steady thought progressive, driving forth All floating, wild, unhappy fantasies, Till thou, with brow unclouded, smilest again ; Like one who, from dark visions of the night, When the active soul within its lifeless cell Holds its own world, with dreadful fancy pressed Of some dire, terrible, or murderous deed, Wakes to the dawning morn, and blesses heaven. Be Mon. It will not pass away ; ’twill haunt me still. Jane. Ah ! say not so, for I will haunt thee too, And be to it so close an adversary, That, though I wrestle darkling with the fiend, I shall o’ercome it. Be Mon. Thou most generous woman ! Why do I treat thee thus ? It should not be — And yet I cannot — 0 that cursed villain ! He will not let me be the man I would. Jane. What sayst thou, Montfort ? Oh ! what words are these ! They have awaked my soul to dreadful thoughts. I do beseech thee, speak ! By the affection thou didst ever bear me ; By the dear memory of our infant days ; By kindred living ties — ay, and by those Who sleep in the tomb, and cannot call to thee, I do conjure thee, speak ! Ha ! wilt thou not ? Then, if affection, most unwearied love, Tried early, long, and never wahting found, O’er generous man hath more authority, More rightful power than crown or sceptre give, I do command thee ! Be Montfort, do not thus resist my love. Here I entreat thee on my bended knees. Alas ! my brother ! Be Mon. [ Raising her , and 'kneeling.'] Thus let him kneel who should the abased be, And at thine honoured feet confession make. I’ll tell thee all — but, oh ! thou wilt despise me. For in my breast a raging passion burns, To which thy soul no sympathy will own — A passion which hath made my nightly couch A place of torment, and the light of day, With the gay intercourse of social man, Feel like the oppressive, airless pestilence. 0 Jane ! thou wilt despise me. Jane. Say not so : 1 never can despise thee, gentle brother. A lover’s jealousy and hopeless pangs No kindly heart contemns. Be Mon. A lover’s, sayst thou ? No, it is hate ! black, lasting, deadly hate ! Which thus hath driven me forth from kindred peace, From social pleasure, from my native home, To be a sullen wanderer on the earth, Avoiding all men, cursing and accursed. Jane. Be Montfort, this is fiend-like, terrible ! What being, by the Almighty Father formed Of flesh and blood, created even as thou, Could in thy breast such horrid tempest wake, Who art thyself his fellow ? Unknit thy brows, and spread those wrath-clenched hands. Some sprite accursed within thy bosom mates To work thy ruin. Strive with it, my brother ! Strive bravely with it ; drive it from thy heart ; ’Tis the degrader of a noble heart. Curse it, and bid it part. Be Mon. It will not part. I ’ve lodged it here too long. With my first cares, I felt its rankling touch. I loathed him when a boy. Jane. Whom didst thou say? Be Mon. Betested Rezenvelt ! E’en in our early sports, like two young whelps Of hostile breed, instinctively averse, Each ’gainst the other pitched his ready pledge, And frowned defiance. As we onward passed From youth to man’s estate, his narrow art And envious gibing malice, poorly veiled In the affected carelessness of mirth, Still more detestable and odious grew. There is no living being on this earth Who can conceive the malice of his soul, With all his gay and damned merriment, To those by fortune or by merit placed Above his paltry self. When, low in fortune, He looked upon the state of prosperous men, As nightly birds, roused from their murky holes, Bo scowl and chatter at the light of day, I could endure it ; even as we bear The impotent bite of some half-trodden worm, I could endure it. But when honours came, And wealth and new-got titles fed his pride ; Whilst flattering knaves did trumpet forth his praise, And grovelling idiots grinned applauses on him ; Oh ! then I could no longer suffer it ! It drove me frantic. What, what would I give — What would I give to crush the bloated toad, So rankly do I loathe him ! Jane. And would thy hatred crush the very man Who gave to thee that life he might have taken ? That life which thou so rashly didst expose To aim at his ? Oh, this is horrible ! Be Mon. Ha ! thou hast heard it, then ! From all the world, But most of all from thee, I thought it hid. Jane. I heard a secret whisper, and resolved Upon the instant to return to thee. Bidst thou receive my letter ? Be Mon. I did ! I did ! ’Twas that which drove me hither. I could not bear to meet thine eye again. Jane. Alas ! that, tempted by a sister’s tears, I ever left thy house ! These few past months, These absent months, have brought us all this woe. Had I remained with thee, it had not been. And yet, methinks, it should not move you thus. You dared him to the field; both bravely fought; He, more adroit, disarmed you ; courteously Returned the forfeit sword, which, so returned, You did refuse to use against him more; And then, as says report, you parted friends. Be Mon. When he disarmed this cursed, this worth- less hand Of its most worthless weapon, he but spared From devilish pride, which now derives a bliss In seeing me thus fettered, shamed, subjected With the vile favour of his poor forbearance ; Whilst he securely sits with gibing brow, And basely baits me like a muzzled cur, Who cannot turn again. Until that day, till that accursed day, I knew not half the torment of this hell Which burns within my breast. Heaven’s lightnings blast him ! Jane. Oh, this is horrible ! Forbear, forbear ! Lest Heaven’s vengeance light upon thy head For this most impious wish. Be Mon. Then let it light. Torments more fell than I have known already It cannot send. To be annihilated, What all men shrink from ; to be dust, be nothing, Were bliss to me, compared to what I am ! Jane. Oh ! wouldst thou kill me with these dread- ful words ? Be Mon. Let me but once upon his ruin look, Then close mine eyes for ever ! Ha ! how is this ? Thou ’rt ill ; thou ’rt very pale ; What have I done to thee ? Alas ! alas ! I meant not to distress thee — 0 my sister ! 113 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Jane. I cannot now speak to thee. Be Mon. I have killed thee. Turn, turn thee not away ! Look on me still ! Oh ! droop not thus, my life, my pride, my sister ! Look on me yet again. Jane. Thou, too, De Montfort, In better days was wont to be my pride. De Mon. I am a wretch, most wretched in myself, And still more wretched in the pain I give. 0 curse that villain, that detested villain ! He has spread misery o’er my fated life ; He will undo us all. Jane. I ’ve held my warfare through a troubled world, And borne with steady mind my share of ill ; For then the helpmate of my toil wast thou But now the wane of life comes darkly on, And hideous passion tears thee from my heart, Blasting thy worth. I cannot strive with this. De Mon. What shall I do ? Female Picture of a Country Life.] Even now methinks Each little cottage of my native vale Swells out its earthen sides, upheaves its roof, Like to a hillock moved by labouring mole, And with green trail-weeds clambering up its walls, Boses and every gay and fragrant plant Before my fancy stands, a fairy bower, Ay, and within it too do fairies dwell. Peep through its wreathed window, if indeed i The flowers grow not too close ; and there within Thou ’It see some half-a-dozen rosy brats, Eating from wooden bowls their dainty milk — Those are my mountain elves. Seest thou not Their very forms distinctly ? I ’ll gather round my board All that Heaven sends to me of way-worn folks, And noble travellers, and neighbouring friends, Both young and old. Within my ample hall, The worn-out man of arms shall o’ tiptoe tread, Tossing his gray locks from his wrinkled brow With cheerful freedom, as he boasts his feats Of days gone by. Music we ’ll have ; and oft The bickering dance upon our oaken floors Shall, thundering loud, strike on the distant ear Of ’nighted travellers, who shall gladly bend ■Their doubtful footsteps towards the cheering dim Solemn, and grave, and cloistered, and demure We shall not be. Will this content ye, damsels ? Every season Shall have its suited pastime : even winter In its deep noon, when mountains piled with snow, And choked up valleys from our mansion bar All entrance, and nor guest nor traveller Sounds at our gate ; the empty hall forsaken, In some warm chamber, by the crackling fire, We ’ll hold our little, snug, domestic court, Plying our work with song and tale between. [Fears of Imagination.] Didst thou ne’er see the swallow’s veering breast, Winging the air beneath some murky cloud In the sunned glimpses of a stormy day, Shiver in silvery brightness ? Or boatmen’s oar, as vivid lightning flash In the faint gleam, that like a spirit’s path Tracks the still waters of some sullen lake ? Or lonely tower, from its brown mass of woods, Give to the parting of a wintry sun One hasty glance in mockery of the night Closing in darkness round it ? Gentle friend ! Chide not her mirth who was sad yesterday, And may be so to-morrow. . 114 [Speech of Prince Edward in his Dungeon .] Doth the bright sun from the high arch of heaven, In all his beauteous robes of fleckered clouds, And ruddy vapours, and deep-glowing flames, And softly varied shades, look gloriously ? Do the green woods dance to the wind ? the lakes Cast up their sparkling waters to the light ? Do the sweet hamlets in their bushy dells Send winding up to heaven their curling smoke On the soft morning air? Do the flocks bleat, and the wild creatures bound In antic happiness ? and mazy birds Wing the mid air in lightly skimming bands ? Ay, all this is — men do behold all this — The poorest man. Even in this lonely vault, My dark and narrow world, oft do I hear The crowing of the cock so near my walls, And sadly think how small a space divides me From all this fair creation. [Description of Jane de Montfort.] [The following has been pronounced to be a perfect picture of Mrs Siddons, the tragic actress.] Page. Madam, there is a lady in your hall Who begs to be admitted to your presence. Lady. Is it not one of our invited friends ? Page. No ; far unlike to them. It is a stranger. Lady. How looks her countenance ? Page. So queenly, so commanding, and so noble, I shrunk at first in awe ; but when she smiled, Methought I could have compassed sea and land To do her bidding. Lady. Is she young or old? Page. Neither, if right I guess ; but she is fair, For Time hath laid his hand so gently on her, As he, too, had been awed. Lady. The foolish stripling ! She has bewitched thee. Is she large in stature ? Page. So stately and so graceful is her form, I thought at first her stature was gigantic ; But on a near approach, I found, in truth, She scarcely does surpass the middle size. Lady. What is her garb ? Page. I cannot well describe the fashion of it : She is not decked in any gallant trim, But seems to me clad in her usual weeds Of high habitual state ; for as she moves, Wide flows her robe in many a waving fold, As I have seen unfurled banners play With the soft breeze. Lady. Thine eyes deceive thee, boy ; It is an apparition thou hast seen. Freberg. [Starting from his seat, where he has been sitting during the conversation between the Lady and the Page.] It is an apparition he has seen, Or it is Jane de Montfort. This is a powerful delineation. Sir Walter Scott conceived that Fear was the most dramatic passion touched by Miss Baillie, because capable of being drawn to the most extreme paroxysm on the stage. George Colman, manager of Covent Garden Theatre, was an excellent comic writer, and produced above thirty pieces, a few of which deservedly keep possession of the stage. His Jealous Wife, founded on Fielding’s Tom Jones , has some highly effective scenes and well-drawn characters. It was produced in 1761 ; five years afterwards, Colman joined with Garrick and brought out The Clandestine Marriage, DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MURPHY — GOLDSMITH. I in which the character of an aged beau, affecting gaiety and youth, is strikingly personified in Lord Ogleby. — Arthur Murphy: (1727-1805), a volu- minous and miscellaneous writer, added comedies as well as tragedies to the stage, and his Way to Keep Him is still occasionally performed. — 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 Cum- berland had carried the refinement of comedy to excess, and he set himself to correct the fault. His first dramatic perfoimance, 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 what may be termed a farcical incident — two parties mistaking a gentleman’s house for an inn. Such an adventure, however, is said to have occurred to Goldsmith himself. lie was returning to school after the holidays on a borrowed hack, and being overtaken by night in the streets of Ardagh, he inquired with a lofty confident air — having a guinea in his pocket — for the best house of entertainment in the town. A wag pointed to the house of the squire, a Mr Eeatherston, and Goldsmith entering, ordered supper and a bottle of wine, with a hot cake for breakfast in the morning ! ‘ It was not till he had despatched this latter meal, and was looking at his guinea with pathetic aspect of farewell, that the truth was told him by the good-natured squire.’ — (Forster’s Life.) This was a good foundation for a series of comic mistakes. But the excellent discrimination of character, and the humour and vivacity of the dialogue throughout the play, render this piece one of the richest contributions which has been made to modern comedy. The native pleasantry and originality of Goldsmith were never more happily displayed, and his success, as Davies records, ‘revived fancy, wit, gaiety, humour, incident, and character, in the place of sentiment and moral preachment.’ [A Deception .] [From She Stoops to Conquer.'] Landlord and Tony Lumpkin. 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 I pleased, I could be so revenged upon the old grumbletonian. But then I am afraid — afraid of what? I shall soon be worth fifteen hundred a year, and let him frighten me out of that if he can. Enter Landlord, conducting Marlow and Hastings. Marlow. 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. Hastings. And all, Marlow, from that unaccountable reserve of yours, that would not let us inquire more frequently on the way. Mar. I own, Hastings, I am unwilling to lay myself under an obligation to every one I meet; and often stand the chance of an unmannerly answer. Hast. At present, however, we are not likely to receive any answer. Tony. No offence, gentlemen ; but I am told you have been inquiring for one Mr Hardcastle in these parts. Do you know what part of the country you are in ? Hast. Not in the least, sir; but should thank you for information. Tony. Nor the way you came ? 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 I have to inform you is that — you have lost your way. Mar. We wanted no ghost to tell us that. Tony. Pray, gentlemen, may I be so bold as to ask the place from whence you came ? 115 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 hot this same Hardcastle a cross-grained, old-fashioned, whimsical fellow, with an ugly face, a daughter, and a pretty son ? Hast. We have not seen the gentleman ; but he has the family you mention. Tony. The daughter, a tall, trapesing, trolloping, talkative may-pole ; 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 Hardcastle’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 Hardcastle’s [winking at the Landlord ] — Mr Hardcastle’s of Quag- mire-marsh. You understand me? Land. Master Hardcastle’s ? Lack-a-daisy ! 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 ? Tony. 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 side- ways 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 Murrain’s barn. Coming to the farmer’s barn, 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 ? 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 gentlemen by the fireside with three chairs and a bolster ? Hast. I hate sleeping by the fireside. Mar. And I detest your three chairs and a bolster. Tony. You do, do you? Then let me see — what if you go on a mile further to the Buck’s Head, the old Buck’s Head on the hill, one of the best inns in the whole county. Hast. 0 ho ! 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 ? Tony. Mum ! you fool, you ; let them find that out. [To them!] You have only to keep on straight forward till you come to a large house on the roadside : 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 be thought a gentleman, saving your, presence, he, he, he ! He ’ll be for giving you his company ; and, ecod ! if you mind him, he’ll persuade you that his mother was an alderman, and his aunt a justice of the peace. 116 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 connection. We are to turn to the right, did you say ? Tony. No, no, straight forward. I’ll just step myself and shew you a piece of the way. [To the Landlord.] Mum ! [Exeunt. [Arrival at the Supposed Inn!] Enter Marlow and Hastings. Hast. After the disappointments of the day, welcome 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 housekeeping, 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- board, or a marble chimney-piece, though not actually put in the bill, inflame the bill 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 Hardcastle. Hardcastle. Gentlemen, once more you are heartily welcome. Which is Mr Marlow ? [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 servants already. [To Hard.] We approve your caution and hospitality, sir. [To Hast.] I have been thinking, 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 house. 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 shew our generalship by securing, if necessary, a retreat. Hard. Your 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 garrison Mar. 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? 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 without spilling a drop of blood. So Mar. What ? My good friend, if you give us a glass of punch in the meantine, it would help us to carry on the siege with vigour. Hard. Punch, sir! — This is the most unaccountable kind of modesty I ever met with. [Aside. DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. GOLDSMITH — SHERIDAN. Mar. Yes, 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. Will 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 character, and I ’ll humour him a little. [Aside] Sir, my service to you. Hast. I see this fellow wants to give us his company, 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 have a good deal of business in this part of the country. Warm 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, I 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 JohnNokes or Tom Stiles. So my service to you. Hast. So that, with eating above stairs and drinking 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 differences 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 Westminster 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 attack them on every quarter. If you find their reason manage- able, 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 ? Hard. For supper, sir ? Was ever such a request to a man in his own house ? [Aside. Mar. Yes, sir; supper, sir; I begin to feel an appe- tite. I shall make devilish work to-night in the larder, I promise you. Hard. Such a brazen dog sure never my eyes beheld. [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. You do, do you? Hard. Entirely. By the by, I believe they are in actual consultation upon what ’s for supper this moment in the kitchen. Mar. Then I beg they’ll admit me as one of their privy-council. It ’s a way I have got. When I travel, I always choose to regulate my own supper. Let the cook be called. No offence, I hope, sir. Hard. 0 no, sir, none in the least : yet, I don’t know how, our Bridget, the cookmaid, is not very communi- cative 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 always match my appetite to my bill of fare. Mar. [To Hardcastle, who looks at them with su/rpnse] 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 : I believe it’s drawn 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 had eaten it. [Servant brings in the bill of fare, and exit. Hast. All upon the high ropes ! His uncle a colonel ! We shall soon hear of his mother being a justice of peace. [Aside] But let’s hear the bill of fare. Mar. [Perusing] 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 Bedford, to eat up such a supper? Two or three little things, clean and comfortable, will do. Hast. But let’s hear it. Mar. [Reading] 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 impudence confounds me. [Aside] Gentlemen, you are my guests, make what alterations you please. Is there anything else you wish to retrench or alter, gentlemen ? Mar. Item : a pork-pie, a boiled rabbit and sausages, a florentine, a shaking-pudding, and a dish of tiff — taff — taffety cream. Hast. Confound your made dislies ! 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 anything you have a particular fancy to Mar. Why, really, sir, your bill of fare is so exquisite, that any one part of it is full as good as another. 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 entreat you’ll leave all that to me. You 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 yourself easy on that head. Mar. You see I’m resolved on it. A very trouble- some fellow, as ever I met with. [Aside. Hard. Well, sir, I ’m resolved at least to attend you. This may be modern 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 assidui- ties 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 person of that remarkable man, who survived down to our own day, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. On the 17th of January 1775, his play of The Rivals was brought out at Covent Garden. In this first effort FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. of Sheridan — who was then in his twenty-fourth year — there is more humour than wit. He had copied some of his characters from Humphry Clinker , as the testy but generous Captain Absolute, evidently borrowed from Matthew Bramble, and Mrs Malaprop, whose mistakes in words are the echoes of Mrs Winifred Jenkins’s blunders. Some of these are farcical enough ; but 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 banks of the Nile ’ — will be acknowledged as long as there are writers to be run away with by the wilfulness of this truly headstrong species of composition. In the same year, St Patrick's Day and The Duenna were produced ; the latter had a run of seventy-five nights! It certainly is greatly superior to The Beggar's Opera , 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 surpass any comedy of modern times. It was carefully prepared by the author, who selected, arranged, and moulded his language with 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 adoption. 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 careless extravagant rake is generous, warm-hearted, and fascinating; seriousness and gravity are rendered odious by being united to meanness and hypocrisy. I The dramatic art of Sheridan is evinced in the ludicrous incidents and situations with which The j School for Scandal abounds : his genius shines forth ! in its witty dialogues. ‘The entire comedy,’ says j Moore, ‘ is an El Dorado of wit, where the precious ! metal is thrown about by all classes as carelessly as if they had not the least idea of its value.’ This j 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 I after-piece, 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 manager — such as making his theatrical-clock strike four in a morning scene, ‘ to beget an awful attention ’ 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 description of his own mode of life by his proficiency in the art of puffing, are perhaps the best that Sheridan ever wrote. [A 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, Sir Fretful Plagiary is an author to your ; own taste. Mrs Dangle. I confess he is a favourite of mine, because everybody else abuses him. 118 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; that’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 exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations. Dan. Very true, egad ! though he’s my friend. Sneer. Then his affected contempt of all newspaper strictures ; though, at the same time, he is the sorest man alive, and shrinks like scorched parchment from 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? Dan. Why, between ourselves, egad ! I must own — though he ’s my friend — that it is one of the most — he’s here! — [Aside] — finished and most admirable perform Sir F. [ Without] 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 Fretful ^ never in your life. Sir F. You make me extremely happy; for, without a compliment, my dear Sneer, there isn’t a man in the world whose judgment I value as I do yours ; and Mr Dangle’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 Mr Sneer has more taste and sincerity than to A double-faced fellow ! [Aside. Dan. Yes, yes; Sneer will jest, but a better- humoured — Sir F. Oh ! 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 ? 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 know he does. Sir F. I say nothing — I take away from no man’s merit — am hurt at no man’s good-fortune. I say nothing ; but this I will say ; through all my knowledge of life, 1 have observed that there is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy! Sneer. I believe you have reason for what you say, indeed. DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. SHERIDAN. Sir F. Besides, I can tell you, it is not always so safe to leave a play in the hands of those who write themselves. Sneer. What ! they may steal from them ? eh, my dear Plagiary ? Sir F. Steal ! to he sure they may ; and, egad ! serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children — disfigure them to make ’em pass for their own. Sneei\ But your present work is a sacrifice to Melpomene ; and he, you know, never Sir F. 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. Sneer. 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 ? Sneer. Swear he wrote it. Sir F. 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. Oh ! you know he never means what he says. Sir F. Sincerely, then, you do like the piece ? Sneer. Wonderfully! Sir F. But, come, now, there must be something that you think might be mended, eh? Mr Dangle, has nothing struck you ? Dan. Why, 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, I am never so well pleased as when a judicious critic points out any defect to me ; for what is the purpose of shewing a work to a friend if you don’t mean to profit by his opinion ? Sneer. Veiy 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 F. Sir, you can’t oblige me more. Sneer. I think it wants incident. Sir F. Good God ! you surprise me ! wants incident ? Sneer. Yes ; I own I think the incidents are too few. Sir F. Good God ! Believe 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 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, didn’t you 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 ! Mrs D. Or if I 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 Dangle’ s drawling manner of reading it to me. Sir F. 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 undertake to read you the whole from beginning to end, with the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the music between the acts. Mrs D. I hope to see it on the stage next. {Exit. Dan. Well, Sir Fretful, I wish you may be able to get rid as easily of the newspaper criticisms as you do of ours. Sir F. The newspapers ! sir, they are the most villainous, 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 ; I like it of all things. An author’s reputation is only in danger from their support. Sneer. Why, that ’s true ; and that attack, now, on you the other day Sir F. What ? where ? Dan. Ay ! you mean in a paper of Thursday ; it was completely ill-natured to be sure. Sir F. Oh ! 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 something. [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 F. Ha, ha, ha ! very good 1 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 steal with taste ; but that you glean from the refuse of obscure volumes, where more judicious plagiarists have been before you ; so that the body of your work is a composition of dregs and sediments, like a bad tavern’s worst wine. Sir F. Ha, ha ! Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast would be less intolerable if the thoughts were ever suited to the expressions ; but the homeliness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic incumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms. Sir F. Ha, ha ! Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-woolsey ; while your imita- tions of Shakspeare resemble the mimicry of FalstafFs page, and are about as near the standard of the original. Sir F. Ha ! 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 fertilise. Sir F. [After great agitation .] Now, another person would be vexed at this. Sneer. Oh! but I wouldn’t have told you, only to divert you. Sir F. I 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 ! Dan. 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 praise, 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 ! [The Anatomy of Character performed by Uncharitableness.] [From The School for Scandal.] Maria enters to Ladt Sneerwell and Joseph Surface. Lady Sneerwdl. Maria, my dear, how do you do ? What ’s the matter ? 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. Is that all ? Joseph Surface. 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 so ? Maria. Oh, he has done nothing — but ’tis for what he has said : his conversation is a perpetual libel on all his acquaintance. Josephs. Ay, and the worst of it is, there is no advantage in not knowing him — for he’ll abuse a stranger just as soon as his best friend; and his uncle Crabtree ’s as bad. Lady S. Nay, but we should make allowance. Sir Benjamin is a wit and a poet. Maria. For 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? Josephs. 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 ? J oseph S. To be sure, madam ; that conversation where the spirit of raillery is suppressed, will ever appear tedious and insipid. Maria. Well, I ’ll not debate how far scandal may be allowable; but in a man, I am sure, it is always contemptible. We have pride, envy, rivalship, and a thousand little'motives to depreciate each other ; but the male slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before he can traduce one. 12 © Enter Servant. Servant. Madam, Mrs Candour is below, and if your ladyship’s at leisure, will leave her carriage. Lady S. Beg her to walk in. [Exit Servant.'] Now, Maria, however, here is a character to your taste ; for though Mrs Candour is a little talkative, everybody allows her to be the best natured and best sort of woman. Maria. Yes — with a very gross affectation of good- nature and benevolence, she does more mischief than the direct malice of old Crabtree. Joseph S. I’ faith, that’s true, Lady Sneerwell; whenever I hear the current running against the characters of my friends, I never think them in such danger as when Candour undertakes their defence. Lady S. Hush ! — here she is ! Enter Mrs Candour. Mrs Candour. My dear Lady Sneerwell, how have you been this century? Mr Surface, what news do you hear ? — though indeed it is no matter, for I think one hears nothing else but scandal Joseph S. Just so, indeed, ma’am. Mrs C. Oh, Maria ! child — what ! is the whole affair off between you and Charles? His extravagance, 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 I 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 minding what one hears; though, to be sure, I 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, Miss Prim, of an indiscretion? 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*Cassino ; 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 my opinion, those who report 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 ? how will you prevent people from talking? To-day, Mrs Clackitt assured me Mr and Mrs Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. * * No, no ! tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers. Joseph S. Ah ! Mrs Candour, if everybody had your forbearance and good-nature ! Mrs C. I confess, Mr Surface, I cannot bear to hear people attacked behind their backs; and when ugly circumstances come out against our acquaintance, I own DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. SHERIDAN. I always love to think the best. By the by, I hope ’tis not true that your brother is absolutely ruined ? Joseph S. I am afraid his circumstances are very bad indeed, ma’am. Mrs C. Ah ! I heard so — but you must tell him to 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 half his acquaintance ruined too ; and that, you know, is a consolation. Joseph S. Doubtless, 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 Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. Crabtree. Lady Sneerwell, I kiss your hand. Mrs Candour, 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 Benjamin. 0 fie, uncle ! Crab. Nay, egad, it ’s time ; 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 ready 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 circulate 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 Petrarch’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 you heard the news? Mrs C. What, 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. Yes; and they do say there were very pressing reasons for it. Jjady 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 believed at once. She has always been so cautious and so reserved, that everybody was sure there was some reason for it at bottom. Mrs C. 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 conscious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and circumspection. Mrs C. Well, but this may be all a mistake. You know, Sir Benjamin, very trifling circumstances often give rise to the most injurious tales. Crab. That they do, I’ll be sworn, ma’am. 0 lud! 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 comfort 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 prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform. Sir B. To be sure he may ; for my part, I never believed 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 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, gentle- men ; but you pay very little regard to the feelings of a brother. Maria. Their malice is intolerable. Lady Sneerwell, 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 up 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 ! undone as ever man was. Can’t raise a guinea ! Sir B. And everything sold, I’m told, that was movable. Crab. I have seen one that was at his house. Not 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 stories against him. 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. [Exeunt Crabtree and Sir Benjamin. Jjady S. Ha, ha ! ’tis very hard for them to leave a subject they have not quite run down. Joseph S. And I believe the abuse was no more acceptable to your ladyship than Maria. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. Lady S. I doubt her affections are further engaged than we imagine. But the family are to be here this evening, so you may as well dine where you are, and we shall have an opportunity of observing further ; in the meantime, I ’ll go and plot mischief, and you shall study sentiment. [ Exeunt . In 1780, Mrs Cowley (1743-1809), produced her lively comedy, The Belle's Stratagem , which is still popular on the stage. Mrs Cowley wrote other dramatic pieces, but they have sunk into neglect. She was also the authoress of some poetical works — The Scottish Village , The Siege of Acre , &c. Her works were collected in 1813, and published in three volumes. GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. The most able and successful comic dramatist of his day was George Colman, the younger,* who was born on the 21st of October 1762. The son George Colman, the younger. of the author of the Jealous Wife and Clandestine Marriage , Colman had a hereditary attachment to the drama. He was educated at Westminster School, and afterwards entered of Christ’s Church College, Oxford; but his idleness and dissipation at the university led his father to withdraw him from Oxford, and banish him to Aberdeen. Here he was distinguished for his eccentric dress and folly, but he also applied himself to his classical and other studies. At Aberdeen he published a poem on Charles James Fox, entitled The Man of the People , and wrote a musical farce, The Female Dramatist , which his father brought out at the Hay- market Theatre, but it was condemned. A second dramatic attempt, entitled Two to One , brought out in 1784, enjoyed considerable success. This * Colman added ‘ the younger ’ to his name after the con- demnation of his play, The Iron Chest. * Lest my father’s memory,’ he says, ‘ may be injured by mistakes, and in the confusion of after-time the translator of Terence, and the author of the Jealous Wife , should be supposed guilty of The Iron Chest, I shall, were I to reach the patriarchal longevity of Methuselah, continue (in all my dramatic publications) to subscribe myself George Colman, the younger 122 seems to have fixed his literary taste and inclina- tions ; for though his father intended him for the bar, and entered him of Lincoln’s Inn, the drama engrossed his attention. In 1784, he contracted a thoughtless marriage with a Miss Catherine Morris, with whom he eloped to Gretna Green, and next year brought out a second musical comedy, Turk and no Turk. His father becoming incapacitated from attacks of paralysis, the younger Colman undertook the management of the theatre in Hay- market, and was thus fairly united to the stage and the drama. Various pieces proceeded from his pen : Inkle and Yarico , a musical opera, brought out with success in 1787 ; Ways and Means , a comedy, 1788 ; The Battle of Hexham, 1789 ; The Surrender of Calais , 1791; The Mountaineers, 1793; The Iron Chest — founded on Godwin’s novel of Caleb Williams — 1796; The Heir at Law, 1797; Blue Beard — a mere piece of scenic display and music — 1798 ; The Review, or the Wags of Windsor, an excellent farce, 1798 ; The Poor Gentleman, a comedy, 1802 ; Love Laughs at Locksmiths, a farce, 1803 ; Gay Deceivers, a farce, 1804 ; John Bull, a comedy, 1805 ; Who Wants a Guinea ? 1805 ; We Fly by Night, a farce, 1806 ; The Africans, a play, 1808 ; X. Y. Z., a farce, 1810 ; The Law of Java, a musical drama, 1822, &c. No modern dramatist has added so many stock-pieces to the theatre as Colman, or imparted so much genuine mirth and humour to all playgoers. His society was also much courted ; he was a favourite with George IV., and, in con- junction with Sheridan, was wont to set the royal table in a roar. His gaiety, however, was not always allied to prudence, and theatrical property is a very precarious possession. As a manager, Colman got entangled in lawsuits, and was forced to reside in the King’s Bench. The king stepped forward to relieve him, by appointing him ,to the situation of licenser and examiner of plays, an office worth from £300 to £400 a year. In this situation Colman incurred the enmity of several dramatic authors by the rigour with which he scrutinised their productions. His own plays are far from being strictly correct or moral, but not an oath or double-entendre was suffered to escape his expurgatorial pen as licenser, and he was peculiarly keen-scented in detecting all political allusions. Besides his numerous plays, Colman wrote some poetical travesties and pieces of levity, published under the title of My Nightgovm and Slippers (1797), which were afterwards republished (1802) with additions, and named Broad Grins; also Poetical Vagaries , Vagaries Vindicated, and Eccentricities for Edinburgh. In these, delicacy and decorum are often sacrificed to broad mirth and humour. The last work of the lively author was memoirs of his own early life and times, entitled Random Records, and published in 1830. He died in London on the 26th October 1836. The comedies of Colman abound in witty and ludicrous delinea- tions of character, interspersed with bursts of ten- derness and feeling, somewhat in the style of Sterne, whom, indeed, he has closely copied in his Poor Gentleman. Sir Walter Scott has praised his John Bull as by far the best effort of our late comic drama. ‘The scenes of broad humour are executed in the best possible taste; and the whimsical, yet native characters, reflect the manners of real life. The sentimental parts, although one of them includes a finely wrought-up scene of paternal distress, par- take of the falsetto of German pathos. But the piece is both humorous and affecting; and we readily excuse its obvious imperfections in consideration of its exciting our laughter and our tears.’ The DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. GEORGE COLMAK. whimsical character of Ollapod in the Poor Gentle- man is one of Colman’s most original and laughable conceptions ; Pangloss, in the Heir at Law , is also an excellent satirical portrait of a pedant — proud of being an LL.D., and, moreover, an A. double S. — and his Irishmen, Yorkshiremen, and country- rustics — all admirably performed at the time — are highly entertaining, though overcharged portraits. A tendency to farce is indeed the besetting sin of Colman’s comedies ; and in his more serious plays, there is a curious mixture of prose and verse, high- toned sentiment and low humour. Their effect on the stage is, however, irresistible. We have quoted Joanna Baillie’s description of Jane de Montfort as a portrait of Mrs Siddons ; and Colman’s Octavian in The Mountaineers is an equally faithful likeness of John Kemble : Lovely as day he was — but envious clouds Have dimmed his lustre. He is as a rock Opposed to the rude sea that beats against it ; Worn by the waves, yet still o’ertopping them In sullen majesty. Rugged now his look — For out, alas ! calamity has blurred The fairest pile of manly comeliness That ever reared its lofty head to heaven ! ’Tis not of late that I have heard his voice ; But if it be not changed — I think it cannot — There is a melody in every tone Would charm the towering eagle in her flight, And tame a hungry lion. [Scene from the ‘ Heir at Law .’] [Daniel Dowlas, an old Gosport shopkeeper, from the supposed loss of the son of Lord Duberly, succeeds to the peerage and an estate worth £15,000 per annum. He engages Dr Pangloss— a poor pedant just created by the Society of Arts Artium Societatis Socius — as tutor to his son, with a salary of £300 a year.] A Room in the Blue Boar Inn. Enter Dr Pangloss and Waiter. Pangloss. Let the chariot turn about. Dr Pangloss in a lord’s chariot ! ‘ Curru portatur eodem.’ — Juvenal — Hem ! Waiter ! Waiter. Sir. Pang. Have you any gentleman here who arrived this morning ? Waiter. There’s one in the house now, sir. Pang. Is he juvenile ? Waiter. No, sir ; he ’s Derbyshire. Pang. He, he, he! Of what appearance is the gentleman ? Waiter. Why, plaguy poor, sir. Pang. ‘I hold him rich, al had he not a sherte.’ — Chaucer — Hem ! Denominated the Honourable Mr Dowlas ? Waiter. Honourable ! He left his name plain Dowlas at the bar, sir. Pang. Plain Dowlas, did he ? that will do. * For all the rest is leather’ Waiter. Leather, sir ! Pang. ‘ And prunello.’ — Pope — Hem ! Tell Mr Dowlas a gentleman requests the honour of an inter- view. Waiter. This is his room, sir. He is but just stept into our parcel warehouse — he ’ll be with you directly. [Exit. Pang. Never before did honour and affluence let fall such a shower on the head of Doctor Pangloss ! Fortune, I thank thee ! Propitious goddess, I am grateful! I, thy favoured child, who commenced his career in the loftiest apartment of a muffin-maker in Milk-alley. Little did I think — ‘ good easy man ’ — Shakspeare — Hem! — of -the riches and literary dignities which now Enter Dick Dowlas. My pupil ! Dick. [Speaking while entering .] Well, where is the man that wants — oh! you are he, I suppose Pang. I am the man, young gentleman ! ‘ Homo sum.’ — Terence — Hem ! Sir, the person who now presumes to address you is Peter Pangloss ; to whose name, in the college of Aberdeen, is subjoined LL.D., signifying Doctor of Laws ; to which has been recently added the distinction of A. double S. — the Roman initials for a Fellow of the Society of Arts. Dick. Sir, I am your most obedient, Richard Dowlas ; to whose name, in his tailor’s bill, is subjoined DR., signifying Debtor; to which are added L.S.D. — the Roman initials for pounds, shillings, and pence. Pang. Ha! this youth was doubtless designed by destiny to move in the circles of fashion ; for he ’s dipt in debt, and makes a merit of telling it. [Aside. Dick. But what are your commands with me, doctor ? Pang. I have the honour, young gentleman, of being deputed an ambassador to you from your father. Dick. Then you have the honour to be ambassador of as good-natured an old fellow as ever sold a ha’porth of cheese in a chandler’s shop. Pang. Pardon me, if, on the subject of your father’s cheese, I advise you to be as mute as a mouse in one for the future. ’Twere better to keep that ‘ alta mente repostum.’ — Virgil — Hem ! Dick. Why, what ’s the matter ? Any misfortune ? — Broke, I fear ? Pang. No, not broke ; but his name, as ’tis customary in these cases, has appeared in the Gazette. Dick. Not broke, but gazetted ! Why, zounds and the devil ! Pang. Check your passions — learn philosophy. When the wife of the great Socrates threw a — hum ! — threw a tea-pot at his erudite head, he was as cool as a cucumber. When Plato Dick. Damn Plato ! What of my father ? Pang. Don’t damn Plato. The bees swarmed round his mellifluous mouth as soon as he was swaddled. ‘ Cum in cunis apes in labellis consedissent.’ — Cicero — Hem ! Diclc. I wish you had a swarm round yours, with all my heart. Come to the point. Pang. In due time. But calm your choler. ‘Ira furor brevis est.’ — Horace — Hem ! Read this. [Gives a letter. Dick. [Snatches the letter, breaks it open, and reads.] ‘Dear Dick — 'This comes to inform you I am in a perfect state of health, hoping you are the same’ — ay, that’s the old beginning — ‘It was my lot, last week, to be made ’ — ay, a bankrupt, I suppose ? — ‘ to be made a’ — what? — ‘to be made a P, E, A, R;’ — a pear ! — to be made a pear! What the devil does he mean by that ? t Pang. A peer! — a peer of the realm. His lordship’s orthography is a little loose, but several of his equals countenance the custom. Lord Loggerhead always spells physician with an F. Dick. A peer! — what, my father? — I’m electrified! Old Daniel Dowlas made a peer! But let me see; [Reads on ] — ‘ A pear of the realm. Lawyer Ferret got me my tittle ’ — titt — oh, title ! — ‘ and an estate of fifteen thousand per ann. — by making me out next of kin to old Lord Duberly, because he died without — without hair’ — ’Tis an odd reason, by the by, to be next of kin to a nobleman because he died bald. Pang. His lordship means heir — heir to his estate. We shall meliorate his style speedily. ‘Reform it altogether.’ — Shakspeare — Hem ! Dick. ‘ I send my carrot.’ — Carrot ! Pang. He, he, he ! Chariot, his lordship means/ Dick. ‘ With Dr Pangloss in it.’ Pang. That ’s me. 123 prom 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. Dick. ‘ Respect him, for he ’s an LL. D., and, moreover, an A. double S.’ [ They bow. Pang. His lordship kindly condescended to insert that at my request. Dick. ‘ And I have made him your tutorer, to mend your cakelology. Pang. Cacology; from Kakos, ‘malus,’ and Logos , ‘ verbum.’ — Yide Lexicon — Hem! Dick. ‘ Come with the doctor to my house in Hanover Square.’ — Hanover Square! — ‘I remain your affectionate father, to command. — D uberly.’ Pang. That ’s his lordship’s title. Dick. It is ? Pang. It is. Dick. Say sir to a lord’s son. You have no more manners than a bear ! Pang. Bear ! — under favour, young gentleman, I am the bear-leader ; being appointed your tutor. Dick. And what can you teach me ? Pang. Prudence. Don’t forget yourself in sudden success. ‘ Tecum habita.’ — Persius — Hem ! Dick. Prudence to a nobleman’s son with fifteen thousand a year ! Pang. Don’t give way to your passions. Dick. Give way! Zounds! — I’m wild — mad! You teach me ! — Pooh ! — I have been in London before, and know it requires no teaching to be a modern fine gentle- man. Why, it all lies in a nutshell : sport a curricle — walk Bond Street — play at faro — get drunk — dance reels — go to the opera — cut off your tail — pull on your pantaloons — and there’s a buck of the first fashion in town for you. D ’ye think I don’t know what ’s going? Pang. Mercy on me ! I shall have a very refractory pupil ! Dick. Not at all. We ’ll be hand and glove together, my little doctor. I ’ll drive you down to all the races, with my little terrier between your legs, in a tandem. Pang. Doctor Pangloss, the philosopher, with a terrier between his legs, in a tandem ? Dick. I ’ll tell you what, doctor. I ’ll make you my long-stop at cricket — you shall draw corks when I’m president — laugh at my jokes before company — squeeze lemons for punch — cast up the reckoning — and woe betide you if you don’t keep sober enough to see me safe home after a jollification ! Pang. Make meva long-stop, and a squeezer of lemons ! Zounds ! this is more fatiguing than walking out with the lap-dogs ! And are these the qualifications for a tutor, young gentleman ? Dick. To be sure they are. ’Tis the way that half the prig parsons, who educate us honourables, jump into fat livings. Pang. ’Tis well they jump into something fat at last, for they must wear all the flesh off their bones in the process. Dick. Come now, tutor, go you and call the waiter. Pang. Go and call ! Sir — sir ! I ’d have you to understand, Mr Dowlas Dick. Ay, let us understand one another, doctor. My father, I take it, comes down handsomely to you for your management of me ? Pang. My lord has been liberal. Dick. But ’tis I must manage you, doctor. Acknow- ledge this, and, between ourselves, I’ll find means to double your pay. Pang. Double my Dick. Do you hesitate? Why, man, you have set up for a modern tutor without knowing your trade ! Pang. Double my pay ! Say no more — done. ‘ Actum est.’ — Terence — Hem. Waiter ! [Bawling.] Gad, I ’ve reached the right reading at last ! ‘ I ’ve often wished that I had, clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year.’ Swift — Hem. Waiter ! 124 Dick. That ’s right ; tell him to pop my clothes and linen into the carriage ; they are in that bundle. Enter "Waiter. Pang. Waiter! Here, put all the Honourable Mr Dowlas’s clothes and linen into his father’s, Lord Duberly’ s, chariot. Waiter. Where are they all, sir ? Pang. All wrapt up in the Honourable Mr Dowlas’s pocket handkerchief. [Exit waiter with bundle. Dick. See ’em safe in, doctor, and I ’ll be with you directly. Pang. I go, most worthy pupil. Six hundred pounds a year ! However deficient in the classics, his knowledge of arithmetic is admirable ! ‘ I ’ve often wished that I had, clear, For life’ Dick. Nay, nay, don’t be so slow. Pang. Swift — Hem. I ’m gone. [Exit. Dick. What am I to do with Zekiel and Cis ? When a poor man has grown great, his old acquaintance generally begin to be troublesome. Enter Zekiel. > Zekiel. Well, I han’t been long. Dick. No, you are come time enough, in all con- science. [Coolly. Zek. Cicely ha’ gotten the place. I be e’en almost stark wild wi’ joy. Such a good-natured young madam. Why, you don’t seem pleased, man ; sure, and sure, you be glad of our good -fortune, Dick? Dick. Dick ! Why, what do you — oh ! but he doesn’t know yet that I am a lord’s son. I rejoice to hear of your success, friend Zekiel. Zek. Why, now, that ’s hearty. But, eh ! Why, you look mortal heavy and lumpish, Dick. No bad, tidings since we ha’ been out, I hope ? Dick. 0 no. Zek. Eh? Let’s ha’ a squint at you. Od rabbit it, but summut have happened. You have seen your father, and things ha’ gone crossish. Who have been here, Dick? Dick. Only a gentleman, who had the honour of being deputed ambassador from my father. Zek. What a dickens — an ambassador! Pish, now you be a queering a body. An ambassador sent from an old chandler to Dick Dowlas, Lawyer Latitat’s clerk? Come, that be a good one, fegs ! Dick. Dick Dowlas ! and lawyer’s clerk ! Sir, the gentleman came to inform me that my father, by being proved next of kin to the late lord, is now Lord Duberly; by which means I am now the Honourable Mr Dowlas. Zek. Ods flesh ! gi’e us your fist, Dick ! I ne’er shook the fist of an honourable afore in all my born days. Old Daniel made a lord ! I be main glad to hear it. This be news indeed. But, Dick, I hope he ha’ gotten some ready along wi’ his title ; for a lord without money be but a foolish wishy-washy kind of a thing a’ ter all. Dick. My father’s estate is fifteen thousand a year. Zek. Mercy on us ! — you ha’ ta’en away my breath! Dick. Well, Zekiel, Cis and you shall hear from me soon. Zek. Why, you ben’t a going, Dick? Dick. I must pay my duty to his lordship; his chariot waits for me below. We have been some time acquainted, Zekiel, and you may depend upon my good offices. Zek. You do seem a little flustrated with these tidings, Dick. I — I should be loath to think our kind- ness was a cooling. Dick. 0 no. Rely on my protection. DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. GEORGE COLMAN. Zek. Why, lookye, Dick Dowlas; as to protection, and all that, we ha’ been old friends ; and if I should need it from you, it be no more nor my right to expect it, and your business to give it me : but Cicely ha’ gotten a place, and I ha’ hands and health to get a livelihood. Fortune, good or bad, tries the man, they do say ; and if I should hap to be made a lord to-morrow (as who can say what may betide, since they ha’ made one out of an old chandler) Dick. Well, sir, and what then ? Zek. Why, then, the finest feather in my lordship’s cap would be, to shew that there would be as much shame in slighting an old friend because he be poor, as there be pleasure in owning him when it be in our power to do him service. Dick. You mistake me, Zekiel. I — I — s’death ! I ’m quite confounded ! I ’m trying to be as fashionable here as my neighbours, but nature comes in, and knocks it all on the head. [Aside.] Zekiel, give me your hand. Zek. Then there be a hearty Castleton slap for you. The grasp of an honest man can’t disgrace the hand of a duke, Dick. Dick. You’re a kind soul, Zekiel. I regard you sincerely; I love Cicely, and — hang it, I’m going too far now for a lord’s son. Pride and old friendship are now fighting in me till I ’m almost bewildered. [Aside.] You shall hear from me in a few hours. Good-bye, Zekiel; good-bye. [Exit. Zek. I don’t know what ails me, but I be almost ready to cry. Dick be a high-mettled youth, and this news ha’ put him a little beside himself. I should make a bit of allowance. His heart, I do think, be in the right road ; and when that be the case, he be a hard judge that wont pardon an old friend’s spirits when they do carry him a little way out on ’t. [Exit. [From, ‘ The Poor Gentleman .’] Sir Charles Cropland at breakfast; his Valet de Chambre adjusting his hair. Sir Charles. Has old Warner, the steward, been told that I arrived last night ? Valet. Yes, Sir Charles; with orders to attend you this morning. Sir Cha. [Yawning and stretching .] What can a man of fashion do with himself in the country at this wretchedly dull time of the year ! Valet. It is very pleasant to-day out in the park, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Pleasant, you booby ! How can the country be pleasant in the middle of spring ? All the world ’s in London. Valet. I think, somehow, it looks so lively, Sir Charles, when the corn is coming up. Sir Cha. Blockhead ! Vegetation makes the face of a country look frightful. It spoils hunting. Yet as my business on my estate here is to raise supplies for my pleasures elsewhere, my journey is a wise one. What day of the month was it yesterday when I left town on this wise expedition ? Valet. The first of April, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Umph ! When Mr Warner comes, shew him in. Valet. I shall, Sir Charles. [Exit. Sir Cha. This same lumbering timber upon my ground has its merits. Trees are notes, issued from the bank of nature, and as current as those payable to Abraham Newland. I must get change for a few oaks, for I want cash consumedly. So, Mr Warner ! Enter Warner. Warner. Your honour is right welcome into Kent. I am proud to see Sir Charles Cropland on his estate again. I hope you mean to stay on the spot for some time, Sir Charles ? Sir Cha. A very tedious time. Three days, Mr Warner. Warner. Ah, good sir ! things would prosper better if you honoured us with your presence a little more. I wish you lived entirely upon the estate, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Thank you, Warner; but modern men of fashion find it difficult to live upon their estates. Warner. The country about you so charming ! Sir Cha. Look ye, Warner — I must hunt in Leices- tershire — for that’s the thing. In the frosts and the spring months, I must be in town at the clubs — for that ’s the thing. In summer I must be at the water- ing-places — for that’s the thing. Now, Warner, under these circumstances, how is it possible for me to reside upon my estate ? For my estate being in Kent Warner. The most beautiful part of the county. Sir Cha. Pshaw, beauty ! we don’t mind that in Leicestershire. My estate, I say, being in Kent Warner. A land of milk and honey ! Sir Cha. I hate milk and honey. Warner. A land of fat ! Sir Cha. Hang your fat ! Listen to me. My estate being in Kent Warner. So woody ! Sir Cha. Curse the wood ! No — that ’s wrong ; for it ’s convenient. I am come on purpose to cut it. Warner. Ah ! I was afraid so ! Dice on the table, and then the axe to the root ! Money lost at play, and then, good lack ! the forest groans for it. Sir Cha. But you are not the forest, and why do you groan for it ? Warner. I heartily wish, Sir Charles, you may not encumber the goodly estate. Your worthy ancestors had views for their posterity. Sir Cha. And I shall have views for my posterity — I shall take special care the trees shan’t intercept their prospect. Enter Servant. Servant. Mr Ollapod, the apothecary, is in the hall, Sir Charles, to inquire after your health. Sir Cha. Shew him in. [Exit servant.] The fellow ’s a character, and treats time as he does his patients. He shall kill a quarter of an hour for me this morning. In short, Mr Warner, I must have three thousand pounds in three days. Fell timber to that amount immediately. ’Tis my peremptory order, sir. Warner. I shall obey you, Sir Charles ; but ’tis with a heavy heart ! Forgive an old servant of the family if he grieves to see you forget some of the duties for which society has a claim upon you. Sir Cha. What do you mean by duties ? Warner. Duties, Sir Charles, which the extravagant man of property can never fulfil — such as to support the dignity of an English landholder for the honour of old England; to promote the welfare of his honest tenants ; and to succour the industrious poor, who naturally look up to -him for assistance. But I shall obey you, Sir Charles. [Exit. Sir Cha. A tiresome old blockhead ! But where is this Ollapod? His jumble of physic and shooting may enliven me ; and, to a man of gallantry in the country, his intelligence is by no means uninteresting, nor his services inconvenient. Ha, Ollapod ! Enter Ollapod. Ollapod. Sir Charles, I have the honour to be your slave. Hope your health is good. Been a hard winter here. Sore throats were plenty; so were wood-cocks. Flushed four couple one morning in a half-mile walk from our town to cure Mrs Quarles of a quinsy. May coming on soon, Sir Charles — season of delight, love and campaigning ! Hope you come to sojourn, Sir PROM 1760 ' CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Charles. Shouldn’t be always on the wing — that’s being too flighty. He, he, he ! Do you take, good sir — do you take ? Sir Cha. 0 yes, I take. But by the cockade in your hat, Ollapod, you have added lately, it seems, to your avocations. Olla. He, he ! yes, Sir Charles. I have now the honour to be cornet in the Volunteer Association corps of our town. It fell out unexpected — pop, on a sudden ; like the going off of a field-piece, or an alderman in an apoplexy. Sir Cha. Explain. Olla. Happening to be at home — rainy day — no going out to sport, blister, shoot, nor bleed — was busy behind the counter. You know my shop, Sir Charles — Galen’s head over the door — new gilt him last week, by the by — looks as fresh as a pill. Sir Cha. Well, no more on that head now. Proceed. Olla. On that head ! he, he, he ! That ’s very well — very well, indeed ! Thank you, good sir ; I owe you one. Churchwarden Posh, of our town, being ill of an indigestion from eating three pounds of measly pork at a vestry dinner, I was making up a cathartic for the patient, when who should strut into the shop but Lieutenant Grains, the brewer — sleek as a dray-horse — in a smart scarlet jacket, tastily turned up with a rhubarb-coloured lapel. I confess his figure struck me. I looked at him as I was thumping the mortar, and felt instantly inoculated with a military ardour. Sir Cha. Inoculated ! I hope your ardour was of a favourable sort ? Olla. Ha, ha ! That ’s very well — very well, indeed ! Thank you, good sir ; I owe you one. We first talked of shooting. He knew my celebrity that way, Sir Charles. I told him the day before I had killed six brace of birds. I thumpt on at the mortar. We then talked of physic. I told him the day before I had killed — lost, I mean — six brace of patients. I thumpt on at the mortar, eyeing him all the while; for he looked very flashy, to be sure ; and I felt an itching to belong to the corps. The medical and military both deal in death, you know ; so ’twas natural. He, he ! Do you take, good sir — do you take ? Sir Cha. Take ? Oh, nobody can miss. Olla. He then talked of the corps itself ; said it was sickly ; and if a professional person would administer to the health of the Association — dose the men, and drench the horse — he could perhaps procure him a cornetcy. Sir Cha. Well, you jumped at the offer. Olla. Jumped! I jumped over the counter, kicked down Churchwarden Posh’s cathartic into the pocket of Lieutenant Grains’s small scarlet jacket, tastily turned up with a rhubarb-coloured lapel ; embraced him and his offer ; and I am now Comet Ollapod, apothecary at the Galen’s Head, of the Association Corps of Cavalry, at your service. Sir Cha. I wish you joy of your appointment. You may now distil water for the shop from the laurels you gather in the field. Olla. Water for — oh ! laurel- water — he, he ! Come, that ’s very well — very well indeed ! Thank you, good sir; I owe you one. Why, I fancy fame will follow when the poison of a small mistake I made has ceased to operate. Sir Cha. A mistake? Olla. Having to attend Lady Kitty Carbuncle on a grand field-day, I clapt a pint bottle of her ladyship’s diet-drink into one of my holsters, intending to proceed to the patient after the exercise was over. I reached the martial ground, and jalloped — galloped, I mean — wheeled, and flourished, with great eclat : but when the word ‘Fire’ was given, meaning to" pull out my pistol in a terrible hurry, I presented, neck foremost, the hanged diet-drink of Lady Kitty Carbuncle; and the medicine being unfortunately fermented by the jolting of my horse, it forced out the cork with a prodigious pop full in the face of my gallant commander. [Ollapod visits Miss Lucretia Mactab, a « stiff maiden aunt,’ sister of one of the oldest barons in Scotland.] Enter Foss. Foss. There is one Mr Ollapod at the gate, an’ please your ladyship’s honour, come to pay a visit to the family. Lucretia. Ollapod ? What is the gentleman ? Foss. He says he’s a cornet in the Galen’s Head. ’Tis the first time I ever heard of the corps. Lucretia. Ha ! some new-raised regiment. Shew the gentleman in. [ Exit Foss.] The country, then, has heard of my arrival at last. A woman of condition, in a family, can never long conceal her retreat. Ollapod ! that sounds like an ancient name. If I am not mistaken, he is nobly descended. Enter Ollapod. Olla. Madam, I have the honour of paying my respects. Sweet spot, here, among the cows ; good for consumptions — charming woods hereabouts — pheasants flourish — so do agues — sorry not to see the good lieutenant — admire his room — hope soon to have his company. Do you take, good madam — do you take ? Luc. I beg, sir, you will be seated. Olla. Oh, dear madam ! [ Sitting down] A charming chair to bleed in ! [Aside. Luc. I am sorry Mr Worthington is not at home to receive you, sir. Olla. You are a relation of the lieutenant, madam ? Luc. I ! only by his marriage, I assure you, sir. Aunt to his deceased wife. But I am not surprised at your question. My friends in town would wonder to see the Honourable Miss Lucretia Mactab, sister to the late Lord Lofty, cooped up in a farmhouse. Olla. [Aside.] The honourable ! humph ! a bit of quality tumbled into decay. The sister of a dead peer in a pigsty ! Luc. You are of the military, I am informed, sir? Olla. He, he ! Yes, madam. Cornet Ollapod, of our volunteers — a fine healthy troop — ready to give the enemy a dose whenever they dare to attack us. Luc. I was always prodigiously partial to the military. My great grandfather, Marmaduke Baron Lofty, com- manded a troop of horse under the Duke of Marlborough, that famous general of his age. Olla. Marlborough was a hero of a man, madam ; and lived at Woodstock — a sweet sporting country; where Rosamond perished by poison — arsenic as likely as anything. Luc. And have you served much, Mr Ollapod ? Olla. He, he ! Yes, madam ; served all the nobility and gentry for five miles round. Luc. Sir ! Olla. And shall be happy to serve the good lieutenant and his family. [Bowing. Luc. We shall be proud of your acquaintance, sir. A gentleman of the army is always an acquisition among the Goths and Vandals of the country, where every sheepish squire has the air of an apothecary. Olla. Madam ! An apothe Zounds ! — hum ! — He, he ! I — You must know, I — I deal a little in Galenicals myself [Sheepishly]. Luc. Galenicals ! Oh, they are for operations, I sup- pose, among the military ? Olla. Operations ! he, he ! Come, that ’s very well — very well indeed ! Thank you, good madam ; I owe you one. Galenicals, madam, are medicines. Luc. Medicines ! Olla. Yes, physic : buckthorn, senna, and so forth. Luc. [Rising] Why, then, you are an apothecary ? Olla. [Rising too t and boiving] And man-midwife at your service, madam. DRAMATISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. GEORGE COLMAN. Luc. At my service, indeed ! Olla. Yes, madam ! Cornet Ollapod at the gilt Galen’s Head, of the Volunteer Association Corps of Cavalry — as ready for the foe as a customer; always willing to charge them both. Do you take, good madam — do you take ? Luc. And has the Honourable Miss Lucretia Mactab been talking all this while to a petty dealer in drugs ? Olla. Drugs ! Why, she turns up her honourable nose as if she was going to swallow them ! [Aside.] No man more respected than myself, madam. Courted by the corps, idolised by invalids ; and for a shot — ask my friend Sir Charles Cropland. Luc. Is Sir Charles Cropland a friend of yours, sir ? Olla. Intimate. He doesn’t make wry faces at physic, whatever others may do, madam. This village flanks the intrenchments of his park — full of fine fat venison ; which is as light a food for digestion as Luc. But he is never on his estate here, I am told. Olla. He quarters there at this moment. Luc. Bless me ! has Sir Charles then Olla. Told me all — your accidental meeting in the metropolis, and his visits when the lieutenant was out. Luc. Oh, shocking ! I declare I shall faint. Olla. Faint ! never mind that, with a medical man in the room. I can bring you about in a twinkling. Luc. And what has Sir Charles Cropland presumed to advance about me ? Olla. Oh, nothing derogatory. Respectful as a duck- legged drummer to a commander-in-chief. Luc. I have only proceeded in this affair from the purest motives, and in a mode becoming a Mactab. Olla. None dare to doubt it. Luc. And if Sir Charles has dropt in to a dish of tea with myself and Emily in London, when the lieutenant was out, I see no harm in it. Olla. Nor I neither : except that tea shakes the nervous system to shatters. But to the point: the baronet’s my bosom-friend. Having heard you were here, ‘Ollapod,’ says he, squeezing my hand in his own, which had strong symptoms of fever — ‘Ollapod,’ says he, ‘ you are a military man, and may be trusted.’ ‘ I ’m a cornet,’ says I, ‘ and close as a pill-box.’ ‘ Fly, then, to Miss Lucretia Mactab, that honourable picture of prudence’ Luc. He, he ! Did Sir Charles say that ? Olla. [Aside.] How these tabbies love to be toaded ! Luc. In short, Sir Charles, I perceive, has appointed you his emissary, to consult with me when he may have an interview. Olla. Madam, you are the sharpest shot at the truth I ever met in my life. And now we are in consulta- tion, what think you of a walk with Miss Emily by the old elms at the back of the village this evening ? Luc. Why, I am willing to take any steps which may promote Emily’s future welfare. Olla. Take steps ! what, in a walk ? He, he ! Come, that’s very well — very well indeed ! Thank you, good madam ; I owe you one. I shall communicate to my friend with due dispatch. Command Cornet Ollapod on all occasions ; and whatever the gilt Galen’s Head can produce Luc. [ Curtsying .] Oh, sir ! Olla. By the by, I have some double-distilled lavender water, much admired in our corps. Permit me to send a pint bottle by way of present. Luc. Dear sir, I shall rob you. Olla. Quite the contrary ; for I ’ll set it down to Sir Charles as a quart. [Aside.] Madam, your slave. You have prescribed for our patient like an able physician. Not a step. Luc. Nay, I insist Olla. Then I must follow in the rear — the physician always before the apothecary. Luc. Apothecary ! Sir, in this business I look upon you as a general officer. Olla. Do you? Thank you, good ma’am; I owe you one. [Exeunt. The humorous poetry of Colman has been as popular as his plays. Of his Broad Grins, the eighth edition (London, 1839) is now before us. Some of the pieces are tinged with indelicacy, but others display his lively sparkling powers of wit and observation in a very agreeable light. We subjoin two of these pleasant levities. The Newcastle Apothecary. A man in many a country town, we know, Professes openly with death to wrestle ; Entering the field against the grimly foe, Armed with a mortar and a pestle. Yet some affirm, no enemies they are ; But meet just like prize-fighters in a fair, Who first shake hands before they box, Then give each other plaguy knocks, With all the love and kindness of a brother : So — many a suffering patient saith — Though the apothecary fights with Death, Still they’re sworn friends to one another. A member of this iEsculapian line, Lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne : No man could better gild a pill, Or make a bill ; Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister ; Or draw a tooth out of your head ; Or chatter scandal by your bed ; Or give a clyster. Of occupations these were quantum suff. : Yet still he thought the list not long enough ; And therefore midwifery he chose to pin to ’t. This balanced things ; for if he hurled A few score mortals from the world, He made amends by bringing others into ’t. His fame full six miles round the country ran ; In short, in reputation he was solus : All the old women called him ‘ a fine man ! ’ His name was Bolus. Benjamin Bolus, though in trade — Which oftentimes will genius fetter — Read works of fancy, it is said, And cultivated the belles-lettres. And why should this be thought so odd ? Can’t men have taste who cure a phthisic ? Of poetry, though patron god, Apollo patronises physic. Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in ’t, That his prescriptions he resolved to write in ’t. No opportunity he e’er let pass Of writing the directions on his labels In dapper couplets, like Gay’s Fables, Or rather like the lines in Hudibras. Apothecary’s verse ! and where’s the treason? ’Tis simply honest dealing ; not a crime ; When patients swallow physic without reason, It is but fair to give a little rhyme. He had a patient lying at death’s door, Some three miles from the town, it might be four; To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article In pharmacy that ’s called cathartical. 127 « CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800 . from 1760 And on the label of the stuff He wrote this verse, Which one would think was clear enough, And torse : When taken , To be well shaken. Next morning early, Bolus rose, And to the patient’s house he goes Upon his pad, Who a vile trick of stumbling had : It was, indeed, a very sorry hack ; But that ’s of course ; For what ’s expected from a horse, With an apothecary on his back ? Bolus arrived, and gave a doubtful tap, Between a single and a double rap. Knocks of this kind Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance ; By fiddlers, and by opera-singers ; One loud, and then a little one behind, As if the knocker fell by chance Out of their fingers. The servant lets him in with dismal face, Long as a courtier s out of place — Portending some disaster ; John’s countenance as rueful looked and grim, As if the apothecary had physicked him, And not his master. * Well, how’s the patient ? ’ Bolus said ; John shook his head. ‘ Indeed ! — hum ! — ha ! — that ’s very odd ! He took the draught ?’ John gave a nod. ‘ Well, how ? what then ? speak out, you dunce ! ’ ‘Why, then,’ says John, ‘we shook him once.’ ‘ Shook him ! — how?’ Bolus stammered out. ‘ We jolted him about.’ ‘ Zounds ! shake a patient, man ! — a shake won’t do.’ * No, sir, and so we gave him two.’ 1 Two shakes ! od's curse ! ’T would make the patient worse.’ ‘ It did so, sir, and so a third we tried.’ ‘ Well, and what then ? ’ ‘ Then, sir, my master died.’ Lodgings for Single Gentlemen. Who has e'er been in London, that overgrown place, Has seen ‘ Lodgings to Let ’ stare him full in the face ; Some are good, and let dearly ; while some, ’tis well known, Are so dear, and so bad, they are best let alone. Will Waddle, whose temper was studious and lonely, Hired loggings that took single gentlemen only ; But Will was so fat, he appeared like a ton, Or like two single gentlemen rolled into one. He entered his rooms, and to bed he retreated. But all the night long he felt fevered and heated ; And though heavy to weigh, as a score of fat sheep, He was not by any means heavy to sleep. Next night ’twas the same ; and the next, and the next; He perspired like an ox ; he was nervous and vexed ; Week passed after week, till, by weekly succession. His weakly condition was past all expression. In six months his acquaintance began much to doubt him ; For his skin, ‘like a lady’s loose gown,’ hung about him. 123 He sent for a doctor, and cried like a ninny : ‘ I have lost many pounds — make me well — there ’s a guinea.’ The doctor looked wise : ‘A slow fever,’ he said: Prescribed sudorifics and going to bed. ‘ Sudorifics in bed,’ exclaimed Will, ‘ are humbugs ! I ’ve enough of them there without paying for drugs !* Will kicked out the doctor ; but when ill indeed. E'en dismissing the doctor don’t always succeed ; So, calling his host, he said : ‘ Sir, do you know, I ’m the fat single gentleman six months ago ? ‘ Look ’e, landlord, I think,’ argued Will with a grin, ‘ That with honest intentions you first took me in: But from the first night — and to say it I ’m bold — I ’ve been so hanged hot, that I ’m sure I caught cold.’ Quoth the landlord : ‘ Till now I ne’er had a dispute ; ‘ I ’ve let lodgings ten years ; I ’m a baker to boot ; In airing your sheets, sir, my wife is no sloven ; And your bed is immediately over my oven.’ ‘The oven!’ says Will Says the host: ‘Why this passion? In that excellent bed died three people of fashion. Why so crusty, good sir?’ ‘ Zounds !’ cries Will, in a taking, ‘ Who wouldn’t be crusty with half a year’s baking?’ Will paid for his rooms ; cried the host, with a sneer, ‘ Well, I see you ’ve been going away half a year.’ ‘ Friend, we can’t well agree ; yet no quarrel,’ Will said ; ‘But I’d rather not perish while you make your bread' MRS ELIZABETH ISCHBALD. Mrs Elizabeth Ixchbald, an actress, dramatist, and novelist, produced a number of popular plays. Her two tales, The Simple Story, and Nature and Art , are the principal sources of her fame ; but her light dramatic pieces are marked by various talent. Her first production was a.farce, entitled The Mogul Tale , brought out in 1784, and from this time, down to 1805, she wrote nine other plays and farces. By some of these pieces — as appears from her memoirs — she received considerable sums of money. Her first production realised £100 ; her comedy of Such Things Are — her greatest dramatic performance — brought her in £410, 12s. ; The Married Man, £100 ; The Wedding Day, £200 ; The Midnight Hour, £130 ; Every One has his Fault, £700 ; Wives as they Were , and Maids as they Are, £427, 10s. ; Lovers' Vows, £150 ; &c. The personal history of this lady is as singular as any of her dramatic plots. She was bom of Roman Catholic parents residing at Standyfield, near Bury St Edmund’s, in the year 1753. At the age of sixteen, full of giddy romance, she ran off to London, having with her a small sum of money, and some wearing- apparel in a band-box. After various adventures, she obtained an engagement for a country theatre, but suffering some personal indignities in her unprotected state, she applied to Mr Inchbald, an actor whom she had previously known. The gentleman counselled marriage. ‘ But who would marry me ? ’ cried the lady. ‘I would,’ replied her friend, ‘if you would have me.’ ‘Yes, sir, and would for ever be grateful’ — and married they were in a few days. The union thus singularly brought about seems to have been happy enough ; but Mr Inchbald died a few years afterwards. Mrs Inchbald performed the dramatists. ENGLISH LITERATURE. NOVELISTS. first parts in the Edinburgh theatre for four years, and continued on the stage, acting in London, Dublin, &c., till 1789, when she quitted it for ever. Her exemplary prudence, and the profits of her works, enabled her not only to live, but to save money. The applause and distinction with which she was greeted never led her to deviate from her simple and somewhat parsimonious habits. ‘Last Thursday,’ she writes, ‘ I finished scouring my bed- room, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen waited at my door to take me an airing.’ She allowed a sister who was in ill health £100 a year. ‘Many a time this winter,’ she records in her diary, ‘ when I cried for cold, I said to myself : “But, thank God! my sister has not to stir from her room ; she has her fire lighted every morning ; all her provisions bought and brought ready cooked ; she is now the less able to bear what I bear ; and how much more should I suffer but for this reflec- tion.’” This was noble and generous self-denial. The income of Mrs Inchbald was now £172 per annum, and, after the death of her sister, she went to reside in a boarding-house, where she enjoyed more of the comforts of life. Traces of female weakness break out in her private memor- anda amidst the sterner records of her struggle for independence. The following entry is amusing: ‘1798. London. Rehearsing Lovers' Vows; happy, but for a suspicion, amounting to a certainty, of a rapid appearance of age in my face.’ Her last literary labour was writing biographical and critical prefaces to a collection of plays, in twenty-five volumes ; a collection of farces, in seven volumes ; and the Modern Theatre, in ten volumes. Phillips, the publisher, offered her £1000 for her memoirs, but she declined the tempting offer. This autobio- graphy was, by her own orders, destroyed after her decease; but in 1833, her Memoirs were published by Mr Boaden, compiled from an autograph journal which she kept for above fifty years, and from her letters written to her friends. Mrs Inchbald died in a boarding-house at Kensington on the 1st of August 1821. By her will, dated four months before her decease, she left about £6000, judiciously divided amongst hgr relatives.. One of her legacies marks the eccentricity of thought and conduct which was mingled with the talents an5 virtues of this original-minded woman : she left £20 each to her late laundress and hair-dresser, provided, they should inquire of her executors concerning her decease. THOMAS HOLCROFT. Thomas Holcroft, author of the admired comedy, The Road to Ruin , and the first to introduce the melodrama into England, was born in London on the 10th of December 1745. ‘Till I was six years old,’ says Holcroft, ‘my father kept a shoemaker’s shop in Orange Court; and I have a faint recol- lection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters.’ Humble as this condition was, it seems to have been succeeded by greater poverty, and the future dramatist and comedian was employed in the country by his parents to hawk goods as a pedler. He was afterwards engaged as a stable-boy at Newmarket, and was proud of his new livery. A charitable person, who kept a school at Newmarket, taught him to read. He was afterwards a rider on the turf ; and when sixteen years of age, he worked for some time with his father as a shoemaker. A passion for books was at this time predominant, and the confinement of the shoemaker’s stall not agreeing with him, he attempted to raise a school 61 in the country. He afterwards became a provincial actor, and spent seven years in strolling about England, in every variety of wretchedness, with different companies. In 1780, Holcroft appeared as an author, his first work being a novel, entitled Alwyn , or the Gentleman Comedian. In the following 3'ear his comedy of Duplicity was acted with great success at Covent Garden. - Another comedy, the Deserted Daughter , experienced a very favourable reception; but The Road to Ruin is universally acknowledged to be the best of his dramatic works. ‘This comedy,’ says Mrs Inch- bald, ‘ ranks amongst the most successful of modern plays. There is merit in the writing, but much more in that dramatic science which disposes character, scenes, and dialogue with minute atten- tion to theatric exhibition.’ Holcroft wrote a great number of dramatic pieces — more than thirty between the years 1778 and 1806; three other novels (Anna St Ives, Hugh Trevor, and Dry an Perdue ); besides A Tour in Germany and France , and numerous translations from the German, and French, and Italian. During the period of the French Revolution, he was a zealous reformer, and on hearing that his name was included in the same bill of indictment with Tooke and Hardy, he surren- dered himself in open court, but no proof of guilt was ever adduced against him. His busy and remarkable life was terminated on the 23d of March 1809. NOVELISTS. It was natural that the genius and the success of the great masters of the modern English novel should have led to imitation. Mediocrity is seldom deterred from attempting to rival excellence, especi- ally in any department that is popular, and may be profitable ; and there is, besides, in romance, as in the drama, a wide and legitimate field for native talent and exertion. The highly wrought tenderness and pathos of Richardson, and the models of real life, wit, and humour in Fielding and Smollett, were succeeded by those of Sterne, while the fictions of Mackenzie, Dr Moore, Miss Burney, and Cumberland, are all greatly superior to the ordinary run of novels, and stand at the head of the second class. These writers, however, exercised but little influence on the national taste : they sup- ported the dignity and respectability of the novel, but did not extend its dominion; and accordingly we find that there was a long dull period in which this delightful species of composition had sunk into general contempt. There was no lack of novels, but they were of a very inferior and even debased description. In place of natural incident, character, and dialogue, we had affected and ridiculous sentimentalism — plots utterly absurd or pernicious — and stories of love and honour so maudlin in conception and drivelling in execution, that it is surprising they could ever have been tolerated even by the most defective moral sense or taste. The circulating libraries in town and country swarmed with these worthless productions — known from their place of publication by the misnomer of the ‘Minerva Press’ novels — but their perusal was in a great measure confined to young people of both sexes of imperfect education, or to half- idle inquisitive persons, whose avidity for excitement was not restrained by delicacy or judgment. In many cases, even in the humblest walks of life, this love of novel-reading amounted to a passion as strong and uncontrollable as that of dram-drinking ; and, fed upon such garbage as we have described, from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. it was scarcely less injurious ; for it dwarfed the intellectual faculties, and unfitted its votaries equally for the study or relish of sound literature, and for the proper performance and enjoyment of the actual duties of the world. The enthusiastic novel-reader got bewildered and entangled among love-plots and high-flown adventures, in which success was often awarded to profligacy, and, among scenes of pretended existence, exhibited in the masquerade attire of a distempered fancy. Instead, therefore, of Truth severe by fairy Fiction dressed, we had Falsehood decked out in frippery and nonsense, and courting applause from its very extravagance. The first successful inroad on this accumulating mass of absurdity was made by Charlotte Smith, whose works may be said to hold a middle station between the true and the sentimental in fictitious composition. Shortly afterwards succeeded the political tales of Holcroft and Godwin, the latter i animated by the fire of genius, and possessing great intellectual power and energy. The romantic fables of Mrs Radcliffe were also, as literary productions, a vast improvement on the old novels ; and in their moral effects they were less mischievous, for the j extraordinary machinery employed by the authoress i was so far removed from the common course of human affairs and experience, that no one could think of drawing it into a precedent in ordinary circumstances. ROBERT PULTOCK. Mr Southey has acknowledged that he took the idea of his Glendoveers, those winged celestial agents j in the Curse of Kehama — The loveliest race of all of heavenly birth, Hovering with gentle motion o’er the earth — from the neglected story of Peter Wilkins. The I author of this story was long unknown; but im 1835, at a sale by auction of books and manuscripts which had belonged to Dodsley the publisher, the | original agreement for the copyright of the work was found. The writer, it appears, was ‘Robert : Pultock of Clement’s Inn, Gentleman;’ and he had disposed of his tale for a sum of £20, with twelve copies of the work, and a set of the first impressions of the engravings that were to accom- pany it. The tale is dedicated to Elizabeth Countess of Northumberland — an amiable and accomplished lady, to whom Percy inscribed his Reliques , and Goldsmith the first printed copy of his Edwin and Angelina * To the countess, Pultock had been I indebted for some personal favour — ‘ a late instance of benignity,’ and it was after the pattern of her j virtues, he says, that he drew the mind of his heroine Youwarkee. Nothing more is known of j Pultock. He was most probably a bachelor — a | solitary bencher — for had he left descendants, some I one of the number would have been proud to claim J the relationship. Having delivered his ‘wild and j wondrous tale 5 to the world, he retired into modest J and unbroken obscurity. The title of Pultock’s j story may serve for an index to its nature and incidents: The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, * The first edition of Peter Wilkins is without the dedication. We were not aware of the exact date of this novel, else it would have been included in the previous section. The dates of the different editions are 1750, 1751, 1783, 1784, and several cheap reprints have since been issued. 130 a Cornish Man : relating particularly his Shipwreck near the South Pole ; his wonderful Passage through a subteiraneous Cavern into a kind of New World; his there meeting with a Gawrey , or Flying Woman, whose Life he preserved, and afterwards manned her ; his extraordinary Conveyance to the Country of Glumms and Gawreys, or Men and Women that fly : likewise a Description of this strange Country, with the Law , Customs, and Manners of its Inhabitants, and the Author’s remarkable Transactions among them: taken from his own Mouth on his Passage to England from off Cape Horn in America, in the Ship Hector ; with an Introduction giving an Account of the surprising Manner of his coming on Board that Vessel, and his Death on his landing at Plymouth, in the year 1739 ; by R. S., a Passenger in the Hector. The initials ‘ R. S.’ may either have been designed to remind the reader of Gulliver’s cousin, Richard Sympson — who stands sponsor for the redoubted Captain Lemuel — or inserted by an oversight of the author, who signs his proper initials, R. P., to the dedication and introduction. The name of the hero, and the first conception of the story, would seem to have been suggested by Bishop Wilkins’s Discovery of a New World, in which there are speculations on the possi- bility of a man being able to fly by the application of wings to his body. (See vol. I. of this work, p. 467.) Having taken up this idea of a flying human race, Pultock modelled his story on that of Robinson Crusoe, making his hero a shipwrecked voyager, cast upon a solitary shore, of which he was for a time the sole inhabitant. The same virtues of fortitude, resignation, and patient ingenuity are assigned to both, with a depth and purity of religious feeling in the case of Peter Wilkins which was rare at that time in works of fiction. The literal, minute, matter-of-fact style of Defoe is copied with success ; but except in his description of the flying heroine, Pultock is inferior to the old master. At least one half of the tale is felt to be tedious and uninteresting. Its principal charm consists in the lonely situation and adventures of the hero, struggling with misfortunes and cut off from society, and in the original and beautiful conception of the flying woman, who comes, endowed with all feminine graces and tenderness, to share his solitude and affection. When Wilkins describes the flying nation, their family alliances, laws, customs, and mechanical works, the romance dis- appears, and we see only a poor imitation of the style or manner of Swift. The language of this j new race is also singularly inharmonious. The name of the country, Nosmnbdsgrsutt, is unpro- j nounceable, and glumm and gawrey, man and woman, have nothing to recommend their adoption. The | flying apparatus is termed a graundee , and a flight is a swangean. The locale of Wilkins’s romance is a grassy plain by the side of a lake, surrounded by a woody amphitheatre, behind which rises a ! huge naked rock, that towers up to a great height. | In this retreat he constructs a grotto, and with fruits and fish, subsists pleasantly during the ! summer. Winter approaches, and strange voices j are heard. He sallies out one evening, and finds a beautiful woman near his door. This is Youwarkee, the heroine#- She had been engaged with a party of young people of the flying nation, resident on the other side of the great rock, chasing and pursuing one another, when falling among the j branches of a tree, her graundee became useless, and she sank to the ground stunned and senseless. The graundee, with its variety of ribs, drapery, and mem- brane, is described at length; but we may take the more poetical miniature sketch of it given by NOVELISTS. EOBEET PULTOCK. ENGLISH LITERATURE. Mr Leigh Hunt in his work The Seer : 1 A peacock, with his plumage displayed, full of “rainbows and starry eyes,” is a fine object, but think of a lovely woman, set in front of an ethereal shell, and wafted about like a Venus. This is perhaps the best general idea that can be given of Peter Wilkins’s bride. In the first edition of the work, there is an engraved explanation of the wings, or. rather drapery, for such it was when at rest. It might be called a natural webbed silk. We are to picture to ourselves a nymph in a vest of the finest texture, and most delicate carnation. On a sudden, this drapery parts in two, and flies back, stretched from head to foot behind the figure like an oval fan or umbrella; and the lady is in front of it, preparing to sweep blushing away from us, and “winnow the buxom air.” ’ The picture is poetical and suggestive, though in working it up, the author of the story introduces homely enough materials. [Peter Wilkins and his Flying Bride .] I passed the summer — though I had never yet seen the sun’s body — very much to my satisfaction, partly in the work I have been describing — for I had taken two more of the beast-fish, and had a great quantity of oil from them — partly in building me a chimney in my ante-chamber, of mud and earth burnt on my own hearth into a sort of brick ; in making a window at one end of the above-said chamber, to let in what little light would come through the trees, when I did not choose to open my door ; in moulding an earthen lamp for my oil ; and, finally, in providing and laying in stores, fresh and salt — for I had now cured and dried many more fish — against winter. These, I say, were my summer employments at home, intermixed with many agreeable excursions. But now the winter coming on, and the days growing very short, or indeed, there being no day, properly speaking, but a kind of twilight, I kept mostly in my habitation. An indifferent person would now be apt to ask, what would this man desire more than he had? To this I answer, that I was contented, while my condition was such as I have been describing ; but a little while after the darkness or twilight came on, I frequently heard voices, sometimes a few only at a time, as it seemed, and then again in great numbers. In the height of my distress, I had recourse to prayer, with no small benefit ; begging that if it pleased not the Almighty Power to remove the object of my fears, at least to resolve my doubts about them, and to render them rather helpful than hurtful to me. I hereupon, as I always did on such occasions, found myself much more placid and easy, and began to hope the best, till I had almost persuaded myself that I was out of danger ; and then laying myself down, I rested very sweetly till I was awakened by the impulse of the following dream. Methought I was in Cornwall, at my wife’s aunt’s ; and inquiring after her and my children, the old gentlewoman informed me both my wife and children had been dead some time, and that my wife, before her departure, desired her — that is, her aunt — immediately upon my arrival to tell me she was only gone to the lake, where I should be sure to see her, and be happy with her ever after. I then, as I fancied, ran to the lake to find her. In my passage she stopped me, crying : ‘ Whither so fast, Peter ? Iam your wife, your Patty.’ Methought I did not know her, she was so altered ; but observing her voice, and looking more wistfully at her, she appeared to me as the most beautiful creature I ever beheld. I then went to seize her in my arms, but the hurry of my spirits awakened me. * * I then heard a sort of shriek, and a rustle near the door of my apartment, all which together seemed very terrible. But I, having before determined to see what and who it was, resolutely opened my door and leaped out. I saw nobody ; all was quite silent, and nothing that I could perceive but my own fears a moving. I went then softly to the corner of the building, and there, looking down by the glimmer of my lamp, which stood in the window, I saw something in human shape lying at my feet. I gave the word: ‘Who’s there?’ Still no one answered. My heart was ready to force a way through my side. I was for a while fixed to the earth like a statue. At length recovering, I stepped in, fetched my lamp, and returning, saw the very beautiful face my Patty appeared under in my dream ; and not considering that it was only a dream, I verily thought I had my Patty before me, but she seemed to be stone dead. Upon viewing her other parts, for I had never yet removed my eyes from her face, I found she had a sort of brown chaplet, like lace, round her head, under and about which her hair was tucked up and twined ; and she seemed to me to be clothed in a thin hair- coloured silk garment, which, upon trying to raise her, I found to be quite warm, and therefore hoped there was life in the body it cqntained. I then took her. into my arms, and treading a step backwards with her, I put out my lamp ; however, having her in my arms, I conveyed her through the doorway, in the dark, into my grotto. * * I thought I saw her eyes stir a little. I then set the lamp further off, for fear of offending them if she should look up ; and warming the last glass I had reserved of my Madeira, I carried it to her, but she never stirred. I now supposed the fall had absolutely killed her, and was prodigiously grieved, when laying my hand on her breast, I perceived the fountain of life had some motion. This gave me infinite pleasure ; so, not despairing, I dipped my finger in the wine, and moistened her lips with it two or three times, and I imagined they opened a little. Upon this I bethought me, and taking a tea-spoon, I gently poured a few drops of the wine by that means into her mouth. Finding she swallowed it, I poured in another spoonful, and another, till I brought her to herself so well as to be able to sit' up. I then spoke to her, and asked divers questions, as if she had really been Patty, and understood me ; in return of which, she uttered a language I had no idea of, though, in the most musical tone, and with the sweetest accent I ever heard. It grieved me I could not understand her. However, thinking she might like to be upon her feet, I went to lift her off the bed, when she felt to my touch in the oddest manner imaginable ; for while in one respect it was as though she had been cased in whalebone, it was at the same time as soft and warm as if she had been naked. * * You may imagine we stared heartily at each other, and I doubted not but she wondered as much as I by what means we came so near each other. I offered her everything in my grotto which I thought might please her, some of which she gratefully received, as appeared by her looks and behaviour. But she avoided my lamp, and always placed her back toward it. I observing that, and ascribing it to her modesty, in my company, let her have her will, and took care to set it in such a position myself as seemed agreeable to her, though it deprived me of a prospect I very much admired. After we had sat a good while, now and then, I may say, chattering to one another, she got up and took a turn or two about the room. When I saw her in that attitude, her grace and motion perfectly charmed me, and her shape was incomparable. Well, we supped together, and I set the best of everything I had before her, nor could either of us forbear speaking in our own tongue, though we were sensible neither of us understood the other. After supper, I gave her some of my cordials, for which she shewed great tokens of thankfulness, and often, in her from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. way, by signs and gestures, which were very far from being insignificant, expressed her gratitude for my kindness. When supper had been some time over, I shewed her my bed, and made signs for her to go to it ; but she seemed very shy of that, till I shewed her where I meant to He myself, by pointing to myself, then to that, and again pointing to her and to my bed. When at length I had made this matter intelligible to her, she lay down very composedly ; and after I had taken care of my fire, and set the things I had been using for supper in their places, I laid myself down too ; for I could have no suspicious thoughts, or fear of danger, from a form so excellent. I treated her for some time with all the respect imaginable, and never suffered her to do the least part of my work. It was very inconvenient to both of us only to know each other’s meaning by signs ; but I could not be otherwise than pleased to see that she endeavoured all in her power to learn to talk like me. Indeed I was not behind-hand with her in that respect, striving all I could to imitate her. What I all the while wondered at was, she never shewed the least disquiet at her confinement ; for I kept my door shut at first, through fear of losing her, thinking she would have taken an opportunity to run away from me, for Httle did I then think she could fly. After my new love had been with me a fortnight, finding my water run low, I was greatly troubled at the thought of quitting her any time to go for more ; and having hinted it to her, with seeming uneasiness, she could not for a while fathom my meaning; but when she saw me much confused, she came at length, by the many signs I made, to imagine it was my concern for her which made me so; whereupon she expressively i enough signified I might be easy, for she did not fear anything happening to her in my absence. On this, as ! well as I could declare my meaning, I entreated her not j to go away before my return. As soon as she under- stood what I signified to her by actions, she sat down, with her arms aqross, leaning her head against the wall, to assure me she would not stir. I took my boat, net, and water-cask as usual, desirous of bringing her home a fresh fish-dinner, and succeeded so well as to catch enough for several good meals, and to spare. What remained I salted, and found she liked that better than the fresh, after a few days’ salting. As my salt grew very low, though I had been as sparing j of it as possible, I now resolved to try making some ; and the next summer I effected it. Thus we spent the remainder of the winter together, till the days began to be light enough for me to walk abroad a little in the middle of them ; for I was now | under no apprehensions of her leaving me, as she had before this time had so many opportunities of doing so, ■ but never once attempted it. I did not even then know i that the covering she wore was not the work of art tut j the work of nature, for I really took it for silk, though it must be premised, that I had never seen it by any j other light than of my lamp. Indeed, the modesty of her carriage, and sweetness of her behaviour to me, had struck into me a dread of offending her. When the weather cleared up a little, by the lengthen- ing of daylight, I took courage one afternoon to invite i her to walk with me to the lake; but she sweetly excused herself from it, whilst there was such a fright- ful glare of light as she said ; * but, looking out at the ; door, told me if I would not go out of the wood, she would accompany me, so we agreed to take a turn only j there. I first went myself over the style of the door, and thinking it rather too high for her, I took her in my arms, and lifted her over. But even when I had her in this manner, I knew not what to make of her clothing, it sat so true and close ; but seeing her by a steadier and truer light in the grove, though a heavy * In the regions of the flying people, it is always twilight. gloomy one, than my lamp had afforded, I begged she would let me know of what silk or other composition her garment was made. She smiled, and asked me if mine was not the same under my jacket. ‘ No, lady,’ says I, ‘ I have nothing but my skin under my clothes.’ ‘Why, what do you mean?’ replies she, somewhat tartly ; ‘ but, indeed, I was afraid something was the matter, by that nasty covering you wear, that you might not be seen. Are you not a glumm ?’ (a man). ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘fair creature.’ (Here, though you may conceive she spoke part English, part her own tongue, and I the same, as we best understood each other, yet I shall give you our discourse, word for word, in plain English.) ‘ Then,’ says she, ‘ I am afraid you must have been a very bad man, and have been crashee,* which I should be very sorry to hear.’ I told her I believed we were none of us so good as we might be, but I hoped my faults had not at most exceeded other men’s ; but I had suffered abundance of hardships in my time, and that at last Providence having settled me in this spot, from whence I had no prospect of ever departing, it was none of the least of its mercies to bring to my knowledge and company the most exquisite piece of all his works in her, which I should acknowledge as long as I lived. She was surprised at this discourse, and asked me — if I did not mean to impose upon her, and was indeed an ingcrashee (unslit) glumm — why I should tell her I had no prospect of departing from hence. ‘ Have not you,’ says she, ‘ the same prospect that I or any other person has of departing? Sir,’ added she, ‘ you don’t do well, and really I fear you are slit, or you would not wear this nasty cumbersome coat — taking hold of my jacket sleeve — if you were not afraid of shewing the signs of a bad life upon your natural clothing.’ I could not for my heart imagine what way there was to get out of my dominions ; but certainly, thought I, there must be some or other, or she would not be so peremptory. And as to my jacket, and shewing myself in my natural clothing, I profess she made me blush; and, but for shame, I would have stripped to my skin, to have satisfied her. ‘ But, madam,’ says I, ‘ pray pardon me, for you are really mistaken ; I have examined every nook and corner of this new world in which we now are, and can find no possible outlet.’ ‘ Why,’ says she, ‘ what outlets have you searched for, or what way can you expect out but the way you came in ? And why is that impossible to return by again ? If you are not slit, is not the air open to you? Will not the sky admit you to patrol in it, as well as other people? I tell you, sir, I fear you have been slit for your crimes ; and though you have been so good to me that I cannot help loving of you heartily for it, yet, if I thought you had been slit, I would not, nay, could not, stay a moment longer with you ; no, though it should break my heart to leave you ! ’ I found myself now in a strange quandary. But seeing her look a little angrily upon me, ‘ Pray, madam,’ says I, ‘ do not be offended if I take the liberty to ask you what you mean by the word crashee, so often repeated by you, for I am an utter stranger to what you mean by it?’ ‘Sir,’ says she, ‘pray, answer me first how you came here?’ ‘Madam,’ replied I, ‘will you please to take a walk to the verge of the wood, and I will shew you the very passage ? ’ ‘ Sir,’ says she, ‘ I perfectly know the range of the rocks all round, and by the least description, without going to see them, can tell from which you descended.’ ‘ In truth,’ said I, ‘ most charming lady, I descended from no rock at all : nor would I, for a thousand worlds, attempt what could not be accomplished but by my destruction.’ ‘Sir,’ says she, in some anger, ‘ it is false, and you impose upon me.’ ‘I declare to you,’ says I, ‘madam, what I tell * Slit. Criminals, in the flying regions, are punished by having their wings slit, thus rendering them unable to fly. ENGLISH LITERATURE. LAURENCE STERNE. NOVELISTS. you is strictly true; I never was near the summit of any of the surrounding rocks, or anything like it ; hut as you are not far from the verge of the wood, be so good as to step a little further, and I will shew you my entrance in hither.’ ‘Well,’ says she, ‘now this odious dazzle of light is lessened, I do not care if I do go with you.’ When we came far enough to see the bridge, ‘ There, madam,’ says I, ‘ there is my entrance, where the sea pours into this lake from yonder cavern.’ ‘ It is not possible,’ says she ; ‘ this is another untruth ; and as I see you would deceive me, and are not to be believed, farewell, I must be gone. But hold,’ says she, ‘ let me ask you one thing more, that is, by what means did you come through that cavern? You could not have used to have come over the rock.’ ‘ Bless me, madam,’ says I, ‘ do you think I and my boat could fly ? Come over the rock, did you say ? No, madam, I sailed from the great sea, the main ocean, in my boat, through that cavern into this very lake here.’ ‘ What do you mean by your boat?’ says she. ‘You seem to make two things of your boat you say you sailed with, and your- self.’ ‘ I do so,’ replied I ; ‘ for, madam, I take myself to be good flesh and blood, but my boat is made of wood and other materials.’ ‘ Is it so?’ says she ; ‘and pray, where is this boat that is made of wood and other materials, under your jacket ? ’ ‘ Lord ! madam,’ says I, ‘ you put me in fear that you was angry, but now I hope you only joke with me ; what, put a boat under my jacket ! No, madam, my boat is in the lake.’ ‘What! more untruths?’ says she. ‘No, madam,’ I replied, ‘ if you would be satisfied of what I say, every word of which is as true as that my boat now is in the lake, pray walk with me thither, and make your own eyes judges what sincerity I speak with.’ To this she agreed, it growing dusky ; but assured me, if I did not give her good satisfaction, I should see her no more. We arrived at the lake, and going to my wet-dock, ‘Now, madam,’ says I, ‘pray, satisfy yourself whether I spake true or no.’ She looked at my boat, but could not yet frame a proper notion of it. Says I : ‘ Madam, in this very boat I sailed from the main ocean through that cavern into this lake; and shall at last think myself the happiest of all men, if you continue with me, love me, and credit me ; and I promise you I will never deceive you, but think my life happily spent in your service.’ I found she was hardly content yet to believe what I told her of my boat to be true, until I stepped into it, and pushing from the shore, took my oars in my hand, and sailed along the lake by her as she walked on the shore. At last, she seemed so well reconciled to me and my boat, that she desired I would take her in. I immediately did so, and we sailed a good way, and as we returned to my dock, I described to her how I procured the water we drank, and brought it to shore in that vessel. ‘Well,’ says she, ‘I have sailed, as you call it, many a mile in my lifetime, but never in such a thing as this. I own it w'ill serve very well where one has a great many things to carry from place to place; but to be labouring thus at an oar, when one intends pleasure in sailing, is, in my mind, a most ridiculous piece of slavery.’ ‘Why, pray, madam, how would you have me sail ? for getting into the boat only will not carry us this way or that, without using some force.’ ‘But,’ says she, ‘ pray, where did you get this boat, as you call it?’ ‘0 madam,’ says I, ‘that is too long and fatal a story to begin upon now; this boat was made many thousand miles from hence, among a people coal-black, a quite different sort from us ; and when I first had it, I little thought of seeing this country ; but I will make a faithful relation of all to you when we come home.’ * * As we talked, and walked by the lake, she made a little run before me, and sprang into it. Perceiving this, I cried out ; whereupon she merrily called on me to follow her. The light was then so dim as prevented my having more than a confused sight of her, when she jumped in; and looking earnestly after her, I could discern nothing more than a small boat on the water, which skimmed along at so great a rate that I almost lost sight of it presently : but running along the shore, for fear of losing her, I met her gravely walking to meet me, and then had entirely lost sight of the boat upon the lake. ‘This,’ says she, accosting me with a smile, ‘is my way of sailing, which, I perceive, by the fright you were in, you are altogether unacquainted with ; and as you tell me you came from so many thousand miles off, it is possible you may be made differently from me ; but surely we are the part of the creation which has had most care bestowed upon it; and I suspect from all your discourse, to which I have been very attentive, it is possible you may no more j be able to fly than to sail as I do.’ ‘No, charming ^ creature,’ says I, ‘ that I cannot, I will assure you.’ She j then, stepping to the edge of the lake, for the advant- j age of a descent before her, sprang up into the air, and away she went, further than my eyes could follow her. I was quite astonished. So, says I, then all is over, ! all a delusion which I have so long been in, a mere phan- ; tom ! better had it been for me never to have seen her, i than thus to lose her again ! I had but very little time | for reflection ; for in about ten minutes after she had ! left me in this mixture of grief and amazement, she alighted just by me on her feet. Her return, as she plainly saw, filled me with a trans- port not to be concealed, and which, as she afterwards told me, was very agreeable to her. Indeed, I was some moments in such an agitation of mind, from these unparalleled incidents, that I was like one thunder- struck; but coming presently to myself, and clasping her in my arms, with as much love and passion as I was capable of expressing, ‘Are you returned again, kind angel,’ said I, ‘ to bless a wretch who can only be happy in adoring you ? Can it be that you, who have so many advantages over me, should quit all the pleasures that nature has formed you for, and all your friends and relations, to take an asylum in my anus ? But I here make you a tender of all I am able to bestow, my love and constancy.’ ‘Come, come,’ says she, ‘ no more raptures ; I find you are a worthier man than I thought I had reason to take you for ; and I beg your pardon for my distrust, whilst I was ignorant of your imperfections; but now, I verily believe all you have said is true ; and I promise you, as you have seemed so much to delight in me, I will never quit you j till death or other as fatal accident shall part us. But j we will now, if you choose, go home, for I know you have been some time uneasy in this gloom, though agreeable to me. For, giving my eyes the pleasure of looking eagerly on you, it conceals my blushes from your sight.’ In this manner, exchanging mutual endearments and soft speeches, hand in hand, we arrived at the grotto. LAURENCE STERNE. Next in order of time and genius to Fielding and Smollett, and not inferior in conception of rich eccentric comic character, was the witty, pathetic, and sentimental author of Tristram Shandy. Sterne was an original writer, though a plagiarist of thoughts and illustrations. Brother Shandy, my Uncle Toby, Trim, the Widow Wadman, and Ur Slop, will go down to posterity with the kindred creations of Cervantes. This idol of his own day is now, however, but little read, except in passages 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 prom 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. beauties amidst the blank and marbled leaves — the pages of no-meaning — the quaint erudition stolen from forgotten folios — the abrupt transitions and discursive flights in which his Shakspearean touches of character, and his gems of fancy, judgment, and feeling, lie hid and imbedded. His sparkling Laurence Sterne. polished diction has 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 Eabelais, and partly assumed for effect, come in sometimes with intrusive awkwardness to mar the touches of true genius, and the kindlings of enthusiasm. He took as much pains to spoil his own natural powers by affectation, as Lady Mary says Pielding 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 sentimentalist, 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 degenerated in London,’ says David Garrick, ‘ like an ill-trans- planted 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 lieutenant, 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 Sutton, to which was afterwards added a prebend of York. He married a York lady, and derived from the connection 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 of the cloth, with whom he was no favourite. He left Yorkshire for London in 1759, to publish the two first volumes of Tristram Shandy. Two others were published in 1761, and the same number in 1762. He now took a tour to France, which enriched some of his subsequent volumes of Tristram with his exquisite sketches of peasants and vine-dressers, the muleteer, the abbess and Margarita, Maria at Moulines — not forgetting the poor ass with his heavy panniers at Lyon. In 1765 he took another continental tour, and penetrated into Italy, to which we are indebted for his Sentimental Journey. The latter work he composed on his return to Coxwould, the living of which had been presented to him, on the first publication of Tristram , by Lord Falconbridge. Having completed the first part of his Journey , Sterne went to London to see it pub- lished, 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 attention. His wish was realised almost to the letter. In Yorkshire, before he had attained celebrity, much of Sterne’s time was spent at Skelton Hall, the residence of John Hall Stevenson (1718-1785), a writer of satirical and humorous poetry, possessed of lively talents, but over-convivial in his habits, and licentious in his writings and conversation. Stevenson wrote Crazy Tales , Fables for Grown Gentlemen , Jjyric Epistles , &c., but his chief claim to remembrance is that he was the original of Sterne’s Eugenius in Tristram Shandy , and the chosen friend and associate of the witty novelist. In the library at Skelton Hall, there was a collection of old French authors, from whom Sterne derived part of the quaint lore that figures in his works. His chief plagiarisms, however, were derived from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy , which he plundered with an audacity almost without a parallel. Even when condemning such literary dishonesty, Sterne was eminently dishonest. Burton has the following figurative passage : ‘ As apothecaries, we make new mixtures, every day pour out of one vessel into another; and as the Romans robbed all the cities in the world to set out their bad-sited Rome, we skim the cream of other men’s wits, pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens to set out our own sterile plots. We weave the same web, still twist the same rope again and again.’ Sterne follows: 4 Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new medicines, by pouring only out of one vessel into another ? Are we for ever to be twisting and untwisting the same rope— for ever in the same track — for ever at the same pace?’ Scores of such thefts from Burton might be cited, with others from Bishop Hall, Donne, &c. Luckily for Sterne, his wholesale plagiarisms were not detected until after his death.* He died in the blaze of his fame, as an original eccentric author — the wittiest and most, popular of boon-companions and novelists. His influence on the literature of his age was also considerable. 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 4 give up the reins of his imagination into his author’s hand — be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.’ Through the whole novel, however, over its mists and absurdities* shines his * The detection was first made by a Manchester physician, Dr John Ferriab (1764-1S15), who, in 1798, published his Illustrations of Sterne. Dr Ferriar was also the author of an Essay on Apparitions, and some medical treatises. NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. LAURENCE STERNE. little family band of friends and relatives — that inimitable group of originals and humorists— which stand out from the canvas 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 masterly manner in which he has brought out the characteristics of two beings of the most opposite natures — the elder Shandy and Toby — and surrounded them with a group of followers, sketched with equal life and individuality; in the Corporal, the obstetric Dr Slop ; Yorick, the lively and careless parson ; the Widow Wadman and Susannah. During the intervals of the publication of Tristram , Sterne ventured before the public some volumes of Sermons , with his own comic figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them. The Sermons, according to the just opinion of Gray the poet, shew a strong imagination and a sensible heart ; ‘ but,’ he adds, ‘ you see the author often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience.’ The affected pauses and abrupt transitions which dis- figure Tristram , are not banished from the Sermons , but there is, of course, more conne'ction and coher- ency in the subject. The Sentimental Journey is also more regular than Tristram in its plan and details ; but, beautiful as some of its descriptions are, we want the oddities of Shandy, and the ever-pleasing good-nature and simplicity of Uncle Toby. Sterne himself is the only character. The pathetic passages are rather overstrained, but still finely conceived, and often expressed in his most felicitous manner. That ‘gentle spirit of sweetest humour, who erst didst sit upon the easy pen of his beloved Cervantes, turning the twilight of his prison into noonday brightness,’ was seldom absent long from the invo- cations of his English imitator, even when he mounted his wildest hobby, and dabbled in the mire of sensuality. Of the sentimental style of Sterne— his humour is at once too subtle and too broad to be compressed into our limits — a few specimens are added. The Story of Le Fevre. [From Tristram Shandy.] It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies, which was about seven years before my father came into the | country, and about as many after the time that my uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my i father’s house in town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europe, when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard. I say sitting, for in consideration of the corporal’s lame knee, which sometimes gave him exquisite pain, when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the corporal to stand; and the poor fellow’s veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermond itself with less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him ; for many a time, when my uncle Toby supposed the corporal’s leg was at rest, he would look back and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect. This bred more little squabbles betwixt them than all other causes for five-and-twenty years together; but this is neither here nor there — why do I mention it? Ask my pen — it governs me — I govern not it. He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlour with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack. ‘’Tis for a poor gentleman — I think of the army,’ said the landlord, ‘ who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything, till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast. “ I think,” says he, taking his hand from his fore- head, “ it would comfort me.” If I could neither beg, borrow, nor buy such a thing,’ added the landlord, ‘ I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill. I hope in God he will still mend,’ continued he ; ‘ we are all of us concerned for him.’ ‘ Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee,’ cried my uncle Toby ; ‘ and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman’s health in a glass of sack thyself ; and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do him good.’ ‘ Though I am persuaded,’ said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, ‘ he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too : there must be something more than common in him that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of his host.’ ‘ And of his whole family,’ added the corporal; ‘for they are all concerned for him.’ ‘Step after him,’ said my uncle Toby ; ‘ do, Trim ; and ask if he knows his name.’ ‘I -have quite forgot it, truly,’ said the landlord, coming back into the parlour with the corporal ; ‘ but I can ask his son again.’ ‘ Has he a son with him, then ?’ said my uncle Toby. ‘ A boy,’ replied the landlord, ‘ of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day. He has not stirred from the bedside these two days.’ My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and Trim, without being ordered, took it away, without saying one word, and in a few minutes after brought him his pipe and tobacco. ‘Stay in the room a little,’ said my uncle Toby. ‘ Trim ! ’ said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his pipe, and smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in front of his master, and made his bow. My uncle Toby smoked on, and said no more. ‘ Corporal ! ’ said my uncle Toby. The corporal made his bow. My uncle Toby proceeded no further, but finished his pipe. ‘ Trim,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘ I have a project in my head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor gentle- man.’ ‘Your honour’s roquelaure,’ replied the corporal, ‘has not once been had on since the night before your honour received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St Nicholas. And besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the roquelaure, and what with the weather, ’twill be enough to give your honour your death, and bring on your honour’s torment in your groin.’ ‘ I fear so,’ replied my uncle Toby; ‘but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair,’ added my uncle Toby, ‘or that I had known more of it. How shall we manage it ?’ ‘ Leave it, an ’t please your honour, to me,’ quoth the corporal. ‘I’ll take my hat and stick, and go to the house and reconnoitre, and act accord- ingly ; 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 servant.’ ‘ I shall get it all out of him,’ said the corporal, shutting the door. My uncle Toby filled his second pipe ; and had it not been that he now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was riot full as well to have the curtain of the tenaille a straight line as a crooked one, he might be said to have thought of nothing else 135 fko-m 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. but poor Le Fevre and his boy the whole time he smoked it. It was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe that Corporal Trim returned from the inn, and gave him the following account. ‘I despaired at first,’ said the corporal, ‘ of being able to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence con- cerning the poor sick lieutenant.’ ‘ Is he in the army, 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 corporal, ‘everything straightforwards as I learned it.’ ‘Then, Trim, I’ll fill 1 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.’ I 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 words. ‘ 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, I suppose, the regiment — he had dismissed the morning after he came. “ If I get better, my dear,” said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man, “ we can hire horses from hence.” “ But, alas ! the poor gentleman will never get from hence,” said the landlady to me ; “ for I heard the death-watch all night long : and when he dies, the youth his son will certainly 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 purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire whilst I did it. “ I believe, sir,” said he, very modestly, “I can please him best J myself.” “I am sure,” said I, “his honour will not I like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old | soldier.” The youth took hold of my hand, and j instantly burst into tears.’ ‘ Poor youth ! ’ said my ; uncle Toby ; ‘ he has been 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 I here.’ ‘I never, in the longest march,’ said the corporal, j ‘had so great a mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with him for company. What could be the matter with me, an’ please your honour?’ ‘^Nothing in the world, I Trim,’ said my uncle Toby, blowing his nose, ‘ but that thou art a good-natured fellow.’ ‘ When I gave him the toast,’ continued the corporal, j ‘I thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain ! Shandy’s servant, and that your honour, though a * stranger, was extremely concerned for his father; and that, if there was anything in your house or cellar’ — j (‘ And thou mightst have added my purse too,’ said my uncle Toby) — ‘he was heartily welcome to it. He ; made a very low bow, which was meant to your honour ; j but no answer, for his heart was full ; so he went up stairs with the toast. “ I warrant you, my dear,” said I/as I opened the kitchen door, “your father trill be well again.” Mr Yorick’s curate was smoking a pipe by , the kitchen fire, but said not a word, good or bad, to j comfort the youth. I thought it wrong,’ added the ! corporal. ‘ I think so too,’ said my uncle Toby. ‘ When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack 136 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, “ he is going to say his prayers, for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bedside, and as I shut the door, I saw his son take up a cushion.” “‘I thought,” said the curate, “that you gentlemen of the army, Mr Trim, never said your prayer's at all.” “I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night,” said the landlady, “very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it.” “Are you sure of it ? ” replied the curate. “ A soldier, an’ please your reverence,” said I, “ prays as often of liis own accord as a parson ; and when he is fighting for his king, and for his own 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 rever- ence, 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-day ; harassing others to-morrow ; detached here ; countermanded there ; rest- ing 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 knows 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 shew it thee to-morrow. 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 whether we have done them in a red coat 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 bed with his head raised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside it. The youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneeling; the book was laid upon the bed ; and as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one 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 offer to speak to me till I had walked up close to his bedside. “If you are Captain Shandy’s servant,” said he, “ you must present my thanks to your master, 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 I 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 obligations 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 aims in my tent.” “ I remember the story, NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. LAURENCE STERNE. an’t please your honour,” said I, “very well.” “Do you so?” said he, wiping his eyes with his handker- chief ; “ then well may I.” In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribbon 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 wish,’ 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 ? ’ ‘ 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 v/hat, 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 Flanders. 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- dermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner — that nevertheless he gave up Dender- mond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp — and bent his whole thoughts towards 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 of 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 is a friend to the friendless, 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, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay — that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse ; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself.’ ‘ Your honour knows,’ said the corporal, ‘I had no orders.’ ‘True,’ quoth my uncle Toby; ‘thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier, but certainly very wrong as a man. ‘ In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse,’ continued my uncle Toby, ‘ when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house, thou shouldst have offered him my house too. A sick brother-officer should have the best quarters, Trim ; and if we had him with us, we could tend and look to him. Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim ; and what with thy care of him, and the old woman’s, and his boy’s, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs. In a fortnight or three weeks,’ added my uncle Toby smiling, ‘ he might march.’ ‘ He will never march, an’ please your honour, in this world,’ said the corporal. * He will march,’ said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off. ‘ An’ please your honour,’ said the cor- poral, ‘ he will never march, but to his grave.’ ‘ He shall march,’ cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch — ‘ he shall march to his regiment.’ ‘ He cannot stand it,’ said the corporal. ‘ He shall be supported,’ said my uncle Toby. ‘ He ’ll drop at last,’ said the corporal ; ‘and what will become of his boy?’ ‘He shall not drop,’ said my uncle Toby firmly. ‘ A-well-o’-day, do what we can for him,’ said Trim, maintaining his point, ‘ the poor soul will die. ’ ‘ He shall not die, by Gr — ,’ cried my uncle Toby. The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in ; and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever. My uncle Toby went to his bureau ; put his purse into his breeches pocket ; and having ordered the cor- poral to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep. The sun looked bright the morning after to every eye in the village but Le Fevre’s and his afflicted son’s. The hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids, and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bedside ; and independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother-officer would have done it, and asked him how he did — how he had rested in the night — what was his complaint — where was his pain — and what he could do to help him. And without giving him time to answer any one of the inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him. ‘ You shall go home directly, Le Fevre,’ said my uncle Toby, ‘ to my house, and we ’ll send for a doctor to see what ’s the matter ; and we ’ll have an apothecary, and the corporal shall be your nurse, and I ’ll be your servant, Le Fevre.’ There was a frankness in my uncle Toby — not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it — which let you at once into his soul, and shewed you the goodness of his nature ; to this there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him ; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart, rallied back ; the film forsook his eyes for a moment ; he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby’s face, then cast a look upon his boy ; and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken. Nature instantly ebbed again ; the film returned to its place ; the pulse fluttered — stopped — went on — throbbed — stopped again — moved — stopped. Shall I go on ? No. [The Starling — Captivity.'] [From the Sentimental Journey .] And as for the Bastile, the terror is in the word. Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile 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 inno- cence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in. 137 pkom: 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. I had some occasion — I forget what — to step into the court-yard as I settled this account ; and remember I walked down stairs in no small triumph with the con- ceit of my reasoning. Beshrew the sombre pencil ! said I vauntingly, for I enyy not its powers which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colour- ing. 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 Bastile is not an evil to be despised ; but strip it of its towers, fill up the fosse, unbarricade the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper and not of a man which holds you in it, the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.’ I was inter- rupted in the heyday of this soliloquy 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, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliver- ance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it as if impatient. ‘ I fear, poor crea- ture,’ said I, ‘ I cannot set thee at liberty.’ ‘ No,’ said the starling, ‘ I can’t get out ; I can’t get out,’ said the starling. I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechani- cal 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 Bastile ; and I heavily walked up stairs, unsaying every 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 thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. ’Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess,’ addressing myself to Liberty, ‘ whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself shall change ; no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chemic power turn thy sceptre into iron ; with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven !’ cried I, kneeling down upon the last 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 shower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.’ The bird in his cage pursued me into my room. I sat down close to my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery ; but finding, however affect- ing 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 expectation 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 thii-ty 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 began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait. He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed : a little calendar of small sticks lay at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he 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 I 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. [A 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. The look of the house, and of everything about it, as we drew nearer, soon recon- ciled me to the disaster. It was a little farmhouse, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn ; 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 where- withal 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. 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 repast ; ’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 I 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 I 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 delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this hour ? If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so. When supper was over, the old man gave a knock NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WALPOLE — GOLDSMITH. 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 altogether 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 off, 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 illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their con- stant 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 peasant could pay. Or a learned prelate either, said I. HORACE WALPOLE. In 1764, Horace Walpole revived tlie Gothic romance in his interesting little story, The Castle of Otranto , which he at first published anonymously, as a work found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England, and printed at Naples in the black-letter in 1529. ‘I wished it to be believed ancient,’ he said, ‘ and almost everybody was imposed upon.’ The tale was so well received by the public, that a second edition was soon called for, to which the author prefixed his name. Though designed to blend the two kinds of romance — the ancient, in which all was imagination and improb- ability, and the modern, in which nature is copied, the peculiar 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 arched vault, big enough for a man to go through; a picture that walks out of its frame, or a skeleton’s ghost in a hermit’s cowl. Where Walpole has improved on the incredible and mysterious, is in his dialogues and style, which arc pure and dramatic in effect, and in the more delicate and picturesque tone which he has given to chivalrous manners. Walpole was the third son of the Whig minister, Sir Robert Walpole; was born in 1717, became fourth Earl of Orford 1791, and died in 1797; having not only outlived most of his illustrious contemporaries, but recorded their weaknesses and Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham ; the residence of Horace Walpole. failings, their private history and peculiarities, in his unrivalled correspondence. CLARA REEVE. An early admiration of Horace Walpole’s romance, The Castle of Otranto , induced Miss Clara Reeve (1725-1803) 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 managed, so as to produce mysteriousness and effect; but her style has not the point or elegance of that of her prototype. Miss Reeve wrote several other novels, ‘all marked,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘by excellent good sense, pure morality, and a compe- tent command of those qualities which constitute a good romance.’ They have failed, however, to keep possession 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. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. In the spring of 17GG came out a tale of about equal dimensions with Walpole’s Gothic story, but as different in its nature as an English cottage or villa, witli its lioneysuckle-hedge, wall-roses, neat garden, and general air of beauty and comfort, is from a gloomy feudal tower, With its dark walls, moat, and drawbridge. We allude to Goldsmith’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 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. i surprise. The first edition was published on the 27th of March, a second was called for in June, and i a third in August of the same year. What reader I could he insensible to the charms of a work so full [ of kindliness, benevolence, taste, and genius? By r that species of mental chemistry which he under- | stood as well as Sterne, Goldsmith extracted the j essence of character, separating from it what was ! trite and worthless, and presenting in incredibly I small space a finished representation, bland, humor- | ous, simple, absurd, or elevated, as the story might j require. The passions were equally at his bidding, j within that confined sphere to which he limited 1 their range ; and a life of observation and reading — though foolish in action — supplied him with a 1 pregnancy of thought and illustration, the full value ; of which is scarcely appreciated on account of the extreme simplicity of the language. Among the ! incidental remarks in the volume, for example, are ) some on the state of the criminal law of England, j which shew how completely Goldsmith had antici- ! pated and directed — in better language than any j senator has since employed on the subject — all that I parliament has effected in the reformation of our ; criminal code. These short, philosophical, and criti- cal dissertations, always arise naturally out of the progress 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 j skill in housewifery, her motherly vanity and desire ; to appear genteel , are finely brought out, and repro- duced in her daughters. The vicar’s support of | the Whistonian theory as to marriage, that it was i unlawful 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 ha3 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 Jenkinson in the affair of the cosmogony ; hut these drawbacks only serve to endear him more closely to his readers ; and when distress falls upon the virtuous household, the noble fortitude and resigna- tion of the principal sufferer, and the efficacy of his example, form one of the most affecting and even sublime moral pictures. The numberless little traits of character, pathetic and lively incidents, and sketches of manners— as the family of the Elam- horoughs, the quiet pedantry and simplicity of Moses, with his bargain of the shagreen spectacles ; the family picture, in which Mrs Primrose was painted as Yenus, and the vicar, in gown and hand, 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, particularly his going to Amsterdam to teach the Dutchmen English, without recollecting that he should first know something of Dutch himself, seems an exact transcript of the author’s early adventures and blundering simplicity. Though Goldsmith carefuHy corrected the language of his miniature romance in the different editions, he did not meddle with the incidents, so that some improb- abilities remain. These, however, have no effect on the reader, in diminishing 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. HENRY BROOKE. In the same year with the Vicar of Wakefield, the first two volumes of a domestic novel, ultimately extended to five volumes, The Fool of Quality , were 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, j Several social questions of importance are discussed i by Brooke with great ability, and in an enlightened spirit. He was an extensive miscellaneous writer ’ — a man of public spirit and benevolent character, i In the early part of his career, he had been the friend of Swift, Pope, Chesterfield, and other eminent contemporaries. His daughter, Charlotte 1 Brooke, published in 1789 a volume of Reliques of Irish Poetry, and a collection of her father’s works, four volumes, 1792. 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 circle? 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 i prosperous life, which was prolonged to far beyond j the Psalmist’s cycle of threescore and ten. * Mr i 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 School and university of Edinburgh, and afterwards studied the law in his native city. The legal department selected by Mackenzie was the business of the ; Exchequer Court, and to improve himself in this he went to London in 1765, and studied the English J Exchequer practice. Returning to Edinburgh, he i mixed in its literary 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 Jidia de Roubignt. He was, as we have previously stated, the principal contri- butor to the Mirror and Lounger, and he wrote some dramatic pieces, which were brought out at j Edinburgh with but indifferent success. The style ; and diction of Mackenzie are always choice, elegant, j and expressive, but he wanted power. It may seem : strange that a novelist so eminently sentimental and j refined should have ventured to write on political ; subjects, but Mackenzie supported the government of Mr Pitt with some pamphlets written with great acuteness and discrimination. In real life, the 1 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 Scot- land, which entailed upon him considerable labour and drudgery, but was highly lucrative. In this , situation, with a numerous family — Mr Mackenzie had married Miss Penuel Grant, daughter of Sir i novelists. ENGLISH LITERATURE. henry Mackenzie. 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. The first novel of Mackenzie is the best of his works, unless we except some of his short contribu- tions to the Mirror and Lounger (as the tale of La Roche), which fully supported his fame. There is no regular story in The Man of Feeling ; but the character ol Harley, his purity of mind, and his bashfulness, caused by excessive delicacy, interest the reader, though it is very unlike real life. 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, are partly formed on the affected sentimental style of the inferior romances, but 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 country, meeting with some adventures by the way that illustrate his 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. 2 'he Man of the World has less of the discursive manner of Sterne, but the character of Sir Thomas Sindall — the Lovelace of the novel — seems forced and unnatural. His plots against the family of Annesly, and his attempted seduction of Lucy — after an interval of some eighteen or twenty years — shew a deliberate villainy and disregard of public opinion, which, considering his rank and position in the world, appears improb- able. His death-bed sensibility and penitence 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 Rouhigne is still more melancholy 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 discrimination of character or skill in the plot, and oppressive from its scenes of unmerited and unmitigated 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. [ Negro Servitude .] I have often been tempted to doubt, says one of the characters in Julia de Roubigne, whether 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 manner of European hus- bandry, would not do the business better and cheaper than the slaves do. The money which the latter 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 expensive in its operations. In the list of slaves belonging 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-creatures groaning under servitude and misery ! — great God ! hast thou peopled those regions of thy world for the purpose of casting out their inhabitants to chains and torture? No; thou gavest them a land teeming with good things, and lightedst up thy sun to bring forth spontaneous plenty; but the refinements of man, ever at war with thy works, have changed this scene of profusion 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 hard one, would smile at my romance, and tell me that things must be so. Habit, the tyrant of nature and of reason, is deaf to the voice of either; here she stifles humanity and debases the species — for the master of slaves has seldom the soul of a man. We add a specimen of the humorous and the pathetic manner of Mackenzie from The Man of Feeling. [. Harley Sets Out on his Journey — The Beggar and his Dog.'] 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 morning when 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 prescribe 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, j in her idea, was so replete with temptations, that it needed the whole armour of her friendly cautions to repel their attacks. 141 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Peter stood at the door. We have mentioned this faithful fellow formerly. Harley’s father had taken 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 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. ‘ My 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 hills ; 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 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 I 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, and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked charity of Harley ; the dog began to beg too. It was impossible to resist both ; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him before. The beggar, on receiving it, poured forth bless- ings without number ; and, with a sort of smile on his countenance, said to Harley, ‘that if he wanted his fortune told’ Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar : it was an unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and silenced the prophet imme- diately. ‘I would much rather learn,’ said Harley, ‘ what it is in your power to tell me : your trade must be an entertaining one : sit down on this stone, and let me know . something of your profession ; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or two myself.’ ‘ Master,’ replied the beggar, ‘ I like your frankness much; God knows I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child ; but there is no doing with it in this world ; we must live as we can, and lying is, as 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 me.’ ‘Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don’t know something of; how should I tell fortunes else ? ’ ‘ True ; but to go on with your story : you were a labourer, you say, and a wag ; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade ; but your 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 142 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 lived ; for I was always curious to get acquainted with the felons, because they are commonly fellows of much mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an 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. I gqt the better of my disease, how- ever, but I was so weak that I spat blood whenever I attempted to work. I had no relation living that I knew of, and I never kept a friend above a week when I was able to joke ; I seldom remained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died before I 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 truly, but they were seldom believed ; and the few who gave me a half-penny as they passed, did it with a shake of the head, and an injunction not to trouble them with a long story. In short, I found that people do not care to give alms without some security for their money ; a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort of draught upon Heaven for those who choose to have 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 names of their acquaintance ; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned among servants and neigh- bours ; and indeed people themselves are the best intel- ligencers in the Vorld for our purpose ; they dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear what they wish to believe ; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerable good memory and some share of cunning, with the help of walking a-nights over heaths and churchyards, with this, and shewing the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from the sergeant of a marching regiment — and, by the way, he can steal too upon occasion — I make shift to pick up a livelihood. My trade, indeed, is none of the honestest; yet people are not much cheated neither, who give a few halfpence for a prospect of happiness, which I have heard some persons say is all a man can arrive at in this world. But I must bid you good-day, sir ; for I have three miles to walk before noon, to inform some boarding-school young ladies whether their husbands are to be peers of the realm or captains in the army; a question which I promised to answer them by that time.’ Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket ; but Virtue bade him consider on whf>m he was going to bestow it. Virtue held back his arm ; but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue’s, not so severe as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smilecl upon him ; his fingers lost their compression ; nor did Virtue offer to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground, than the watchful cur— ^a trick he had been taught — snapped it up ; and, contrary to the most approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the hands of his master. [The Death of Earley .] Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of fortune had yet left me ; I could not, therefore, but be sensibly concerned for his present indisposition ; there seldom passed a day on which I did not make inquiry about him. The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before, that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some time past. I called NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HENRY MACKENZIE. next morning to be confirmed in a piece of intelligence bo welcome to me. When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch, leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the attitude of thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benignity, which commanded esteem ; there was now something more — a gentle triumph in it. He rose, and met me with his usual kindness. When I gave him the good accounts I had had from his physi- cian, ‘ I am foolish enough,’ said he, ‘ to rely but little in this instance to physic. My presentiment may be false ; but I think I feel myself approaching to my end by steps so easy that they woo me to approach it. There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time when the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties. This world, my dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much delighted. I was not formed for the bustle of the busy nor the dissipation of the gay ; a thousand things occurred where I blushed for the impropriety of my conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me I should have blushed to have done otherwise. It was a scene of dissimulation, of restraint, of disappointment. I leave it to enter on that state which I have learned to believe is replete with the genuine happiness attendant upon virtue. I look back on the tenor of my life with the consciousness of few great offences to account for. There are blemishes, I confess, which deform in some degree the picture ; but I know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and rejoice at the thoughts of its exertion in my favour. My mind expands at the thought I shall enter into 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 time silent. At last, with an attempt at a look of more composure, ‘ There are some remembrances,’ 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 mankind. I recollect with the tenderest emotion the scenes of pleasure I have passed among them ; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world. The world is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its own. I cannot think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there is anything of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist: they are called — perhaps they are — weaknesses here ; but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues.’ He sighed as he spoke these last urords. He had scarcely finished them when the door opened, and his aunt appeared leading in Miss Walton. ‘ My dear,’ says she, ‘ here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself.’ I 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 herself on the sofa beside 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. ‘ I believe,’ said he, ‘ from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery.’ She started as he spoke ; but recollecting herself immedi- ately, 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 suggests, 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 Miss Walton, ‘ are just ; but your good sense, Mr Harley, will own that life has its proper value. As the province 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 ground, ‘There are,’ said he, in a very low voice, ‘there are attachments, Miss Walton.’ 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 feel- ing which it shall lose the latest. To love Miss Walton could not be a crime ; if to declare it is one, the expia- tion will be made.’ Her tears were now flowing without control. ‘ Let 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 misunderstand 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 on 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 motionless 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 recollection 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 connection we cannot easily forget. I took his hand in mine ; I repeated his name involun- tarily. 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 prayer 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 ! I turned with the last farewell upon my lips, when I observed old Edwards standing behind me. I looked him full in the face, but his eye was fixed on another object. He pressed between me and the bed, and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor. 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 his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the 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 humanity ; it is at least a memorial for those who survive. For some, indeed, a slender memorial will serve; and the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. their structures were it but on the paring of a J nail. 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, me thought 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. FRANCES BURNEY (MADAME D 5 ARBLAy). Frances Burney, authoress of Evelina and Cecilia , was the wonder and delight of the generation of novel-readers succeeding that of Fielding and Smollett, and she has maintained her popularity Frances Burney. better than most secondary writers of fiction. Her name has been lately revived by the publication of her Diary and Letters , containing some clever sketches of society and manners, notices of the court of George III., and anecdotes of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, &c. Miss Burney was the second daughter of Dr Burney, author of the History of Music. She was born at Lynn-Regis, in the county of Norfolk, on the 13th of June 1752. Her father was organist in Lynn* but in 1760 he removed to London — where he had previously resided — and numbered among his familiar friends and visitors David Garrick, Sir Robert Strange the engraver, the poets Mason and Armstrong, Barry the painter, and other persons distinguished in art and literature. Such society must have had a highly beneficial effect on his family, and accordingly we find they 144 ! all made themselves distinguished : one son rose to be an admiral; the second son, Charles Burney, became a celebrated Greek scholar ; both the daughters were novelists.* Fanny was long held to be a sort of prodigy. At eight years of age she did not even know her letters, but she was shrewd and observant. At fifteen she had written several tales, was a great reader, and even a critic. Her authorship was continued in secret, her sister only being aware of the circumstance. In this way, it is said, she composed Evelina , but it was not published till January 177S, when ‘little Fanny 5 was in her twenty-sixth year; and the wonderful precocity of ‘ Miss in her teens ’ may be dismissed as somewhat more than doubtful. The work was offered to Dodsley the publisher, but rejected, as the worthy bibliopole ‘declined looking at anything anonymous. 5 Another bookseller, named Lowndes, agreed to publish it, and gave £20 for the manu- script. Evelina , or a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World , soon became the talk of the town. Dr Burney, in the fulness of his heart, told Mrs Thrale that ‘our Fanny 5 was the author, and Dr Johnson protested to Mrs Thrale that there were passages in it which might do honour to Richardson! Miss Burney was invited to Streatham, the country residence of the Thrales, and there she met Johnson and his illustrious band of friends, of whom we have ample notices in the Diary. Wherever she went, to London, Bath, or Tunbridge, Evelina was the theme of praise, and Miss Burney the happiest of authors. In 1782 appeared her second work, Cecilia , which is more highly finished than Evelina , but less rich in comic characters and dialogue. Miss Burney having gone to reside for a short time with Mrs Delany, a venerable lady, the friend of Swift, once connected with the court, and who now lived on a pension from their majesties at Windsor, was intro- duced to the king and queen, and speedily became a favourite. The result was, that in 1786 our authoress was appointed second keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, with a salary of £200 a year, a footman, apartments in the palace, and a coach between her and her colleague. The situation was only a sort of splendid slavery. ‘I was averse to the union, 5 said Miss Burney, ‘and I endeavoured to escape it ; but my friends interfered — they prevailed — and the knot is tied. 5 The queen appears to have been a kind and considerate mistress ; but the stiff etiquette and formality of the court, and the unremitting attention which its irksome duties required, rendered the situation peculiarly disagree- able to one who had been so long flattered and courted by the brilliant society of her day. Her colleague, Mrs Schwellenberg, a coarse-minded, jealous, disagreeable German favourite, was also a perpetual source of annoyance to her; and poor Fanny at court was worse off than her heroine Cecilia was in choosing among her guardians. Her first official duty was to mix the queen’s snuff, and keep her box always replenished; after which she was promoted to the great business of the toilet, helping her majesty off and on with her dresses, and being in strict attendance from six or seven in the morning till twelve at night ! From this grinding and intolerable destiny, Miss Burney Avas • Rear-admiral James Burney accompanied Captain Cook in two of his voyages, and was author of a History of Voyages of Discovery, 5 vols. quarto, and an Account of the Russian Eastern Voyages. He died in 1820. Dr Charles Burney wrote several critical works on the Greek classics, was a prebendary of Lincoln, and one of the king’s chaplains. After his death, in 1817, the valuable library of this great scholar was purchased by government for the British Museum. novelists. ENGLISH LITERATURE. Frances burney. emancipated by her marriage, in 1793, with a Trench refugee officer, the Count d’Arblay. She then resumed her pen, and in 1795 produced a tragedy, entitled Edwin and Elgitha, which was brought out at Drury Lane, and possessed at least one novelty — there were three bishops among the dramatis personae. Mrs Siddons personated the heroine, but in the dying scene, where the lady is brought from behind a hedge to expire before the audience, and is after- wards carried once more to the back of the hedge, the house was convulsed with laughter ! Her next effort was her novel of Camilla , which she published by subscription, and realised by it no less than three thousand guineas. In 1802, Madame d’Arblay accompanied her husband to Paris. The count joined the army of Napoleon, and his wife was forced to remain in Prance till 1812, when she returned and purchased, from the proceeds of her novel, a small but handsome villa, named Camilla Cottage. Her success in prose fiction urged her to another trial, and in 1814 she produced The Wanderer , a tedious tale in five volumes, which had no other merit than that of bringing the authoress the large sum of £1500. The only other literary labour of Madame d’Arblay was a memoir of her father, Dr Burney, published in 1832. Her husband and her son — the Rev. A. d’Arblay of Camden Town Chapel, near London— both predeceased her — the former in 1818, and the latter in 1837. Three years after this last melancholy bereavement, Madame d’Arblay herself paid the debt of nature, dying at Bath in January 1840, at the great age of eighty- eight. Her Diary and Letters , edited by her niece, were published in 1842 in five volumes. If judi- ciously condensed, this work would have been both entertaining and valuable ; but at least one half of it is filled with small unimportant details and private gossip, and the self-admiring weakness of the authoress shines out in almost every page. The early novels of Miss Burney form the most pleasing memorials of her name and history. In them we see her quick in discernment, lively in invention, and inimitable, in her own way, in portraying the humours and oddities of English society. Her good sense and correct feeling are more remarkable than her passion. Her love-scenes are prosaic enough; but in ‘ shewing up ’ a party of ‘ vulgarly genteel ’ persons, painting the characters in a drawing-room, or catching the follies and absurdities that float on the surface of fashionable society, she had then rarely been equalled. She deals with the palpable and familiar ; and though society has changed since the time of Evelina , and the glory of Ranelagh and Mary-le-bone Gardens has departed, there is enough of real life in her personages, and real morality in her lessons, to interest, amuse, and instruct. Her sarcasm, drollery, and broad humour, must always be relished. [A Game of Highway Robbery .] [From Evelina.'] When we had been out near two hours, and expected every moment to stop at the place of our destination, I observed that Lacly Howard’s servant, who attended us on horseback, rode on forward till he was out of sight, and soon after returning, came up to the chariot window, and delivering a note to Madame Duval, said he had met a boy who was just coming with it to Howard Grove, from the clerk of Mr Tyrell. While she was reading it, he rode round to the other window, and, making a sign for secrecy, put into my hand a slip of paper on which was -written, ‘ Whatever happens, be not alarmed, for you are safe, though you endanger all mankind 1* 62 I readily imagined that Sir Clement must be the author of this note, which prepared me to expect some disagreeable adventure : but I had no time to ponder upon it, £pr Madame Duval had no sooner read her own letter, than, in an angry tone of voice, she exclaimed : ‘ Why, now, what a thing is this ; here we ’re come all this way for nothing ! ’ She then gave me the note, which informed her that she need not trouble herself to go to Mr Tyrell’ s, as the prisoner had had the address to escape. I congratulated her upon this fortunate incident ; but she was so much concerned at having rode so far in vain, that she seemed less pleased than provoked. However, she ordered the man to make what haste he could home, as she hoped at least to return before the captain should suspect what had passed. The carriage turned about, and we journeyed so quietly for near an hour that I began to flatter myself we should be suffered to proceed to Howard Grove with- out further molestation, when, suddenly, the footman called out : ‘John, are we going right?’ ‘ Why, I ain’t sure,’ said the coachman ; ‘ but I ’m afraid we turned wrong.’ ‘ What do you mean by that, sirrah ? ’ said Madame Duval. ‘ Why, if you lose your way, we shall be all in the dark.’ ‘I think we should turn to the left,’ said the foot- man. ‘To the left!’ answered the other. ‘No, no; I’m pretty sure we should turn to the right.* ‘ You had better make some inquiry,’ said I. * Ma foiy cried Madame Duval, ‘ we ’re in a fine hole here ; they neither of them know no more than the post. However, I’ll tell my lady as sure as you’re born, so you ’d better find the way.’ ‘ Let ’s try this road,’ said the footman. ‘No,’ said the coachman, ‘that’s the road to Canterbury ; we had best go straight on.’ ‘Why, that’s the direct London road,’ returned the footman, ‘ and will lead us twenty miles about.’ ‘ Par die? cried Madame Duval ; ‘ why, they won’t go one way nor t’other ; and, now we ’re come all this jaunt for nothing, I suppose we shan’t get home to-night.’ ‘ Let ’s go back to the public-house,’ said the footman, ‘ and ask for a guide.’ ‘No, no,’ said the other; ‘if., we stay here a few minutes, somebody or other will pass by ; and the horses are almost knocked up already.’ ‘ Well, I protest,’ cried Madame Duval, ‘ I ’d give a guinea to see them sots horsewhipped. As sure as I ’m alive, they’re drunk. Ten to one but they’ll overturn us next.’ After much debating, they at length agreed to go on till we came to some inn, or met with a passenger who could direct us. We soon arrived at a small farm- house, and the footman alighted and went into it. In a few minutes he returned, and told us we might proceed, for that he had procured a direction. ‘ But,’ added he, ‘ it seems there are some thieves hereabouts, and so the best way will be for you to leave your watches and purses with the farmer, whom I know very well, and who is an honest man, and a tenant of my lady’s.’ ‘ Thieves !’ cried Madame Duval, looking aghast ; ‘the Lord help us ! I ’ve no doubt but we shall be all murdered !’ The farmer came to us, and we gave him all we were worth, and the servants followed our example. We then proceeded, and Madame Duval’s anger so entirely sub- sided, that, in the mildest manner imaginable, she entreated them to make haste, and promised to tell their lady how diligent and obliging they had been. She perpetually stopped them to ask if they appre- hended any danger, and was at length so much over- powered by her fears, that she made the footman fasten 145 from: 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. his horse to the hack of the carriage, and then come and seat himself within it. My endeavours to encourage her were fruitless ; she sat in the middle, held the man ; by the arm, and protested that if he did hut save her life, she would make his fortune. Her uneasiness gave me much concern, and it was with the utmost difficulty I forbore to acquaint her that she was imposed upon ; but the mutual fear of the captain’s resentment to me, and of her own to him, neither of which would have any moderation, deterred me. As to the footman, he was evidently in torture from restraining his laughter, and I observed that he was frequently obliged to make most horrid grimaces from pretended fear, in order to conceal his risibility. Very soon after, ‘ The robbers are coming ! 3 cried the coachman. The footman opened the door, and jumped out of the chariot. Madame Duval gave a loud scream. I could no longer preserve my silence. * For Heaven’s sake, my dear madam,’ said I, ‘don’t be alarmed; you are in no danger ; you are quite safe ; there is nothing ; but’ Here the chariot was stopped by two men in masks, ■ who at each side put in their hands, as if for our j purses. Madame Duval sunk to the bottom of the ! chariot, and implored their mercy. I shrieked involun- | tarily, although prepared for the attack : one of them 1 held me fast, while the other tore poor Madame Duval 1 out of the carriage, in spite of her cries, threats, and 1 resistance. I was really frightened, and trembled exceedingly. I ‘My angel!’ cried the man who held me, ‘you cannot I surely be alarmed. Do you not know me? I shall I hold myself in eternal abhorrence if I have really terrified I J 011 *’ * Indeed, Sir Clement, you have,’ cried I ; ‘ but, for j Heaven’s sake, where is Madame Duval? — why is she forced away?’ ‘ She is perfectly safe ; the captain has her in charge ; | but suffer me now, my adored Miss Anville, to take the only opportunity' that is allowed me to speak upon another, a much dearer, much sweeter subject.’ And then he hastily came into the chariot, and seated himself next to me. I would fain have disengaged myself from him, but he would not let me. ‘Deny me not, most charming of women,’ cried he — ‘deny me j not this only moment lent me to pour forth my soul j into your gentle ears, to tell you how much I suffer from j your absence, how much I dread your displeasure, and | how cruelly I am affected by your coldness !’ ‘ 0 sir, this is no time for such language ; pray, I leave me ; pray, go to the relief of Madame Duval ; I I cannot bear that she should be treated with such | indignity.’ ‘And will you — can you command my absence? I When may I speak to you, if not now ? — does the captain ' suffer me to breathe a moment out of his sight ? — and | are not a thousand impertinent people for ever at your I elbow ? ’ ‘ Indeed, Sir Clement, you must change your style, ! or I will not hear you. The impertinent people you j mean are among my best friends, and you would not, if | you really wished me well, speak of them so disrespect- fully.’ ‘ Wish you well ! 0 Miss Anville, point but out to me how in what manner I may convince you of the fervour of my passion — tell me but what services you will accept from me, and you shall find my life, my fortune, my whole soul at your devotion.’ ‘ I want nothing, sir, that you can offer. I beg you not to talk to me so — so strangely. Pray, leave me; and pray, assure yourself you cannot take any method so successless to shew any regard for me as entering into schemes so frightful to Madame Duval, and so disagreeable to myself.’ 146 ‘The scheme was the captain’s; I even opposed it; though I own I could not refuse myself the so long wished-for happiness of speaking to you once more without so many of — your friends to watch me. And I had flattered myself that the note I charged the foot- man to give you would have prevented the alarm you have received.’ ‘ Well, sir, you have now, I hope, said enough ; and if you will not go yourself to seek for Madame Duval, at least suffer me to inquire what is become of her.’ ‘ And when may I speak to you again ?’ ‘ No matter when ; I don’t know ; perhaps ’ • ‘ Perhaps what, my angel ? ’ ‘ Perhaps never, sir, if you torment me thus.’ ‘ Never ! 0 Miss Anville, how cruel, how piercing to my soul is that icy word ! Indeed, I cannot endure such displeasure.’ ‘ Then, sir, you must not provoke it. Pray, leave me directly.’ ‘ I will, madam ; but let me at least make a merit of my obedience — allow me to hope that you will in future be less averse to trusting yourself for a few moments alone with me.’ I was surprised at the freedom of this request ; but while I hesitated how to answer it, the other mask came up to the chariot door, and in a voice almost stifled with laughter, said : ‘I’ve done for her ! The old buck is safe ; but we must sheer off directly, or we shall he all aground.’ Sir Clement instantly left me, mounted his horse, and rode off The captain having given some directions to his servants, followed him. I was both uneasy and impatient to know the fate of Madame Duval, and immediately got out of the chariot to seek her. I desired the footman to shew me which way she was gone; he pointed with his finger, by way of answer, and I saw that he dared not trust his voice to make any other. I walked on at a very quick pace, and soon, to my great consternation, perceived the poor lady seated upright in a ditch. I flew to her, with unfeigned concern at her situation. She was sobbing, nay, almost roaring, and in the utmost agony of rage and terror. As soon as she saw me, she redoubled her cries, but her voice was so broken, I could not under- stand a word she said. I was so much shocked, that it was with difficulty I forbore exclaiming against the cruelty of the captain for thus wantonly ill-treating her, and I could not forgive myself for having passively suffered the deception. I used my utmost endeavours to comfort her, assuring her of our present safety, and begging her to rise and return to the chariot. Almost bursting with passion, she pointed to her feet, and with frightful violence she actually beat the ground with her hands. I then saw that her feet were tied together with a strong rope, which was fastened to the upper branch of a tree, even with a hedge which ran along the ditch where she sat I endeavoured to untie the knot, but soon found it was infinitely beyond my strength. I was therefore obliged to apply to the footman ; hut being very unwilling to add to his mirth by the sight of Madame Duval’s situation, I desired him to lend me a knife. I returned with it, and cut the rope. Her feet were soon disentangled, and then, though with great difficulty, I assisted her to rise. But what was my astonishment when, the moment she was up, she hit me a violent slap on the face ! I retreated from her with precipitation and dread, and she then loaded me with reproaches which, though almost unintelligible, con- vinced me that she imagined I had voluntarily deserted her ; but she seemed not to have the slightest suspicion that she had not been attacked by real robbers. I was so much surprised and confounded at the blow, that for some time I suffered her to rave without making any answer ; but her extreme agitation and real suffering soon dispelled my anger, which all turned into NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. FRANCES BURNET. compassion. I then told her that I had been forcibly detained from following her, and assured her of my real sorrow at her ill-usage. She began to be somewhat appeased, and I again entreated her to return to the carriage, or give me leave to order that it should draw up to the place where we stood. She made no answer, till I told her that the longer we remained still, the greater would be the danger of our ride home. Struck with this hint, she suddenly, and with hasty steps, moved forward. Her dress was in such disorder, that I was quite sorry to have her figure exposed to the servants, who all of them, in imitation of their master, hold her in derision ; however, the disgrace was unavoidable. The ditch, happily, was almost dry, or she must have suffered still more seriously ; yet so forlorn, so miserable a figure, I never before saw. Her head-dress had fallen off; her linen was tom; her negligee had not a pin left in it ; her petticoats she was obliged to hold on ; and her shoes were perpetually slipping off. She was covered with dirt, weeds, and filth, and her face was really horrible, for the pomatum and powder from her head, and the dust from the road, were quite pasted on her skin by her tears, which, with her rouge, made so frightful a mixture that she hardly looked human. The servants were ready to die with laughter the moment they saw her; but not all my remonstrances could prevail on her to get into the carriage till she had most vehemently reproached them both for not rescuing her. The footman, fixing his eyes on the ground, as if fearful of again trusting himself to look at her, protested that the robbers avowed they would shoot him if he moved an inch, and that one of them had stayed to watch the chariot, while the other carried her off ; add- ing, that the reason of their behaving so barbarously, was to revenge our having secured our purses. Not- withstanding her anger, she gave immediate credit to what he said, and really imagined that her want of money had irritated the pretended robbers to treat her with such cruelty. I determined therefore to be care- fully on my guard, not to betray the imposition, which could now answer no other purpose than occasioning an irreparable breach between her and the captain. Just as we were seated in the chariot, she discovered the loss which her head had sustained, and called out : ‘ My God ! what is become of my hair ? Why, the villain has stole all my curls !’ She then ordered the man to run and see if he could find any of them in the ditch. He went, and presently returning, produced a great quantity of hair in such a nasty condition, that I was amazed she would take it ; and the man, as he delivered it to her, found it impos- sible to keep his countenance; which she no sooner observed, than all her stormy passions were again raised. She flung the battered curls in his face, saying : ‘ Sirrah, what do you grin for ? I wish you ’d been served so yourself, and you wouldn’t have found it no such joke ; you are the impudentest fellow ever I see, and if I find you dare grin at me any more, I shall make no ceremony of boxing your ears.’ Satisfied with the threat, the man hastily retired, and we drove on. [Miss Brnney explains to King George III. the circum- stances attending the composition of ‘ Evelina?] The king went up to the table, and looked at a book of prints, from Claude Lorraine, which had been brought down for Miss Dewes; but Mrs Delany, by mistake, told him they were for me. He turned over a leaf or two, and then said : ‘ Pray, does Miss Burney draw too V The too was pronounced very civilly. * I believe not, sir,’ answered Mrs Delany ; 1 at least she does not tell.’ ‘ Oh,’ cried he laughing, ‘ that ’s nothing ; she is not apt to tell ; she never does tell, you know. Her father told me that himself. He told me the whole history of her Evelina. And I shall never forget his face when he spoke of his feelings at first taking up the book ; he looked quite frightened, just as if he was doing it that moment. I never can forget his face while I live.’ Then coming up close to me, he said : ‘ But what ! what ! how was it V 1 Sir,’ cried I, not well understanding him. ‘ How came you — how happened it — what — what ?’ ‘ I — I only wrote, sir, for my own amusement — only in some odd idle hours.’ ‘ But your publishing — your printing — how was that V 1 That was only, sir — only because’ I hesitated most abominably, not knowing how to tell him a long story, and growing terribly confused at these questions; besides, to say the truth, his own, ‘what! what V so reminded me of those vile Probationary Odes, that, in the midst of all my flutter, I was really hardly able to keep my countenance. The what I was then repeated, with so earnest a look, that, forced to say something, I stammeringly answered : ‘ I thought, sir, it would look very well in print.’ I do really flatter myself this is the silliest speech I ever made. I am quite provoked with myself for it; but a fear of laughing made me eager to utter anything, and by no means conscious, till I had spoken, of what I was saying. He laughed very heartily himself — well he might — and walked away to enjoy it, crying out : ‘ Very fair indeed ; that ’s being very fair and honest.’ Then returning to me again, he said : ‘ But your father — how came you not to shew him what you wrote ?’ ‘ I was too much ashamed of it, sir, seriously.’ Literal truth that, I am sure. ‘ And how did he find it out ? ’ ‘ I don’t know myself, sir. He never would tell me.’ Literal truth again, my dear father, as you can testify. ‘ But how did you get it printed ? ’ ‘I sent it, sir, to a bookseller my father never employed, and that I never had seen myself, Mr Lowndes, in full hope that by that means he never would hear of it.’ ‘ But how could you manage that ? ’ ‘ By means of a brother, sir.’ ‘ Oh, you confided in a brother, then ? ’ ‘ Yes, sir — that is, for the publication.’ ‘ What entertainment you must have had from hear- ing people’s conjectures before you were known! Do you remember any of them ? ’ ‘ Yes, sir, many.’ ‘ And what ? ’ ‘ I heard that Mr Baretti laid a wager it was written by a man ; for no woman, he said, could have kept her own counsel.’ This diverted him extremely. ‘ But how was it,’ he continued, ‘ you thought most likely for your father to discover you ? ’ ‘Sometimes, sir, I have supposed I must have dropt some of the manuscript; sometimes, that one of my sisters betrayed me.’ ‘ Oh, your sister ? what ! not your brother ? ’ ‘ No, sir, he could not, for’ I was going on, but he laughed so much I could not be heard, exclaiming: ‘Vastly well! I see you are of Mr Baretti’s mind, and think your brother could keep your secret, and not your sister. Well, but,’ cried he presently, ‘how was it first known to you, you were betrayed ? ’ ‘By a letter, sir, from another sister. I was very ill, and in the country ; and she wrote me word that my father had taken up a review, in which the book was mentioned, and had put his finger upon its name, and said : “ Contrive to get that book for me.” ’ 147 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. ‘And when he got it,’ cried the king, ‘he told me he was afraid of looking at it, and never can I forget his face when he mentioned his first opening it. But you have not kept your pen unemployed all this time ? ’ ‘ Indeed I have, sir.’ ‘ But why ? ’ ‘ I — I believe I have exhausted myself, sir.* He laughed aloud at this, and went and told it to Mrs Delany, civilly treating a plain fact as a mere bon mot. Then returning to me again, he said more seriously : ‘But you have not determined against writing any more ?’ ‘N — o, sir.’ ‘ You have made no vow — no real resolution of that sort?’ ‘ No, sir.’ ‘ You only wait for inclination ? ’ How admirably Mr Cambridge’s speech might have come in here. ‘No, sir.’ A very civil little bow spoke him pleased with this answer, and he went again to the middle of the room, where he chiefly stood, and, addressing us in general, talked upon the different motives of writing, concluding with : ‘ I believe there is no constraint to be put upon real genius ; nothing but inclination can set it to work. Miss Burney, however, knows best.’ And then hastily returning to me, he cried : ‘ What ! what ? ’ ‘No, sir, I — I — believe not, certainly,’ quoth I very awkwardly, for I seemed taking a violent compliment only as my due ; but I knew not how to put him off as I would another person. Sarah Harriet Burney, half-sister to Madame d’Arblav, is authoress of several novels, Geraldine, Fauconberg , Country Neighbours, &c. This lady has copied the style of her relative, but has not her raciness of humour, or power of painting. WILLIAM BECKFORD. In 1784: there appeared, in French, the rich oriental story entitled Vathek : an Arabian Tale. A translation into English, with notes critical and explanatory, was published in 1786, and the tale, revised and corrected, has since passed through many editions. Byron praises the work for its correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination. ‘As an Eastern tale,’ he says, ‘ even Basselas must bow before it : his Happy Valley will not bear a comparison with the Hall of Eblis.’ It would be difficult to institute a comparison between scenes so very dissimilar — almost as different as the garden of Eden from Pandemonium; but Vathek seems to have power- fully impressed the youthful fancy of Byron. It contains some minute Eastern painting and charac- ters — a Giaour being of the number — uniting energy and fire with voluptuousness, such as Byron loved to draw. The Caliph Vathek, who had ‘ sullied himself with a thousand crimes,’ like the Corsair, is a magnificent Childe Harold, and may have suggested the character. William Beckford, the author of this remark- able work, was bom in 1759. He had as great a passion for building towers as the caliph himself, and both his fortune and his genius have some- thing of oriental splendour about them. His father, Alderman Beckford of Fonthill, was leader of the city of London opposition in the stormy times of Wilkes, Chatham, and the American discontents. (See notice of Horne Tookc in a subsequent part 143 of this volume.) The father died in 1770, and when the young heir came of age, he succeeded to a fortune of a million of money, and £100,000 a year. His education had been desultory and irregular — partly under tutors at Geneva — but a literary taste was soon manifested. In his eighteenth year he wrote Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (published in 1780), being a burlesque guide-book to the gallery of pictures at Fonthill, designed to mislead the old housekeeper and ignorant visitors. Shortly afterwards, he wrote some account of his early travels, under the title of Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents, but though printed, this work was never published. In 1780, he made a tour to the continent, which formed the subject of a series of letters, picturesque and poetical, which he published (though not until 1835) under the title of Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal. The high-bred ease, voluptuousness, and classic taste of some of these descriptions and personal adventures have a striking and unique effect. In 1782, he wrote Vathek. ‘It took me three days and two nights of hard labour,’ he said, ‘ and I never took off my clothes the whole time.’ The description of the hall of Eblis was copied from the hall of old Fonthill, and the female characters were portraits of the Fonthill domestics idealised. The work, however, was partly taken from a French romance, Abdallah ; ou, les Aventures du Fils de Hanifi Paris, 1723. In 1783, Beckford married a daughter of the Earl of Aboyne, who died three years afterwards, leaving two daughters, one of whom became Duchess of Hamilton. He sat for some time in parliament for the borougli of Hindon, but his love of magni- ficence and his voluptuary tastes were ill suited to English society. In 1794, he set off for Portugal with a retinue of thirty servants, and was absent about two years. He is said to have built a palace at Cintra — that ‘ glorious Eden of the south,’ and Byron has referred to it in the first canto of Childe Harold: There thou, too, Vathek ! England’s wealthiest son, Once formed thy paradise. The poet, however, had been misled by inaccurate information: Beckford built no ‘paradise’ at Cintra. But he has left a literary memorial of his resi- dence in Portugal in his Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaga and Batalha, published in 1835. The excursion was made in June 1794, at the desire of the prince-regent of Portugal. The monastery of Alcoba 9 a was the grandest ecclesias- tical edifice in that country, with paintings, antique tombs, and fountains ; the noblest architecture, in the finest situation, and inhabited by monks who lived like princes. The whole of these sketches are interesting, and present a gorgeous picture of ecclesiastical pomp and wealth. Mr Beckford and his friends were conducted to the kitchen by the abbot, in his costume of High Almoner of Portugal, that they might see what preparations had been made to regale them. The kitchen was worthy of a Vathek! ‘Through the centre of the immense and nobly groined hall, not less than sixty feet in diameter, ran a brisk rivulet of the clearest water, containing every sort and size of the finest river-fish. On one side, loads of game and venison were heaped up ; on the other, vegetables and fruits in endless variety. Beyond a long line of stores, extended a row of ovens, and close to them hillocks of wheaten flour, whiter than snow, rocks of sugar, jars of the purest oil, and pastry in vast abundance, which a numerous tribe of lay-brothers and their attendants were rolling out, and puffing up into a hundred NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM BECKFOM). different shapes, singing all the while as blithely as larks in a cornfield.’ Alas ! this regal splendour is all gone. The magnificent monastery of Alcoba^a was plundered and given to the flames by the French troops under Massena in 1811. In the year 1796, Mr Beckford returned to Eng- land, and took up his residence permanently on his Wiltshire estate. Two burlesque novels from his pen belong to this period — Modern Novel Writing , or the Elegant Enthusiast , two volumes, 1796 ; and Azemia , two volumes, 1797. They are extravagant and worthless productions. At Fonthill, Beckford lived in a style of oriental luxury and vice. He built a wall of nine miles round his property to shut out visitors ; but in 1800 his gates were thrown open to receive Lord Nelson and Sir William and Lady Hamilton, in honour of whom he gave a series of splendid fetes. Next year he sold the furniture and pictures of Fonthill, pulled down the old paternal mansion, with its great hall, and for years employed himself in rearing the magnificent but unsubstantial Gothic structure known as Fonthill Abbey, and in embellishing the surrounding grounds. The latter were laid out in the most exquisite style of landscape-gardening, aided by the natural in- equality and beauty of the ground, and enriched by a lake and fine silvan scenery. The grand tower of the abbey was 260 feet high, and occupied the owner's care and anxiety for years. The structure was like a romance. ‘ On one occasion, when this lofty tower w r as pushing its crest towards heaven, an elevated part of it caught fire, and was destroyed. The sight was sublime; and we have heard that it was a spectacle which the owner of the mansion enjoyed with as much composure as if the flames had not been devouring what it would cost a fortune to repair. The building was carried on by him with an energy and enthusiasm of which duller minds can hardly form a conception. At one period, every cart and wagon in the district were pressed into the service, though all the agricultural labour of the county stood still. At another, even the royal works of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, were aban- doned, that 460 men might be employed night and day on Fonthill Abbey. These men were made to relieve each other by regular watches ; and during the longest and darkest nights of winter, the astonished traveller might see the tower rising under their hands, the trowel and torch being asso- ciated for that purpose. This must have had a very extraordinary appearance ; and we are told that it was another of those exhibitions which Mr Beckford was fond of contemplating. He is represented as . surveying the work thus expedited, the busy levy of masons, the high and giddy dancing of the lights, and the strange effects produced upon the architec- ture and woods below, from one of the eminences in the walks, and wasting the coldest hours of December darkness in feasting his sense with this display of almost superhuman power.’ * These * Literary Gazelle, 1822.— Hazlitt, who visited the spot at the same time, says : ‘ Fonthill Abbey, after being enveloped in impenetrable mystery for a length of years, has been un- expectedly thrown open to the vulgar gaze, and has lost none of its reputation for magnificence— though perhaps its vision- ary glory, its classic renown, have vanished from the public mind for ever. It is, in a word, a desert of magnificence, a glittering waste of laborious idleness, a cathedral turned into a toy-shop, an immense museum of all that is most curious and costly, and, at the same time, most worthless, in the pro- ductions of art and nature. Ships of pearl and seas of atnber are scarce a fable here— a nautilus’s shell, surmounted with a gilt triumph of Neptune — tables of agate, cabinets of ebony, and precious stones, painted windows shedding a gaudy crimson details are characteristic of the author of Vathelc , and form an interesting illustration of his peculiar taste and genius. In 1822, Mr Beckford sold Fonthill, and went to live at Bath. There he erected another costly building, Lansdowne House, which had a tower a hundred feet high, crowned with a model of the temple of Lysicrates at Athens, made of cast-iron. He had a magnificent gallery built over a junction archway; the grounds were decorated with temples, vases, and statues ; and the interior of the house was filled with rare paintings, sculptures, old china, and other articles of vertu. His old porter, a dwarf, con- tinued to attend his master as at Fonthill, and the same course of voluptuous solitude was pursued, ‘ though now his eightieth year was nigh.’ Looking from his new tower one morning, Beckford found the Fonthill tower gone! He was not unprepared for the catastrophe. The master of the works at Fonthill on his death-bed confessed that he had not built the tower on an arched foundation ; it was built on the sand, he said, and would some day fall down. Beckford communicated this to the pur- chaser, Mr Farquhar ; but the new proprietor, with a philosophic coolness that Beckford must have admired, observed he was quite satisfied it would last his time. It fell, however, shortly afterwards, filling the marble court with the ruins. Of the great Abbey only one turret-gallery now remains, and the princely estate, with its green drive of nine miles, has been broken up and sold as three separate properties. Mr Beckford died in his house at Bath on the 2d of May 1844. His body was enclosed in a sarcophagus of red granite, inscribed with a passage fromVathek: ‘Enjoying humbly the most precious gift of heaven, Hope.’ More appropriately might have been engraved on it the old truth, Vanitas vanitatum , omnia vanitas. Of all the glories and prodigalities of the English Sardanapalus, his slender romance, the work of three days, is the only durable memorial. The outline or plot of Vathelc possesses all the wildness of Arabian fiction. The hero is the grand- son of Haroun al Raschid ( Aaron the Just), whose dominions stretched from Africa to India. He is fearless, proud, inquisitive, a gourmand, fond of theo- logical controversy, cruel and magnificent in his power as a caliph ; in short, an Eastern Henry VIII. He dabbles, moreover, in the occult sciences, and interprets the stars and planetary influences from the top of his high tower. In these mysterious arts the caliph is assisted by his mother, Carathis, a Greek, a woman of superior genius. Their ambi- tion and guilt render them a prey to a Giaour — a supernatural personage, who plays an important part in the drama, and hurries the caliph to destruction. But the character of Vathek, and the splendour of his palaces, is described with such picturesque distinctness, that we shall extract some of the opening sentences. light, satin borders, marble floors, and lamps of solid gold —Chinese pagodas and Persian tapestry— all the splendour of Solomon’s temple is displayed to the view in miniature— what- ever is far-fetched and dear-bought, rich in the materials, or rare and difficult in the workmanship — but scarce one genuine work of art, one solid proof of taste, ono lofty relic of sentiment or imagination.’ The collection of bijouterie and articles of vertu was allowed to be almost unprecedented in extent and value. Mr Beckford disposed of Fonthill, in 1822, to Mr Farquhar, a gentleman who had amassed a fortune in India, for £330,000 or £350,000, the late proprietor retaining only his family pictures, and a few books. — Gentleman's Magazine, Oct. 1822. Mr Beckford is said to havo spent £273,000 on Fonthill. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. [Description of the Caliph Vathek and his Magnificent Palaces .] Vathek, ninth caliph of the race of the Abassides, was the son of Motassem, and the grandson of Haroun al Easchid. From an early accession to the throne, and the talents he possessed to adorn it, his subjects were induced to expect that his reign would be long and happy. His figure was pleasing and majestic ; but when he was angry, one of his eyes became so terrible that no person could bear to behold it ; and the wretch upon whom it was fixed instantly fell backward, and sometimes expired. For fear, however, of depopulating his dominions, and making his palace desolate, he but rarely gave way to his anger. Being much addicted to women, and the pleasures of the table, he sought by his affability to procure agreeable companions ; and he succeeded the better as his generosity was unbounded and his indulgences unrestrained ; for he did not think, with the caliph Omar Ben Abdalaziz, that it was necessary to make a hell of this world to enjoy paradise in the next. He surpassed in magnificence all his predecessors. The palace of Alkoremi, which his father, Motassem, had erected on the hill of Pied Horses, and which commanded the whole city of Samarah, was in his idea far too scanty ; he added, therefore, five wings, or rather other palaces, which he destined for the particular gratification of each of the senses. In the first of these were tables continually covered with the most exquisite dainties, which were supplied both by night and by day, according to their constant consumption ; whilst j the most delicious wines, and the choicest cordials, I flowed forth from a hundred fountains that were never exhausted. This palace was called The Eternal, or Unsatiating Banquet. The second was styled The Temple of Melody, or The Nectar of the SouL It was inhabited by the most skilful musicians and admired ; poets of the time, who not only displayed their talents j within, but, dispersing in bands without, caused every I surrounding scene to reverberate their songs, which were j continually varied in the most delightful succession. The palace named The Delight of the Eyes, or The | Support of Memory, was one entire enchantment. Rarities, collected from every corner of the earth, were there found in such profusion as to dazzle and confound, but for the order in which they were arranged. One gallery exhibited the pictures of the celebrated Mani, and statues that seemed to be alive. Here a well- ' managed perspective attracted the sight; there the magic of optics agreeably deceived it ; whilst the natur- alist, on his part, exhibited in their several classes the various gifts that Heaven had bestowed on our globe. In a word, Vathek omitted nothing in this palace that might gratify the curiosity of those who resorted to it, , although he was not able to satisfy his own, for of all i men he was the most curious. The Palace of Perfumes, which was termed likewise j The Incentive to Pleasure, consisted of various halls, where the different perfumes which the earth produces j were kept perpetually burning in censers of gold, i Flambeaux and aromatic lamps were here lighted in | open day. But the too powerful effects of this agree- I able delirium might be alleviated by descending into I an immense garden, where an assemblage of every I fragrant flower diffused through the air the purest j odours. The fifth place, denominated The Retreat of Mirth, i or the Dangerous, was frequented by troops of young ; females, beautiful as the Houris, and not less seducing, who never failed to receive with caresses all whom the caliph allowed to approach them, and enjoy a few hours of their company. Notwithstanding the sensuality in which Vathek indulged, he experienced no abatement in the love of 150 his people, who thought that a sovereign giving him- self up to pleasure was as able to govern as one who declared himself an enemy to it. But the unquiet and impetuous disposition of the caliph would not allow him to rest there. He had studied so much for his amuse- ment in the lifetime of his father as to acquire a great deal of knowledge, though not a sufficiency to satisfy himself ; for he wished to know everything, even sciences that did not exist. He was fond of engaging in disputes with the learned, but did not allow them to push their opposition with warmth. He stopped with presents the mouths of those whose mouths could be stopped; whilst others, whom his liberality was unable to subdue, he sent to prison to cool their blood — a remedy that often succeeded. Vathek discovered also a predilection for theological controversy ; but it was not with the orthodox that he usually held. By this means he induced the zealots to oppose him, and then persecuted them in return ; for he resolved, at any rate, to have reason on his side. The great prophet, Mohammed, whose vicars the caliphs are, beheld with indignation from his abode in the seventh heaven the irreligious conduct of such a vicegerent. ‘Let us leave him to himself,’ said he to the genii, who are always ready to receive his com- mands ; ‘ let us see to what lengths his folly and impiety will carry him ; if he run into excess, we shall know how to chastise him. Assist him, therefore, to com- plete the tower, which, in imitation of Nimrod, he hath begun; not, like that great warrior, to escape being drowned, but from the insolent curiosity of I penetrating the secrets of Heaven : he will not divine the fate that awaits him.’ The genii obeyed; and, when the workmen had raised their structure a cubit in the daytime, two cubits more were added in the night.- The expedition with which the fabric arose was not a little flattering to the vanity of Vathek : he fancied that even insen- sible matter shewed a forwardness to subserve his designs, not considering that the successes of the foolish and wicked form the first rod of their chastisement. His pride arrived at its height when, having as- cended for the first time the fifteen hundred stairs of his tower, he cast his eyes below, and beheld men not larger than pismires, mountains than shells, and cities than bee-hives. The idea which such an elevation inspired of his own grandeur completely bewildered him ; he was almost ready to adore himself, till, lifting his eyes upward, he saw the stars as high above him as they appeared when he stood on the surface of the earth. He consoled himself, however, for this intrud- ing and unwelcome perception of his littleness, with the thought of being great in the eyes of others; and flattered himself that the light of his mind would extend beyond the reach of his sight, and extort from the stars the decrees of his destiny. After some horrible sacrifices, related with great power, Carathis reads from a roll of parchment an injunction that Vathek should depart from his palace surrounded by all the pageants of majesty, and set forward on his way to Istakar. ‘There,’ added the writing of the mysterious Giaour, ‘I await thy coming: that is the region of wonders: there shalt thou receive the diadem of Gian Ben Gian, the talismans of Soliman, and the treasures of the pre-adamite sultans : there shalt thou be solaced with all kinds of delight. But beware how thou enterest any dwelling on thy route, or thou shalt feel the effects of my anger.’ The degenerate commander of the true believers sets off* on his journey with much pomp. Carathis remains, but gives the caliph a series of tablets, fraught with supernatural qualities, which he is to consult on all emergencies. Vathek, to conciliate the spirits of NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. WILLIAM BECKFORD. the subterranean palace, resolved that his expe- dition should be uncommonly splendid. ‘ The great standard of the caliphat was displayed ; twenty thou- sand lances shone round it ; and the caliph, treading on the cloth of gold which had been spread for his feet, ascended his litter amidst the general accla- mations of his subjects.’ The impious enterprise is interrupted by various portentous omens — by darkness, fire, and tempest— and at length the party get bewildered among the mountains. The good Emir Eakreddin, hearing of their perplexity, sends two dwarfs laden with fruit to regale the commander of the faithful, and invites the expe- dition to repose in his ‘happy valley.’ Vathek consults his tablets, which forbid such a visit ; but rather than perish in the deserts with thirst, he resolves to go and refresh himself in the delicious valley of melons and cucumbers. Here the caliph becomes enamoured of the emir’s daughter, the lovely Nouronihar, who is betrothed to her young cousin, Gulchenrouz. His passion is returned, and, while luxuriating in the valley, screened from the eyes of intruders, listening to the voice and lute of Nouronihar, drinking the fragrant and delicious wine of Shiraz, ‘which had been hoarded up in bottles prior to the birth of Mohammed,’ or eating manchets prepared by the hands of Nouronihar, Vathek entirely forgot the object of his expedition, and his desire to visit the palace of fire. Carathis being informed of the fascination which detained him, ordered her camel and attendants, and set off for Eakreddin. There she encountered her sensual son, and prevailed upon him to continue his journey and complete his adventure. Nouronihar accom- panies the caliph in his litter. In four days they reached the spacious valley of Rocknabad, and, having devoted two days to its pleasures, proceeded towards a large plain, from whence were discern- ible, on the edge of the horizon, the dark summits of the mountains of Istakar. One of the beneficent genii, in the guise of a shepherd, endeavours to arrest Vathek in his mad career, and warns him that beyond the mountains Eblis and his accursed dives hold their infernal empire. That moment, he said, was the last of grace allowed him, and as soon as the sun, then obscured by clouds, recovered his splendour, if his heart was not changed, the time of mercy assigned to him would be past for ever. Vathek audaciously spurned from him the warning and the counsel. ‘Let the sun appear,’ he said; ‘ let him illume my career ! it matters not where it may end.’ At the approach of night, most of his attendants escaped; but Nouronihar, whose impa- tience, if possible, exceeded his own, importuned him to hasten his march, and lavished on him a thousand caresses to beguile all reflection. [The Hall of Eblis.] In this manner they advanced by moonlight till they came within view of the two towering rocks that form a kind of portal to the valley, at the extremity of which rose the vast ruins of Istakar. Aloft, on the mountain, glimmered the fronts of various royal mausoleums, the horror of which was deepened by the shadows of night. They passed through two villages, almost deserted ; the only inhabitants remaining being a few feeble old men, who, at the sight of horses and litters, fell upon their knees and cried out : ‘ 0 heaven ! is it then by these phantoms that we have been for six months tormented ! Alas ! it was from the terror of these spectres, and the noise beneath the mountains, that our people have fled and left us at the mercy of the maleficent spirits !’ The caliph, to whom these complaints were but unpro- mising auguries, drove over the bodies of these wretched old men, and at length arrived at the foot of the terrace of black marble. There he descended from his litter, handing down Nouronihar; both, with beating hearts, stared wildly around them, and expected, with an apprehensive shudder, the approach of the Giaour. But nothing as yet announced his appearance. A deathlike stillness reigned over the mountain and through the air. The moon dilated on a vast platform the shades of the lofty columns which reached from the terrace almost to the clouds. The gloomy watch-towers, whose number could not be counted, were covered by no roof; and their capitals, of an architecture unknown in the records of the earth, served as an asylum for the birds of night, which, alarmed at the approach of such visitants, fled away croaking. The chief of the eunuchs, trembling with fear, besought Vathek that a fire might be kindled. ‘No,’ replied he, ‘there is no time left to think of such trifles ; abide where thou art, and expect my commands.’ Having thus spoken, he presented his hand to Nou- ronihar, and, ascending the steps of a vast staircase, reached the terrace, which was flagged with squares of marble, and resembled a smooth expanse of water, upon whose surface not a blade of grass ever dared to vegetate. On the right rose the watch-towers, ranged before the ruins of an immense palace, whose walls were embossed with various figures. In front stood forth the colossal forms of four creatures, composed of the leopard and the griffin, and though but of stone, inspired emotions of terror. Near these were distin- * guished, by the splendour of the moon, which streamed full on the place, characters like those on the sabres of the Giaour, and which possessed the same virtue of changing every moment. These, after vacillating for some time, fixed at last in Arabic letters, and prescribed to the caliph the following words : ‘ Vathek ! thou hast violated the conditions of my parchment, and deserveth to be sent back ; but in favour to thy companion, and, as the meed for what thou hast done to obtain it, Eblis permitteth that the portal of his palace shall be opened, and the subterranean fire will receive thee into the number of its adorers.’ He scarcely had read these words before the moun- tain against which the terrace was reared trembled, and the watch-towers were ready to topple headlong upon them. The rock yawned, and disclosed within it a staircase of polished marble that seemed to approach the abyss. Upon each stair were planted two large torches, like those Nouronihar had seen in her vision ; the camphorated vapour of which ascended and gathered itself into a cloud under the hollow of the vault. * . * The caliph and Nouronihar beheld each other with amazement at finding themselves in a place which, though roofed with a vaulted ceiling, was so spacious and lofty that at first they took it for an immeasurable plain. But their eyes at length growing familiar to the grandeur of the surrounding objects, they extended their view to those at a distance, and discovered rows of columns and arcades which gradually diminished till they terminated in a point radiant as the sun when he darts his last beams athwart the ocean. The pavement, strewed over with gold-dust and saffron, exhaled so subtle an odour as almost overpowered them. They, however, went on, and observed an infinity of censers, in which ambergris and the wood of aloes were continu- ally burning. Between the several columns were placed tables, each spread with a profusion of viands, and wines of every species sparkling in vases of crystal. A throng of genii and other fantastic spirits of either sex danced lasciviously at the sound of music which issued from beneath. In the midst of this immense hall a vast multitude was incessantly passing, who severally kept their right hands on their hearts, without once regarding anything around them. They had all the livid paleness of death. from 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. Their eyes, deep sunk in their sockets, resembled those phosphoric meteors that glimmer by night in places of interment. Some stalked slowly on, absorbed in pro- found reverie ; some, shrieking with agony, ran furiously about like tigers wounded with poisoned arrows; whilst others, grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along more frantic than the wildest maniac. They all avoided each other ; and though surrounded by a multitude that no one could number, each wandered at random, unheedful of the rest, as if alone on a desert where no foot had trodden. Yathek and Nouronihar, frozen with terror at a sight so baleful, demanded of the Giaour what these appear- ances might mean, and why these ambulating spectres never withdrew their hands from their hearts. ‘ Perplex not yourselves with so much at once,’ replied he bluntly; ‘ you will soon be acquainted with all ; let us haste and present you to Eblis.’ They continued their way through the multitude, but notwithstanding their confidence at first, they were not sufficiently composed to examine with attention the various perspective of halls and of galleries that opened on the right hand and left, which were all illuminated by torches and brasiers, whose flames rose in pyramids to the centre of the vault. At length they came to a place where long curtains, brocaded with crimson and gold, fell from all parts in solemn confusion. Here the choirs and dances were heard no longer. The light which glimmered came from afar. After some time, Yathek and Nouronihar perceived a gleam brightening through the drapery, and entered a vast tabernacle hung round with the skins of leopards. An infinity of elders, with streaming beards, and afrits in complete armour, had prostrated themselves before I the ascent of a lofty eminence, on the top of which, I upon a globe of fire, sat the formidable Eblis. His person was that of a young man, whose noble and regular features seemed to have been tarnished by I malignant vapours. In his large eyes appeared both pride and despair ; his flowing hair retained some resemblance to that of an angel of light. In his hand, which thunder had blasted, he swayed the iron sceptre that causes the monster Ouranbad, the afrits, and all the powers of the abyss, to tremble. At his presence, the heart of the caliph sunk within him, and he fell I prostrate on his face. Nouronihar, however, though | greatly dismayed, could not help admiring the person of Eblis, for she expected to have seen some stupendous j giant. Eblis, with a voice more mild than might be imagined, but such as penetrated the soul and filled it I with the deepest melancholy, said : ‘ Creatures of clay, j I receive you into mine empire ; ye are numbered ! amongst my adorers ; enjoy whatever this palace affords ; ; the treasures of the pre-adamite sultans ; their fulmin- | ating sabres ; and those talismans that compel the dives I to open the subterranean expanses of the mountain of ! Kaf, which communicate with these. There, insatiable as your curiosity may be, shall you find sufficient objects to gratify it. You shall possess the exclusive privilege of entering the fortresses of Aherman, and the halls of Argenk, where are portrayed all creatures endowed with intelligence, and the various animals that inhabited the earth prior to the creation of that contemptible being whom ye denominate the father of mankind.’ Vathek and Nouronihar, feeling themselves revived and encouraged by this harangue, eagerly said to the Giaour : ‘ Bring us instantly to the place which contains these precious talismans.’ ‘ Come,’ answered this wicked dive, with, his malignant grin, ‘come and possess all that my sovereign hath promised, and more.’ He then conducted them into a long aisle adjoining the taber- nacle, preceding them with hasty steps, and followed by his disciples with the utmost alacrity. They reached at length a hall of great extent, and covered with a lofty dome, around which appeared fifty portals of bronze, secured with as many fastenings of iron. A 152 funereal gloom prevailed over the whole scene. Here, upon two beds of incorruptible cedar, lay recumbent the fleshless forms of the pre-adamite kings,' who had been monarchs of the whole earth. They still possessed enough of life to be conscious of their deplorable con- dition. Their eyes retained a melancholy motion ; they regarded one another with looks of the deepest dejection, each holding his right hand motionless on his heart. At their feet were inscribed the events of their several reigns, their power, their pride, and their crimes ; Soli- man Daki, and Soliman, called Gian Ben Gian, who, after having chained up the dives in the dark caverns of Kaf, became so presumptuous as to doubt of the Supreme Power. All these maintained great state, though not to be compared with the eminence of Soliman Ben Daoud. This king, so renowned for his wisdom, was on the loftiest elevation, and placed immediately under the dome. He appeared to possess more animation than the rest. Though, from time to time, he laboured with profound sighs, and, like his companions, kept his right hand on his heart, yet his countenance was more com- posed, and he seemed to be listening to the sullen roar of a cataract, visible in part through one of the grated portals. This was the only sound that intruded on the silence of these doleful mansions. A range of brazen vases surrounded the elevation. ‘Remove the covers from these cabalistic depositories,’ said the Giaour to Yathek, ‘ and avail thyself of the talismans which will break asunder all these gates of bronze, and not only render thee master of the treasures contained within them, but also of the spirits by which they are guarded.’ The caliph, whom this ominous preliminary had entirely disconcerted, approached the vases with falter- ing footsteps, and was ready to sink with terror when he heard the groans of Soliman. As he proceeded, a voice from the livid lips of the prophet articulated these words : ‘ In my lifetime, I filled a magnificent throne, having on my right hand twelve thousand seats of gold, where the patriarchs and the prophets heard my doc- trines ; on my left, the sages and doctors, upon as many thrones of silver, were present at all my decisions. Whilst I thus administered justice to innumerable multitudes, the birds of the air, hovering over me, served as a canopy against the rays of the sun. My people flourished, and my palace rose to the clouds. I erected a temple to the Most High, which was the wonder of the universe; but I basely suffered myself to be seduced by the love of women, and a curiosity that could not be restrained by sublunary, things. I listened to the counsels of Aherman, and the daughter of Pharaoh ; and adored fire, and the hosts of heaven. I forsook the holy city, and commanded the genii to rear the stupendous palace of Istakar, and the terrace of the watch-towers, each of which was consecrated to a star. There for a while I enjoyed myself in the zenith of glory and pleasure. Not only men, but supernatural beings, were subject also to my will. I began to think, as these unhappy monarchs around had already thought, that the vengeance of Heaven was asleep, when at once the thunder burst my structures asunder, and preci- pitated me hither, where, however, I do not remain, like the other inhabitants, totally destitute of hope ; for an angel of light hath revealed that, in consideration of the piety of my early youth, my woes shall come to an end when this cataract shall for ever cease to flow. Till then, I am in torments — ineffable torments ! an unrelenting fire preys on my heart.’ Having uttered this exclamation, Soliman raised his hands towards Heaven in token of supplication ; and the caliph discerned through his bosom, which was trans- parent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames. At a sight so full of horror, Nouronihar fell back, like one petrified, into the arms of Yathek, who cried out with a convulsive sob : ‘ 0 Giaour ! whither hast thou brought novelists. ENGLISH LITERATURE. william beckford. us ! Allow us to depart, and I will relinquish all thou hast promised. 0 Mohammed ! remains there no more mercy!’ ‘ ‘None, none!’ replied the malicious dive. ‘ Know, miserable prince ! thou art now in the abode of vengeance and despair. Thy heart, also, will be kindled like those of the other votaries of Eblis. A few days are allotted thee previous to this fatal period ; employ them as thou wilt ; recline on these heaps of gold ; command the infernal potentates ; range at thy pleasure through these immense subterranean domains, no barrier shall be shut against thee. As for me, I have fulfilled my mission ; I now leave thee to thyself.’ At these words he vanished. The caliph and Nouronihar remained in the most abject affliction. Their tears were unable to flow, and scarcely could they support themselves. At length, taking each other despond ingly by the hand, they went falteringly from this fatal hall, indifferent which way they turned their steps. Every portal opened at their approach. The dives fell prostrate before them. Every reservoir of riches was disclosed to their view, but they no longer felt the incentives of curiosity, of pride, or avarice. With like apathy they heard the chorus of genii, and saw the stately banquets prepared to regale them. They went wandering on, from chamber to chamber, hall to hall, and gallery to gallery, all without bounds or limit ; all distinguishable by the same lower- idg gloom, all adorned with the same awful grandeur, all traversed by persons in search of repose and consolation, but who sought them in vain ; for eveiy one carried within him a heart tormented in flames. Shunnect* by these various sufferers, who seemed by their looks to be upbraiding the partners of their guilt, they withdrew from them to wait, in direful suspense, the moment which should render them to each other the like objects of terror. ‘What!* exclaimed Nouronihar, ‘will the time come when I shall snatch my hand from thine !’ ‘ Ah !’ said Vathek, ‘and shall my eyes ever cease to drink from thine long draughts of enjoyment ! Shall the moments of our reciprocal ecstasies be reflected on with horror ! It was not thou that broughtst me hither ; the prin- ciples by which Carathis perverted my youth have been the sole cause of my perdition ! It is but right she should have her share of it.’ Having given vent to | these painful expressions, he called to an afrit, who was stirring up one of the brasiers, and bade him fetch the Princess Carathis from the palace of Samarah. After issuing these orders, the caliph and Nouronihar continued walking amidst the silent crowd, till they heard voices at the end of the gallery. Presuming them to proceed from some unhappy beings who, like themselves, were awaiting their final doom, they followed the sound, and found it to come from a small square chamber, where they discovered, sitting on sofas, four young men of goodly figure, and a lovely female, who were holding a melancholy conversation by the glimmering of a lonely lamp. Each had a gloomy and forlorn air, and two of them were embracing each other with great tenderness. On seeing the caliph and the daughter of Fakreddin enter, they arose, saluted, and made room for them. Then he who appeared the most considerable of the group addressed himself thus to Yathek : ‘Strangers, who doubtless are in the same state of suspense with our- selves, as you do not yet bear your hand on your heart, if you are come hither to pass the interval allotted, previous to the infliction of our common punishment, condescend to relate the adventures that have brought you to this fatal place, and we, in return, will acquaint you with ours, which deserve but too well to be heard. To trace back our crimes to their source, though we are not permitted to repent, is the only employment suited to wretches like us.’ The caliph and Nouronihar assented to the proposal, and Vathek began, not without tears and lamentations, a sincere recital of every circumstance that had passed. "When the afflicting narrative was closed, the young man entered on his own. Each person proceeded in order, and when the third prince had reached the midst of his adventures, a sudden noise interrupted him, which caused the vault to tremble and to open. Immediately a cloud descended, which, gradually dissipating, discovered Carathis on the back of an afrit, who grievously complained of his burden. She, instantly springing to the ground, advanced towards her son, and said : ‘ What dost thou here in this little square chamber ? As the dives are become subject to thy beck, I expected to have found thee on the throne of the preadamite kings.’ ‘ Execrable woman !’ answered the caliph, ‘cursed be the day thou gavest me birth ! Go, follow this afrit ; let him conduct thee to the hall of the prophet Soliman : there thou wilt learn to what these palaces are destined, and how much I ought to abhor the impious knowledge thou hast taught me.’ * * Carathis, however, eagerly entered the dome of Soli- man, and without regarding in the least the groans of the prophet, undauntedly removed the covers of the vases, and violently seized on the talismans. Then, with a voice more loud than had hitherto been heard, within these mansions, she compelled the dives to dis- close to her the most secret treasures, the most profound stores, which the afrit himself had not seen. She passed, by rapid descents, known only to Eblis and his most favoured potentates ; and thus penetrated the very entrails of the earth, where breathes the sansar, or the icy wind of death. Nothing appalled her dauntless soul. She perceived, however, in all the inmates who bore their hands on their heart, a little singularity, not much to her taste. As she was emerging from one of the abysses, Eblis stood forth to her view; but notwithstanding he dis- played the full effulgence of his infernal majesty, she preserved her countenance unaltered, and even paid her compliments with considerable firmness. This superb monarch thus answered : ‘ Princess, whose knowledge and whose crimes have merited a conspicuous rank in my empire, thou dost well to avail thyself of the leisure that remains ; for the flames and torments which are ready to seize on thy heart will not fail to provide thee soon with full employment.’ He said, and was lost in the curtains of his tabernacle. Carathis paused for a moment with surprise ; but resolved to follow the advice of Eblis, she assembled qll the choirs of genii, and all the dives to pay her homage. Thus marched she in triumph, through a vapour of perfumes, amidst the acclamations of all the malignant spirits, with most of whom she had formed a previous acquaintance. She even attempted to dethrone one of the Soliman s, for the purpose of usurping his place ; when a voice,, proceeding from the abyss of death, pro- claimed : ‘All is accomplished!’ Instantaneously the haughty forehead of the intrepid princess became cor- rugated with agony : she uttered a tremendous yell ; and fixed, no more to be withdrawn, her right hand upon her heart, which was become a receptacle of eternal fire. * * Such was, and such should be, the punishment of unrestrained passions and atrocious deeds ! Such shall be the chastisement of that blind curiosity which would transgress those bounds the wisdom of the Creator has prescribed to human knowledge ; and such the dreadful disappointment of that restless ambition which, aiming at discoveries reserved for beings of a supernatural order, perceives not, through its infatuated pride, that the condition of man upon earth is to be — humble and ignorant. Thus the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand crimes, became a prey to grief without end, and remorse without mitigation ; whilst the humble, the despised Gulchenrouz, passed whole ages in undis- ) 153 f FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. turbed tranquillity, and in the pure happiness of childhood. There is astonishing force and grandeur in some of these conceptions. The catastrophe possesses a sort of epic sublimity, and the spectacle of the vast multitude incessantly pacing those halls, from which all hope has fled, is worthy the genius of Milton. The numberless graces of description, the piquant allusions, the humour and satire, and the wild yet witty spirit of mockery and derision — like the genius of Voltaire — which is spread over the work, we must leave to the reader. The romance altogether places Beckford among the first of our imagina- tive writers, independently of the surprise which it is calculated to excite as the work of a youth of twenty-two, who had never been in the countries he describes with so much animation and accuracy. RICHARD CUMBERLAND. Bichard Cumberland, the dramatist, was author of three novels, Arundel , Henry , and John de Lan- caster. The learning, knowledge of society — includ- ing foreign manners — and the dramatic talents of this author, would seem to have qualified- him in an eminent degree for novel- writing ; but this is by no means the case. His fame must rest on his comedies of The West Indian , The Wheel of Fortune , and The Jew. Mr Cumberland was son of Mr Denison Cumberland, bishop of Clonfort, and afterwards of Kilmore. His mother was Joanna, daughter of the celebrated Dr Bentley, and said to be the Phoebe of Byrom’s fine pastoral, My time , 0 ye Muses , was happily spent. (See vol. i. of this work, p. 731.) Cumberland was born in 1732. He was designed* for the church; but in return for some services rendered by his father, the young r student was appointed private secretary to the Marquis of Halifax, whom he accompanied to Ireland. Through the influence of his patron, he was made crown-agent for the province of Nova Scotia ; and he was afterwards appointed, by Lord George Germain, secretary to the Board of Trade. The dramatic performances of Cumberland written about this time were highly successful, and intro- duced him to all the literary and distinguished society of his day. The character of him by Gold- smith in his Retaliation, where he is praised as The Terence of England, the mender of hearts, is one of the finest compliments ever paid by one author to another. In the year 1780, Cumberland was employed on a secret mission to Spain, in order to endeavour to detach that country from the hostile confederacy against England. He seems to have been misled by the Abbe Hussey, chaplain to the king of Spain ; and after residing a twelvemonth at Madrid, he was recalled, and payment of his drafts refused. A sum of £5000 was due him; but as Cumberland had failed in the negotiation, and had exceeded his commission through excess of zeal, the minister harshly refused to remunerate him. Thus situated, the unfortunate dramatist was com- pelled to sell his paternal estate, and retire into private life. He took up his abode at Tunbridge, and there poured forth a variety of dramas, essays, and other works, among which were two epic poems, Calvary , and The Exodiad , the latter written in conjunction with Sir James Bland Burgess. None of these efforts can be said to have overstepped the line of mediocrity ; for though Cumberland had 151 erudition, taste, and accomplishments, he wanted, in all but two or three of his plays, the vivifying power of genius. His Memoirs of his Own Life — for which he obtained £500 — are graphic and entertaining, but too many of his anecdotes of his contemporaries -will not bear a rigid scrutiny. Mr Cumberland died on the 7th of May 1*811. His first novel Arundel (1789), was hurriedly composed ; but the scene being partly in college and at court, and treating of scenes and characters in high life, the author drew upon his recollections, and painted vigorously what he had felt and witnessed. His second work, Henry (1795), which he polished with great care, to imitate the elaborate style of Fielding, was less happy; for in low life Cumberland was not so much at home, and his portraits are grossly- overcharged. The character of Ezekiel Dow, a Methodist preacher, is praised by Sir Walter Scott as not only an exquisite but a just portrait. The resemblance to Fielding’s Parson Adams is, how- ever, too marked, while the Methodistic traits intro- duced are, however faithful, less pleasing than the learned simplicity and bonhomie of the worthy parson. Another peculiarity of the author is thus touched upon by Scott: ‘He had a peculiar taste in love affairs, which induced him to reverse the natural and usual practice of courtship, and to throw upon the softer sex the task of wooing, which is more grace- fully, as well as naturally, the province of the man.’ In these wooing scenes, too, there is a great want of delicacy and propriety: Cumberland was not here a ‘ mender of hearts.’ The third novel of our author was the. work of his advanced years, and is of a very inferior description. It would be unjust not to add, that the prose style of Cumberland in his memoirs and ordinary narratives, where humour is not attempted, is easy and flowing — the style of a scholar and gentleman. MRS FRANCES SHERIDAN. Mrs Frances Sheridan (1724-1766) was the authoress of two novels, Sidney Biddulph and Nour- jahad , and two comedies, The Discovery and The Dupe. The latter are common-place productions, but the novels evince fine imaginative powers and correct moral taste. Sidney Biddulph is a pathetic story: the heroine goes to her grave ‘unrelieved but resigned,’ as Boswell has said, and Johnson doubted whether the accomplished authoress had a right to make her readers suffer so much. Nourjahad is an eastern romance, also with a moral tendency, but containing some animated incidents and description. Mrs Sheridan was the wife of Thomas Sheridan, popular as an actor and elocutionist, and author of an Orthoepical Dictionary of the English Language. Dr Parr, with characteristic enthusiasm, pronounced Mrs Sheridan to be ‘quite celestial,’ and Charles James Eox considered Sidney Biddulph to be the best of all modern novels. Yet, perhaps, this ami- able and gifted woman is now best known from being the mother of Bichard Brinsley Sheridan. THOMAS HOLCROFT. Thomas Holcroft, whose singular history and dramatic performances we have already notieed, was author of several once popular novels. The first was published in 1780, under the title of Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian. This had, and deserved to have, but little success. His second, Anna St Ives , in seven volumes (1792), was well received, and novelists. ENGLISH LITERATURE. bage — sophia and Harriet lee. attracted attention from its political bearings no less than the force of its style and characters. The prin- cipal characters are, as Hazlitt remarks, merely the vehicles of certain general sentiments, or machines, put into action, as an experiment to shew how these general principles would operate in particular situations. The same intention is manifested in his third novel, Hugh Trevor , the first part of which appeared in 1794, and the remainder in 1797. In Hugh Trevor, Holcroft, like Godwin, depicted the vices and distresses which he conceived to be generated by the existing institutions of society. There are some good sketches, and many eloquent and just observations in the work, and those who have read it in youth will remember the vivid impression that some parts are calculated to convey. The political doctrines inculcated by the author are captivating to young minds, and were enforced by Holcroft in the form of well-contrasted characters, lively dialogue, and pointed satire. He was himself a true believer in the practicability of such a Utopian or ideal state of society. The song of Gaffer Gray in Hugh Trevor , which glances ironi- cally at the inhumanity of the rich, has a forcible simplicity and truth in particular cases which made it a favourite with the public. Gaffer Gray. Ho ! why dost thou shiver and shake, Gaffer Gray ? And why does thy nose look so blue ? ‘ ’Tis the weather that ’s cold, ’Tis I ’m grown very old, And my doublet is not very new, Well-a-day ! ’ Then line thy worn doublet with ale, Gaffer Gray ; And warm thy old heart with a glass. ‘Nay, but credit I’ve none, And my money ’s all gone ; Then say how may that come to pass ? Well-a-day ! ’ Hie away to the house on the brow, Gaffer Gray ; And knock at the jolly priest’s door. ‘ The priest often preaches Against worldly riches, But ne’er gives a mite to the poor, Well-a-day ! ’ The lawyer lives under the hill, Gaffer Gray ; Warmly fenced both in back and in front. ‘ He will fasten his locks, And will threaten the stocks Should he ever more find me in want, Well-a-day !’ The squire has fat beeves and brown ale, Gaffer Gray ; And the season will welcome you there. ‘ His fat beeves and his beer, And his merry new year, Are all for the flush and the fair, Well-a-day !’ My keg is but low, I confess, Gaffer Gray ; What then ? While it lasts, man, we ’ll live. ‘ The poor man alone, When he hears the poor moan, Of his morsel a morsel will give, Well-a-day 1* Holcroft wrote another novel, Brian Perdue , but it is greatly inferior to his former productions. His whole works, indeed, were eclipsed by those of Godwin, and have now fallen out of notice. ROBERT BAGE. Another novelist of a similar stamp was Robert Bage, a Quaker, who, like Holcroft, imbibed the principles of the French Revolution, and infused them into various works of fiction. Bage was born at Darley, in Derbyshire, on the 29th of February 1728. His father was a paper-maker, and his son continued in the same occupation through life. His manufactory was at Elford, near Tamworth, where he realised a decent competence. During the last eight years of his life, Bage resided at Tamworth, where he died on the 1st of September 1801. The works of this author are, Mount Kenneth, 1781 ; Barham Doivns, 1784 ; The Fair Syrian , 1787 ; James Wallace , 1788 ; Man as He Is, 1792 ; Herms- prong, or Man as He is Not, 1796. Bage’s novels are decidedly inferior to those of Holcroft, and it is surprising that Sir Walter Scott should have admitted them into his novelists’ library, and at the same time excluded so many superior works. Barham Downs and Hermsprong are the most inter- esting of the series, and contain some good satirical portraits, though the plots of both are crude and defective. SOPHIA AND HARRIET LEE. These ladies, authoresses of The Canterbury Tales, a series of striking and romantic fictions, were the daughters of Mr Lee, a gentleman who had been articled to a solicitor, but who adopted the stage as a profession. Sophia was born in London in 1750. She was the eldest of the sisters, and the early death of her mother devolved upon her the cares of the household. She secretly cultivated, however, a strong attachment to literature. Her first appear- ance as an author was not made till her thirtieth year, when she produced her comedy, The Chapter of Accidents, which was brought out at the Hay- market Theatre by the elder Colman, and received with great applause. The profits of this piece were devoted by Miss Lee towards establishing a semi- nary for young ladies at Bath, which was rendered the more necessary by the death of her father in 1781. Thither, accordingly, the sisters repaired, and their talents and prudence were rewarded by rapid and permanent success. In 1784, she published the first volume of The Recess, or a Tale of Other Times ; which was soon followed by the remainder of the tale, the work having instantly become popular. The time selected by Miss Lee as the subject of her story was that of Queen Elizabeth, and her production may be considered one of the earliest of our historical romances. It is tinged with a melancholy and contemplative spirit ; and the same feeling is displayed in her next production, a tragedy entitled Almeyda , Queen of Grenada, pro- duced in 1796. In the succeeding year, Harriet Lee published the first volume of The Canterbury Tales, which ultimately extended to five volumes. Two only of the stories were the production of Sophia Lee, namely, The Young Lady's Tale, or the Two Emilys, and The Clergyman's Tale. They are characterised by great tenderness and feeling ; but the more striking features of The Canterbury Tales, and the great merit of the collection, belong to. Harriet Lee. Kruitzner , or the German's Tale, fell into the hands of Byron when he was about fourteen. 5R03I 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800 . ‘ It made a deep impression upon me,’ he says, ‘ and may indeed be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written.’ "While residing at Pisa in 1821, Byron dramatised Miss Lee’s romantic story, and published his version of it under the title of Werner, or the Inheritance. The incidents, and much of the language of the play, are directly copied from the novel, and the public were unanimous in considering Harriet Lee as more interesting, pas- sionate, and even more poetical, than her illustrious imitator. ‘ The story,’ says one of the critics whom Byron’s play recalled to the merits of Harriet Lee, ‘ is one of the most powerfully conceived, one of the most picturesque, and at the same time instructive stories, that we are acquainted with. Indeed, thus led as we are to name Harriet Lee, we cannot allow the opportunity to pass without saying that we have always considered her works as standing upon the verge of the very first rank of excellence ; that is ! to say, as inferior to no English novels whatever, excepting those of Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, Richardson, Defoe, Radcliffe, Godwin, Edgeworth, and the author of Waver ley. It would not, perhaps, be going too far to say, that The Canterbury Tales exhibit more of that species of invention, which, as we have already remarked, was never common in English literature, than any of the works even of those first-rate novelists we have named, with the single exception of Fielding. Kruitzner, or the German’s Tale , possesses mystery, and yet clearness, as to its structure, strength of characters, and, above all, the most lively interest, blended with, | and subservient to, the most affecting of moral lessons. The main idea which lies at the root of it is the horror of an erring father, who, having been detected in vice by his son, has dared to defend his own sin, and so to perplex the son’s notions of moral rectitude, on finding that the son in his turn has pushed the false principles thus instilled to the last and worst extreme — on hearing his own sophistries flung in his face by a murderer.’ * The short and spirited style of these tales, and the frequent dia- logues they contain, impart to them something of a dramatic force and interest, and prevent their tiring the patience of the reader, like too many of the three- volume novels. In 1803, Miss Sophia Lee retired from the duties of her scholastic establish- ment, having earned an independent provision for the remainder of her life. Shortly afterwards she published The Life of a Lover , a tale which she had -written early in life, and which is marked by juvenility of thought and expression, though with her usual w r armtk and richness of description. In 1807, a comedy from her pen, called The Assig- nation, was performed at Drury Lane ; but played only once, the audience conceiving that some of the satirical portraits were aimed at popular individuals. Miss Harriet Lee, besides The Canterbury Tales, wrote two dramas, The New Peerage, and The Three Strangers. The plot of the latter is chiefly taken from her German tale. The play was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre in December 1835, but was barely tolerated for one night. A tablet is erected to the memory of these accom- plished sisters in Clifton Church— where they are buried — from which it appears that Sophia Lee was born in May 1750, and died March 13, 1824. . Her sister, Harriet Lee — who long resided in ,the neighbourhood of Bristol, a valued and respepted lady — was born April 11, 1766, and died August 1, 1851. * Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xii 156 [Introduction to the Canterbury Tales.'] There are people in the world who think their lives well employed in collecting shells; there are others not less satisfied to spend theirs in classing butterflies. For my own part, I always preferred animate to inani- mate nature ; and would rather post to the antipodes to mark a new character, or develop a singular incident, than become a fellow of the Royal Society by enriching j museums with nondescripts. From this account you, my gentle reader, may, without any extraordinary pene- tration, have discovered that I am among the eccentric part of mankind, by the courtesy of each other, and themselves, yeleped poets — a title which, however mean or contemptible it may sound to those not honoured wfith it, never yet was rejected by a single mortal on whom the suffrage of mankind conferred it ; no, though the laurel-leaf of Apollo, barren in its nature, was twined by the frozen fingers of Poverty, and shed upon the brow it crowned her chilling influence. But when did it so? Too often destined to deprive its graced owner of every real good by an enchantment which we know not how to define, it comprehends in itself such a variety of pleasures and possessions, that well may one of us cry — Thy lavish charter, taste, appropriates all we see ! Happily, too, we are not like virtuosi in general, encum- bered with the treasures gathered in our peregrinations. , Compact in their nature, they lie all in the small cavi- ties of our brain, which are, indeed, often so small, as to render it doubtful whether we have any at alL The few discoveries I have made in that richest of mines, the human soul, I have not been churl enough to keep to myself ; nor, to say truth, unless I can find out some other means of supporting my corporeal existence than animal food, do I think I shall ever be able to afford that sullen affectation of superiority. Travelling, I have already said, is my taste; and, to make my journeys pay for themselves, my object. Much against my good liking, some troublesome fellows, a few months ago, took the liberty of making a little home of mine their own ; nor, till I had coined a small i portion of my brain in the mint of my worthy friend George Robinson, could I induce them to depart. I gave a proof of my politeness, however, in leaving my house to them, and retired to the coast of Kent, where I fell to work very busily. Gay with the hope of shut- I ting my door on these unwelcome visitants, I walked in a severe frost from Deal to Dover, to secure a seat j in the stage-coach to London. One only was vacant ; and having engaged it, ‘ maugre the freezing of the bitter sky,’ I wandered forth to note the memorabilia of Dover, and was soon lost in one of my fits of exquisite abstraction. 'With reverence I looked up to the cliff which our immortal bard has, with more fancy than truth, described ; with toil mounted, by an almost endless staircase, to the top of a castle, which added nothing to my poor stock of ideas but the length of our virgin queen’s pocket-pistol — that truly Dutch present : cold and weary, I was pacing towards the inn, when a sharp- visaged barber popped his head over his shop-door to j reconnoitre the inquisitive stranger. A brisk fire, j which I suddenly cast my eye on, invited my frozen j hands and feet to its precincts. A civil question to 1 the honest man produced on his part a civil invitation ; i and having placed me in a snug seat, he readily gave ; me the benefit of all his oral tradition. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘it is mighty lucky you came across me. The vulgar people of this town have no genius, sir — no taste; they never shew the greatest curiosity in the place. Six*, we have here the tomb of a poet ! ’ ‘ The tomb of a poet ! ’ cried I, with a spring that NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. electrified my informant no less than myself. ‘What poet lies here ? and where is he buried ? ’ ‘ Ay, that is the curiosity,’ returned he exultingly. I smiled ; his distinction was so like a barber. While he had been speaking, I recollected he must allude to the grave of Churchill — that vigorous genius who, well calculated to stand forth the champion of freedom, has recorded himself the slave of party, and the victim of spleen ! So, however, thought not the barber, who considered him as the first of human beings. ‘ This great man, sir,’ continued he, ‘ who lived and died in the cause of liberty, is interred in a very remarkable spot, sir; if you were not so cold and so tired, sir, I could shew it you in a moment.’ Curiosity is an excellent greatcoat : I forgot I had no other, and strode after the barber to a spot surrounded by ruined walls, in the midst of which stood the white marble tablet marked with Churchill’s name — to appearance its only distinction. ‘ Cast your eyes on the walls,’ said the important barber ; ‘ they once enclosed a church, as you may see! ’ On inspecting the crumbling ruins more narrowly, I did indeed discern the traces of Gothic architecture. ‘ Yes, sir,’ cried my friend the barber, with the con- scious pride of an Englishman, throwing out a gaunt leg and arm, ‘ Churchill, the champion of liberty, is interred here ! Here, sir, in the very ground where King John did homage for the crown he disgraced.’ The idea was grand. In the eye of fancy, the slender pillars again lifted high the vaulted roof that rang with solemn chantings. I saw the insolent legate seated in scarlet pride ; I saw the sneers of many a mitred abbot ; I saw, bareheaded, the mean, the prostrate king; I saw, in short, everything but the barber, whom, in my flight and swell of soul, I had outwalked and lost. Some more curious traveller may, again pick him up, perhaps, and learn more minutely the fact. Waking from my reverie, I found myself on the pier. The pale beams of a powerless sun gilt the fluctuating waves and the distant spires of Calais, which I now clearly surveyed. What a new train of images here sprung up in my mind, borne away by succeeding impressions with no less rapidity! From the monk of Sterne I travelled up in five minutes to the inflexible Edward III. sentencing the noble burghers; and having seen them saved by the eloquence of Philippa, I wanted no better seasoning for my mutton-chop, and pitied the empty-headed peer who was stamping over my little parlour in fury at the cook for having over-roasted his pheasant. The coachman now shewed his ruby face at the door, and I jumped into the stage, where were already seated two passengers of my own sex, and one of — would I could say the fairer! But, though truth may not be spoken at all times, even upon paper, one now and then may do her justice. Half a glance discovered that the good lady opposite to me had never been handsome, and now added the injuries of time to the severity of nature. Civil but cold compliments having passed, I closed my eyes to expand my soul; and, while fabricating a brief poetical history of England, to help short memories, was something astonished to find myself tugged violently by the sleeve; and not less so to see the coach empty, and hear an obstinate waiter insist upon it that we were at Canterbury, and the supper ready to be put on the table. It had snowed, I found, for some time ; in consideration of which mine host had prudently suffered the fire nearly to go out. A dim candle was on the table, without snuffers, and a bell-string hanging over it, at which we pulled, but it had long ceased to operate on that noisy convenience. Alas, poor Shenstone ! how often, during these excursions, do I think of thee. Cold, indeed, must have been thy acceptation in society, if thou couldst seriously say : SOPHIA AND HARRIET LEE. Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round, Where’er his various course has been, Must sigh to think how oft he found His warmest - welcome at an inn. Had the gentle bard told us that, in this sad sub- stitute for home, despite of all our impatience to be gone, we must stay not only till wind and weather, but landlords, postilions, and hostlers choose to permit, I should have thought he knew more of travelling ; and stirring the fire, snuffing the candles, reconnoitring the company, and modifying my own humour, should at once have tried to make the best of my situation. After all, he is a wise man who does at first what he must do at last ; and I was just breaking thq ice on finding that I had nursed the fire to the general satis- faction, when the coach from London added three to our party ; and common civility obliged those who came first to make way for the yet more frozen travellers. We supped together; and I was something surprised to find our two coachmen allowed us such ample time to enjoy our little bowl of punch ; when lo ! with dolor- ous countenances, they came to give us notice that the snow was so heavy, and already so deep, as to make our proceeding by either .road dangerous, if not utterly impracticable. ‘If that is really the case,’ cried I mentally, ‘ let us see what we may hope from the construction of the seven heads that constitute our company.’ Observe, gentle reader, that I do not mean the outward and visible form of those heads ; for I am not amongst the new race of physiognomists who exhaust invention only to ally their own species to the animal creation, and would rather prove the skull of a man resembled an ass, than, looking within, find in the intellect a glorious similitude of the Deity. An elegant author more justly conveys my idea of physiognomy, when he says, that ‘different sensibilities gather into the countenance and become beauty there, as colours mount in a tulip and enrich it.’ It was my interest to be as happy as I could, and that can only be when we look around with a wish to be pleased : nor could I ever find a way of unlocking the human heart but by frankly inviting others to peep into my own. And now for my survey. In the chimney-corner sat my old gentlewoman, a little alarmed at a coffin that had popped from the fire, instead of a purse ; ergo , superstition was her weak side. In sad conformity to declining years, she had put on her spectacles, .taken out her knitting, and thus humbly retired from attention, which she had long, perhaps, been hopeless of attracting. Close by her was placed a young lady from London, in the bloom of nine- teen : a cross on her bosom shewed her to be a Catholic, and a peculiar accent an Irishwoman; her face, espe- cially her eyes, might be termed handsome; of those, archness would have been the expression, had not the absence of her air proved that their sense was turned inward, to contemplate in her heart some chosen cherished image. Love and romance reigned in every lineament. A French abbc had, as is usual with gentlemen of that country, edged himself into the seat by the belle, to whom he continually addressed himself with all sorts of petits soins, though fatigue was obvious in his air ; and the impression of some danger escaped gave a wild sharpness to every feature. ‘ Thou hast comprised,’ thought I, ‘the knowledge of a whole life in perhaps the last month; and then, perhaps, didst thou first study the art of thinking, or learn the misery of feeling !’ Neither of these seemed, however, to have troubled his neighbour, a portly English man WP- »J*ep~' though with a sort of surly good- nature up his place at the fire, yet contrived^f^rM^^i^uwalJ candles, by holding before them a n ew^prf^iCT^Nvli dwelt upon the article of stocks, till a broody di Ireland induced communication, and enaU [oouy «. TM J P { from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. discover that, in spite of the importance of his air, credulity might he reckoned amongst his characteristics. The opposite corner of the fire had been, by general consent, given up to one of the London travellers, whose age and infirmities challenged regard, while his aspect awakened the most melting benevolence. Suppose an anchorite, sublimed by devotion and temperance from all human frailty, and you will see this inter- esting aged clergyman: so pale, so pure was his com- plexion, so slight his figure, though tall, that it seemed as if his soul was gradually divesting itself of the cover- ing of mortality, that when the hour of separating it from the body came, hardly should the greedy grave claim aught of a being so ethereal ! ‘ Oh, what lessons of patience and sanctity couldst thou give,’ thought I, ‘ were it my fortune to find the key of thy heart ! ’ An officer in the middle of life occupied the next seat. Martial and athletic in his person, of a coun- tenance open and sensible, tanned, as it seemed, by severe service, his forehead only retained its whiteness ; yet that, with assimilating graceful manners, rendered him very prepossessing. That seven sensible people, for I include myself in that description, should tumble out of two stage-coaches, and be thrown together so oddly, was, in my opinion, an incident ; and why not make it really one ? I hastily advanced, and, turning my back to the fire, fixed the eyes of the whole company — not on my person, for that was noway singular — not, I would fain hope, upon my coat, which I had forgotten till that moment was threadbare : I had rather of the three imagine my assurance the object of general attention. However, no one spoke, and I was obliged to second my own motion. ‘ Sir,’ cried I to the Englishman, who, by the time he had kept the paper, had certainly spelt its contents, ‘ do you find anything entertaining in that newspaper ? ’ ‘No, sir,’ returned he most laconically. ‘ Then you might perhaps find something entertaining out of it,’ added I. ‘ Perhaps I might,’ retorted he in a provoking accent, and surveying me from top to toe. The Frenchman laughed — so did I — it is the only way when one has been more witty than wise. I returned presently, however, to the attack. ‘How charmingly might we fill a long evening,’ resumed I, with, as I thought, a most ingratiating smile, ‘if each of the company would relate the most remarkable story he or she ever knew or heard of !’ ‘Truly, we might make a long evening that way,’ again retorted my torment, the Englishman. ‘ However, if you please, we will waive your plan, sir, till to-mor- row ; and then we shall have the additional resort of our dreams, if our memories fail us.’ He now, with a negligent yawn, rang, and ordered the chambermaid. The two females rose of course, and in one moment an overbearing clown cut short ‘ the feast of reason and the flow of soul.’ I forgot it snowed, and went to bed in a fever of rage. A charming tale ready for the press in my travelling-desk — the harvest I might make could I prevail on each of the company to tell me another ! Reader, if you ever had an empty purse, and an unread performance of your own burning in your pocket and your heart, I need not ask you to pity me. Fortune, however, more kindly than usual, took my case into consideration ; for the morning shewed me a snow so deep, that had Thomas a Becket condescended to attend at his own shrine to greet those who inquired for it, not a soul could have got at the cathedral to pay their devoirs to the complaisant archbishop. On entering the breakfast-room, I found mine host had, at the desire of some one or other of the company, already produced his very small stock of books, consist- ing of the Army List, the Whole Art of Farriery, and a volume of imperfect magazines; a small supply of mental food for seven hungry people. Vanity never deserts itself : I thought I was greeted with more than common civility ; and having satisfied my grosser appe- tite with tea and toast, resumed the idea of the night before — assuring the young lady that ‘I was certain, from her fine eyes, she could melt us with a tender story; while the sober matron could improve us by a l wise one;’ a circular bow shewed similar hopes from j the gentlemen. The plan was adopted, and the exultation of conscious superiority flushed my cheek. DR JOHN MOORE. Dr John Moore, author of Zeluco and other works, was born at Stirling in the year 1729. His father was one of the clergymen of that town, but died in 1737, leaving seven children to the care of his excellent widow. Mrs Moore removed to Glasgow, where her relations resided, possessed of considerable property. After the usual education at the university of Glasgow, John was put appren- tice to Mr Gordon, a surgeon of extensive practice, with whom Smollett had been apprenticed a few years before. In his nineteenth year, Moore accompanied the Duke of Argyle’s regiment abroad, and attended the military hospitals at Maestricht in the capacity of surgeon’s mate. From thence he went to Flushing and Breda; and on the termination of hostilities, he accompanied General Braddock to England. Soon afterwards, he became household surgeon to the Earl of Albemarle, the British ambassador at the court of Versailles. His old master, Mr Gordon, now invited him to become a partner in his business in Glasgow, and, after two years’ residence in Paris, Moore accepted the invitation. He practised for many years in Glasgow with great success. In 1772, he was induced to accompany the young Duke of Hamilton to the continent, where they resided five years, in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. Returning in 1778, Moore removed his family to London, and commenced physician in the metropolis. In 1779, he published A View of Society and Manners in France , Switzerland, and Germany , in two volumes, which was received with general approbation. In 1781, appeared his View of Society and Manners in Italy ; in 1785, Medical Sketches; and in 1786, his Zeluco: Various Views of Human Nature , taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic. The object of this novel was to prove that, in spite of the gayest and most prosperous appearances, inward misery always accompanies vice. The hero of the tale was the only son of a noble family in Sicily, spoiled by maternal indulgence, and at length rioting in every prodigality and vice. The idea of such a character was probably suggested by Smollett’s Count Fathom, but Moore took a wider range of character and incident. He made his hero accomplished and fascinating, thus avoiding the feeling of contempt with which the abject villainy of Fathom is unavoidably regarded; and he traced, step by step, through a succession of scenes and adventures, the progress of depravity, and the effects of uncontrolled passion. The incident of the favourite sparrow, which Zeluco squeezed to death when a boy, because it did not perform certain tricks which he had taught it, lets us at once into the pampered selfishness and passionate cruelty of his disposition. The scene of the novel is laid chiefly in Italy; and the author’s familiarity with foreign manners enabled him to impart to his narrative numerous new and graphic sketches. Zeluco also serves in the Spanish army; and at another time is a slave-owner in the West Indies. The latter circumstance gives the author an opportunity of condemning the NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR JOHN MOORE. system of slavery with eloquence and humanity, and presenting some affecting pictures of suffering and attachment in the negro race. The death of Hanno, the humane and generous slave, is one of Moore’s most masterly delineations. The various scenes and episodes in the novel relieve the dis- agreeable shades of a character constantly deepen- ing in vice ; for Zeluco has no redeeming trait to link him to our sympathy or forgiveness. Moore visited Scotland in the summer of 1786, and in the commencement of the following year, took a warm interest in the genius and fortunes of Burns. It is to him that we owe the precious autobio- graphy of the poet, one of the most interesting and powerful sketches that ever was written. In their correspondence we see the colossal strength and lofty mind of the peasant-bard, even when placed by the side of the accomplished and learned traveller and man of taste. In August 1792, Dr Moore accompanied the Earl of Lauderdale to Paris, and witnessed some of the early excesses of the French revolution. Of this tour he published an account, entitled A Journal during a Residence in France , from the beginning of August to the middle of December 1792, &c. The first volume of this work was published in 1793, and a second in 1794. In 1795, Dr Moore, wishing to give a retrospective detail of the circumstances which tended to hasten the revolution, drew up a carefully digested narrative, entitled A View of the Causes and Progress of the French Revolution , in two volumes. This is a valuable work, and it has been pretty closely fol- lowed by Sir Walter Scott in his animated and picturesque survey of the events preceding the career of Napoleon. In 1796, Dr Moore produced a second novel, Edward: Various Views of Human Nature , taken from Life and Manners , chiefly in England. As Zeluco was a model of villainy, Edward is a model of virtue. The work, altogether, displays great knowledge of the world, a lively rather than a correct style, and some amusing portraits of English character ; among these, that of Barnet the epicure — who falls in love, and marries a lady for her skill in dressing a dish of stewed carp, and who is made a good husband chiefly by his wife’s cookery and attention to his comforts— is undoubtedly the best. In the follow- ing year, Moore furnished a life of his friend Smollett for a collective edition of his works. In 1800, appeared his last production, Mordaunt: Sketches of Life , Character , and Manners , in Various Countries , including the Memoirs of a French Lady of Quality. In this novel our author, following the example of Richardson, and Smollett’s Humphry Clinker , threw his narrative into the form of letters, part being dated from the continent, and part from England. A tone of languor and insipidity pervades the story, and there is little of plot or incident to keep alive attention. Dr Moore died at Richmond on the 21st of January 1802. A complete edition of his works has been published in seven volumes, with memoirs of his life and writings by Dr Robert Anderson. Of all the writings of Dr Moore, his novel of Zeluco is the most popular. Mr Dunlop has given the preference to Edward. The latter may boast of more variety of character, and is distinguished by judicious observation and witty remark, but it is deficient in the strong interest and forcible painting of the first novel. Zeluco’s murder of his child in a fit of frantic jealousy, and the discovery of the circumstance by means of the picture, is conceived with great originality, and has a striking effect. It is the poetry of romance. The attachment between Laura and Carlostein is also described with tenderness and delicacy, without degenerating into German sentimentalism or immorality. Of the lighter sketches, the scenes between the two Scotchmen, Targe and Buchanan, are perhaps the best ; and their duel about Queen Mary is an inimitable piece of national caricature. On English ground, Dr Moore is a careful observer of men and manners. The conventional forms of society, the smartness of dialogue, the oddities and humours of particular individuals, the charla- tanry of quacks and pretenders, are well portrayed. He fails chiefly in depth of passion and situations of strong interest. In constructing a plot, he is greatly inferior to Smollett or Fielding. Edward, like Tom Jones, is a foundling ; but ‘ the winding- up of the story by the trite contrivance of recog- nising a lost child from a mark on the shoulder, a locket, and a miniature picture,’ forms a humbling contrast to the series of incidents and events, so natural, dramatic, and interesting, by which the birth of Fielding’s hero is established. There is no great aiming at moral effect in Moore’s novels, unless it be in depicting the wretchedness of vice, and its tragic termination in the character of Zeluco. He was an observer rather than an inven- tor ; he noted more than he felt. The same powers of observation displayed in his novels, and his extensive acquaintance with mankind, rendered him an admirable chronicler of the striking scenes of the French Revolution. Numerous as are the works since published on this great event, the journals and remarks of Dr Moore may still be read with pleasure and instruction. It may here be mentioned, that the distinguished Sir John Moore, who fell at Corunna, was the eldest son of the novelist. [Dispute and Duel between the Two Scotch Servants in Italy.'] [From Zeluco .] [Duncan Targe, a hot Highlander, who had been out in the Forty-five, and George Buchanan, born and educated among the Whigs of the west of Scotland, both serving-men in Italy, meet and dine together during the absence of their masters. After dinner, and the bottle having circulated freely, they disagree as to politics, Targe being a keen Jacobite, and the other a stanch Whig.] Buchanan filled a bumper, and gave, for the toast, ‘ The Land of Cakes ! ’ This immediately dispersed the cloud which began to gather on the other’s brow. Targe drank the toast with enthusiasm, saying : ‘ May the Almighty pour his blessings on every hill and valley in it ! that is the worst wish, Mr Buchanan, that I shall ever wish to that land.’ ‘ It would delight your heart to behold the flourishing condition it is now in,’ replied Buchanan ; ‘ it was fast improving when I left it, and I have been credibly informed since that it is now a perfect garden.’ ‘ I am very happy to hear it,’ said Targe. ‘ Indeed,’ added Buchanan, ‘ it has been in a state of rapid improvement ever since the Union.’ ‘ Confound the Union !’ cried Targe; ‘ it would have improved much faster without it.’ ‘ I am not quite clear on that point, Mr Targe,’ said Buchanan. ‘ Depend upon it,’ replied Targe, ‘ the Union was the worst treaty that Scotland ever made.’ ‘ I shall admit,’ said Buchanan, ‘ that she might have made a better ; but, bad as it is, our country reaps some advantage from it.’ ‘ All the advantages are on the side of England.’ ‘ What do you think, Mr Targe,’ said Buchanan, ‘ of 159 from 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1800. tlie increase of trade since the Union, and the riches which have flowed into the Lowlands of Scotland from that quarter ?’ ‘ Think,’ cried Targe ; * why, I think they have done a great deal of mischief to the Lowlands of Scotland.’ ‘ How so, my good friend ?’ said Buchanan. ‘By spreading luxury among the inhabitants, the never-failing forerunner of effeminacy of manners. Why, I was assured,’ continued Targe, ‘by Sergeant Lewis Macneil, a Highland gentleman in the Prussian service, that the Lowlanders, in some parts of Scotland, are now very little better than so many English.’ ‘0 fie!’ cried Buchanan; ‘things are not come to that pass as yet, Mr Targe : your friend, the sergeant, assuredly exaggerates.’ ‘ I hope he does,’ replied Targe ; ‘ but you must acknowledge,’ continued he, ‘that by the Union, Scot- land has lost her existence as an independent state ; her name is swallowed up in that of England. Only read the English newspapers ; they mention England, as if it were the name of the whole island. They talk of the English army, the English fleet, the English everything. They never mention Scotland, except when one of our countrymen happens to get an office under government ; we are then told, with some stale gibe, that the person is a Scotchman : or, which happens still more rarely, when any of them are condemned to die at Tyburn, particular care is taken to inform the public that the criminal is originally from Scotland ! But if fifty Englishmen get places, or are hanged, in one year, no remarks are made.’ ‘ No,’ said Buchanan ; ‘ in that case it is passed over as a thing of course.’ The conversation then taking another turn, Targe, who was a great genealogist, descanted on the antiquity of certain gentlemen’s families in the Highlands ; which, he asserted, were far more honourable than most of the noble families either in Scotland or England. ‘ Is it not shameful,’ added he, ‘that a parcel of mushroom lords, mere sprouts from the dunghills of law or com- merce, the grandsons of grocers and attorneys, should take the pass of gentlemen of the oldest families in Europe ?’ ‘Why, as for that matter,’ replied Buchanan, ‘pro- vided the grandsons of grocers or attorneys are deserving citizens, I do not perceive why they should be excluded from the king’s favour more than other men.’ ‘ But some of them never drew a sword in defence of either their king or country,’ rejoined Targe. ‘ Assuredly,’ said Buchanan, ‘ men may deserve honour and pre-eminence by other means than by drawing their swords.’ [He then instances his celebrated namesake George Buchanan, whom he praises warmly as having been the best Latin scholar in Europe; while Targe upbraids him for want of honesty.] ‘ In what did he ever shew any want of honesty ?’ said Buchanan. ‘ In calumniating and endeavouring to blacken the reputation of his rightful sovereign, Mary Queen of Scots,’ replied Targe, ‘the most beautiful and accom- plished princess that ever sat on a throne.’ ‘ I have nothing to say either against her beauty or her accomplishments,’ resumed Buchanan ; * but surely, Mr Targe, you must acknowledge that she was a V ‘ Have a care what you say, sir !’ interrupted Targe ; ‘ I ’ll permit no man that ever wore breeches to speak disrespectfully of that unfortunate queen !’ ‘ No man that ever wore either breeches or a philabeg,’ replied Buchanan, ‘ shall prevent me from speaking the truth when I see occasion ! ’ ‘Speak as much truth as you please, sir,’ rejoined Targe ; ‘ but I declare that no man shall calumniate the memory of that beautiful and unfortunate princess in my presence while I can wield a claymore.’ 160 ‘ If you should wield fifty claymores, you cannot deny that she was a Papist !’ said Buchanan. ‘ Well, sir,’ cried Targe, ‘ what then ? She was, like other people, of the religion in which she was bred.’ ‘ I do not know where you may have been bred, Mr Targe,’ said Buchanan ; ‘ for aught I know, you may be an adherent to the worship of the scarlet lady yourself. Unless that is the case, you ought not to interest yourself in the reputation of Mary Queen of Scots.’ ‘I fear you are too nearly related to the false slanderer whose name you bear ! ’ said Targe. ‘ I glory in the name ; and should think myself greatly obliged to any man who could prove my relation to the great George Buchanan!’ cried the other. ‘ He was nothing but a disloyal calumniator,’ cried Targe ; ‘ who attempted to support falsehoods by forgeries, which, I thank Heaven, are now fully detected !’ ‘ You are thankful for a very small mercy,’ resumed Buchanan ; ‘ but since you provoke me to it, I will tell you, in plain English, that your bonny Queen Mary was the strumpet of Bothwell and the murderer of her husband ! ’ No sooner had he uttered the last sentence, than Targe flew at him like a tiger, and they were separated with difficulty by Mr N ’s groom, who was in the adjoining chamber, and had heard the altercation. ‘ I insist on your giving me satisfaction, or retracting what you have said against the beautiful Queen of Scotland !’ cried Targe. ‘ As for retracting what I have said,’ replied Buchanan, ‘ that is no habit of mine ; but with regard to giving you satisfaction, I am ready for that to the best of my ability; for let me tell you, sir, though I am not a Highlandman, I am a Scotchman as well as yourself, and not entirely ignorant of the use of the claymore ; so name your hour, and I will meet you to-morrow morning.’ ‘Why not directly?’ cried Targe; ‘there is nobody in the garden to interrupt us.’ ‘I should have chosen to have settled some things first ; but since you are in such a hurry, I will not balk you. I will step home for my sword and be with you directly,’ said Buchanan. The groom interposed, and endeavoured to reconcile the two enraged Scots, but without success. Buchanan soon arrived with his sword, and they retired to a private spot in the garden. The groom next tried to persuade them to decide their difference by fair boxing. This was rejected by both the champions as a mode of fighting unbecoming gentlemen. The groom asserted that the best gentlemen in England sometimes fought in that manner, and gave, as an instance, a boxing-match, of which he himself had been a witness, between Lord Gr.’s gentleman and a gentleman-farmer at York races about the price of a mare. ‘ But our quarrel,’ said Targe, ‘ is about the reputation of a queen.’ ‘ That, for certain,’ replied the groom, ‘ makes a difference.’ Buchanan unsheathed his sword. ‘ Are you ready, sir V cried Targe. ‘ That I am. Come on, sir,’ said Buchanan ; ‘ and the Lord be with the righteous.’ ‘ Amen !’ cried Targe ; and the conflict began. Both the combatants understood the weapon they fought with ; and each parried his adversary’s blows with such dexterity, that no blood was shed for some time. At length Targe, making a feint at Buchanan’s head, gave him suddenly a severe wound in the thigh. ‘ I hope you are now sensible of your error ?’ said Targe, dropping his point. ‘I am of the same opinion I was!’ cried Buchanan; ‘ so keep your guard.’ So saying, he advanced more briskly than ever upon Targe, who, after warding off several strokes, wounded his antagonist a second time. Buchanan, however, shewed no disposition to relinquish NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MRS INCHBALD. I the combat. But this second wound being in the fore- head, and the blood flowing with profusion into his eyes, he could no longer see distinctly, but was obliged to flourish his sword at random, without being able to perceive the movements of his adversary, who, closing with him, became master of his sword, and with the same effort threw him to the ground; and, standing over him, he said : ‘ This may convince you, Mr Buchanan, that yours is not the righteous cause ! You are in my power; but I will act as the queen whose character I defend would order were she alive. I hope you will live to repent of the injustice you have done to that amiable and unfortunate princess.’ He then assisted Buchanan to rise. Buchanan made no immediate answer : but when he saw Targe assisting the groom to stop the blood which flowed from his wounds, he said : * I must acknowledge, Mr Targe, that you behave like a gentleman.’ After the bleeding was in some degree diminished by the dry lint which the groom, who was an excellent farrier, applied to the wounds, they assisted him to his chamber, and then the groom rode away to inform Mr N of what had happened. But the wound becoming more painful, Targe proposed sending for a surgeon. Buchanan then said that the surgeon’s mate, belonging to one of the ships of the British squadron then in the bay was, he believed, on shore, and as he was a Scotchman, he would like to employ him rather than a foreigner. Having mentioned where he lodged, one of Mr N ’s footmen went immediately for him. He returned soon after, saying that the surgeon’s mate was not at his lodging, nor expected for some hours. ‘ But I will go and bring the French surgeon,’ continued the footman. ‘ I thank you, Mr Thomas,’ said Buchanan ; ‘ but I will have patience till my own countryman returns.’ ‘ He may not return for a long time,’ said Thomas. * You had best let me run for the French surgeon, who, they say, has a great deal of skill.’ ‘ I am obliged to you, Mr Thomas,’ added Buchanan ; ‘but neither Frenchman nor Spanishman shall dress my wounds when a Scottishman is to be found for love or money.’ ‘ They are to be found, for the one or the other, as I am credibly informed, in most parts of the world,’ | said Thomas. ‘ As my countrymen,’ replied Buchanan, ‘ are dis- tinguished for letting slip no means of improvement, it would be very strange if many of them did not use that of travelling, Mr Thomas.’ ‘ It would be very strange indeed, I own it,’ said the footman. ‘ But are you certain of this young man’s skill in his business when he does come? ’ said Targe. ‘ I confess I have had no opportunity to know any- thing of his skill,’ answered Buchanan ; ‘ but I know, for certain, that he is sprung from very respectable people. His father is a minister of the gospel, and it is not likely that his fathers son will be deficient in the profession to which he was bred.’ ‘ It would be still less likely had the son been bred to preaching ! ’ said Targe. ‘ That is true,’ replied Buchanan ; ‘ but I have no doubt of the young man’s skill : he seems to be a very douce [discreet] lad. It will be an encouragement to him to see that I prefer him to another, and also a comfort to me to be attended by my countryman.’ ‘ Countryman or not countryman,’ said Thomas, ‘he will expect to be paid for his trouble as well as another.’ ‘ Assuredly,’ said Buchanan ; ‘ but it was always a maxim with me, and shall be to my dying day, that we should give our own fish-guts to our own sea-mews.’ ‘ Since you are so fond of your own sea-mews,’ said Thomas, 4 1 am surprised you were so eager to destroy Mr Targe there.’ 63 ‘That proceeded from a difference in politics, Mr Thomas,’ replied Buchanan, ‘in which the best of friends are apt to have a misunderstanding ; but though I am a Whig, and he is a Tory, I hope we are both honest men ; and as he behaved generously when my life was in his power, I have no scruple in saying that I am sorry for having spoken disrespectfully of any person, dead or alive, for whom he has an esteem.’ ‘Mary Queen of Scots acquired the esteem of her very enemies,’ resumed Targe. ‘The elegance and engaging sweetness of her manners were irresistible to every heart that was not steeled by prejudice or jealousy.’ ‘ She is now in the hands of a Judge,’ said Buchanan, ‘ who can neither be seduced by fair appearances, nor imposed on by forgeries and fraud.’ ‘ She is so, Mr Buchanan,’ replied Targe ; ‘ and her rival and accusers are in the hands of the same Judge.’ ‘We had best leave them all to His justice and mercy then, and say no more on the subject,’ added Buchanan ; ‘for if Queen Mary’s conduct on earth was what you believe it was, she will receive her reward in heaven, where her actions and sufferings are recorded.’ ‘ One thing more I will say,’ rejoined Targe, ‘ and that is only to ask of you whether it is probable that a woman whose conscience was loaded with the crimes imputed to her, could have closed the varied scene of her life, and have met death with such serene and dignified courage as Mary did ? ’ ‘ I always admired that last awful scene,’ replied Buchanan, who was melted by the recollection of Mary’s behaviour on the scaffold ; ‘ and I will freely acknowledge that the most innocent person that ever lived, or the greatest hero recorded in history, could not face death with greater composure than the queen of Scotland : she supported the dignity of a queen while she displayed the meekness of a Christian.’ ‘ I am exceedingly sorry, my dear friend, for the misunderstanding that happened between us ! ’ said Targe affectionately, and holding forth his hand in token of reconciliation : ‘ and I am now willing to believe that your friend, Mr George Buchanan, was a very great poet, and understood Latin as well as any man alive ! ’ Here the two friends shook hands with the utmost cordiality. MRS INCHBALD. Mrs Inchbald, the dramatist, attained deserved celebrity by her novels, A Simple Story , in four volumes, published in 1791, and Nature and Art , two volumes, 1796. As this lady affected plain- ness and precision in style, and aimed at drawing sketches from nature, she probably designated her first novel simple , without duly considering that the plot is intricate and involved, and that some of her characters — as Lord and Lady Elmwood — belong to the ranks of the aristocracy. There are many striking and passionate scenes in the novel, and not- withstanding the disadvantage attending a double plot, the interest is well sustained. The authoress’s knowledge of dramatic rules and effect may be seen in the skilful grouping of her personages, and in the liveliness of the dialogue. Her second work is much simpler and coarser in texture. Its object may be gathered from the concluding maxim — ‘Let the poor no more be their own persecutors — no longer pay homage to wealth — instantaneously the whole idolatrous worship will cease — the idol will be broken.’ Mrs Inchbald illustrated this by her own practice ; yet few of her readers can feel aught but mortification and disappointment at the denoue- ment of the tale, wherein the pure and noble-minded Henry, after the rich promise of his youth and his intellectual culture, finally settles down with his from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. father to ‘ cheerful labour in fishing, or the tending of a garden, the produce of which they carry to the next market-town.’ The following is a brief but striking allusion to the miseries of low London sendee : [Service in London .] In romances, and in some plays, there are scenes of dark and unwholesome mines, wherein the labourer works during the brightest day by the aid of artificial light. There are, in London, kitchens equally dismal, though not quite so much exposed to damp and noxious vapours. In one of these under ground, hidden from the cheerful light of the sun, poor Agnes was doomed to toil from morning till night, subjected to the com- mand of a dissatisfied mistress, who, not estimating as she ought the misery incurred by serving her, constantly threatened her servants with a dismission, at which the unthinking wretches would tremble merely from the sound of the words; for to have reflected — to have considered what their purport was — to be released from a dungeon, relieved from continual upbraidings and vile drudgery, must have been a sub- ject of rejoicing; and yet, because these good tidings were delivered as a menace, custom had made the hearer fearful of the consequence. So, death being described to children as a disaster, even poverty and shame will start from it with affright; whereas, had it been pictured with its benign aspect, it would have been feared but by few, and many, many would welcome it with gladness. Mr Rogers, in the notes to his poem of Human Life , quotes, as from ‘an excellent writer,’ the following sentence from Mrs Inchbald’s Nature and Art: [. Estimates of Happiness .] Some persons, I know, estimate happiness by fine houses, gardens, and parks — others by pictures, horses, money, and various things wholly remote from their own species ; but when I wish to ascertain the real felicity of any rational man, I always inquire whom, he has to love. If I find he has nobody, or does not love those he has — even in the midst of all his profusion of finery and grandeur, I pronounce him a being deep in adversity. [ The Judge and the Victim .] [From Nature and Art.] The day at length is come on which Agnes shall have a sight of her beloved William ! She who has watched for hours near his door, to procure a glimpse of him going out or returning home ; who has walked miles to see his chariot pass ; she now will behold him, and he will see her, by command of the laws of his country. Those laws, which will deal with rigour towards her, are in this one instance still indulgent. The time of the assizes at the county town in which she is imprisoned, is arrived — the prisoners are demanded at the shire-hall — the jail-doors are opened — they go in sad procession. The trumpet sounds — it speaks the arrival of the judge, and that judge is William. The day previous to her trial, Agnes had read, in the printed calendar of the prisoners, his name as the learned judge before whom she was to appear. For a moment she forgot her perilous state in the excess of joy which the still unconquerable love she bore to him permitted her to taste, even on the brink of the grave ! After- reflection made her check those worldly transports, as unfit for the present solemn occasion. But, alas ! to her, earth and William were so closely united, that, till she forsook the one, she could never cease to think, without the contending passions of hope, of fear, of love, of shame, and of despair, on the other. 162 Now fear took place of her first immoderate joy; she feared that, although much changed in person since he had seen her, and her real name now added to many an alias — yet she feared that some well-known glance of the eye, turn of the action, or accent of speech, might recall her to his remembrance ; and at that idea, shame overcame all her other sensations — for still she retained pride, in respect to his opinion, to wish him not to know Agnes was that wretch she felt she was ! Once a ray of hope beamed on her, that if he knew her — if he recog- nised her — he might possibly befriend her cause ; and life, bestowed through William’s friendship, seemed a precious object ! But, again, that rigorous honour she had often heard him boast, that firmness to his word, of which she had fatal experience, taught her to know he would not, for any improper compassion, any unmanly weakness, forfeit his oath of impartial justice. In meditations such as these she passed the sleepless night. When, in the morning, she was brought to the bar, and her guilty hand held up before the righteous judg- ment-seat of William, imagination could not form two figures, or two situations more incompatible with the existence of former familiarity than the judge and the culprit ; and yet, these very persons had passed together the most blissful moments that' either ever tasted! Those hours of tender dalliance were now present to her mind — his thoughts were more nobly employed in his high office ; nor could the haggard face, hollow eye, desponding countenance, and meagre person of the poor prisoner, once call to his memory, though her name was uttered among a list of others which she had assumed, his former youthful, lovely Agnes ! She heard herself arraigned, with trembling limbs and downcast looks, and many witnesses had appeared i against her, before she ventured to lift her eyes up to j her awful judge ; she then gave one fearful glance, and i discovered William, unpitying but beloved William, in \ every feature ! It was a face she had been used to look | on with delight, and a kind of absent smile of gladness j now beamed on her poor wan visage. When every witness on the part of the prosecutor had been examined, the judge addressed himself to her : ‘What defence have you to make?’ It was William spoke to Agnes ! The sound was £weet ; the voice was mild, was soft, compassionate, encouraging. It almost charmed her to a love of life ! Not such a voice as when William last addressed her; when he left her undone and pregnant, vowing never to see or speak to her more. She would have hung upon the present j word for ever. She did not call to mind that this gentleness was the effect of practice, the art of his occu- pation ; which, at times, is but a copy, by the unfeeling, of the benevolent brethren of the bench. In the present judge, tenderness was not designed for consolation of the culprit, but for the approbation of the auditors. There were no spectators, Agnes, by your side when last he parted from you — if there had, the awful William would have been awed to marks of pity. Stunned with the enchantment of that well-known tongue directed to her, she stood like one just petrified — all vital power seemed suspended. Again he put the question, and with these additional sentences, tenderly and emphatically delivered : ‘ Recollect yourself ; have you no witnesses? no proof on your behalf?’ A dead J silence followed these questions. He then mildly but forcibly added : ‘What have you to say?’ Here a flood of tears burst from her eyes, which she fixed earnestly upon him, as if pleading for mercy, while she faintly articulated: ‘Nothing, my lord.’ After a short pause, he asked her in the same forcible but benevolent tone : ‘Have you no one to speak to your character?’ The prisoner answered : ‘ No.’ A second gush of tears followed this reply, for she called to mind by whom her character had first been blasted. He summed up the evidence, and every time he was NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHARLOTTE SMITH. obliged to press bard upon the proofs against her, she shrunk, and seemed to stagger with the deadly blow — writhed under the weight of his minute justice, more than from the prospect of a shameful death. The jury consulted but a few minutes ; the verdict was, ‘ Guilty.’ She heard it with composure. But when William placed the fatal velvet on his head, and rose to pro- nounce the fatal sentence, she started with a kind of convulsive motion, retreated a step or two back, and lifting up her hands, with a scream exclaimed : ‘ Oh, not from you !’ The piercing shriek which accom- panied these words, prevented their being heard by part of the audience ; and those who heard them thought little of their meaning, more than that they expressed her fear of dying. Serene and dignified, as if no such exclamation had been uttered, William delivered the final speech ending with ‘Dead, dead, dead.’ She fainted as he closed the period, and was carried back to prison in a swoon ; while he adjourned the court to go to dinner. If, unaffected by the scene he had witnessed, William sat down to dinner with an appetite, let not the reader conceive that the most distant suspicion had struck his mind of his ever having seen, much less familiarly known, the poor offender whom he had just condemned. Still, this forgetfulness did not proceed from the want of memory for Agnes. In every peevish or heavy hour passed with his wife, he was sure to think of her; yet it was self-love, rather than love of her, that gave rise to these thoughts. He felt the lack of female sympathy and tenderness to soften the fatigue of studious labour, to soothe a sullen, a morose disposition — he felt he wanted comfort for himself, but never once considered what were the wants of Agnes. In the chagrin of a barren bed, he sometimes thought, too, even on the child that Agnes bore him; but whether it were male or female, whether a beggar in the streets or dead, various and important public occu- pation forbade him to inquire. Yet the poor, the widow, and the orphan frequently shared William’s ostenta- tious bounty. He was the president of many excellent charities, gave largely, and sometimes instituted benevo- lent societies for the unhappy ; for he delighted to load the poor with obligation, and the rich with praise. There are persons like him who love to do everything good but that which their immediate duty requires. There are servants that will serve every one more cheer- fully than their masters ; there are men who will distri- bute money liberally to all except their creditors ; and there are wives who will love all mankind better than their own husbands. Duty is a familiar word which has little effect upon an ordinary mind; and as ordi- nary minds make a vast majority, we have acts of generosity, self-denial, and honesty, where smaller pains would constitute greater virtues. Had William followed the common dictates of charity, had he adopted private pity instead of public munificence, had he cast an eye at home before he sought abroad for objects of compassion, Agnes had been preserved from an ignominious death, and he had been preserved from — remorse , the tortures of which he for the first time proved on reading a printed sheet of paper, accidentally thrown in his way a few days after he had left the town in which he had condemned her to die. ‘ March 10, 179-. ‘The last dying words, speech, and confession, birth, parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour, of Agnes Primrose, who was executed this morning between the hours of ten and twelve, pursuant to the sentence passed upon her by the Honourable Justice Nor wynne. ‘Agnes Primrose was bom of honest parents, in the village of Anfield, in the county of •’ (William started at the name of the village and county) ; ‘ but being led astray by the arts and flattery of seducing man, she fell from the paths of virtue, and took to bad company, which instilled into her young heart all their evil ways, and at length brought her to this untimely end. So she hopes her death will be a warning to all young persons of her own sex, how they listen to the praises and courtship of young men, especially of those who are their betters ; for they only 'court to deceive. But the said Agnes freely forgives all persons who have done her injury or given her sorrow, from the young man who first won her heart, to the jury who found her guilty, and the judge who condemned her to death. ‘And she acknowledges the justice of her sentence, not only in respect of her crime for which she suffers, but in regard to many other heinous sins of which she has been guilty, more especially that of once attempt- ing to commit a murder upon her own helpless child ; for which guilt she now considers the vengeance of God has overtaken her, to which she is patiently resigned, and departs in peace and charity with all the world, praying the Lord to have mercy on her parting soul.’ POSTSCRIPT TO THE CONFESSION. ‘ So great was this unhappy woman’s terror of death and the awful judgment that was to follow, that when sentence was pronounced upon her she fell into a swoon, from that into convulsions, from which she never entirely recovered, but was delirious to the time of her execution, except that short interval in which she made her confession to the clergyman who attended her. She has left one child, a youth almost sixteen, who has never forsaken his mother during all the time of her imprisonment, but waited on her with true filial duty ; and no sooner was her final sentence passed than he began to droop, and now lies dangerously ill near the prison from which she is released by death. During the loss of her senses, the said Agnes Primrose raved continually of her child ; and, asking for pen, ink, and paper, wrote an incoherent petition to the judge, recommending the youth to his protection and mercy. But notwithstanding this insanity, she behaved with composure and resignation when the fatal morning arrived in which she was to be launched into eternity. She prayed devoutly during the last hour, and seemed to have her whole mind fixed on the world to which she was going. A crowd of spectators followed her to the fatal spot, most of whom returned weeping at the recol- lection of the fervency with which she prayed, and the impression which her dreadful state seemed to make upon her.’ * * No sooner had the name of ‘Anfield’ struck William, than a thousand reflections and remembrances flashed on his mind to give him full conviction who it was he had judged and sentenced. He recollected the sad remains of Agnes, such as he once had known her ; and now he wondered how his thoughts could have been absent from an object so pitiable, so worthy of his attention, as not to give him even suspicion who she was, either from her name or from her person, during the whole trial. But wonder, astonishment, horror, and every other .sensation was absorbed by — remorse. It wounded, it stabbed, it rent his hard heart as it would do a tender one : it havocked on his firm inflex- ible mind as it would on a weak and pliant brain ! Spirit of Agnes ! look down, and behold all your wrongs revenged ! William feels — remorse. CHARLOTTE SMITH. The novels of Mrs Charlotte Smith aimed more at delineating affections than manners, and they all evinced superior merit. The first, Emmeline , published in 1788, had an extensive sale. Ethelinde (1789), and Celestina (1791), were also received with favour and approbation. These were followed by Desmond (1792), The Old English from 1700 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Manor-house (1793), The Wanderings of Warwick , The Banished Man , Montalbert, Marchmont , The Young Philosopher (1798), &c. She wrote also Rural Walks , and other works. Her best is the Old English Manor-house , in which her descrip- tive powers are found united to an interesting plot and well-sustained dramatis personae. She took a peculiar pleasure in caricaturing lawyers, having herself suffered deeply from the ‘ law’s delay ; ’ and as her husband had ruined himself and family by foolish schemes and projects, she is supposed to have drawn him in the projector who hoped to make a fortune by manuring his estate with old wigs ! Sir Walter Scott, ‘in acknowledgment of many pleasant hours derived from the perusal of Mrs Smith’s works,’ included her in his British Novelists, and prefixed an interesting criticism and memoir. He alludes to her defective narratives or plots, but considers her characters to be conceived with truth and force, though none bear the stamp of actual novelty. He adds, ‘she is uniformly happy in supplying them with language fitted to their station in life ; nor are there many dialogues to be found which are at once so entertaining, and approach so nearly to truth and reality.’ ANN RADCLIFFE. Mrs Ann Radcliffe — who may be denominated the Salvator Rosa of British novelists — was born in London, of respectable parents, on the 9th of July 1764. Her maiden name was Waifi. In her twenty- third year she married Mr William Radcliffe, a student of law, but who afterwards became the editor and proprietor of a weekly paper, the English Chronicle. Two years after her marriage, in 1789, Mrs Radcliffe published her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, the scene of which she laid in Scotland during the remote and warlike times of the feudal barons. This work gave but little indi- cation of the power and fascination which the authoress afterwards evinced. She had made no attempt to portray national manners or historical events — in which, indeed, she never excelled — and the plot was wild and unnatural. Her next effort, made in the following year, was more successful. The Sicilian Romance attracted attention by its romantic and numerous adventures, and the copious descriptions of scenery it contained. These were depicted with the glow and richness of a poetical fancy. ‘Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, and even Walpole,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘though writing upon an imaginative subject, are decidedly prose authors. Mrs Radcliffe has a title to be considered as the first poetess of romantic fiction ; that is, if actual rhythm shall not be deemed essential to poetry.’ * Actual rhythm was also at the command of the accomplished authoress. She has interspersed various copies of verses throughout her works, but they are less truly poetical than her prose. They have great sameness of style and diction, and are often tedious, because introduced in scenes already too protracted with description or sentiment. In 1791 appeared The Romance of the Forest , exhibiting the powers of the novelist in full maturity. To her * This honour more properly belongs to Sir Philip Sidney ; and does not even John Bunyan demand a share of it? In Smollett’s novels there are many poetical conceptions and descriptions. Indeed, on this point Sir Walter partly contra- dicts himself, for he elsewhere states that Smollett expended in his novels many of the ingredients both of grave and humor- ous poetry. Mrs Radcliffe gave a greater prominence to poetical description than any of her predecessors. 164 wonderful talent in producing scenes of mystery and surprise, aided by external phenomena and striking description, she now added the powerful delineation of passion. Her painting of the character of La Motte, hurried on by an evil counsellor, amidst broken resolutions and efforts at recall, to the most dark and deliberate guilt and cruelty, approaches in some respects to the genius of Godwin. Variety of character, however, was not the forte of Mrs Radcliffe. Her strength lay in the invention and interest of her narrative. Like the great painter with whom she has been compared, she loved to sport with the romantic and the terrible — with the striking imagery of the mountain-forest and the lake — the obscure solitude — the cloud and the storm — wild banditti — ruined castles — and with those half-discovered glimpses or visionary shadows of the invisible world which seem at times to cross our path, and which still haunt and thrill the imagi- nation. This peculiar faculty was more strongly evinced in Mrs Radcliffe’s next romance, The Mysteries of Udolpho, published in 1794, which was the most popular of her performances, and is justly considered her best. Mrs Barbauld seems to prefer The Romance of the Forest as more complete in char- acter and story; but in this opinion few will concur: it wants the sublimity and boldness of the later work. The interest, as Scott remarks, ‘ is of a more agitating and tremendous nature, the scenery of a wilder and more terrific description, the characters distinguished by fiercer and more gigantic features. Montoni, a lofty-souled desperado and captain of condottieri, stands beside La Motte and his marquis, like one of Milton’s fiends beside a witch’s familiar. Adeline is confined within a ruined manor-house, but her sister-heroine, Emily, is imprisoned in a huge castle like those of feudal times; the one is attacked and defended by bands of armed banditti, the other only threatened by constables and thief- takers. The scale of the landscape is equally differ- ent ; the quiet and limited woodland scenery of the one work forming a contrast with the splendid and high- wrought descriptions of Italian mountain gran- deur which occur in the other.’ This parallel applies very strikingly to the critic’s own poems, the Lay and Marmion. The latter, like Mrs Radcliffe’s second novel, has blemishes of construction and style from which the first is free ; but it has the breadth and magnificence, and the careless freedom of a master’s hand, in a greater degree than can be found in the first production. About this time Mrs Radcliffe made a journey through Holland and the western frontier of Germany, returning down the Rhine, of which she published an account in 1795, adding to it some observations during a tour to the lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumber- land. The picturesque fancy of the novelist is seen in these sketches, with her usual luxuriance and copiousness of style. In 1797, Mrs Radcliffe made her last appearance in fiction. The Mysteries of Udolpho had been purchased by her publisher for what was then considered an enormous sum, £500 ; but her new work brought her £800. It was entitled The Italian , and displayed her powers in undiminished strength and brilliancy. Having exhausted the characteristics of feudal pomp and tyranny in her former productions, she adopted a new machinery in The Italian , having selected a period when the Church of Rome was triumphant and unchecked. The grand Inquisition, the confes- sional, the cowled monk, the dungeon, and the rack, were agents as terrible and impressive as ever shone in romance. Mrs Radcliffe took up the popular notions on this subject without adhering to historical NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. ANN RADCLIFFE. accuracy, and produced a work which, though very unequal in its execution, contains the most vivid and appalling of all her scenes and paintings. The opening of the story has been praised by all critics for the exquisite art with which the authoress con- trives to excite and prepare the mind of the reader. It is as follows : [ English Travellers Visit a Neapolitan Church .] Within the shade of the portico, a person with folded arms, and eyes directed towards the ground, was pacing behind the pillars the whole extent of the pavement, and was apparently so engaged by his own thoughts as not to observe that strangers were approaching. He turned, however, suddenly, as if startled by the sound of steps, and then, without further pausing, glided to a door that opened into the church, and disappeared. There was something too extraordinary in the figure of this man, and too singular in his conduct, to pass unnoticed by the visitors. He was of a tall thin figure, bending forward from the shoulders ; of a sallow com- plexion and harsh features, and had an eye which, as it looked up from the cloak that muffled the lower part of his countenance, was expressive of uncommon ferocity. The travellers, on entering the church, looked round for the stranger who had passed thither before them, but he was nowhere to be seen ; and through all the shade of the long aisles only one other person appeared. This was a friar of the adjoining convent, who some- times pointed out to strangers the objects in the church which were most worthy of attention, and who now, with this design, approached the party that had just entered. When the party had viewed the different shrines, and whatever had been judged worthy of observation, and were returning through an obscure aisle towards the portico, they perceived the person who had appeared upon the steps passing towards a confessional on the left, and as he entered it, one of the party pointed him out to the friar, and inquired who he was. The friar, turning to look after him, did not immediately reply ; but on the question being repeated, he inclined his head as in a kind of obeisance, and calmly replied : ‘ He is an assassin.’ ‘ An assassin ! ’ exclaimed one of the Englishmen ; 4 an assassin, and at liberty?’ An Italian gentleman who was of the party smiled at the astonishment of his friend. ‘He has sought sanctuary here,’ replied the friar; ‘ within these walls he may not be hurt.’ ‘ Do your altars, then, protect a murderer ? ’ said the Englishman. ‘He could find shelter nowhere else,’ answered the friar meekly. * * * * ‘ But observe yonder confessional,’ added the Italian, ‘ that beyond the pillars on the left of the aisle, below a painted window. Have you discovered it ? The colours of the glass throw, instead of a light, a shade over that part of the church, which perhaps prevents your distinguishing what I mean.’ The Englishman looked whither his friend pointed, and observed a confessional of oak, or some very dark wood, adjoining the wall, and remarked also that it was the same which the assassin had just entered. It con- sisted of three compartments, covered with a black canopy. In the central division was the chair of the confessor, elevated by several steps above the pavement of the church ; and on either hand was a small closet or box, with steps leading up to a grated partition, at which the penitent might kneel, and, concealed from observation, pour into the ear of the confessor the consciousness of crimes that lay heavy at his heart. ‘ You observe it ?’ said the Italian. ‘ I do,’ replied the Englishman ; ‘ it is the same which the assassin had passed into, and I think it one of the most gloomy spots I ever beheld : the view of it is enough to strike a criminal with despair.’ ‘We in Italy are not so apt to despair,’ replied the Italian smilingly. ‘Well, but what of this confessional?’ inquired the Englishman. * The assassin entered it.’ ‘He has no relation with what I am about to men- tion,’ said the Italian; ‘but I wish you to mark the place, because some very extraordinary circumstances belong to it.’ ‘What are they ?’ said the Englishman. ‘ It is now several years since the confession which is connected with them was made at that very confes- sional,’ added the Italian ; ‘ the view of it, and the sight of the assassin, with your surprise at the liberty which is allowed him, led me to a recollection of the story. When you return to the hotel I will communicate it to you, if you have no pleasanter mode of engaging your time.’ ‘After I have taken another view of this solemn edifice,’ replied the Englishman, ‘and particularly of the confessional you have pointed to my notice.’ While the Englishman glanced his eye over the high roofs and along the solemn perspectives of the Santa del Pianto, he perceived the figure of the assassin stealing, from the confessional across the choir, and, shocked on again beholding him, he turned his eyes, and hastily quitted the church. The friends then separated, and the Englishman soon after returning to his hotel, received the volume. He read as follows. After such an introduction, who could fail to con- tinue the perusal of the story ? Scott has said that one of the fine scenes in The Italian where Schedoni the monk — an admirably drawn character — is 4 in the act of raising his arm to murder his sleeping victim, and discovers her to be his own child, is of a new, grand, and powerful character ; and the horrors of the wretch who, on the brink of murder, has just escaped from committing a crime of yet more exaggerated horror, constitute the strongest painting which has been produced by Mrs Radcliffe’s pencil, and form a crisis well fitted to be actually embodied on canvas by some great master.’ Most of this lady’s novels abound in pictures and situations as striking and as well grouped as those of the artist and melodramatist. The latter years of Mrs Radcliffe were spent in retirement, partly induced by ill health. She had for a long period been afflicted with spasmodic asthma, and an attack proved fatal to her on the 7th of Eebruary 1823. She died in London, and was interred in a vault of the chapel-of ease at Bayswater, belonging to St George’s, Hanover Square. A posthumous romance by Mrs Radcliffe, entitled Gaston de Blondeville, was published under the editorial superintendence of Serjeant Talfourd, arid her poems were collected and published in 1834. The success which crowned Mrs Radcliffe’s romances led several writers to copy her peculiar manner, but none approached to the original either in art or genius. She eclipsed all her imitators and contemporaries in exciting emotions of surprise, awe, and terror, and in constructing a story which should carry the reader forward with undiminished anxiety to its close. Ijjhe dwelt always in the regions of romance. She does not seem ever to have attempted humour or familiar narrative, and there is little of real character or natural incident in her 165 fsom 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. works. The style of which she may be considered the founder is powerfully attractive, and few are able to resist the fascinations of her narrative, but that style is obviously a secondary one. To delineate character in the many-coloured changes of life, to invent natural, lively, and witty dialogues and situations, and to combine the whole, as in Tom Jones , in a regular progressive story, complete in all its parts, is a greater intellectual effort than to construct a romantic plot where the author is not confined to probability or to the manners and insti- tutions of any particular time or country. When Scott transports us back to the days of chivalry and the crusades, we feel that he is embodying history, animating its records with his powerful imagination, and introducing us to actual scenes and persons such as once existed. His portraits are not of one, but of various classes. There is none of this reality about Mrs Radcliffe’s creations. Her scenes of mystery and gloom will not bear the light of sober investigation. Deeply as they affect the imagination at the time, after they have been once unfolded before the reader, they break up like dreams in his recollection. The remembrance of them is confused, though pleasant, and we have no desire to return to what enchanted us, unless it be for some passages of pure description. The want of moral interest and of character and dialogue, natural and truthful, is the cause of this evanescence of feeling. "When the story is unravelled, the great charm is over — the talisman ceases to operate when we know the materials of which it is composed. Mrs Radcliffe restricted her genius by an arbi- trary rule of composition. She made the whole of her mysterious circumstances resolve into natural causes. The seemingly supernatural agencies are explained to be palpable and real : every mystery is cleared up, and often by means very trifling or dis- proportioned to the end. ‘ In order to raise strong emotions of fear and horror in the body of the work, the author is tempted to go lengths, to account for which the subsequent explanations seem utterly inadequate. Thus, for example, after all the wonder and dismay, and terror and expectation excited by the mysterious chamber in the castle of Udolpho, how much are we disappointed and disgusted to find that all this pother has been raised by a waxen statue ! 5 * In one sense, this restriction increases our admiration of the writer, as evincing, in general, the marvellous ingenuity with which she prepares, invents, and arranges the incidents for immediate effect as well as subsequent explanation. Every feature in the surrounding landscape or objects described — every subordinate circumstance in the scene, however minute, is so disposed as to deepen the impression and keep alive curiosity. This pre- lude, as Mrs Barbauld has remarked, ‘like the tuning of an instrument by a skilful hand, has the effect of producing at once in the mind a tone of feeling correspondent to the future story.’ No writer has excelled, and few have approached, Mrs Radcliffe in this peculiar province. A higher genius, however, would have boldly seized upon supernatural agency as a proper element of romance. There are feelings and superstitions lurking in every breast which would have responded to such an appeal ; and while we have the weird sisters of Macbeth, and the unburied majesty of Denmark, all must acknowledge the adaptation of such machinery to produce the greatest effects of which human genius is capable. The ultimate explana- tions of Mrs Radcliffe certainly give a littleness to ^ * Dunlop’s History of Fiction. the preliminary incidents which affected us so powerfully while they were dim and obscure and full of mystery. It is as if some theatrical artist were to display to his audience the coarse and mean materials by which his brilliant stage-effects were produced, instead of leaving undisturbed the strong impressions they have produced on the imagination. Apart, however, from this defect — which applies only to the interest of the plot or narrative — the situations and descriptions of Mrs Radcliffe are in the highest degree striking and perfect. She had never been in Italy when she wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho , yet her paintings of Italian scenery, and of the mountains of Switzerland, are conceived with equal truth and richness of colouring. And what poet or painter has ever surpassed — Byron has imitated — her account of the first view of Venice, as seen by her heroine Emily, ‘ with its islets, palaces, and terraces rising out of the sea ; and as they glided on, the grander features of the city appearing more distinctly — its terraces crowned with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched with the splendour of the setting sun, appearing as if they had been called up from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter rather than reared by human hands.’ Her pictures are innumerable, and they are always introduced with striking effect. The romantic colouring which Mrs Radcliffe could throw over actual objects, at the same time preserving their symmetry and appearance entire, is finely displayed in her English descriptions, one of which (Hardwick) is included among our extracts. [Description of the Castle of Udolpho.'] Towards the close of the day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains, whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible, almost surrounded it. To the east, a vista opened, and exhibited the Apennines in their darkest horrors; and the long perspective of retiring summits rising over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stronger image of grandeur than any that Emily had yet seen. The sun had just sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending, whose long shadow stretched athwart the valley; but his sloping rays, shooting through an opening of the cliffe, touched with a yellow gleam the summits of the forest that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed in full splendour upon the towers and battlements of a castle that spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The splendour of these illumined objects was heightened by the contrasted shade which involved the valley below. ‘ There,’ said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours, ‘ is Udolpho.’ Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni’s; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the Gothic great- ness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark gray stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From these, too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze till its clustering towers were alone seen rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend. The extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened NOVELISTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS. terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and soon after reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal hell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice ; hut the gloom that overspread it allowed her to distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy walls of the ramparts, and to know that it was vast, ancient, and dreary. From the parts she saw, she judged of the heavy strength and ■extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts, was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by overhanging turrets embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved long grass and wild plants that had taken root among the mouldering stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge portcullis surmounting the gates ; from these the walls of the ramparts extended to other towers, over- looking the precipice, whose shattered outline, appearing on a gleam that lingered in the west, told of the ravages of war. Beyond these all was lost in the obscurity of evening. [. Hardwick , in Derbyshire .] Northward, beyond London, we may make one stop, after a country not otherwise necessary to be noticed, to mention Hardwick, in Derbyshire, a seat of the Duke of Devonshire, once the residence of the Earl of Shrews- bury, to whom Elizabeth deputed the custody of the unfortunate Mary. It stands on an easy height, a few miles to the left of the road from Mansfield to Chester- field, and is approached through shady lanes, which con- ceal the view of it till you are on the confines of the park. Three towers of hoary gray then rise with great majesty among old woods, and their summits appear to be covered with the lightly shivered fragments of battlements, which, however, are soon discovered to be perfectly carved open work, in which the letters E. S. frequently occur under a coronet, the initials and the memorials of the vanity of Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, who built the present edifice. Its tall features, of a most picturesque tint, were finely disclosed between the luxuriant woods and over the lawns of the park, which every now and then let in a glimpse of the Derbyshire hills. In front of the great gates of the castle court, the ground, adorned by old oaks, suddenly sinks to a darkly shadowed glade, and the view opens over the vale of Scarsdale, hounded by the wild mountains of the Peak. Immediately to the left of the present residence, some ruined features of the ancient one, enwreathed with the rich drapery of ivy, give an interest to the scene, which the later but more historical structure heightens and prolongs. We followed, not without emotion, the walk which Mary had so often trodden, to the folding-doors of the great hall, whose lofty grandeur, aided by silence, and seen under the influence of a lowering sky, suited the temper of the whole scene. The tall windows, which half subdue the light they admit, just allowed us to distinguish the large figures in the tapestry above the oak wainscoting, and shewed a colonnade of oak support- ing a gallery along the bottom of the hall, with a pair of gigantic elk’s horns flourishing between the windows opposite to the entrance. The scene of Mary’s arrival, and her feelings upon entering this solemn shade, came involuntarily to the mind ; the noise of horses’ feet, and many voices from the court ; her proud, yet gentle and melancholy look, as, led by my lord-keeper, she passed slowly up the hall ; his somewhat obsequious, yet jealous and vigilant air, while, awed by her dignity and beauty, he remembers the terrors of his own queen ; the silence and anxiety of her maids, and the bustle of the surrounding attendants. From the hall, a staircase ascends to the gallery of a small chapel, in which the chairs and cushions used by Mary still remain, and proceeds to the first story, where only one apartment bears memorials of her imprisonment — the bed, tapestry, and chairs, having been worked by herself. This tapestry is richly embossed with emblematic figures, each with its title worked above it, and having been scrupulously pre- served, is still entire and fresh. Over the chimney of an adjoining dining-room, to which, as well as to other apartments on this floor, some modern furniture has been added, is this motto, carved in oak : ‘ There is only this : To fear God, and keep his com- mandments.’ So much less valuable was timber than workmanship when this mansion was constructed, that where the staircases are not of stone, they are formed of solid oaken steps, instead of planks ; such is that from the second or state story to the roof, whence, on clear days, York and Lincoln cathedrals are said to be included in the extensive prospect. This second floor is that which gives its chief interest to the edifice. Nearly all the apartments of it were allotted to Mary ; some of them for state purposes ; and the furniture is known, by other proof than its appearance, to remain as she left it. The chief room, or that of audience, is of uncommon loftiness, and strikes by its grandeur, before the venera- tion and tenderness arise which its antiquities and the plainly told tale of the sufferings they witnessed excite. [An Italian Landscape .] These excursions sometimes led to Puzzuoli, Baia, or the woody cliffs of Pausilippo ; and as, on their return, they glided along the moonlight bay, the melodies of Italian strains seemed to give enchantment to the scenery of its shore. At this cool hour the voices of the vine-dressers were frequently heard in trio, as they reposed after the labour of the day on some pleasant promontory under the shade of poplars ; or the brisk music of the dance from fishermen on the margin of the waves below. The boatmen rested on their oars, while their company listened to voices modulated by sensi- bility to finer eloquence than it is in the power of art alone to display ; and at others, while they observed the airy natural grace which distinguishes the dance of the fishermen and peasant-girls of Naples. Frequently, as they glided round a promontory, whose shaggy masses impended far over the sea, such magic scenes of beauty unfolded, adorned by these dancing groups on the bay beyond, as no pencil could do justice to. The deep clear waters reflected every image of the landscape ; the cliffs, branching into wild forms, crowned with groves whose rough foliage often spread down their steeps in picturesque luxuriance ; the ruined villa on some bold point peeping through the trees ; peasants’ cabins hang- ing on the precipices, and the dancing figures on the strand — all touched with the silvery tint and soft shadows of moonlight. On the other hand, the sea, trembling with a long line of radiance, and shewing in the clear distance the sails of vessels stealing in every direction along its surface, presented a prospect as grand as the landscape was beautiful. MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS. Among the most successful imitators of Mrs Radcliffe’s peculiar manner and class of subjects, was Matthew Gregory Lewis, whose wild romance, The Manic, published in 179G, was received with mingled astonishment, censure, and applause. The first edition was soon disposed of, and in preparing FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. a second, Lewis threw out some indelicate passages which had given much offence. He might have carried his retrenchments further with benefit both to the story and its readers. The Monk was a youth- ful production, written, as the author states in his rhyming preface, when he ‘scarce had seen his twentieth year.’ It has all the marks of youth, except modesty. Lewis was the boldest of hobgoblin Matthew Gregory Lewis. writers, and dashed away fearlessly among scenes of monks and nuns, church processions, Spanish cava- liers, maidens and duennas, sorcerers and enchant- ments, the Inquisition, the wandering Jew, and even Satan himself, whom he brings in to execute justice visibly and without compunction. The hero, Ambrosio, is abbot of the Capuchins at Madrid, and from his reputed sanctity and humility, and his eloquent preaching, he is surnamed the Man of Holiness. Ambrosio conceives himself to be ex- empted from the failings of humanity, and is severe in his saintly judgments. He is full of religious enthusiasm and pride, and thinks himself proof against all temptation. The hint of this character was taken from a paper in the Guardian , and Lewis filled up the outline with considerable energy and skilful delineation. The imposing presence, strong passions, and wretched downfall of Ambrosio, are not easily forgotten by the readers of the novel. The haughty and susceptible monk is tempted by an infernal spirit — the Mephistopliiles of the tale — who assumes the form of a young and beautiful woman, and, after various efforts, completely triumphs over the virtue and the resolutions of Ambrosio. He proceeds from crime to crime, till he is stained with the most atrocious deeds, his evil genius, Matilda, being still his prompter and asso- ciate, and aiding him by her powers of conjuration and sorcery. He is at length caught in the toils, detected in a deed of murder, and is tried, tortured, and convicted by the Inquisition. While trembling at the approaching auto da fe, at which he is sentenced to perish, Ambrosio is again visited by Matilda, who gives him a certain mysterious book, by reading which he is able to summon Lucifer to 168 his presence. Ambrosio ventures on this desperate expedient. The Evil One appears — appropriately preceded by thunder and earthquake — and the wretched monk, having sold his hope of salvation to recover his liberty, is borne aloft far from his dungeon, but only to be dashed to pieces on a rock. Such is the outline of the monk’s story, in which there is certainly no shrinking from the super- natural machinery that Mrs Radcliffe adopted only in semblance, without attempting to make it real. Lewis relieved his narrative by episodes and love- scenes, one of which — the bleeding nun — is told with great animation. He introduces us also to a robber’s hut in a forest, in which a striking scene occurs, evidently suggested by a similar one in Smollett’s Count Fathom. Besides his excessive use of conjurations and spirits to carry on his story, Lewis resorted to another class of horrors, which is simply disgusting; namely, loathsome images of mortal corruption and decay, the festering relics of death and the grave. The account of the confine- ment of Agnes in the dungeon below the shrine of St Clare, and of her dead child, which she persisted in keeping constantly in her arms, is a repulsive description of this kind, puerile and offensive, though preceded by the masterly narrative of the ruin and conflagration of the convent by the exasperated populace. The only other tale by Lewis which has been reprinted is the Bravo of Venice , a short production, in which there is enough of banditti, disguises, plots, and mysterious adventures — the dagger and the bowl— but nothing equal to the best parts of The Monk. The style is more chaste and uniform, and some Venetian scenes are picturesquely de- scribed. The hero, Abellino, is at one time a beggar, at another a bandit, and ends by marrying the lovely niece of the Doge of Venice — a genuine character for the mock-heroic of romance. In none of his works does Lewis evince a talent for humour. [Scene of Conjuration by the Wandering 'Jew.] [Raymond, in The Monk, is pursued by a spectre repre- senting a bleeding nun, which appears at one o’clock in the morning, repeating a certain chant, and pressing her lips to his. Every succeeding visit inspires him with greater horror, and he becomes melancholy and deranged in health. His servant, Theodore, meets with a stranger, who tells him to bid his master wish for him when the clock strikes one, and the tale, as related by Raymond, proceeds. The ingenuity with which Lewis avails himself of the ancient legend of the Wandering Jew, and the fine description of the conjuration, are worthy of note.] He was a man of majestic presence; his counte- nance was strongly marked, and his eyes were large, black, and sparkling; yet there was a something in his look which, the moment that I saw him, inspired me with a secret awe, not to say horror. He was dressed plainly, his hair was unpowdered, and a band of black velvet, which encircled his forehead, spread over his features an additional gloom. His countenance wore the marks of profound melancholy, his step was slow, and his manner grave, stately, and solemn. He saluted me with politeness, and having* replied to the usual compliments of introduction, he motioned to Theodore to quit the chamber. The page instantly withdrew. ‘I know your business,’ said he, without giving me time to speak. ‘ I have the power of releasing you from your nightly visitor ; but this cannot be done before Sunday. On the hour when the Sabbath morn- ing breaks, spirits of darkness have least influence over mortals. After Saturday, the nun shall visit you no more.’ ‘ May I not inquire,’ said I, 4 by what means HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DAVID HUME. you are in possession of a secret which I have carefully concealed from the knowledge of every one ? ’ ‘ How can I he ignorant of your distresses, when their cause at this moment stands before you ?’ I started. The stranger continued : * Though to you only visible for one hour in the twenty-four, neither day nor night does she ever quit you ; nor will she ever quit you till you have granted her request.’ ‘And what is that request?’ ‘ That she must herself explain ; it lies not in my know- ledge. Wait with patience for the night of Saturday ; all shall be then cleared up.’ I dared not press him further. He soon after changed the conversation, and talked of various matters. He named people who had ceased to exist for many centuries, and yet with whom he appeared to have been personally acquainted. I could not mention a country, however distant, which he had not visited ; nor could I sufficiently admire the extent and variety of his information. I remarked to him, that having travelled, seen, and known so much, must have given him infinite pleasure. He shook his head mournfully. ‘No one,’ he replied, ‘is adequate to comprehending the misery of my lot ! Fate obliges me to be constantly in movement ; I am not permitted to pass more than a fortnight in the same place. I have no friend in the world, and, from the restlessness of my destiny, I never can acquire one. Fain would I lay down my miserable life, for I envy those who enjoy the quiet of the grave ; but death eludes me, and flies from my embrace. In vain do I throw myself in the way of danger. I plunge into the ocean — the waves throw me back with abhorrence upon the shore ; I rush into fire — the flames recoil at my approach ; I oppose myself to the fury of banditti — their swords become blunted, and break against my breast. The hungry tiger shudders at my approach, and the alligator flies from a monster more horrible than itself. God has set his seal upon me, and all his creatures respect this fatal mark.’ He put his hand to the velvet which was bound round his forehead. There was in his eyes an expression of fury, despair, and malevolence, that struck horror to my very soul. An involuntary convulsion made me shudder. The stranger perceived it. ‘Such is the curse imposed on me,’ he continued ; ‘ I am doomed to inspire all who look on me with terror and detestation. You already feel the influence of the charm, and with every succeeding moment will feel it more. I will not add to your sufferings by my presence. Farewell till Saturday. As soon as the clock strikes twelve, expect me at your chamber.’ Having said this, he departed, leaving me in aston- ishment at the mysterious turn of his manner and conversation. His assurances that I should soon be relieved from the apparition’s visits produced a good effect upon my constitution. Theodore, whom I rather treated as an adopted child than a domestic, was sur- prised, at his return, to observe the amendment in my looks. He congratulated me on this symptom of return- ing health, and declared himself delighted at my having received so much benefit from my conference with the Great Mogul. Upon inquiry I found that the stranger had already passed eight days in Ratisbon. According to his own account, therefore, he was only to remain there six days longer. Saturday was still at a distance of three. Oh ! with what impatience did I expect its arrival ! In the interim, the bleeding nun continued her nocturnal visits ; but hoping soon to be released from them altogether, the effects which they produced on me became less violent than before. The wished-for night arrived. To avoid creating suspicion, I retired to bed at my usual hour; but as soon as my attendants had left me, I dressed myself again, and prepared for the stranger’s reception. He entered my room upon the turn of midnight. A small chest was in his hand, which he placed near the stove. He saluted me without speaking ; I returned the com- pliment, observing an equal silence. He then opened the chest. The first thing which he produced was a small wooden crucifix ; he sunk upon his knees, gazed upon it mournfully, and cast his eyes towards heaven. He seemed to be praying devoutly. At length he bowed his head respectfully, kissed the crucifix thrice, and quitted his kneeling posture. He next drew from the chest a covered goblet; with the liquor which it con- tained, and which appeared to be blood, he sprinkled the floor ; and then dipping in it one end of the crucifix, he described a circle in the middle of the room. Round about this he placed various reliques, skulls, thigh- bones, &c. I observed that he disposed them all in the forms of crosses. Lastly, he took out a large Bible, and beckoned me to follow him into the circle. I obeyed. ‘Be cautious not to utter a syllable !’ whispered the stranger : ‘ step not out of the circle, and as you love yourself, dare not to look upon my face.’ Holding the crucifix in one hand, the Bible in the other, he seemed to read with profound attention. The clock struck one ; as usual, I heard the spectre’s steps upon the staircase, but I was not seized with the accustomed shivering. I waited her approach with confidence. She entered the room, drew near the circle, and stopped. The stranger muttered some words, to me unintelligible. Then rais- ing his head from the book, and extending the crucifix towards the ghost, he pronounced in a voice distinct and solemn : ‘ Beatrice ! Beatrice ! Beatrice ! ' ‘ What wouldst thou ?’ replied the apparition in a hollow falter- ing tone. ‘What disturbs thy sleep? Why dost thou, afflict and torture this youth ? How can rest be restored to thy unquiet spirit V ‘I dare not tell, I must not tell. Fain would I repose in my grave, but stern commands force me to prolong my punishment!’ ‘Knowest thou this blood ? Knowest thou in whose veins it flowed ? Beatrice ! Beatrice ! in his name I charge thee to answer me.’ ‘I dare not disobey my taskers.’ ‘Darest thou disobey me ? ’ He spoke in a commanding tone, and drew the sable band from his forehead. In spite of his injunction to the contrary, curiosity would not suffer me to keep my eyes off his face : I raised them, and beheld a burning cross impressed upon his brow. For the horror with which this object inspired me I cannot account, but I never felt its equal. My senses left me for some moments; a mysterious dread overcame my courage ; and had not the exorciser caught my hand, I should have fallen out of the circle. When I recovered myself, I perceived that the burning cross had produced an effect no less violent upon the spectre. Her counte- nance expressed reverence and horror, and her visionary limbs were shaken by fear. ‘Yes,’ she said at length, ‘ I tremble at that mark ! I respect it ! I obey you f Know, then, that my bones lie still unburied — they rot in the obscurity of Lindenberg-hole. None but this youth has the right of consigning them to the grave. His own lips have made over to me his body and his soul ; never will I give back his promise ; never shall he know a night devoid of terror unless he engages to collect my mouldering bones, and deposit them in the family vault of his Andalusian castle. Then let thirty masses be said for the repose of my spirit, and I trouble this world no more. Now let me depart; those flames are scorching.’ He let the hand drop slowly which held the crucifix, and which till then he had pointed towards her. The apparition bowed her head, and her form melted into air. HISTORIANS. DAVID HUME. Relying on the valuable collections of Carte ; animated 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 Elizabeth and against the Stuarts ; and master of a from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. style singularly fascinating, simple, and graceful, the celebrated David Hume left his philosophical studies to embark in historical composition. This eminent person was a native of Scotland, horn of a good family, being the second son of Joseph Homfe — the historian first spelt the name Hume — laird of Ninewells, near Dunse, in Berwickshire. David was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April 1711. After attending the University of Edinburgh, his friends were anxious that he should commence 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 Prance, where he passed some years in literary retirement, living with the utmost frugality and care on the small allowance made him by his family. He returned in 1737 to publish his first philo- sophical work, the Treatise on Human Nature , which he acknowledges ‘fell dead-born from the press.’ A third part appeared in 1740; and in 1742 he produced two volumes, entitled Essays Moral and Philosophical. Some of these miscellaneous productions are remarkable for research and dis- crimination, and for elegance of style. In 1745, he undertook the charge of the Marquis of Annandale, a young nobleman of deranged intellects ; and in this humiliating employment the philosopher con- tinued about a twelvemonth. He next made an unsuccessful attempt 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 afterwards ambassador to the courts of Vienna and Turin. In the latter, Hume enjoyed congenial and refined society. Having remodelled his Treatise on Human Nature , he repub- lished it in 1751 under the title of an Inquiry Con- cerning the Principles of Morals. Next year he issued two volumes of Political Discourses , and, with a view to the promotion of his studies, assumed gratuitously the office 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 , containing the reigns of James I. and Charles I. It was 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 work, that he intended retir- ing to France, changing his name, and never more returning to his native country. The breaking out of the war with Prance prevented this step, but we suspect the complacency of Hume and his love of Scotland would otherwise have frustrated his inten- tion. A second volume of the history was published, with more success, in 1757 ; a third and fourth in 1759; and the last two in 1762. The work became highly popular ; edition followed edition ; and by universal consent, Hume was placed at the head of English historians. In 1763 our author accompanied the Earl of Hertford on his embassy to Paris, where he was received with marked dis- tinction. In 1766 he returned to Scotland, but was induced next year to accept the situation of under- secretary of state, which he held for two years. With a revenue of £1000 a year — which he con- sidered opulence — the historian retired to his native city, where 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 disposition, 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 opposed to the tone of scepticism which pervades all his writings. His opinions were never obtruded on his friends : he threw out dogmas for the learned, not food for the multitude. The History of Hume is not a work of high autho- rity, but it is one of the most easy, elegant, and interesting narratives in the language. He was constantly subjecting it to revision in point of style, but was content to take his authorities at second- hand. The striking parts of his subject are related with a picturesque and dramatic force ; and his dissertations on the state of parties and the ten- dency of particular events, are remarkable for the philosophical tone in which they are conceived and written. He was too indolent to be exact ; too indifferent to sympathise heartily with any political party ; too sceptical on matters of religion to appre- ciate 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’ sake against the tyranny of the Stuarts, excited with him no other feelings than those of ridicule or contempt. He could even forget the merits and exaggerate the faults of the accomplished and chivalrous Raleigh, to shelter the sordid injustice of a weak and contemptible sove- reign. No hatred of oppression burns through his pages. The careless epicurean repose of the philos- opher was not disturbed by any visions of liberty, or any ardent aspirations for the improvement of mankind. Yet Hume was not a slavish worshipper of power. In his personal character, he was liberal and independent: ‘he had early in life,’ says Sir James Mackintosh, ‘ conceived an antipathy to the Calvinistic 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 purely despotic and absolute before the accession of the Stuarts. A love of effect, no less than his constitutional indolence, may have betrayed the historian into inconsistencies, and prompted some of his exaggeration and high colouring relative to the unfortunate Charles I., his trial and execution. Thus, in one page we are informed that ‘ the height of all iniquity and fanatical extravagance yet remained — the public trial and execution of the sovereign.’ Three pages further on, the historian remarks : ‘ The pomp, the dignity, the ceremony of this transaction, corresponded to the greatest conception that is suggested in the annals of humankind ; the delegates of a great people sitting in judgment 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 illus- trate his theory of the sudden elevation of Cromwell into importance, the historian states that about the meeting of parliament in 1640, the name of Oliver HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DAVID HUME. is not to be found oftener than twice upon any committee, whereas the journals of the House of Commons shew that before the time specified, Cromwell was in forty-five committees, 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 estimated and developed ; the large admissions which the author makes to his opponents ; and the high importance he everywhere assigns to the cultivation 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 portrait by Reynolds differs from the rude draughts of a country artist. The latter may be the more faithful external like- ness, but is wanting in all that gives grace and sentiment, sweetness or loftiness, to the general composition. Ample information as to the life and character and studies of Hume was given to the world in the Life and Correspondence of David Hume , two volumes, 1816, by John Hill Burton, advocate. [State of Parties at the Reformation in England.'] 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 counteract the will of Heaven, which, for the purpose of universal salvation, had published that salutary doctrine to all nations ; that if this practice were not very absurd, the artifice at least was very gross, and proved a conscious- ness 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 own eyes, and to examine whether the claims of the ecclesiastics were founded on that charter which was on all hands acknowledged to be 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 contending doctrines of different sects, the proper materials for decision, and, above all, the Holy Scriptures, should be set before them; and the revealed will of God, which the change of language had somewhat obscured, be again by their means revealed to mankind. 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 appointed for their spiritual direction ; that the people were, by their ignorance, their stupidity, their necessary avoca- tions, totally unqualified to choose their own 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 compass 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 questions were placed far beyond the sphere of vulgar compre- hension ; and ecclesiastics themselves, though assisted by all the advantages of education, erudition, and an assiduous study of the science, 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 Avisest heathens prove how unfit men were to grope their own way through this profound 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, contained 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 poetical style in which a great part of it was composed, 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 derive its tenets from the Scriptures; and would be able, by specious arguments, to seduce silly women and ignorant mechanics into a belief of the most monstrous prin- ciples ; and that if ever this disorder, dangerous to the magistrate himself, received a remedy, it must be from the tacit acquiescence of the people in some new autho- rity; and it was evidently better, without further contest or inquiry, to adhere peaceably to ancient, and therefore the more secure, establishments. [The Middle Ages — Progress of Freedom.] Those who cast their eye on the general revolutions of society, w r ill 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 bar- barism. The unlimited extent of the Roman empire, and the consequent despotism of its monarch s, extin- guished 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, rendered even the lives and properties of men insecure and pre- carious ; and proved destructive to those vulgar and more necessary arts of agriculture, manufactures, and com- merce ; and in the end, to the military art and genius itself, by which alone the immense fabric of the empire could be supported. 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 ignorance, 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 exalt- ation, from which human affairs naturally return in a contrary direction, and beyond which they seldom pass, either in their advancement or decline. The period in which the people of Christendom were the lowest sunk in ignorance, and consequently in disorders of every kind, may justly be fixed at the eleventh century, about the age of William the Conqueror ; and from that era the sun of science, beginning to reascend, 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 subsist- ence at home, and were no longer tempted to desert their industry 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 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. that strange species of civil polity was ill fitted to insure either liberty or tranquillity, it was preferable to the universal licence and disorder which had every- where preceded it. It may appear strange that the progress of the arts, which seems, among the Greeks and Romans, to have daily increased 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 villeins as domestic servants, much less as manufac- turers; but composed their retinue of freemen, whose military spirit rendered the chieftain formidable to his neighbours, and who were ready to attend him in every warlike enterprise. The villeins were entirely occupied in the cultivation of their master’s land, and paid their rents either in corn 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 possession. In proportion as agri- culture improved and money increased, it was found that these services, though extremely burdensome to the villein, were of little advantage to the master ; and that the produce of a large estate could be much more con- veniently 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 villenage went gradually into disuse throughout the more civilised parts of Europe : the interest of the master as well as that of the slave concurred in this alteration. The latest 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 Eliza- beth, the distinction of villein 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 incidents happened which revived her tender- ness for Essex, and filled her with the deepest sorrow for the consent which she had unwarily given to his execution. The Earl of Essex, after his return from the fortun- ate expedition against Cadiz, observing the increase of the queen’s fond attachment towards him, took occasion to regret that the necessity of her service required him often to be absent from her person, and exposed him to all those ill offices which his enemies, more assiduous in their attendance, could employ against him. She was moved with this tender jealousy ; and making him the present of a ring, desired him to keep that pledge of her affection, and assured him that into whatever disgrace he should fall, whatever prejudices she might be induced to entertain against him, yet if he sent her that ring, she would immediately, upon sight of it, recall her former tenderness, would afford him a patient 172 hearing, and would lend a favourable ear to his apology. Essex, notwithstanding all his misfortunes, reserved this precious gift to the last extremity; but after his trial and condemnation, he resolved to try the experi- ment, and he committed the ring to the Countess of Nottingham, whom he desired to deliver it to the queen. The countess was prevailed on by her husband, the mortal enemy of Essex, not to execute the commission ; and Elizabeth, who still expected that her favourite would make this last appeal to her tenderness, and who ascribed the neglect of it to his invincible obstinacy, was, after much delay and many internal combats, pushed by resentment and policy to sign the warrant for his execution. The Countess of Nottingham falling: into sickness, and affected with the near approach of death, was seized with remorse for her conduct; and having obtained a visit from the queen, she craved her pardon, and revealed to her the fatal secret. The queen, astonished with this incident, burst into a furious passion : she shook the dying countess in her bed ; and crying to her that God might pardon her, but she never could, she broke from her, and thenceforth resigned her- self over to the deepest and most incurable melancholy.. She rejected all consolation ; she even refused food and sustenance; and, throwing herself on the floor, she remained sullen and immovable, feeding her thoughts- on her afflictions, and declaring life and existence an insufferable burden to her. Few words she uttered ;. and they were all expressive of some inward grief which she cared not to reveal : but sighs and groans were the chief vent which she gave to her despondency, and; which, though they discovered her sorrows, were never able to ease or assuage them. Ten days and nights she lay upon the carpet, leaning on cushions which her maids brought her : and her physicians could not persuade her to allow herself to be put to bed, much less to make trial of any remedies which they prescribed to her. Her anxious mind at last had so long preyed on her frail body, that her end was visibly approaching ; and the council being assembled, sent the keeper, admiral, and secretary, to know her will with regard to her successor. She answered with a faint voice that as she had held a regal sceptre, she desired no other than a royal successor. Cecil requesting her to explain herself more particularly, she subjoined that she would have a king to succeed her ; and who should that be but her nearest kinsman, the king of Scots ? Being then advised by the archbishop of Canterbury to fix her thoughts upon God, she replied that she did so, nor did her mind in the least wander from him. Her voice soon after left her ; her senses failed ; she fell into a lethargic slumber* which continued some hours, and she expired gently, without further struggle or convulsion (March 24, 1603), in the seventieth year of her age and forty-fifth of her reign. So dark a cloud overcast the evening of that day, which had shone out with a mighty lustre in the eyes of all Europe. There are few great personages in his- tory who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies and the adulation of friends than Queen Eliza- beth; and yet there is scarcely any whose reputation has been more certainly determined by the unanimous consent of posteiity. The unusual length of her admin- istration, and the strong features of her character, were able to overcome all prejudices ; and obliging her detractors to abate much of their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last, in spite of political factions, and what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigour, her constancy, her mag- nanimity, her penetration, vigilance, and address, are- allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne : a conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been requisite to form a perfect character. By the force of HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR WILLIAM ROBERTSON. her mind she controlled all her more active and stronger qualities, and prevented them from running into excess : her heroism was exempt from temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship from partiality, her active temper from turhulency and a vain ambition : she guarded not herself with equal care or equal success from lesser infirmities; the rivalship of beauty, the desire of admiration, the jealousy of love, and the sallies of anger. Her singular talents for government were founded -equally on her temper and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over her people; and while she merited all their esteem by her real virtues, she also engaged their affections by her pretended ones. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne in more difficult circumstances; and none ever conducted the government with such uniform success and felicity. Though unacquainted with the practice of toleration — the true secret for managing religious factions — she preserved her people, by her superior prudence, from those confusions in which theological controversy had involved all the neighbouring nations : and though her enemies were the most powerful princes of Europe, the most active, the most enterprising, the least scrupulous, she was able by her vigour to make deep impressions on their states; her own greatness meanwhile remained untouched and unimpaired. The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished under her reign, share the praise of her success; but instead of lessening the applause due to her, they make great addition to it. They owed, all of them, their advancement to her choice ; they were supported by her constancy, and with all their abilities, they were never able to acquire any undue ascendant over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she remained equally mistress : the force of the tender passions was great over her, but the force of her mind was still superior ; and the combat which her victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments. The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prejudices both of faction and bigotry, yet lies still exposed to another prejudice, which is more durable because more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting beyond measure or diminishing the lustre of her character. This prejudice is founded on the con- sideration of her sex. When we contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest admir- ation of her great qualities and extensive capacity ; but we are also apt to require some more softness of dispo- sition, some greater lenity of temper, some of those amiable weaknesses by which her sex is distinguished. But the true method of estimating her merit is to lay aside all these considerations, and consider her merely as a rational being placed in authority, and intrusted with the government of mankind. We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife or a mistress ; but her qualities as a sovereign, though with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undis- puted applause and approbation. DR WILLIAM ROBERTSON. Dr William Robertson was born at Borthwick, county of Edinburgh, in the year 1721. His father was a clergyman, minister of Borthwick, and after- wards of the Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh : the son was also educated for the church. In 1743 he was appointed minister of Gladsmuir, in Haddington- shire, whence he removed, in 1758, to be incumbent of Lady Yester’s parish in Edinburgh. He had distinguished himself by his talents in the General Assembly ; but it was not till 1759 that he became known as a historian. In that year he published his History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI., till his Accession to the Crown of England , by which his fortune was benefited to the extent of £600, and his fame was by one effort placed on an imperishable basis. No first work was ever more successful. The author was congratulated by all who were illustrious for their rank or talents. He was appointed chaplain of Stirling Castle ; in two years afterwards, he was nominated one of his majesty’s chaplains in ordinary for Scotland ; and he was successively made principal of the university of Edinburgh, and historiographer for Scotland, with a salary of £200 per annum. Stimulated by such success, as well as by a love of composition, Dr Robertson continued his studies, and in 1769 he produced his History of the Reign of Charles V., in three volumes, quarto, for which he received from the booksellers the princely sum of £4500. It was equally well received with his former work. In 1777 he published his History of America, and in 1791 his Historical Disquisition on Ancient India, a slight work, to which he had been led by Major Rennel’s Memoirs of a Map of Hindostan. For many years Dr Robertson was leader of the moderate party in the Church of Scotland, in which capacity he is said to have evinced in the General Assembly a readiness and eloquence in debate which his friend Gibbon might have envied in the House of Commons. After a gradual decay of his powers, this accom- plished historian died on the 11th of June 1793, in the seventy-first year of his age. The History of Scotland possesses the interest and something of the character of a memoir of Mary Queen of Scots. This unfortunate princess forms the attraction of the work ; and though Robertson is not among the number of her indiscriminate admirers and apologists, he labours — with more of the art of the writer to produce a romantic and interesting narrative, than with the zeal of the philosopher to establish truth — to awaken the sympathies of the reader strongly in her behalf. The luminous historical views and retrospects in which this historian excels, were indicated in his introductory chapter on Scottish history, prior to the birth of Mary. Though a brief and rapid summary, this chapter is finely written, and is remarkable equally for elegance and perspicuity. The style of Robertson seems to have surprised his contemporaries ; and Horace Walpole, in a letter to the author, expresses the feeling with his usual point and vivacity. ‘ Before I read your History, I should probably have been glad to dictate to you, and (I will venture to say it— it satirises nobody but myself) should have thought I did honour to an obscure Scotch clergyman by directing his studies by my superior lights and abilities. How you have saved me, sir, from making a ridiculous figure, by making so great a one yourself! But could I suspect that a man I believe much younger, and whose dialect I scarce understood, and who came to me with all the diffidence and modesty of a very middling author, and who I was told had passed his life in a small living near Edinburgh — could I then suspect that he had not only written what all the world now allows the best modern history, but that he had written it in the purest English, and with as much seeming knowledge of men and courts as if lie had passed all his life in important embassies ? ’ This is delicate though somewhat overstrained flattery. Two of the quarto volumes of Hume’s History had then been published, and his inimitable essays were also before the world, shewing that in FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. mere style a Scotchman could carry off the palm for ease and elegance. Robertson is more uniform and measured than Hume. He has few salient points, and no careless beauties. His style is a full and equable stream, that rolls everywhere the same, without lapsing into irregularity, or overflowing its prescribed course. It wants spirit and variety. Of grandeur or dignity there is no deficiency ; and when the subject awakens a train of lofty or philos- ophical ideas, the manner of the historian is in fine accordance with his matter. When he sums up the character of a sovereign, or traces the progress of society and the influence of laws and government, we recognise the mind and language of a master in historical composition. The artificial graces of his style are also finely displayed in scenes of tenderness and pathos, or in picturesque description. His account of the beauty and sufferings of Mary, or of the voyage of Columbus, when the first glimpses of the new world broke upon the adventurers, possesses almost enough of imagination to rank it with poetry. The whole of the History of America is indeed full of the strongest interest. The discovery of so vast a portion of the globe, the luxuriance of its soil, the primitive manners of its natives, the pomp, magni- ficence, and cruelty of its conquerors, all form a series of historical pictures and images that power- fully affect the mind. No history of America can ever supplant the work of Robertson, for his materials are so well arranged, his information so varied, his philosophical reflections so just and striking, and his narrative so graceful, that nothing could be added but mere details destitute of any interest. His History of the Reign of Charles V. wants this natural romance, but the knowledge displayed by the historian, and the enlarged and liberal spirit of his philosophical inquiries, are scarcely less worthy of commendation. The first volume, which describes the state of Europe previous to the sixteenth century, contains the result of much study and research, expressed in language often eloquent, and generally pleasing and harmonious. If the ‘pomp and strut’ which Cowper the poet imputes to Robertson be sometimes apparent in the orderly succession of well-balanced and equally flowing periods, it must be acknow- ledged that there is also much real dignity and power, springing from the true elevation of intellec- tual and moral character. A late acute critic, Mr Gifford, has thus discrimi- nated between the styles of Hume and Robertson : ‘Hume, the most contracted in his subject, is the most finished in execution ; the nameless number- less graces of his style; the apparent absence of elaboration, yet the real effect produced by efforts the most elaborate ; the simplicity of his sentences, the perspicuity of his ideas, the purity of his expression, entitle him to the name and to the praises of another Xenophon. Robertson never attained to the same graceful ease, or the same unbounded variety of expression. With a fine ear and exact judgment in the construction of his sen- tences, and with an absence of Scotticisms truly wonderful in one who had never ceased to converse with Scotsmen, there is in the sentences of this his- torian something resembling the pace of an animal disciplined by assiduous practice to the curb, and never moving but in conformity to the rules of the manege. The taste of Hume was Greek — Attic Greek: he had, as far as the genius of the two languages would permit, collected the very juice and flavour of their style, and transfused it into his own. Robertson, we suspect, though a good, was never a profound scholar : from the peculiar nature of his education, and his early engagement in the duties of his profession, he had little leisure to be learned. Both, in their several ways, were men of the world ; but Hume, polished by long intercourse with the best society in France, as well as his own country, transferred some portion of easy high- breeding from his manners to his writings ; while his friend, though no man was ever more completely emancipated from the bigotry of a Scots minister, or from the pedantry of the head of a college, in ' his intercourse — which he assiduously courted — with the great, did not catch that last grace and polish which intercourse without equality will never produce, and which, for that reason, mere savans rarely acquire from society more liberal or more dignified than what is found in their own rank.’ [Character of Mary Queen of $cofs.] To all the charms of beauty and the utmost elegance of external form, she added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and of writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, i however, and violent in all her attachments, because her heart was warm and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation, which, in that perfidious court where she received her education, was reckoned among the necessary arts of government. Not insensible of flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qualities which we love, not with the talents that we admire, she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of dis- cretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes. To say that she was always unfortunate will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befell her ; we must likewise add that she was often imprudent. Her passion for Darnley was rash, youthful, and excessive. And though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill-requited love, and of his ingratitude, insolence, and brutality, yet neither these nor Bothwell’s artful address and important services can justify her attachment to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion ; nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon it with less abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character which it cannot approve, and may, perhaps, prompt some to impute her actions to her situation more than to her dispositions, and to lament the unhappiness of the former rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary’s sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiser- ation ; and while we survey them, we> are apt altogether to forget her frailties ; we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue. With regard to the queen’s person, a circumstance not to be omitted in writing the history of a female reign, all contemporary authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance and elegance of shape of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black, though, according to the fashion of that age, she fre- quently wore borrowed locks, and of different colours. Her eyes were a dark gray, her complexion was exqui- sitely fine, and her hands and arms remarkably delicate. HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. both as to shape and colour. Her stature was of a height that rose to the majestic. She danced, she walked, and rode with equal grace. Her taste for music was just, and she both sung and played upon the lute with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life she began to grow fat, and her long confinement and the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned, brought on a rheumatism, which deprived her of the use of her limbs. ‘ No man,’ says Brantome, ‘ ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or will read her history without sorrow.’ [Martin Luther .] [From the History of Charles V.] While appearances of danger daily increased, and the tempest which had been so long a gathering was ready to break forth in all its violence against the Protestant church, Luther was saved, by a seasonable death, from feeling or beholding its destructive rage. Having gone, though in a declining state of health, and during a rigorous season, to his native city of Eysleben, in order to compose, by his authority, a dissension among the counts of Mansfield, he was seized with a violent inflam- mation in his stomach, which in a few days put an end to his life, in the sixty-third year of his age. As he was raised up by Providence to be the author of one of the greatest and most interesting revolutions recorded in history, there is not any person, perhaps, whose character has been drawn with such opposite colours. In his own age, one party, struck with horror and inflamed with rage, when they saw with what a daring hand he overturned everything which they held to be sacred, or valued as beneficial, imputed to him not only all the defects and vices of a man, but the qualities of a demon. The other, warmed with the admiration and gratitude which they thought he merited as the restorer of light and liberty to the Christian church, ascribed to him perfections above the condition of humanity, and viewed all his actions with a veneration bordering on that which should be paid only to those who are guided by the immediate inspiration of Heaven. It is his own conduct, not the undistinguishing censure or the exaggerated praise of his contemporaries, that ought to regulate the opinions of the present age concerning him. Zeal for what he regarded as truth, undaunted intrepidity to maintain his own system, abilities, both natural and acquired, to defend his principles, and unwearied industry in propagating them, are virtues which shine so conspicuously in every part of his behaviour, that even his enemies must allow him to have possessed them in an eminent degree. To these may be added, with equal justice, such purity and even austerity of manners as became one who assumed the character of a reformer ; such sanctity of life as suited the doctrine which he delivered ; and such perfect disinterestedness as affords no slight presumption of his sincerity. Superior to all selfish considerations, a stranger to the elegances of life, and despising its pleasures, he left the honours and emoluments of the church to his disciples, remaining satisfied himself in his original state of professor in the university, and pastor of the town of Wittemberg, with the moderate appointments annexed to these offices. His extraor- dinary qualities were alloyed with no inconsiderable mixture of human frailty and human passions. These, however, were of such a nature, that they cannot be imputed to malevolence or corruption of heart, but seem to have taken their rise from the same source with many of his virtues. His mind, forcible and vehement in all its operations, roused by great objects, or agitated by violent passions, broke out, on many occasions, with an impetuosity which astonishes men of feebler spirits, or such as are placed in a more tranquil situation. By carrying some praiseworthy dispositions to excess, he bordered sometimes on what was culpable, and was HR WILLIAM ROBERTSON. often betrayed into actions which exposed him to censure. His confidence that his own opinions were well founded, approached to arrogance ; his courage in asserting them, to rashness ; his firmness in adhering to them, to obstinacy ; and his zeal in confuting his adversaries, to rage and scurrility. Accustomed him- self to consider everything as subordinate to truth, he expected the same deference for it from other men ; and without making any allowances for their timidity or prejudices, he poured forth against such as disappointed him, in this particular, a torrent of invective mingled with contempt. Regardless of any distinction of rank or character when his doctrines were attacked, he chas- tised all his adversaries indiscriminately with the same rough hand ; neither the royal dignity of Henry VIII., nor the eminent learning and abilities of Erasmus, screened them from the same gross abuse with which he treated Tetzel or Eccius. But these indecencies, of which Luther was guilty, must not be imputed wholly to the violence of his temper. They ought to be charged in part on the man- ners of the age. Among a rude people, unacquainted with those maxims which, by putting continual restraint on the passions of individuals, have polished society and rendered it agreeable, disputes of every kind were managed with heat, and strong emotions were uttered in their natural language without reserve or delicacy. At the same time, the works of learned men were all composed in Latin, and they were not only authorised, by the example of eminent writers in that language, to use their antagonists with the most illiberal scurrility; but in a dead tongue, indecencies of every kind appear less shocking than in a living language, whose idioms and phrases seem gross, because they are familiar. In passing judgment upon the characters of men, we ought to try them by the principles and maxims of their own age, not by those of another; for although virtue and vice are at' all times the same, manners and customs vary continually. Some parts of Luther’s behaviour, which appear to us most culpable, gave no disgust to his contemporaries. It was even by some of those ; qualities, which we are now apt to blame, that he was fitted for accomplishing the great work which he under- j took. To rouse mankind, when sunk in ignorance or [ superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, 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 j it was addressed. A spirit more amiable, but less I 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 1492, 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, and 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 naviga- tion, he gave out that they had proceeded only five hundred and eighty-four leagues; and, fortunately for Columbus, neither his own pilot nor those of the other ships had skill sufficient to correct this error and dis- cover the deceit. They had now been above three weeks at sea; they had proceeded far beyond what former navigators had attempted or deemed possible ; all their prognostics of discovery, drawn from the flight of bii;ds FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. 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 concerning the intention and cir- cumstances of their expedition. They made impression at first upon the ignorant and timid, and extending by degrees to such as were better informed or more resolute, the contagion spread at length from ship to ship. From secret whispers or murmurings they pro- ceeded to open cabals and public complaints. They faxed 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 own subjects in prosecuting a ■chimerical scheme. They affirmed that they had fully performed their duty by venturing so far in an unknown and hopeless course, and could 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 keep 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 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 fhat, upon their return to Spain, the death of an unsuccessful projector would excite little concern, and be inquired into with no curiosity. Columbus was fully sensible of his perilous situation. He had observed, with great uneasiness, the fatal opera- tion of ignorance and of fear in producing disaffection among his crew, and saw that it was now ready to burst out into open mutiny. He retained, however, perfect presence of mind. He affected to seem ignorant of their machinations. Notwithstanding the agitation and soli- citude of his own mind, he appeared with a cheerful countenance, like a man satisfied with the progress he had made, and confident of success. Sometimes he employed all the arts of insinuation to soothe his men. Sometimes he endeavoured to work upon their ambition or avarice by magnificent descriptions of the fame and wealth which they were about to acquire. On other occasions he assumed a tone of authority, and threatened them with vengeance from their sovereign if, by their dastardly behaviour, they should defeat this noble effort to promote 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 persuasive, 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 imitation of the Portuguese navigators, who had been guided in several of their discoveries by the motion of birds, altered his course from due west towards 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 countenance. All sense of subordi- 17G nation was lost. The officers, who had hitherto con- curred 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 expostu- lations, and required 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 pro- position 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 as could not be supposed to fly far from the shore. The crew of the Pinta observed 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 appearance; 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 expectation, 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 ahead 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 Te Deum, 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-condemnation, mingled with reverence. They implored him to pardon their HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR WILLIAM ROBERTSON. ignorance, incredulity, and insolence, 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 themselves to their view. Columbus was the first European who set foot on the new world which he had discovered. 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 them- selves 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 formalities which the Portuguese were accustomed to observe in acts of this kind in their new discoveries. The Spaniards, while thus employed, were surrounded by many of the natives, who gazed in silent admiration upon actions which they could not comprehend, and of which they did not foresee the consequences. The dress of the Spaniards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards, their arms, appeared strange and surprising. The vast machines in which they had traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the waters with 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, who 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 different from those which flourished in Europe. The soil seemed to be rich, but bore few marks of cultiva- tion. The climate, even to the Spaniards, 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 per- fectly smooth. Their complexion was of a dusky 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 transports 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, accom- panied 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 surprising 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 and undiscerning, had no foresight of the calamities and desolation which were approaching their country ! [Chivalry.] 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 character, 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 which 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 accord- ing to the laws of arms, included everything 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 and 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 justice, where their ignorance exposed them to contempt. They became weary of attending to the discussion of cases which grew too intricate for them to comprehend. 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 know- ledge 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 consideration and influence in society. They were advanced to honours which had been con- sidered hitherto as the peculiar rewards of military virtue. They were intrusted with offices of the highest dignity and most extensive power. Thus, another pro- fession than that of arms came to be introduced among the laity, and was reputed honourable. The functions of civil life were attended to. The talents requisite for discharging 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 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 caprice, and the source of extravagance, arose naturally from the state of society at that period, and had a very serious influence in refining the manners 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 administration of justice too feeble to redress them. The most effectual protection against violence and oppression was often found to be that which the valour and generosity .of private persons afforded. The same spirit of enterprise from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. which had prompted so many gentlemen to take arms in defence of the oppressed pilgrims in Palestine, incited others to declare themselves the patrons and avengers of injured innocence at home. When the final reduction of the Holy Land, under the dominion of infidels, put an end to these foreign expeditions, the : latter was the only employment left for the activity and j courage of adventurers. To check the insolence of over- ' grown oppressors ; to rescue the helpless from captivity ; to protect or to avenge women, orphans, and ecclesias- ! tics, who could not bear arms in their own defence ; to redress wrongs and remove grievances; were deemed acts of the highest prowess and merit. Valour, human- | ity, courtesy, justice, honour, were the characteristic qualities of chivalry. To these were added religion, i which mingled itself with every passion and institution i during the middle ages, and by infusing a large propor- tion 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 admitted into the order by solemnities no less devout than pomp- ous ; every person of noble birth courted that honour ; it was deemed 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 wonderfully adapted to the taste and genius of martial nobles ; and its effects were soon visible in their manners. War was carried on with less ferocity when humanity came to be deemed the ornament of knighthood no less than courage. More gentle and polished manners were : introduced when courtesy was recommended 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 religious attention to fulfil I every engagement, became the distinguishing charac- | teristic of a gentleman, because chivalry was regarded 1 as the school of honour, and inculcated the most deli- cate sensibility with respect to those points. The admiration of these qualities, together with the high distinctions and prerogatives conferred on knighthood in every part of Europe, inspired persons of noble birth on some occasions with a species of military fanaticism, and led them to extravagant enterprises. But they deeply imprinted on their minds the principles of i 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 permanent effects of the spirit of chivalry have been less observed. Perhaps the humanity which accom- panies all the operations of war, the refinements of gallantry, and the point of honour — the three chief circumstances which distinguish modem from ancient manners — may be ascribed in a great measure to this institution, 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 fifteenth centuries. They were so deeply rooted, that they con- tinued to operate after the vigour and reputation of the institution itself began to decline. [Characters of Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V.] During twenty-eight years, an avowed rivalship sub- sisted between Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V., which involved not only their own dominions, but the greatest part of Europe, in wars which were prosecuted with more violent animosity, and drawn out to a greater length, than had been known in any former period. Many circumstances contributed to this. Their animosity 178 was founded in opposition of interest, heightened by personal emulation, and exasperated, not only by mutual injuries, but by reciprocal insults. At the same time, whatever advantage one seemed to possess towards gain- ing the ascendant, was wonderfully balanced by some favourable circumstance peculiar to the other. The emperor’s dominions were of greater extent ; the French king’s lay more compact. Francis governed his kingdom with absolute power; that of Charles was limited, but he supplied the want of authority by address. The troops of the former were more impetuous and enterprising ; those of the latter better disciplined, and more patient of fatigue. The talents and abilities of the two monarchs were as different as the advantages which they possessed, and contributed no less to prolong the contest between them. Francis took his resolutions suddenly, prosecuted them at first with warmth, and pushed them into execution with a most adventurous courage ; but being destitute of the perseverance necessary to surmount difficulties, he often abandoned his designs, or relaxed the vigour of pursuit from impatience, and sometimes from levity. Charles delib- erated long, and determined with coolness ; but having once fixed his plan, he adhered to it with inflexible obstinacy, and neither danger nor discouragement could turn him aside from the execution of it. The success of their enterprises was suitable to the diversity of their characters, and was uniformly influenced by it. Francis, by his impetuous activity, often disconcerted the emperor’s best-laid schemes; Charles, by a more calm but steady prosecution of his designs, checked the rapidity of his rival’s career, and baffled or repulsed his most vigorous efforts. The former, at the opening of a war or of a campaign, broke in upon the enemy with the violence of a torrent, and carried all before him; the latter, waiting until he saw the force of his rival begin- ning to abate, recovered in the end not only all that he had lost, but made new acquisitions. Few of the French monarch’s attempts towards conquest, whatever promis- ing aspect they might wear at first, were conducted to a happy issue ; many of the emperor’s enterprises, even after they appeared desperate and impracticable, terminated in the most prosperous manner. In 1763 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- buted to Lords Chesterfield, Orrery, and Lyttelton, and in purity and grace of style surpassed the writ- ings of any of the reputed authors. The success of this compilation afterwards led Goldsmith to compile a more extended history of England, and abridg- ments of Grecian and Roman history. Even in this subordinate walk, to which nothing but necessity compelled him, Goldsmith was unrivalled. Lord Lyttelton afterwards came forward himself as a historian, though of but a limited period. His History of the Reign of Henry II., on which he had bestowed years of study, is a valuable repertory of facts, but a dry and uninteresting composition. The first three volumes were published in 1764, and the conclusion in 1771. Of a similar char- acter are the Historical Memoirs and Lives — Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh, Henry Prince of Wales, &c. — written by Dr Thomas Birch, of the Royal Society. These works drew attention to the materials that existed for a history of domestic manners, always more interesting than state diplo- macy or wars ; * and Dr Robert Henry (1718-1790) * For at least part of our history, a mass of facts relating to events and individuals had been accumulated in the Political State of Great Britain, a monthly publication from 1711 to 1740, or in sixty volumes; and in the Uittorical Register, HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD GIBBON. entered upon a History of Great Britain , in which particular attention was to be given to this depart- ment. The first volume was published in 1771, and four others at intervals between that time and 1785. This work realised to its author the large sum of £3300, and was rewarded with a pension from the crown of £100 per annum. Henry’s work does not come further down than the reign of Henry VIII. In our own days, the plan of a history with copious information as to manners, arts, and improvements, has been admirably realised in the Pictorial History of England , published by Mr Charles Knight. Of Dr Henry, we may add that he was a native of St Ninians, in Stirlingshire, and one of the ministers of Edinburgh. Dr Gilbert Stuart (1742-1786), a native of Edinburgh, wrote various historical works, a History of Scotland , a Dissertation on the British Constitution , a History of the Reformation , &c. His style is florid and high sounding, not wanting in elegance, but disfigured by affectation, and still more by the violent prejudices of its vindictive and unprincipled author. Histories of Ireland, evincing antiquarian research, were published, the first in 1763-7 by Dr Warner, and another in 1773 by Dr Leland, the translator of our best English version of Demosthenes. A review of Celtic and Roman antiquities was in 1771-5 presented by John Whittaker, grafted upon his History of Manchester ; and the same author after- wards wrote a violent and prejudiced Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots. The Biographical History of England by Granger, and Orme’s History of the British Transactions in Hindostan, which appeared at this time, are also valuable works. In 1775, Macpherson, translator of Ossian, published a History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hanover , accompanied by original papers. The object of Macpherson was to support the Tory party, and to detract from the purity and patriotism of those who had planned and effected the Revolution of 1688. The secret history brought to light by his original papers — though Macpherson is charged with having tampered with them and falsified history — disclosed a degree of selfishness and intrigue for which the public were not prepared. In this task, the historian — if Macpherson be entitled to the venerable name — had the use of Carte’s collections, for which he paid £200, and he received no less than £3000 for the copyright of his work. The Annals of Scotland, from Malcolm III. to Robert I., were published in 1776 by Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes. In 1779 the same author produced a continuation to I the accession of the House of Stuart. These works ; were invaluable at the time, and have since formed an excellent quarry for the historian. Lord Hailes j was born in Edinburgh in 1726, the son of Sir James Dalrymple of Hailes, Bart. He distinguished himself at the Scottish bar, and was appointed one of the judges of the Court of Session in 1766. He was the author of various legal and antiquarian treatises : of the Remains of Christian Antiquity , con- taining translations from the fathers, &c. ; and of an inquiry into the secondary causes assigned by Gibbon the historian for the rapid growth of Christianity. Lord Hailes was a man of great erudition, an able lawyer, and upright judge. He 1714-1738. The former miscellany was begun by Abel Boyer (1666-1729), a French refugee, with a German appetite for J work. Besides his Political State , Boyer compiled histories of Queen Anne and William III., and was author of a French and English dictionary, long popular. died in 1792. In 1776 Robert Watson, professor of rhetoric, and afterwards principal of one of the colleges of St Andrews, wrote a History of Philip II. of Spain as a continuation to Robertson, and left unfinished a History of Philip III., which was com- pleted by Dr William Thomson, and published in 1783. In 1779, the two first volumes of a History of Modern Europe, by Dr William Russell (1741- 1793), were published with distinguished success, and three others were added in 1784, bringing down the history to the year 1763. Continuations to this valuable compendium have been made by Dr Coote and others, and it continues to be a standard work. Russell was a native of Selkirkshire, and fought his way to learning and distinction in the midst of con- siderable difficulties. The vast number of historical works published about this time shews how eagerly this noble branch of study was cultivated, both by authors and the public. No department of literary labour seems then to have been so lucrative, or so sure of leading to distinction. But our greatest name yet remains behind. EDWARD GIBBON. The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was by birth, education, and manners, distinctively an English gentleman. He was born at Putney, in Surrey, April 27, 1737. His father Edward Gibbon. was of an ancient family settled at Beriton, near Pctersfield, Hampshire. Of delicate health, young Edward Gibbon was privately educated, and at the age of fifteen he was placed at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was almost from infancy a close student, but his indiscriminate appetite for books * subsided by degrees in the historic line.’ He arrived at Oxford, he says, with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a school-boy would have been ashamed. He spent fourteen months at college idly from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. and unprofitable as he himself states : and, study- ing the works of Bossuet and Parsons the Jesuit, he became a convert to the Koman Catholic religion. He went to London, and at the feet of a priest, on the 8th of June 1753, he ‘solemn^, though privately, abjured the errors of heresy.’ His father, in order to reclaim him, placed him for some years at Lausanne, in Switzerland, under the charge of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinist clergyman, whose judicious conduct prevailed upon his pupil to return to the bosom of the Protestant church. On Christmas-day 1754, he received the sacrament in the Protestant church at Lausanne. ‘It was here,’ says the his- torian, ‘that I suspended my religious inquiries, acquiescing with implicit belief in the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general consent of Catholics and Protestants.’ At Lausanne, a regular and severe system of study perfected Gibbon in the Latin and French languages, and in a general knowledge of literature. In 1758 he returned to England, and three years afterwards appeared as an author in a slight French treatise, an Essay on the Study of Literature. He accepted the commission of captain in the Hampshire militia ; and though his studies were interrupted, ‘the discipline and evolutions of a modern battle,’ he remarks, ‘ gave him a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion, and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers was not useless to the historian of the Roman Empire.’ On the peace of 1762, Gibbon was released from his military duties, and paid a visit to France and Italy. He had long been meditating some historical work, and whilst at Rome, October 15, 1764, his choice was determined by an incident of a striking and romantic nature. ‘As I sat musing,’ he says, ‘ amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.’ Many years, however, elapsed before he realised his inten- tions. On returning to England in 1765, he seems to have been fashionable and idle ; his father died in 1770, and he then began to form the plan of an independent life. The estate left him by his father was much involved in debt, and he determined on quitting the country and residing permanently in London. He then undertook the composition of the first volume of his history. ‘ At the outset,’ he remarks, ‘ all was dark and doubtful : even the title of the work, the true era of the decline and fall of the empire, the limits of the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of the narra- tive; and I was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years. The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull tone and a rhetorical declamation : three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way, I advanced with a more equal and easy pace.’ In 1774 he was returned for the borough of Liskeard, and sat in parliament eight sessions during the memorable contest between Great Britain and America. Prudence, he says, condemned him to acquiesce in the humble station of a mute ; the great speakers filled him with despair, the bad ones with terror. Gibbon, however, supported by his vote the administration of Lord North, and was by this nobleman appointed one of the lords com- missioners of trade and plantations. In 1776 the first quarto volume of his history was given to the 180 world. Its success was almost unprecedented for a grave historical work : ‘ the first impression was exhausted in a few days ; a second and third edition was scarcely adequate to the demand ; and the book- seller’s property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin : the book was on every table, and almost on every toilet.’ His brother-historians, Robert- son and Hume, generously greeted him with warm applause. ‘ Whether I consider the dignity of your style,’ says Hume, ‘ the depth of your matter, or the extensiveness of your learning, I must regard the work as equally the object of esteem.’ There was another bond of sympathy between the English and the Scottish historian: Gibbon had insidiously, though too unequivocally, evinced his adoption of infidel principles. ‘ The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all,’ he remarks, ‘ considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally usefuL’ Some feeling of this kind constituted the whole of Gibbon’s religious belief: the philosophers of France had triumphed over the lessons of the Calvinist minister of Lausanne, and the historian seems never to have returned to the faith and the humility of the Christian. In the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of his work he gave an account of the growth and progress of Christianity, which he accounted for solely by secondary causes, without reference to its divine origin. A number of answers were written to these memorable chapters, the only one of which that has kept possession of the public is the reply by Dr Watson, bishop of Llandaff, entitled An Apology for Christianity. Gibbon’s method of attack- ing our faith has been well described by Lord Byron, as Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer, The lord of irony, that master spell. He nowhere openly avows his disbelief. By tacitly sinking the early and astonishing spread of Chris- tianity during the time of the Apostles, and dwell- ing with exaggerated colouring and minuteness on the errors and corruption by which it afterwards became debased, the historian in effect conveys an impression that its divine origin is but a poetical fable, like the golden age of the poets, or the mystic absurdities of Mohammedanism. The Christian faith was a bold and successful innovation, and Gibbon hated all innovations. In his after-life, he was in favour of retaining even the Inquisition, with its tortures and its tyranny, because it was an ancient institution! Besides the ‘solemn sneer’ of Gibbon, there is another cardinal defect in his account of the progress of the Christian faith, which has been thus ably pointed out by the Rev. H. H. Milman : ‘ Christianity alone receives no embellishment from the magic of Gibbon’s language ; his imagination is dead to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a general tone of jealous disparagement, or neutralised by a painfully elaborate exposition of its darker and degenerate periods. There are occasions, indeed, when its pure and exalted humanity, when its manifestly beneficial influence can compel even him, as it were, to fairness, and kindle his unguarded eloquence to its usual fervour; but in general he soon relapses into a frigid apathy; affects an ostentatiously severe impartiality ; notes all the faults of Christians in every age with bitter and almost malignant sarcasm; reluctantly, and with exception and reservation, admits their claim to admiration. This inextricable bias appears even to influence his manner of composition. While all the other assailants of the Roman empire, whether HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the Tatar, Alaric and Attila, Mohammed, and Zingis, and Tamerlane, are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic animation — their progress related in a full, complete, and unbroken narrative — the triumph of Christianity alone takes the form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate skill of composition, while the moral triumphs of Christian benevolence, the tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of guilty fame, and of honours destructive to the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words, because they own religion as their principle, sink into narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch on no chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled ; his words, though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate.’ The second and third volumes of the history did not appear till 1781. After their publication, finding it necessary to retrench his expenditure, and being disappointed of a lucrative place which he had hoped for from ministerial patronage, he resolved to retire to Lausanne, where he was offered a residence by a friend of his youth, M. Deyverdun. Residence of Gibbon at Lausanne. Here he lived very happily for about four years, devoting his mornings to composition, and his evenings to the enlightened and polished society which had gathered in that situation. 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 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky Avas serene, the silver orb of the moon Avas reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the EDWARD GIBBON. recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establish- ment of my fame. But my pride Avas soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that Avhatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short 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 press, and not a sheet Avas 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 last three volumes, and afterwards returned to Lausanne, where he resided till 1793. The Erench Revolution had imbittered and divided 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 administer consolation: 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 complaint; and, exhausted by surgical operations, he died without pain, and apparently without any sense of his danger, 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 depth and variety of learning, and a more perfect command of his intellectual treasures. It was not merely Avith the main stream of Roman history that he Avas familiar. All its accessories and tributaries — the art of Avar, 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 Avith laborious diligence and com- plete success. Hume Avas elaborate, but it Avas only with respect to style. Errors in fact and theory were perpetuated through every edition, while the author was purifying his periods and AA r eeding out Scotticisms. The labour of Gibbon was directed to higher objects — to the accumulation of facts, and the collation of ancient authors. His style, once fixed, remained unaltered. In erudition, and comprehensiveness of intellect, Gibbon may therefore be pronounced the first of English his- torians. The vast range of his subject, and the tone of dignity which he preserves throughout the whole of his capacious circuit, also give him 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 knoAvledge, is fully equal to his other powers. He identifies himself with Avhatever lie describes, and paints local scenery, national costume or manners, Avith all the force and anima- tion of a native or eye-witness. These solid and bright acquirements of the historian were not, liOAvever, Avithout their drawbacks. His mind was more material or sensual than philosophical — more fond of splendour and display than of the beauty of virtue or the grandeur of moral heroism. His taste Avas vitiated and impure, so that his style * ‘ The garden and summer-house whero he composed are neglected, and the last, utterly decayed, but they still shew it as his “ cabinet,” and seem perfectly aware of his memory.’ — Byron's Letters. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. is not only deficient in chaste simplicity, but is disfigured by offensive pruriency and occasional grossness. His lofty ornate diction fatigues by its uniform pomp and dignity, notwithstanding the graces and splendour of his animated narrative. Deficient in depth of moral feeling and elevation of sentiment, Gibbon seldom touches the heart or inspires true enthusiasm. The reader admires his glittering sentences, his tournaments, and battle- pieces, his polished irony and masterly sketches of character ; he marvels at his inexhaustible learn- ing, and is fascinated 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 become saturated with his style and manner, we seldom recur to his pages excepting for some particular 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 perused 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. M. Guizot has thus recorded his otvn impressions on reading Gibbon’s history: ‘After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing but the interest of a narrative, always animated, and, not- withstanding its extent and the variety of objects which it makes to pass before the view, always 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, which imparted to the exposition ! of the facts that want of truth and justice which j the English express by their happy term, misre- presentation. 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 reflection — caused me to form on the whole work a judgment far too rigorous. After having finished my labours, I allowed some time to elapse before I reviewed 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, shewed me how much I had exaggerated the importance of the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved: I was struck with 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' esprit) * Hall on the Causes of the Present Discontents. 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 the Ancient Philosophers on the Immortality of the Soul.] 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 immortality of the soul. When they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of death, they inculcate 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 con- fessed, that in the sublime inquiry, 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 facul- ' ties 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 transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave ; they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they enter- tained the most sincere admiration j could be 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. They soon discovered that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a substance distinct from the body — pure, simple, and spiritual, incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal prison. From these specious and noble principles, the philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted not only the future immortality, but the past eternity of the human soul, which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite and self-existing spirit which pervades and sustains the universe. A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the experience of man- kind 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 impression which 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 Caesars, 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 * This passage of Gibbon is finely illustrated in Hall’s Funeral Sermon for Dr Ryland : ‘ If the mere conception of the reunion of good men in a HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD GIBBON. ablest orators were not apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man of a liberal education and understanding. Since, therefore, the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or at most the probability, of a future state, there is nothing except a divine revelation that can ascertain the existence and describe the condition of the invisible country which is destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from the body. [The City of Bagdad — Magnificence of the Caliphs.'] Almansor, the brother and successor of Saffah, laid the foundations of Bagdad (762 a.d.), the imperial seat of his posterity during a reign of five hundred years. The chosen spot is on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about fifteen miles above the ruins of Modain : the double wall was of a circular form ; and such was the rapid increase of a capital now dwindled to a provincial town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and the adjacent villages. In this city of peace, amidst the riches of the east, the Abba- sides soon disdained the abstinence and frugality of the first caliphs, and aspired to emulate the magnificence of the Persian kings. After his wars and buildings, Almansor 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. His 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, which 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 banquet. The courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson Almamon, who gave away four-fifths of the income of a province — a sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold dinars — 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 capri- cious 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,’ says the historian Abulfeda, ‘ both horse and foot, was under arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty thousand men. His 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 door- future state infused a momentary rapture into the mind of Tully; if an airy speculation, for there is reason to fear it had little hold on his convictions, could inspire him with such delight, what may we be expected to feel who are assured of such an event by the true sayings of God ! IIow should we rejoice in the prospect, the certainty rather, of spending a blissful eternity with 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 Larnb, “ 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 ! ” What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel wo have taken together, to recount 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 symphony of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendours and fruitions of the beatific vision.’ keepers 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 thou- sand pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of which were of silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the floor were twenty-two 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 vizier 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 Cordova, in honour of his favourite sultana, the third and greatest of the Abdalrahmans constructed the city, palace, and gardens of Zehra. Twenty-five years, and above three millions sterling, were employed by the founder : his liberal taste invited the artists of Constantinople, the most skilful sculptors and architects of the age ; and the buildings were sustained or adorned by twelve hundred columns of Spanish and African, of Greek and Italian marble. The hall of audience was incrusted with gold and pearls, and a great basin 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 basins and fountains, so delightful in a sultry climate, was replenished not with water, but with the purest quicksilver. The seraglio of Abdalrahman, his wives, concubines, and black eunuchs, amounted to six thousand three hundred persons ; and he was attended to the field by a guard of twelve thou- sand horse, whose belts and scimitars were studded with gold. In a private condition, our desires are perpetually repressed 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 imagination is dazzled by the splendid picture ; and whatever 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 authentic memorial which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. ‘I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace ; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot : they amount to fourteen. 0 man ! place not thy confidence in this present world.’ [Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 1099 a.d.] 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 obstinacy of the people, the craggy ground that might supersede the necessity of fortifications, and the walls and towers that would have fortified the most accessible plain. These obstacles were diminished in the age of the crusades. The bulwarks had been completely 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 J erusalem, though FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. somewhat softened and somewhat removed, was still strong against the assaults of an enemy. By the expe- rience of a recent siege, and a three years’ possession, the Saracens of Egypt 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 garri- son is said to have consisted of forty thousand Turks and Arabians ; and if he could muster twenty thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed that the besieged were more numerous than the besieging anny. Had the diminished strength and numbers of the Latins allowed them to grasp the whole circumference of four thousand yards — about two English miles and a half — to what useful purpose should they have descended into the valley of Ben Himmon and torrent of Cedron, or approached the precipices of the south and east, from whence they had nothing either to hope or fear ? Their siege was more reasonably directed against the northern and western sides of the city. Godfrey of Bouillon erected his standard on the first swell of Mount Calvary ; to the left, as far as St Stephen’s gate, the line of attack was continued by Tancred and the two Roberts; and Count Raymond established his quarters from the citadel to the foot of Mount Sion, which was no longer included within the precincts of the city. On the fifth day, the crusaders made a general assault, in the fanatic hope of battering down the walls without engines, and of 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 influ- ence 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 the siege 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 disorderly 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 season ; nor was the thirst of the besiegers relieved, as in the city, by the artificial supply of cisterns and aqueducts. The circum- j jacent country is equally destitute of trees for the uses ! of shade or building, but some large beams were dis- | covered in a cave by the crusaders : a wood near Sichem, i the enchanted grove of Tasso, was cut down : the 1 necessary timber was transported to the camp by the vigour and dexterity of Tancred ; and the engines were framed by some Genoese artists, who had fortunately landed in the harbour of Jaffa. Two movable turrets were constructed at the expense and in the stations of the Duke of Lorraine and the Count of Tholouse, and rolled forwards with devout labour, not to the most accessible, but to the most neglected parts of the fortifi- cation. Raymond’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 j on a Friday, at three in the afternoon, the day and hour of the Passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on J the walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the emulation of valour ; and about four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mohammedan yoke. In the pillage of public and private 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 sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians : resistance might 184 provoke, but neither age nor sex could mollify their implacable rage; they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous 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 betrayed some senti- ments 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 Mohammed.] According to the tradition of his companions, Moham- med was distinguished by the beauty of his person — an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or private audience. They applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each 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 his condescension and affability 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 friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action ; and although his designs might gradually 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 practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence, Mohammed was an illiterate barbarian ; 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 was open to his view ; and some fancy has been indulged in the political and philosophical observations 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 primitive virtues of the Arabs. Our more accurate inquiry will suggest, that instead of visiting the courts, the camps, the temples of the east, the two journeys of Mohammed into Syria were confined to the fairs of Bostra 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 merchandise 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 HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD GIBBON. language must have checked his curiosity, and I cannot perceive in the life or writings of Mohammed 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 hospitality; and the enemies of Mohammed have named the Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk, wdiom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the composition of the Koran. Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius ; and the uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth Mohammed 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 enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the heavens but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of 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 Mohammed is the apostle of God. [ Term of the Conquest of Timour, or Tamerlane ; his Triumph at Samarcand ; his Death on the Road to China (1405 a.d.) ; Character and Merits of Timour.'] From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour ; his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspire to conquer and convert the Christian 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 and Hellespont, of Constan- tinople and Gallipoli, were possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great occasion they forgot the difference of religion, to act with union and firmness in the common cause : the double straits were guarded with ships and fortifications ; and they separately withheld the transports, which Timour demanded of either nation, under the pretence of attacking their 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; accepted, by a red patent, the investiture of the king- dom 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 arras had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass — a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of Russia and Tatary. 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 supremacy of Timour ; and a rare gift of a giraffe, or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less astonished by the portrait of a Mogul who, in his camp before Smyrna, meditates and almost 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 expiated 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 China, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith in one God and his prophet Mohammed. 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 revenge. 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 despatched beyond the Sihoon 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 maga- zines in the desert ; and by the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions, from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these preparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia, passed the winter on the banks of the Araxes, 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 com- plaints of the people, distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments, employed his riches in the architecture of palaces and temples, and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tatary, Russia, and Spain, the last of whom presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the oriental artists. The marriage of six of the emperor’s grandsons was esteemed an act of religion as well as 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 victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the kitchens; the plain was spread with pyramids 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 ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty Persian) excluded 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 masque- rades ; 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 pro- claimed ; 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 baggage and provisions were transported by five from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 horseback, 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 pei^aded 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 degree 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 ignorant 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 corrupted with new refinements. In his religion he was a zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman ; but his sound understanding may tempt us to believe that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government of a vast empire he stood alone and abso- lute, without a rebel to oppose his power, a favourite to seduce his affections, or a minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest 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 bastonade, and afterwards restored to honour and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social virtues ; perhaps he 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 impoverished, and for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain the harmony 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, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase 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 recompense. 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 confidence of merit, that from this refor- 18G mation he derived an excuse for his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following obser- vations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude ; and perhaps we shall conclude that the Mogul emperor was rather the scourge than the bene- factor 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 reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies — by columns or pyramids of human heads. Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burned, or utterly destroyed in his presence, and by his troops ; and perhaps his conscience would have been startled if a priest or philosopher had dared to number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the establishment of peace and order. 2. His most destruc- tive wars were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence he departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient natives. When 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 compensated by any present or possible benefits. 3. The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he laboured to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labours were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence 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 were poorly redressed by the tardy rigour of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content to praise the institutions of Timour 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 Timour 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 Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire has been dissolved ; their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber ; and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the northern ocean. [Invention and Use of Gunpoivdei *.] 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 discovery had been made in the critical 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, HISTORIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDWARD GIBBON. I with a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were com- pressed 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 application 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 century ; 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 benefit 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 apostates and the selfish policy 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 preceptors ; and it was probably by their hands that his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Con- stantinople. The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful ; but in the general warfare of the age, the advantage was on their side who were most commonly the assail- ants; for a while the proportion 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 advantage of the European was con- fined to his easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast the rapid progress of this mis- chievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, 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, 1783. 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 con- sideration of my health and happiness. And you will give me credit when I assure you, with sincerity, that I have not repented a single moment of the step which I have taken, and that 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 my native country ; I should have escaped many disagreeable events that have happened in the meanwhile, and I should have avoided the parliamentary life, which experience has proved to be neither suitable to my temper nor conducive to my fortune. In speaking of the happiness which I enjoy, you will agree 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 happily 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 interrupt the harmony, and in the course of time, like our neigh- bours, we must expect some disagreeable moments ; 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 this season, I rise — not at four in the morning, but — a little before eight ; at nine I am called from my study to breakfast, which I always perform alone, in the English style ; and, with the aid of Caplin,* I perceive no difference between Lausanne and Bentinck Street. Our mornings are usually passed in separate studies; we never approach each other’s door without a previous 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 I am not perfectly reconciled — we sit down to dinner. We have hired a female cook, well skilled in her profession, and accustomed to the taste of every nation ; as, for instance, we had excellent mince-pies yesterday. After dinner and the departure of our company — one, two, or three friends — we read together some amusing book, or play at chess, 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 shillings 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 furnished tables. You wish me happy ; acknow- ledge that such a life is more conducive to happiness than five nights in the week passed in the House of Commons, or five mornings spent at the Custom-house. [Remarks on Reading.'] [These remarks 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 XIV., ‘ 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 nourishment is easily converted into poison. Salmasius had read as much as Grotius, perhaps more ; but their different modes of reading made the one an enlightened philos- opher, and the other, to speak plainly, a pedant, puffed up with a useless erudition. 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 irregularly from one subject to another, render themselves incapable of combining their ideas. So many detached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole. 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 propose an end in our reading, let not this end be * His English valet de chambre. 187 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF To 1800. too remote ; and when once we have attained it, let our attention be directed to a different subject. Inconstancy weakens the understanding ; a long and exclusive appli- cation 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 with pleasure. We ought, besides, to be careful not to make the order of our thoughts subservient to that of our subjects ; this would 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 which it treats. I wish to pursue these ideas ; they withdraw me from my proposed plan of reading, and throw me into a new track, and from thence, perhaps, into a second and a third. At length I begin to perceive whither my researches tend. Their result, perhaps, may be profitable ; it is worth while to try ; whereas, 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 early studies, since the severest method is scarcely sufficient to make us conceive objects altogether new. Neither can it be adopted by those who read in order to write, and who ought to dwell on their subject till they have sounded its depths. These reflections, however, I do not absolutely warrant. 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 will not suit all. Each individual ought to study his own. To read with attention, exactly to define the expres- sions of our author, never to admit a conclusion without comprehending its reason, often to pause, reflect, and interrogate ourselves, these are so many advices which it is easy to give, but difficult to follow. The same may be said of that almost evangelical maxim of forgetting friends, country, religion, of giving merit its due praise, and embracing truth wherever it is to be found. But what ought we to read ? Each individual must answer this question for himself, agreeably to the object of his studies. The only general precept that I would 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 familiar to us by atten- tive and repeated perusals. GILLIES — ROSCOE — LAING PINKERTON. I)r John Gillies, historiographer to his majesty for Scotland, published The History of Ancient Greece , its Colonies and Conquests , two volumes, quarto, 1786. The monarchical spirit of the new historian was decidedly expressed. ‘ The history of Greece,’ says Dr Gillies, ‘ exposes the dangerous turbulence of democracy, and arraigns the despotism of tyrants. By describing the incurable evils inherent in every republican policy, it evinces the inestimable benefits resulting to liberty itself from the lawful dominion of hereditary kings, and the steady operation of well- regulated monarchy.’ The history of Dr Gillies was executed with considerable ability and care ; a sixth edition of the work (London, 1820, four volumes, 8vo) has been called for, and it may still be con- sulted with advantage. William Roscoe (1753-1831), as the author of the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, and the Life and Pontificate of L,eo X., may be more properly classed with our historians than biographers. The two works contain an account of the revival of letters, and fill up the blank between Gibbon’s Decline and Fall and Robertson’s Charles V. Mr Roscoe was a 188 native of Liverpool, the son of humble parents, and while engaged as clerk to an attorney, he devoted his leisure hours to the cultivation of his taste for poetry and elegant literature. He acquired a com- petent knowledge of the Latin, French, and Italian William Roscoe. languages. After the completion of his clerkship, Mr Roscoe entered into business in Liverpool, and took an active part in every scheme of improvement, local and national. He wrote a poem on the Wrongs of Africa, to illustrate the evils of slavery, and also a pamphlet on the same subject, which was trans- lated into French by Madame Necker. The stirring times in which he lived called forth several short political dissertations from his pen ; but about the year 1789, he applied himself to the great task he had long meditated, a biographical account of Lorenzo de Medici. He procured much new and valuable information, and in 1796 published the result of his labours in two quarto volumes, entitled The Life of Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent. The work was highly successful, and at once elevated Mr Roscoe into the proud situation of one of the most popular authors of the day. A second edition was soon called for, and Messrs Cadell and Davies purchased the copyright for £1200. About the ^ame time he relinquished the practice of an attorney, and studied for the bar, but ultimately settled as a banker in Liverpool. His next literary appearance was as the translator of The Nurse, a poem, from the Italian of Luigi Tansillo. In 1805 was published his second great work, The Life and Pontificate of Leo X., four volumes quarto, which, though carefully prepared, and also enriched with new information, did not experience the same success as his life of Lorenzo. ‘ The history of the reformation of religion,’ it has been justly remarked, ‘involved many questions of subtle disputation, as well as many topics of character and conduct ; and, for a writer of great candour and discernment, it was scarcely possible to satisfy either the Papists or the Protestants.’ The liberal sentiments and accomplishments of Mr Roscoe recommended him to his townsmen as a fit person to represent them in parliament, and he was accordingly elected in 1806. He spoke in favour of the abolition of the slave-trade, and of the civil disabilities of the METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HR REIH. Catholics, which excited against him a powerful and violent opposition. Inclined himself to quiet and retirement, and disgusted with the conduct of his opponents, he withdrew from parliament at the next dissolution, and resolutely declined offering himself as a candidate. He still, however, took a warm interest in passing events, and published several pamphlets on the topics of the day. He pro- jected a history of art and literature, a task well suited to his talents and attainments, but did not proceed with the work. Pecuniary embarrassments also came to cloud his latter days. The banking establishment of which he was a partner was forced in 1816 to suspend payment, and Mr Roscoe had to sell his library, pictures, and other works of art. His love of literature continued undiminished. He gave valuable assistance in the establishment of the Royal Institution of Liverpool, and on its opening, delivered an inaugural address on the origin and vicissitudes of literature, science, and art, and their influence on the present state of society. In 1827 he received the great gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature for his merits as a historian. He had previously edited an edition of Pope, in ten volumes. Malcolm Laing, a zealous Scottish historian, was born in the year 1762 at Strynzia, his paternal estate, in Orkney. He was educated for the Scottish bar, and passed advocate in 1785. He appeared as an author in 1793, having completed Dr Henry’s History of Great Britain after that author’s death. The sturdy Whig opinions of Laing formed a con- trast to the tame moderatism of Henry; but his attainments and research were far superior to those of his predecessor. In 1800 he published The History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns on the Acces- sion of King James VI. to the Throne of England , to the Union of the Kingdoms in the Reign of Queen Anne; with two Dissertations , Historical and Critical, on the Goiorie Conspiracy, and on the supposed Authen- ticity of Ossian’s Poems. This is an able work, marked by strong prejudices and predilections, but valuable to the historical student for its acute reasoning and analysis. Laing attacked the trans- lator of Ossian with unmerciful and almost ludicrous severity ; in revenge for which, the Highland admirers of the Celtic muse attributed his sentiments to the prejudice natural to an Orkney man, caused by the severe checks given by the ancient Caledonians to their predatory Scandinavian predecessors ! Laing replied by another publication — The Poems of Ossian, fyc., containing the Poetical Works of James Macpher - son, Esq., in Prose and Rhyme, with Notes and Illus- trations. In 1804, he published another edition of his History of Scotland, to which he prefixed a Pre- liminary Dissertation on the Participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley. The latter is a very ingenious historical argument, the ablest of Mr Laiog’s productions, uniting the practised skill and acumen of the Scottish lawyer with the knowledge of the antiquary and historian. The latter portion of Mr Laing’s life was spent on his paternal estate in Orkney, where he entered upon a course of local and agricultural improvement with the same ardour that he devoted to his literary pursuits. He died in the year 1818. ‘Mr Laing’s merit,’ says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, ‘ as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative, was owing to the peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.’ John Pinkerton (1758-1825) distinguished him- self by the fierce controversial tone of his historical writings, and by the violence of his prejudices, yet was a learned and industrious collector of forgotten fragments of ancient history and of national anti- quities. He was a native of Edinburgh, and bred to the law. The latter, however, he soon forsook for literary pursuits. He commenced by writing imperfect verses, which, in his peculiar antique orthography, he styled ‘Rimes,’ from which he diverged to collecting Select Scottish Ballads, 1783, and inditing an Essay on Medals, 1784. Under the name of Heron, he published some Letters on Literature, and was recommended by Gibbon to the booksellers as a fit person to translate the monkish historians. He afterwards (1786) published Ancient Scottish Poems, being the writings of Sir Richard' Maitland and others, extracted from a manuscript in the Pepys Library at Cambridge. His first historical work was A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians, or Goths, in which he laid down that theory which he maintained through life, that the Celts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, are savages, and have been savages since the world began! His next important work was an Inquiry into the History of Scotland Preceding the Reign of Malcolm III., or 1056, in which he debates at great length, and, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, with much display of learning, on the history of the Goths, and the conquests which he states them to have obtained over the Celts in their progress through all Europe. In 1796, he published a History of Scotland during the Reign of the Stuarts, the most laborious and valuable of his works. He also com- piled a Modern Geography, edited a Collection of Voyages and Travels, was some time editor of the Critical Review, w r rote a Treatise on Rocks, and was engaged on various other literary tasks. Pinkerton died in want and obscurity in Paris. METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. The novelty and boldness of Hume’s speculations, and the great talent and ingenuity with which they were propounded and illustrated, continued a taste for metaphysical studies, especially in Scotland. DR REID. Dr Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind, published in 1764, was an attack on the ideal theory, and on the sceptical conclusions which Hume 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 Active 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 FRO 31 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. asked himself the question : ‘ What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all the objects of my know- ledge are ideas in my own mind ? ’ He set about an inquiry, but could find no evidence for the 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 import- ance of his particular conclusions, that he stands so conspicuously distinguished among those who have hitherto prosecuted analytically the study of man. In the dedication of his Inquiry , Reid incidentally makes a definition which strikes us as very happy : ‘The productions of imagination,’ he says, ‘require a genius which soars above the common rank ; but the treasures of knowledge are commonly 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 26tli of April 1710. He was bred to the church, and obtained the living of New Machar, Aberdeenshire. In 1752 he was appointed professor of moral phil- osophy in King’s College, Aberdeen, which he quitted in 1763 for the chair of moral philosophy in Glasgow. He died on the 7th of October 1796. LORD KAMES. Henry Home (1696-1782), a Scottish lawyer and judge, in which latter capacity he took, according to a custom of his country, the designation of Lord Kames, was a conspicuous member of the literary and philosophical society assembled in Edinburgh during the latter part of the eighteenth century. During the earlier part of his life, he devoted the whole powers of an acute and reflective mind, and with an industry calling for the greatest praise, to his profession, and compilations and treatises con- 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. His first work of this kind, Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion , combats those theories of human nature which deduce all actions from some single principle, and attempts to establish several prin- ciples of action. 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 doctrine ; an expectation in which he was partially disappointed, as he narrowly escaped a citation before the General Assembly of his native church, on account of this book. The Introduction to the Art of Thinking , published in 1761, was a small and subordinate work, consist- ing mainly of a series of detached maxims and general 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 composi- tions — The Elements of Criticism , three volumes, a bold and original performance, which, 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 sys- tematic attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts. Lord Kames had, for many years, kept a common- 190 place-book, into which he transcribed all anecdotes of man, in his various nations and degrees of civil- isation which occurred in the course of his reading, or appeared in the fugitive publications of the da)*. When advanced to near eighty years of age, he threw these together in a work entitled Sketches of j the History of Man (two vols. 4to, 1773), which ; shews his usual ingenuity and acuteness, and pre- j sents many curious disquisitions on society, but is S materially reduced in value by the absence of a j House of Lord Kames, Canongate, Edinburgh. proper authentication 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 subject which have since been popular, completes the list of his philosophical works. Lord Kames 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 agri- culture by subjecting it to the test of rational principles.’ Lord Kames 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 remarks upon it. The taste and thought of his philosophical works have now placed them out of fashion, but they contain many views and reflec- tions 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 observation ENGLISH LITERATURE. LORD KAMES. METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. that holds equally in every one of the external senses. But there is a difference as to our knowledge of that impression ; 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 other- wise 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 my ear when I 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 shew 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, because 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 insensible of the organic impression, we are not misled to assign a wrong place to the pleasant or painful feelings 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 tasting, touching, and smelling ; for the latter feelings, seeming to exist externally at the organ of sense, are conceived to be merely corporeal. The pleasures of the eye and the ear being thus elevated above those of the other external senses, acquire so much dignity, as to become a laudable entertainment. They are not, however, set on a level with the purely intellectual, being no less inferior in dignity to intellectual pleasures, than superior to the organic or corporeal : they indeed resemble the latter, being, like them, produced 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 inflame devotion, disdains not to improve the relish of a banquet. The pleasures of the eye and the ear have other valuable properties beside those of dignity and eleva- tion ; being sweet and moderately exhilarating, they are in their tone equally distant from the turbulence of passion and the languor of indolence ; and by that 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 pursuit. Here is a remedy provided for many distresses ; and to be convinced of its salutary effects, it will be sufficient to run over the following particulars. Organic pleasures 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 happily contrived than the exhilarating pleasures of the eye and car. On the other hand, any intense exercise of intellectual powers becomes painful by overstraining the mind ; cessation from such exercise gives not instant relief ; it is neces- sary that the void be filled with some amusement, gently relaxing the spirits : organic pleasure, which hath no relish but while we are in vigour, is ill qualified for that office ; 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, relisheth more and more the pleasures of the eye and ear, which approach the purely mental without exhausting the spirits, and exceed the purely sensual without danger of satiety. The pleasures of the eye and ear have accord- ingly a natural aptitude to draw us from the immoderate gratification of sensual appetite ; 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 succession of enjoy- ments 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 sufficient that he hath enabled us to carry it on in a natural course. Nor has he made our task either disagreeable or difficult : on the contrary, the transition 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 religion. _ We stand therefore engaged in honour as well as interest, to second the purposes of nature by cultivating the pleasures of the eye and ear, those especially that require extra- ordinary culture, such as arise from poetry, painting, sculpture, music, gardening, and architecture. This especially is the duty of the opulent, who have leisure to improve their minds and their feelings. The fine arts are contrived to give pleasure to the eye and the ear, disregarding the inferior 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 improved. 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 educa- tion, have an influence to vitiate both, or to preserve them pure and untainted : neither of them are arbit- rary nor local, being rooted in human nature, and governed by principles common to all men. The design of the present 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 are naturally disagreeable ; and by these means to discover, if we can, what are the genuine pi’inciples 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 found- ation for reasoning upon the taste of any individual, and for passing a sentence upon it : where it is con- formable 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 cultivated 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 important 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 main- tain that relish which they produce in the morning of life. 191 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. DR BEATTIE. avarice and ambition are not tbe infirmities of that period, would, with equal sincerity and rapture, exclaim : Among the answerers of Hume was Dr Beattie the poet, who, in 1770, published his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of T?'uth , in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. Inferior to most of the metaphysicians in logical precision, equanimity of temper, or patient research, Beattie brought great zeal and fervour to his task, a respectable share of philosophical knowledge, and a better command of i 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 i a highly popular treatise. No work of the kind was 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 the 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 published a digest of his college lectures, under the title of Elements of Moral Science. In these works, though not profoundly philosophical, the author’s ‘lively relish for the sublime and beautiful, his clear and elegant style,’ and his happy quotations and critical examples, 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 Dacier, from the turn she gives to the passage in her version, seems to think, and Pope, in order perhaps to make out his couplet, insinuates, 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 consideration. It is true that, in contemplating the material universe, they who discern the causes and effects 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 myself — there is a splendour 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 succession, without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility, how many are there to whom the lustre of the rising or setting sun, the sparkling concave of the midnight sky, the mountain forest tossing and roaring to the storm, or warbling 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 landscape offers to the view ; the scenery of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, and the many pleasing 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 192 *1 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 which Aurora shews 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 who would imitate the works of nature, must first accurately observe them, and accurate observation is to be expected from those only who take great pleasure in it. To a mind thus disposed, no part of creation is indifferent. In the crowded city and howling wilder- ness, in the cultivated province and solitary isle, in the flowery lawn and craggy mountain, in the murmur of the rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean, in the radiance of summer and gloom of winter, in the thunder of heaven and in the whisper of the breeze, he still finds something to rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw forth his affections, or to employ his understanding. And from every mental energy that is not attended with pain, and even from some of those that are, as moderate terror and pity, a sound mind derives satis- faction; exercise being equally necessary to the body and the soul, and to both equally productive of health and pleasure. This happy sensibility to the beauties of nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful works ; it purifies and harmonises the soul, and prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline ; it supplies a never- failing source of amusement; it contributes even to bodily health ; and, as a strict analogy subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the one to the other, and thus recom- mends virtue for its transcendent loveliness, and makes vice appear the object of contempt and abomination. An intimate acquaintance with the best descriptive poets — Spenser, Milton, and Thomson, but, above all, with the divine Georgic — joined to some practice in the art of drawing, will promote this amiable sensibility in early years ; for then the face of nature has novelty super- added to its other charms, the passions are not pre- engaged, the heart is free from care, and the imagination warm and romantic. But 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 exception, or at least of all the enlightened part of mankind, that they are gratified by the contemplation of things natural as opposed to unnatural ? Monstrous sights please but for a moment, if they please at all ; for they derive their charm from the beholder’s amazement, which is quickly over. I have read, indeed, of a man of rank in Sicily who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and statues of most unnatural deformity; but it is a singular instance ; and one would not be much more surprised to hear of a person living without food, or growing fat by the use of poison. To say of anything that it is contrary to nature, denotes censure and disgust on the part of the speaker ; as the epithet natural intimates an agreeable 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 principles of thought and of operation supposed to take place repugnant to everything METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR BEATTIE. we had seen or heard of ; in which, for example, avarice and coldness were ascribed to youth, and prodigality and passionate attachment to the old ; in which men were made to act at random, sometimes according to character, and sometimes contrary to it ; in which cruelty and envy were productive of love, and beneficence and kind affec- tion of hatred; in which beauty was invariably the object of dislike, and ugliness of desire ; in which society was rendered happy by atheism and the promiscuous perpetration of crimes, and justice and fortitude were held in universal contempt. Or think how we should relish a painting where no regard was had to the pro- portions, colours, or any of the physical laws of nature ; where the ears and eyes of animals were placed in their shoulders; where the sky was green, and the grass orimson ; where trees grew with their branches in the oarth, and their roots in the air ; where men were seen fighting after their heads were cut off, ships sailing on the land, lions entangled in cobwebs, sheep preying on dead carcasses, 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 beautiful ? Should we hesitate to pronounce their author mad ? And are the absurdities of madmen proper subjects either of amusement or of imitation to reasonable beings ? [On Scottish Music.] [From the same.] There is a certain style of melody peculiar to each musical country, w'hich the people of that country are apt to prefer to every other style. That they should prefer their own, is not surprising ; and that the melody of one people should differ from that of another, is not more surprising, perhaps, than that the language of one people should differ from that of another. But there is something not unworthy of notice in the particular 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 supplies a striking example. The native melody of the Highlands and Western Isles is as different from that of the south- ern 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 satisfied that it will not — fully account for any one of them, may, however, 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 passion has a correspondent expression in the look and gesture ; 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, therefore, 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 counte- nance and even in the form of their features. Caius Marius, Jugurtha, Tamerlane, and some other great warriors, are celebrated for a peculiar ferocity of aspect, I which they had no doubt contracted from a perpetual and unrestrained exertion of fortitude, contempt, and other violent emotions. These produced in the face their correspondent expressions, which, being often repeated, became at last as habitual to the features as the sentiments 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 65 who, being born and bred in civilised nations, are accus- tomed 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 feature peculiar 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, that require the earnest atten- tion of the artist, do generally 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 amuse themselves with conversation at the same time, have, for the most part, smoother and more unmeaning faces : their thoughts are more miscellaneous, and therefore their features are less fixed in one uniform configuration. A keen pene- trating 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 habitually peevish, or passionate, or querulous, or imperious, may be known by the sound of his voice, as well as by his physiognomy. May we not go a step further, and say that if a man, under the influence of any passion, were to compose a discourse, or a poem, or a tune, his work would in some measure exhibit an image of his mind? I could not easily be persuaded that Swift and Juvenal were men of sweet tempers ; or that Thomson, Arbuthnot, and Prior were ill-natured. The airs of Felton are so uniformly mournful that I cannot suppose him to have been a merry or even a cheerful man. If a musician, in deep affliction, were to attempt to compose a lively air, I believe he would not succeed : though I confess I do not well understand the nature of the connection that may take place between a mournful mind and a melan- choly tune. It is easy to conceive how a poet or an orator 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 sorrow, for example, should put 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 matter is warranted by that of a more competent judge, who says, speaking of church voluntaries, that if the organist ‘do not feel 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 some- times far exceed the best concerted compositions, and which the enraptured performer would gladly secure to his future use and pleasure, did they not as fleetly escape as they rise.’ A man who has made music the study of his life, ‘and is well acquainted with all the best examples of style and expression that are to be found in the works of former masters, may, by memory and much practice, attain a sort of mechanical dexterity in contriving music suitable to any given passion ; but such music would, I presume, be 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 imagination was all on fire 193 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. with some verses descriptive of terrible ideas, which he had been reading in a French tragedy, he ran to his harpsichord, and struck off such a combination of sounds, that the company felt their hair stand on end with horror. Let us therefore suppose it proved, or, if you please, take it for granted, that different 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 phenomena of a national ear. The Highlands of Scotland are a picturesque, but in general a melancholy country. Long tracts of moun- tainous desert, covered with dark heath, and often obscured by misty weather ; narrow valleys, thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices resounding with the fall of torrents ; a soil so rugged, and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amuse- ments of pasturage nor the labours of agriculture ; the mournful dashing of waves along the firths and lakes that intersect the country ; the portentous noises which every change of the wind and every increase and diminu- tion of the waters is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks, and caverns ; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by the light of the moon. Objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy, which may be compatible enough with occasional and social merriment, but cannot fail to tincture the thoughts of a native in the hour of silence and solitude. If these people, notwithstanding their reformation in religion, and more frequent intercourse with strangers, do still retain many of their old super- stitions, we need not doubt but in former times they must have been more enslaved to the horrors of imagin- ation, when beset with the bugbears of popery and the darkness of paganism. Most of their superstitions are of a melancholy cast. That second-sight wherewith some of them are still supposed to be haunted, is con- sidered by themselves as a misfortune, on account of the many dreadful images it is said to obtrude upon the fancy. I have been told that the inhabitants of some of the Alpine regions do likewise lay claim to a sort of second-sight. Nor is it wonderful that persons of lively imagination, immured in deep solitude, and surrounded with the stupendous scenery of clouds, precipices, and torrents, should dream, even when they think them- selves awake, of those few striking ideas with which their lonely lives are diversified ; of corpses, funeral processions, and other objects of terror ; or of marriages and the arrival of strangers, and such-like matters of more agreeable curiosity. Let it be observed, also, that the ancient Highlanders of Scotland had hardly any other way of supporting themselves than by hunting, fishing, or war, professions that are continually exposed to fatal accidents. And hence, no doubt, additional horrors would often haunt their solitude, and a deeper gloom overshadow the imagination even of the hardiest native. What,' then, would it be reasonable to expect from the fanciful tribe, from the musicians and poets, of such a region? Strains expressive of joy, tranquillity, or the softer passions? No : their style must have been better suited to their circumstances. And so we find, in fact, that their music is. The wildest irregularity appears in its composition : the expression is warlike and melan- choly, and approaches even to the terrible. And that their poetry is almost uniformly mournful, and their views of nature dark and dreary, will be allowed by all who admit of the authenticity of Ossian; and not doubted by any who believe those fragments of High- land poetry to be genuine, which many old people, now alive, of that country, remember to have heard in their youth, and were then taught to refer to a pretty high antiquity. Some of the southern provinces of Scotland present a very different prospect. Smooth and lofty hills covered 194 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 circumstances peculiar to the districts I allude to, render them fit for pasturage, and favourable to romantic leisure and tender passions. 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 the people, may properly enough be termed the Arcadia of Scotland. And all these songs are sweetly and powerfully expres- sive of love and tenderness, and other emotions suited to the 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. ABRAHAM TUCKER — DR PRIESTLEY. Abraham Tucker (1705-1774) was an English squire, who, instead of pursuing the pleasures of the chase, studied metaphysics at his country seat, and published (1768) under the fictitious name of Edward Search, a work entitled The Light of Nature Pursued , which Paley said contained more original thinking and observation than any other work of the kind. Tucker, like Adam Smith, excelled in illustration, and he did not disdain the most homely subjects for examples. Mackintosh says he excels in mixed, not in pure philosophy, and that his intellectual views are of the Hartleian school. How truly, and at the same time how beautifully, has Tucker characterised in one short sentence his own favourite metaphysical studies : ‘ The science of abstruse learning,’ he says, ‘when completely attained, is like Achilles’s spear, that healed the wounds it had made before. It casts no additional light upon the paths of life, hut disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them; it advances not the traveller one step on his journey, but conducts him back again to the spot from whence he had wandered.’ In 1775, Dr Joseph Priestley published an examination of the principles of Dr Reid and others, designed as a refutation of the doctrine of common sense, said to be employed as the test of truth by the Scottish metaphysicians. The doctrines of Priestley are of the school of Hartley. In 1777 he published a series of disquisitions on Matter and Spirit , in which he openly supported the mate- rial system. He also wrote in support of another unpopular doctrine — that of necessity. He settled in Birmingham in 1780, and officiated as minister of a dissenting congregation. His religious opinions were originally Calvinistic, hut afterwards became decidedly anti-Trinitarian. His works excited so much opposition, that he ever after found it neces- sary, as he states, to write a pamphlet annually in their defence! Priestley was also an active and distinguished chemist, and wrote a history of discoveries 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 Birming- ham, and destroyed his library, apparatus, and specimens. Three years afterwards he emigrated to America, where he continued his studies in science and theology, and died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, in 1804. As an experimental phil- osopher, Priestley was of a superior class ; but as a metaphysical or ethical writer, he can only be considered subordinate. He was a man of intrepid THEOLOGIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR PALET. spirit and of unceasing industry. One of his critics — in the Edinburgh Review — draws from his writings a lively picture of ‘ that indefatigable activity, that bigoted vanity, that precipitation, 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 intol- erance and persecution, were enlisted on the side of Priestley, has thus eulogised him in one of his most eloquent sentences : 1 The religious tenets of Dr Priestley appear 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 admir- ation of that period, when the greater part of those who have favoured, or those who have opposed him, will be alike forgotten. Distinguished merit will ever rise superior to oppression, and will draw lustre from reproach. The 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 varie- gated tints, and with a softened effulgence, the luminary which they cannot hide.’ THEOLOGIANS. Critical and biblical literature have made great progress within the last century, but the number of illustrious divines is not great. The early fathers of the Protestant church had indeed done so much in general theology and practical divinity, that comparatively little was left to their successors. DR PALET. The greatest divine of the period is Dr William Palet, a man of remarkable vigour and clearness of intellect, and originality of character. His acquire- ments as a scholar and churchman were grafted on a homely, shrewd, and benevolent nature, which no circumstances could materially alter. There was no doubt or obscurity either about the man or his works : he stands out in bold relief among his brother-divines, like a sturdy oak on a lawn or parterre — a little hard and cross-grained, but sound, fresh, and massive — dwarfing his neighbours with his weight and bulk, and his intrinsic excellence. He shall be like a tree that grows Near planted by a river, Which in his season yields his fruit, And his leaf fadeth never. So says our old version of the Psalms with respect to the fate of a righteous man, and Paley was a righteous man whose mind yielded precious fruit, and whose leaves will never fade. This excellent author was born at Peterborough in 1743. His father was afterwards curate of Giggleswick, York- shire, and teacher of the grammar-school there. At the age of fifteen he was entered as sizar at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and after completing his aca- demical course, he became tutor in an academy at Greenwich. As soon as he was of sufficient age, he was ordained to be assistant curate of Greenwich. He was afterwards elected a fellow of his college, and went thither to reside, engaging first as tutor. He next lectured in the university on moral phil- osophy and the Greek Testament. His college- friend, Dr Law, bishop of Carlisle, presented him with the rectory of Musgrave, in Westmoreland, and he removed to his country charge, worth only £80 per annum. He was soon inducted into the vicarage of Dalston, in Cumberland, to a prebend’s stall in Carlisle Cathedral, and also to the arch- deaconry of Carlisle. In 1785, appeared his long- meditated Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy ; in 1790, his Horae Paulinas ; and in 1794, his View of the Evidences of Christianity. Friends and pre- ferment now crowded in on him. The bishop of 'London (Porteous) made him a prebend of St Paul’s ; the bishop of Lincoln presented him with the sub-deanery of Lincoln; and the bishop of Durham gave him the rectory of Bishop-Wearmouth, worth about a thousand pounds per annum— and all these within six months, the luckiest half-year of his life. The boldness and freedom of some of Paley’s disquisitions on government, and perhaps a deficiency, real or supposed, in personal dignity, and some laxness, as well as an inveterate provincial homeliness, in conversation, prevented his rising to the bench of bishops. When his name was once mentioned to George III., the monarch is reported to have said: ‘Paley! what, pigeon Paley?’ — an allusion to a famous sentence in the Moral and Political Philosophy on property. As a specimen of his style of reasoning, and the liveliness of his illustrations, we subjoin this passage, which is part of an estimate of the relative duties of men in society : Of Property. If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn, and if — instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted, and no more — you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap, reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse, keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst pigeon of the flock ; sitting round, and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was devouring, throwing about and wasting it ; and if a pigeon, more hardy or hungry than the rest, touched i a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon it and tearing it to pieces : if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men yon see the ninety-and-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one, and this one too, oftentimes, the feeblest and worst of the whole set — a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool — getting nothing for themselves all the while but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry produces ; looking quietly on while they see' the fruits of all their labour spent or spoiled ; and if one of the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for the theft. There must be some very important advantages to account for an institution which, in the view of it above given, is so paradoxical and unnatural. The principal of these advantages are the following : I. It increases the produce of the earth. The earth, in climates like ours, produces little without cultivation ; and none would be found willing to cultivate the ground, if others were to be admitted to an equal share of the produce. The same is true of the care of flocks and herds of tame animals. Crabs and acorns, red deer, rabbits, game, and fish, are all which we should have to subsist upon in this country, if we trusted to the spontaneous productions of the soil; and it fares not much better with other countries. A nation of North American savages, con- sisting of two or three hundred, will take up and be half starved upon a tract of land which in Europe, and with European management, would be sufficient for the maintenance of as many thousands. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. In some fertile soils, together with great abundance of fish upon their coasts, and in regions where clothes are unnecessary, a considerable degree of population may subsist without property in land, which is the case in the islands of Otaheite ; but in less-favoured situa- tions, as in the country of New Zealand, though this sort of property obtain in a small degree, the inhabit- ants, for want of a more secure and regular establish- j ment of it, are driven oftentimes by the scarcity of I provision to devour one another. II. It preserves the produce of the earth to maturity. We may judge what would be the effects of a com- I munity of right to the productions of the earth from I the trifling specimens which we see of it at present. A i cherry-tree in a hedgerow, nuts in a wood, the grass of j an unstinted pasture, are seldom of much advantage to anybody, because people do not wait for the proper ! season of reaping them. Corn, if any were sown, would j never ripen ; lambs and calves would never grow up to ! sheep and cows, because the first person that met them would reflect that he had better take them as they are j than leave them for another, j III. It prevents contests. War and waste, tumult and confusion, must be unavoidable and eternal where there is not enough for all, and where there are no rules to adjust the division. IV. It improves the conveniency of living. This it does two ways. It enables mankind to divide themselves into distinct professions, which is impossible, J unless a man can exchange the productions of his own j art for what he wants from others, and exchange implies property. Much of the advantage of civilised over I savage life depends upon this. When a man is, from j necessity, his own tailor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, i huntsman, and fisherman, it is not probable that he will : be expert at any of his callings. Hence the rude habi- ! tations, furniture, clothing, and implements of savages, | and the tedious length of time which all their operations 1 require. It likewise encourages those arts by which the accom- j modations of human life are supplied, by appropriating | to the artist the benefit of his discoveries and improve- j ments, without which appropriation, ingenuity will | never be exerted with effect. Upon these several accounts we may venture, with a I few exceptions, to pronounce that even the poorest and ; the worst provided, in countries where property and the I consequences of property prevail, are in a better situa- j tion with respect to food, raiment, houses, and what are ! called the necessaries of life, than any are in places | where most things remain in common. The balance, therefore, upon the whole, must prepon- derate in favour of property with a manifest and great excess. Inequality of property, in the degree in which it exists in most countries of Europe, abstractedly, considered, is an evil ; but it is an evil which flows from those rules concerning the acquisition and disposal of property, by which men are incited to industry, and by which the object of their industry is rendered secure and valuable. If there be any great inequality unconnected with this crigin, it ought to be corrected. In 1802 Paley published his Natural Theology , his last work. He enjoyed himself in the country with his duties and recreations : he was particularly fond of angling ; and he mixed familiarly with his neigh- bours in all their plans of utility, sociality, and even conviviality. He disposed of his time with great regularity : in his garden he limited himself to one hour at a time, twice a day ; in reading books of amusement, one hour at breakfast and another in the evening, and one for dinner and his newspaper. By thus dividing and husbanding his pleasures, 196 they remained with him to the last. He died on the 25th of May 1805. No works of a theological or philosophical nature have been so extensively popular among the edu- cated classes of England as those of Paley. His perspicacity of intellect and simplicity of style are almost unrivalled. Though plain and homely, and often inelegant, he has such vigour and discrimina- tion, and such a happy vein of illustration, that he is always read -with pleasure and instruction. No reader is ever at a loss for his meaning, or finds him too difficult for comprehension. He had the rare art of popularising the most recondite knowledge, and blending the business of life with philosophy. The principles inculcated in some of his works have been disputed, particularly his doctrine of expedi- ency as a rule of morals, which has been considered as trenching on the authority of revealed religion, and also lowering the standard of public duty. The system of Paley certainly would not tend to foster the great and heroic virtues. In his early life he is reported to have said, with respect to his subscrip- tion to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, that he was ‘too poor to keep a conscience and something of the same laxness of moral feeling pervades his ethical system. His abhorrence of all hypocrisy and pretence was probably at the root of this error. Like Dr Johnson, he was a practical moralist, and looked with distrust on any high- strained virtue or enthusiastic devotion. He did not write for philosophers or metaphysicians, but for the great body of the people anxious to acquire knowledge, and to be able to give ‘ a reason for the hope that is in them.’ He considered the art of life to consist in properly ‘ setting our habits ,’ and for this no subtle distinctions or profound theories were necessary. His Moral and Political Philosophy is framed on this basis of utility, directed by strong sense, a discerning judgment, and a sincere regard for the true end of all knowledge — the well-being of mankind here and hereafter. Of Paley’s other works, Sir James Mackintosh has pronounced the following opinion : ‘ The most original and ingenious of his writings is the Horae Paulinas. The Evidences of Christianity are formed out of an admirable trans- lation of Butler’s Analogy , and a most skilful abridg- ment of Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel History. He may be said to have thus given value to two works, of which the first was scarcely intelligible to most of those who were most desirous of profiting by it ; and the second soon wearies out the greater part of readers, though the few who are more patient have almost always been gradually won over to feel pleasure in a display of knowledge, probity, charity, and meekness unmatched by an avowed advocate in a cause deeply interesting his warmest feelings. His Natural Theology is the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it ; and it could only have been surpassed by a man (Sir Charles Bell) who, to great originality of conception and clearness of exposition, added the advantage of a high place in the first class of physiologists.’ [The World was Made with a Benevolent Design .] [From Natural Theology.'] It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. ‘ The insect youth are on the wing.’ Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, THEOLOGIANS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR WATSON — DR HORSLEY. their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoy- ment ; so busy and so pleased : yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which, by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and, under every variety of consti- tution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of gratification : what else should fix them so close to the operation and so long ? Other species are running about with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it — which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement — all conduce to shew their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side in a calm evening upon a sandy shore and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space filled with young shrimps in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this ; if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment ; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view ! The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing anything of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or perhaps of the single word which it has learned to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavours to walk, or rather to run — which precedes walking — although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having anything to say ; and with walking, without knowing where to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking-hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see. But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat no less than with the playful kitten ; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the spright- liness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, ‘ perception of ease.’ Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure ; . the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important step the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau to be the interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures, cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life under all or most of its various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, namely, our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the only happy one. A new and illustrated edition of Paley’s Natural Theology was published in 1835, with scientific illustrations by Sir Charles Bell, and a preliminary discourse by Henry Lord Brougham. DR WATSON — DR HORSLEY — DR PORTEOUS — GILBERT WAKEFIELD. Dr Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff (1737- 1816), did good service to the cause of revealed religion and social order by his replies to Gibbon the historian, and Thomas Paine. To the former, he addressed a series of letters, entitled An Apology for Christianity , in answer to Gibbon’s celebrated chapters on the rise and progress of Christianity; and when Paine published his Age of Reason , the bishop met it with a vigorous and conclusive reply, which he termed An Apology for the Bible. Watson also published a few sermons, and a collection of theological tracts, selected from various authors, in six volumes. His Whig principles stood in the way of his church preferment, and he had not magnani- mity enough to conceal his disappointment, which is strongly expressed in an autobiographical memoir published after his death by his son. Dr Watson, however, was a man of forcible intellect, and of various knowledge. His controversial works are highly honourable to him, both for the manly and candid spirit in which they are written, and the logical clearness and strength of his reasoning. Dr Samuel Horsley, bishop of St Asaph (1733- 1806), was one of the most conspicuous churchmen of his day. He belonged to the high-church party, and strenuously resisted all political or ecclesiastical change. He was learned and eloquent, but prone to controversy, and deficient in charity and the milder virtues. His character was not unlike that of one of his patrons, Chancellor Thurlow, stern and unbending, but cast in a manly mould. He was an indefatigable student. His first public appearance was in the character of a man of science. He was some time secretary of the Royal Society — wrote various short treatises on scientific subjects, and published an edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s works. As a critic and scholar, he had few equals ; and his disquisitions on the prophets Isaiah and llosea, from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. his translations of the Psalms, and his Biblical Criticisms (in four volumes), justly entitled him to the honour of the mitre. His sermons, in three volumes, are about the best in the language : clear, nervous, and profound, he entered undauntedly upon the most difficult subjects, and dispelled, by research and argument, the doubt that hung over several passages of Scripture. He was for many years engaged in a controversy with Dr Priestley on the subject of the divinity of Christ. Both of the combatants lost their temper; but when Priestley resorted to a charge of ‘incompetency and ignorance,’ it was evident that he felt liimself sinking in the struggle. In intellect and scholarship, Horsley was vastly superior to his antagonist. The political opinions and intolerance of the bishop were more successfully attacked by Robert Hall, in his Apology for the Freedom of the Press. Dr Beilby Porteous, bishop of London (1731- 1808), was a popular dignitary of the church, author of a variety of sermons and tracts connected with church-discipline. He distinguished himself at college by a prize poem On Death , which has been often reprinted: it is but a feeble transcript of Blair’s Grave. Dr Porteous warmly befriended Beattie the poet (whom he wished to take orders in the Church of England), and he is said to have assisted Hannah More in her novel of Coelebs. Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801) enjoyed cele- brity both as a writer on controversial divinity and a classical critic. He left the church in consequence of his embracing Unitarian opinions, and afterwards left also the dissenting establishment at Hackney, to which he had attached himself. He published translations of some of the epistles in the New Testament, and an entire translation of the same sacred volume, with notes. He was also author of a work on Christian evidence, in reply to Paine. The bishop of Llandaff having in 1798 written an address against the principles of the French Revo- lution, Wakefield replied to it, and was subjected to a crown prosecution for libel ; he was found guilty, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He 198 published editions of Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, &c., which ranked him among the first scholars of his time. Wakefield was an honest, precipitate, and simple-minded man ; a Pythagorean in his diet, and eccentric in many of his habits and opinions. ‘ He was,’ says one of his biographers, ‘ as violent against Greek accents as he was against the Trinity, and anathematised the final n as strongly as episcopacy.’ MR WILBERFORCE. The infidel principles which abounded at the period of the French Revolution, and continued to agitate both France and England for some years, induced a disregard of vital piety long afterwards in the higher circles of British society. To coun- teract this, Mr Wilberforce, then member of parliament for the county of York, published in 1797 A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country , Contrasted with Real Christi- anity. Five editions of the work were sold within six months, and it still continues, in various lan- guages, to form a popular religious treatise. The author attested, by his daily life, the sincerity of his opinions. William Wilberforce was the son of a wealthy merchant, and born at Hull in 1759. He was educated at Cambridge, and on completing his twenty-first year, was returned to parliament for his native town. He soon distinguished liimself by his talents, and became the idol of the fashionable world, dancing at Almack’s, and singing before the Prince of Wales. In 1784, while pursuing a conti- nental tour with some relations, in company with Dean Milner, the latter so impressed him with the truths of Christianity, that Wilberforce entered upon a new life, and abandoned all his former gaieties. In parliament, he pursued a strictly inde- pendent course. For twenty, years he laboured for the abolition of the slave-trade, a question with which his name is inseparably entwined. His time, his talents, influence, and prayers, were directed towards the consummation of this object, and at length, in 1807, he had the high gratification of seeing it accomplished. The religion of Wilberforce was mild and cheerful, unmixed with austerity or gloom. He closed his long and illustrious life on the 27th July 1833, one of those men who, by their virtues, talents, and energy, impress their own character on the age in which they live. His latter years realised his own beautiful description — [On the Effects of Religion.] When the pulse beats high, and we are flushed with youth, and health, and vigour ; when all goes on pros- perously, and success seems almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the want of the consolations of religion; but when fortune frowns, or friends forsake us ; when sorrow, or sickness, or old age comes upon us, then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of reli- gion is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind, than that of an old man who is a stranger to those only true sources of satisfac- tion. How affecting, and at the same time how dis- gusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach ; or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his endeavours and elude his grasp! To such a one gloomily, indeed, does the evening of life set in ! All is sour and cheerless. He can neither look backward with complacency, nor forward with hope; theologians. ENGLISH LITERATURE. jortin — blair. while the aged Christian, relying on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that his dismission is at hand; that his redemption draweth nigh. While his strength declines, and his faculties decay, he can quietly repose himself on the fidelity of God; and at the very entrance of the valley of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye, dim perhaps and feeble, yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confi- dently looking forward to the near possession of his heavenly inheritance, ‘ to those joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.’ What striking lessons have we had of the precarious tenure of all sublunary posses- sions ! Wealth, and power, and prosperity, how pecu- liarly transitory and uncertain ! But religion dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty, in exile, in sickness, and in death. The essen- tial superiority of that support which is derived from religion is less felt, at least it is less apparent, when the Christian is in full possession of riches and splendour, and rank, and all the gifts of nature and fortune. But when all these are swept away by the rude hand of time or the rough blasts of adversity, the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest, erect and vigorous ; stripped, indeed, of his summer foliage, but more than ever discovering to the observing eye the solid strength of his substantial texture. JORTIN — HURD — HORNE. Dr John Jortin (1698-1770), a prebendary of St Paul’s, and archdeacon of London, was early distinguished as a scholar and an independent theologian. His Remarks upon Ecclesiastical History , published at intervals between 1751 and 1751, with an addition of two more volumes after his death, have been greatly admired, and he wrote Six Dissertations upon Various Subjects (1755), which evince his classical taste and acquirements. His other works are a Life of Erasmus , 1758 ; Remarks upon the Works of Erasmus , 1760 ; and several tracts, philological, critical, and miscellaneous. Seven volumes of his Sermons were published after his decease. Dr Richard Hurd (1720-1808), a friend and disciple of Warburton, was author of an Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies , being the substance of twelve discourses delivered at Cambridge. Hurd was a man of taste and learning, author of a com- mentary on Horace, and editor of Cowley’s works. He rose to enjoy high church preferment, and died bishop of Worcester, after having declined the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. Dr George Horne (1730-1792) was another divine whose talents and learning raised him to the bench of bishops. He wrote various works, the most important of which is a Commentary on the Book of Psalms , which appeared in 1776 in two volumes quarto. It is still a text-book with theo- logical students and divines, and unites extensive erudition with fervent piety. DR HUGH BLAIR. The Scottish church at this time also contained some able and accomplished divines. The equality of livings in the northern establishment, and the greater amount of pastoral labour devolving upon its ministers, arc unfavourable for studious research or profound erudition. The Edinburgh 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 popular 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 Pifeshire, but, being celebrated for his pulpit 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 literary reputa- tion; 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 volume 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 annum further rewarded its author. Blair next published his Rhetorical 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 literary composition, and has also detailed criticisms on ancient and modern authors. The sermons, however, are the most valuable of Blair’s works. They are written with taste and elegance, and by inculcating Christian morality without any allusion to controversial topics, are suited to all classes of Christians. Profound thought, or reasoning, or impassioned 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 occasionally irregular, or faulty in style, have more of devo- tional ardour and vivid description. In society, Dr Blair was cheerful and polite, the friend of literature as well as of virtue. His predominant weakness seems to have been vanity, 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 advantage, that they 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 from that more toilsome labour to which it must submit in the acquisition of necessary erudition or the investigation of abstract truth. The cultivation of taste is further recommended by the happy effects which it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man in the most active sphere cannot be always occupied by business. Men of serious professions cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and 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, which 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 entertain- ments 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 innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. He is not 199 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. 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 plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose to which the pleasures of taste may he applied, by interposing them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those of pure intel- lect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former; nor are we capable 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 attachments 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 symptom 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 less connected. A cultivated taste increases sensi- bility to all the tender and humane passions, by giving them frequent exercise ; while it tends to weaken the more violent and fierce emotions. Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros. [These polished arts have humanised mankind, Softened the rude, and calmed the boisterous mind.] 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 illustrious 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 always be expected to coexist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart. At the same time, this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, 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 without possessing the virtuous affections in a strong degree, no man can attain eminence in the sublime parts of eloquence. He must feel what a good man feels, if he expects greatly to move or to interest mankind. They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnani- mity, and public spirit, 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 necessary also to our relishing them with proper taste and feeling. 200 [Difference between Taste and Genius .] [From the Bame.] 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 compo- sition 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 which can, moreover, produce new beauties, and exhibit them in such a manner as strongly to impress the minds of others. Refined taste forms a good critic ; but genius is further necessary to form the poet or the orator. It is proper also to observe, that genius is a word which, in common acceptation, extends much further than to the objects of taste. It is used to signify that talent or aptitude which we receive from nature for 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 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 im- proved, but by them alone it cannot be acquired. As genius is a higher faculty than taste, it is ever, accord- ing to the usual frugality of nature, more limited in the sphere of its operations. It is not uncommon to meet with persons who have an excellent taste in several of the polite arts, such as music, poetry, paint- 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 be looked for. A sort of universal genius, or one who is equally and indifferently turned towards several different professions and arts, is not likely to excel in any; although there may be some few exceptions, yet in general it holds, that when the bent of the mind is 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. DR GEORGE CAMPBELL. Dr George Campbell, professor of divinity, and afterwards principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen, was a theologian and critic of more 'vigorous intel- lect and various learning than Dr Blair. His Dis- sertation on Miracles , written in reply to Hume, is a conclusive and masterly piece of reasoning ; and his Philosophy of Rhetoric — published in 1776 — is perhaps the best hook of the kind since Aristotle. Most of the other works on this subject are little else but compilations, but Campbell brought to it a high degree of philosophical acumen and learned research. Its utility is also equal to its depth and originality : the philosopher finds in it exercise for his ingenuity, and the student may safely consult it for its practical suggestions and illustrations. Dr Campbell’s other works are, a Translation of the Four Gospels , worthy of his talents ; some sermons preached on public occasions ; and a series of Lectures ENGLISH LITERATURE. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. EARL OP CHESTERFIELD. on Ecclesiastical History , which were not published till after his death. It is worthy of remark that Hume himself admitted the ‘ ingenuity ’ of Camp- bell’s reply to his sceptical opinions, and the ‘ great learning’ of the author. The well-known hypo- thesis of Hume is, that no testimony for any kind of miracle can ever amount to a probability, much less to a proof. To this Dr Campbell opposed the argument that testimony has a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience; in illustration of which he remarked, that the earliest assent which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact the most unlimited. His answer is divided into two parts ; first, that miracles are capable of proof from testimony, and religious miracles not less than others; and, secondly, that the miracles on which the belief of Christianity is founded, are sufficiently attested. Campbell had no fear for the result of such discussions : ‘ I do not hesitate to affirm,’ he says, ‘that our religion has been indebted to the attempts, though not to the intentions, of its bitterest enemies. They have tried its strength, indeed, and, by trying, they have displayed its strength; and that in so clear a light, as we could never have hoped, without such a trial, to have viewed it in. Let them, therefore, write; let them argue, and, when arguments fail, even let them cavil against religion as much as they please ; I should be heartily sorry that ever in this island, the asylum of liberty, where the spirit of Christianity is better understood — however defective the inhabitants are in the observance of its precepts — than in any other part of the Christian world; I should, I say, be sorry that in this island so great a disservice were done to religion as to check its adversaries in any other way than by returning a candid answer to their objections. I must at the same time acknow- ledge, that I am both ashamed and grieved when I observe any friends of religion betray so great a diffidence in the goodness of their cause— for to this diffidence alone can it be imputed— as to shew an inclination for recurring to more forcible methods. The assaults of infidels, I may venture to pro- phesy, will never overturn our religion. They will prove not more hurtful to the Christian system, if it be allowed to compare small things with the greatest, than the boisterous winds are said to prove to the sturdy oak. They shake it impetu- ously for a time, and loudly threaten its subversion ; whilst, in effect, they only serve to make it strike its roots the deeper, and stand the firmer ever after.’ In the same manly spirit, and reliance on the ultimate triumph of truth, Dr Campbell was opposed to the penal law r s against the Catholics ; and in 1779, when the country was agitated with that intolerant zeal against popery, which in the following year burst out in riots in London, he issued an Address to the People of Scotland, remarkable for its cogency of argument and its just and enlightened sentiments. Eor this service to true religion and toleration the mob of Aberdeen broke the author’s windows, and nicknamed him ‘Pope Campbell.’ In 1795, when far advanced in life, Dr Campbell received a pen- sion of £300 from the crown, on which he resigned his professorship, and his situation as principal of Marischal College. He enjoyed this well-earned reward only one year, dying in 1796, in his seventy- seventh year. With the single exception of Dr Robertson the historian — who shone in a totally different walk— the name of Dr Campbell is the greatest which the Scottish church can number among its clergy. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. EARL OP CHESTERFIELD. No work of this period was so eagerly perused or so sharply criticised as the series of Letters written by Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), to his natural son Philip Stanhope, some time envoy at the court of Dresden. The letters were never designed for publication. After the death of Mr Stanhope in 1768, it was found that he had been secretly married, and had left a widow and two children. The widow disposed of the original letters to their proper owner, Lord Chester- field, but she preserved copies, and immediately after the death of the eminent wit and statesman, the letters were committed to the press. The correspondence began, as was stated in the preface, with ‘the dawnings of instruction adapted to the capacity of a boy, rising gradually by precepts and monition calculated to direct and guard the age of incautious youth to the advice and knowledge requisite to form the man ambitions to shine as an accomplished courtier, an orator in the senate, or a minister at foreign courts.’ Mr Stanhope, how- ever, was not calculated to shine ; he was deficient in those graces which the anxious and courtly father so sedulously inculcated ; his manners were distant, shy, and repulsive; and he was more disposed to become a pedant, than an orator or statesman. The letters in point of morality are indefensible. Johnson said strongly that they taught the morals of a courtesan and the manners of a dancing- master; but they are also characterised by good sense and refined taste, and are written in pure and admirable English. Chesterfield was, per- haps, the most accomplished man of his age; but it was an age in which a low standard of morality prevailed among public men. As a statesman and diplomatist, he was ingenious, witty, and eloquent, without being high-spirited or profound. He originated no great measure or scheme of national policy to stamp his name on the political annals of his country ; but as lord lieutenant of Ireland, for a short period his administration was conciliatory and enlightened. The speeches, state- papers, literary essays, and other miscellaneous writings of this celebrated peer were published by Dr Maty, accompanied with a memoir, in 1774, and a valuable edition of his Letters, edited, with notes, by Lord Mahon, was given to the world in four volumes in 1845. The importance which Chesterfield attached to ‘ good-breeding ’ may be seen from this passage : 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 the same indul- gence from them.’ Taking this for granted — as I think it cannot be disputed — it is astonishing to me that anybody, who has good-sense and good-nature, can essen- tially 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 observa- tion and experience ; but the substance of it is every- where and eternally the 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 difference both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800, 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 sacri- fices 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 advantages arising from it. For my own part, I 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. The copyright of Chesterfield’s Letters was sold for £1500 — a sum almost unprecedented for such a work, and five editions were called for within twelve months. CHARLOTTE LENNOX — CATHERINE MACAULEY. Among the literary names preserved by Boswell and Horace Walpole are those of Mrs Charlotte Lennox (1720-1804), and Mrs Catherine Mac- atjley (1733-1791). The former wrote several novels, one of which, The Female Quixote , 1752, is an amusing picture of female extravagance con- sequent on romance-reading. Mrs Lennox also published a feeble critical work, ShaJcspeare Illus- trated , and translated from the French Brumoy’s Greek Theatre , The Life of Sully , &c. The first novel of this lady '( Harriot Stuart , 1751) was celebrated by Johnson and a party of ladies and gentlemen in the Devil Tavern, where a sumptuous supper was provided, and Johnson invested the authoress with a crown of laurel ! Mrs Macauley was an ardent politician, and in sentiment a republican — ‘the hen-brood of faction,’ according to Walpole. Her chief work was a History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Elevation of the House of Hanover , 8 vols., 1763-83. Though a work of no authority or original information, this history has passages of animated composition. To ridicule Mrs Macauley’s republicanism, Johnson one day proposed that her footman, ‘ a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow- citizen,’ should be allowed to sit down to dinner with them. The lady, of course, was indignant; hut she held to her levelling doctrines in theory, and before her death, had visited George Washing- ton in America, and written against Burke’s denunciation of the French Devolution. DR RICHARD FARMER — GEORGE STEEVENS. In 1766, Dr Richard Farmer of Emanuel College, Cambridge (1735-1797), published an Essay on the Learning of ShaJcspeare, which was considered to have for ever put an end to the dispute concerning the classic knowledge of the great dramatist. Farmer certainly shewed that Shakspeare had implicitly followed English trans- lations of the ancient authors — as North’s Plutarch — copying even their errors; but more careful and reverent study of the poet has weakened the force of many of the critic’s conclusions. The due appre- ciation of Shakspeare had not then begun. A dramatic critic and biographer, George Steevens (1736-1800), was associated with John- son in the second edition of his Shakspeare, 1773. He had previously (1766) published twenty of Shakspeare’s plays, with notes. In 1793, Steevens published an enlarged edition of his Shakspeare. He was acute and well read in dramatic literature, but prone to literary mystification and deception. Gifford styled him the ‘ Puck of commentators.’ JACOB BRYANT. A severe student and profound scholar, Jacob Bryant (1715-1804) engaged the attention of the learned and critical world throughout a long life by his erudition, inventive fancy, and love of paradox. Through the influence of the Duke of Marlborough, to whom he had acted as secretary, Mr Bryant obtained a lucrative appointment in the Ordnance Office, which left him leisure to pursue his favourite studies. His most celebrated works are A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology , 1774-76; Observations on the Plain of Troy, 1795 ; and a Dis- sertation concerning the War of Troy , 1796. The object of Bryant was to shew that the expedition of the Greeks, as described by Homer, is fabulous, and that no such city as Troy existed. A host of classic adversaries rose up against him, to one of whom — Mr J. B. S. Morritt, the friend of Sir Walter Scott — he replied, but his theory has not obtained general acquiescence. His views regarding the ancient mythology — in which he attempted to divest tradi- tion of fable, and to substitute etymological for historical evidence — are also in a great measure fanciful, but are highly ingenious, and, like all his writings, evince extraordinary learning and research. Bryant also wrote several theological treatises and papers on classical subjects. It is worthy of remark that, though this able and amiable man doubted and denied concerning Homer, he was a believer in the fabrications of Chatterton, having written observa- tions to prove the authenticity of the Rowley poems. THOMAS AMORY. Thomas Amory (1692-1789) was an eccentric miscellaneous writer, a humorist of an extreme stamp. He Avas most probably a native of Ireland, where his father, a counsellor, acquired considerable property as secretary for the confiscated estates. Thomas is said to have been bred a physician, but is not known to have practised. He is found residing in Westminster in 1757. Previous to this, in 1755, he published Memoirs: containing the Lives of several Ladies of Great Britain ; and afterwards he issued the Life of John B uncle, Esq., 1756-66. The ‘ Ladies ’ whose charms and virtues Amory com- memorates, appear to have been fictitious characters. The object of the author, in this work, as well as in the Life of Buncle, was to extol and propagate Socinian or Unitarian opinions. All his ladies are of this persuasion, and all are beautiful and intellec- tual. He describes himself as travelling among the hills of Northumberland, and meeting there, in a secluded spot (which he invests with all the beauty and softness of a scene in Kent or Devon), a young lady, the daughter of a deceased college- friend, who had been disinherited for refusing to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. The young lady entertains her father’s friend, and introduces him to other ladies. They undertake a visit to the Western Islands, and encounter various adventures and vicissitudes, besides indulging in philosophical and polemical discussions. The Life of John Buncle is of a similar complexion, but Amory is supposed to have introduced into this work a considerable portion of his own history. It is in the form of an autobiography. Buncle has seven wives, all wooed and won upon his peculiar ‘ Christian principles.’ To such reviewers as should attempt to raise the laugh against him, he replies : ‘ I think it unreason- able and impious to grieve immoderately for the dead. A decent and proper tribute of tears and MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. sorrow, humanity requires ; but when that duty has been paid, we must remember that to lament a dead woman is not to lament a wife. A wife must be a living woman.’ And in the spirit of this philosophy, John Buncle proceeds after each bereavement, always in high animal spirits, relishing good cheer, and making fresh converts to his views and opinions. The character, appearance, and acquirements of each wife, with her family history, are related at length. The progeny he casts into shade. ‘ As I mention nothing of any children by so many wives,’ he explains, ‘ some readers may perhaps wonder at this ; and therefore to give a general answer once for all, I think it sufficient to observe, that I had a great many to carry on the succession ; but as they never were concerned in any extraordinary affairs, nor ever did any remarkable things, that I ever heard of— only rise and breakfast, read and saunter, drink and eat, it would not be fair, in my opinion, to make any one pay for their history.’ In lieu of this, the reader is treated to dissertations on the origin of earthquakes, on muscular motion, of phlogiston, fluxions, the Athanasian creed, and fifty other topics brought together in heroic contempt of the unities of time and place. Such a fantastic and desultory work would be intolerable if it were not, like Rabelais and Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy — though in a greatly inferior degree — redolent of wit, scholarship, and quaint original thought. Amory promised to give the world an account of Dean Swift. ‘ I knew him well,’ he says, ‘ though I never was within sight of his house, because I could not flatter, cringe, or meanly humour the extravagances of any man. I had him often to myself in his rides and walks, and have studied his soul when he little thought what I was about. As I lodged for a year within a few doors of him, I knew his time of going out to a minute, and generally nicked the oppor- tunity.’ Unfortunately, though Amory lived thirty years after making this declaration, he never redeemed his promise. [Picture of Arcadia.'] In the middle of this delightful country, there appears the monument of a beauty, who had been snatched away in her prime. Her statue lies on the tomb, after the manner of the ancients. There is this sepulchral inscription : ‘And I was once an inhabitant of Arcadia.’ The unexpected melancholy scene strikes powerfully some youths and virgins, who had not a thought of meeting with this object of sorrow, and as they gaze upon the image of the lovely maid, they seem to fall into the deepest reflections. The youngest of the shepherdesses pulls off a garland of flowers, and with a finger of her other hand, points to the short inscription. She ponders with the most serious attention ; and in every face a gloominess of grief may be discerned, through some remains of an expiring joy. They all appear very greatly affected, and seem to have many interesting thoughts of death, as they see it spares not even youth and beauty; and that even the happy climate of Arcadia can afford no sanctuary from the grave. [Portrait of Marinda Bruce.] In the year 1739, I travelled many hundred miles to visit ancient monuments, and discover curious things ; and as I wandered, to this purpose, among the vast hills of Northumberland, fortune conducted me one evening, in the month of June, when I knew not where to rest, to the sweetest retirement my eyes have ever beheld. This is Hali-farm. It is a beautiful vale surrounded with rocks, forest, and water. I found at the upper end of it the prettiest thatched house in the world, and a garden of the most artful confusion I had ever seen. The little mansion was covered on every side with the finest flowery greens. The streams ail round were murmuring and falling a thousand ways. All the kind of singing-birds were here collected, and in high harmony on the sprays. The ruins of an abbey enhance the beauties of this place ; they appear at the distance of four hundred yards from the house ; and as some great trees are now grown up among the remains, and a river winds between the broken walls, the view is solemn, the picture fine. When I came up to the house, the first figure I saw was the lady whose story I am going to relate. She had the charms of an angel, but her dress was quite plain and clean as a country maid. Her person appeared faultless, and of the middle size, between the disagree- able extremes; her face, a sweet oval, and her com- plexion the brunette of the bright rich kind ; her mouth, like a rose-bud that is just beginning to blow ; and a fugitive dimple, by fits, would lighten and disappear. The finest passions were always passing in her face ; and in her long, even chestnut eyes, there was a fluid fire, sufficient for half-a-dozen pair. She had a volume of Shakspeare in her hand as I came softly towards her, having left my horse at a distance with my servant ; and her attention was so much engaged with the extremely poetical and fine lines which Titania speaks in the third act of the Mid- summer Night's Dream , that she did not see me till I was quite near her. She seemed then in great amaze- ment. She could not be much more surprised if I had dropped from the clouds. But this was soon over, upon my asking her if she was not the daughter of Mr John Bruce, as I supposed, from a similitude of faces, and informing her that her father, if I was right, was my near friend, and would be glad to see his chum in that part of the world. Marinda replied: ‘You are not wrong,’ and immediately asked me in. She conducted me to a parlour that was quite beautiful in the rural way, and welcomed me to Hali-farm, as her father would have done, she said, had I arrived before his removal to a better world. She then left me for a while, and I had time to look over the room I was in. The floor was covered with rushes wrought into the prettiest mat, and the walls decorated all round with the finest flowers and shells. Robins and nightingales, the finch and the linnet, were in the neatest reed cages of her own making ; and at the upper end of the chamber, in a charming little open grotto, was the finest strix capite aurito, corpore rufo that I have seen, that is, the great eagle owl. This beautiful bird, in a niche like a ruin, looked vastly fine. As to the flowers which adorned this room, I thought they were all natural at my first coming in ; but on inspection, it appeared that several baskets of the finest kinds were inimitably painted on the walls by Marinda’ s hand. These things afforded me a pleasing entertainment for about half-an-hour, and then Miss Bruce returned. One of the maids brought in a supper — such fare, she said, as her little cottage afforded ; and the table was covered with green peas and pigeons, cream -cheese, new bread and butter. Everything was excellent in its kind. The cider and ale were admirable. Discretion and dignity appeared in Marinda’s behaviour; she talked with judgment ; and under the decencies of ignorance was concealed a valuable knowledge. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. The miscellaneous department of our literature was unusually rich at this time, as it included nearly all the great names that shone in poetry, fiction, politics, philosophy, and criticism.. At its head, as exercising a more commanding influence than any other of his contemporaries, may he FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. placed Dr Johnson, already distinguished as a moral poet and essayist. In 1755 Johnson pub- lished his Dictionary of the English Language , which had occupied the greater part of his time for seven years. In 1765 appeared his edition of Shakspeare, containing little that is valuable in the way of annotation, but introduced by a power- ful and masterly preface. In 1770 and 1771 he wrote two political pamphlets in support of the measures of government, The False Alarm, and Thoughts on the Late 1'ransactions respecting the Falk- land Lslands. Though often harsh, contemptuous, and intolerant, these pamphlets are admirable pieces of composition — full of nerve and controversial zeal. In 1775 appeared his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland; and in 1781 his Lives of the Poets. It was the felicity of Johnson, as of Dryden, to improve as an author as he advanced in years, and to write best after he had passed that period of life when many men are almost incapable of intellectual exertion. In reviewing the above works, little other language need be employed than that of eulogy. The Dictionary is a valuable practical work, not remarkable for philological research, but for its happy and luminous definitions, the result of great sagacity, precision of understanding, and clearness of expression. A few of the definitions betray the personal feelings and peculiarities of the author, and have been much ridiculed. For example, ‘ Excise,’ which — as a Tory hating Walpole and the Whig excise act — he defines, ‘ A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.’ A pension is defined to be ‘ an allowance made to any one without an equiva- lent. In England, it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state-hireling for treason to his country.’ After such a definition, it is scarcely to be wondered that Johnson paused, and felt some ‘compunctious visitings’ before he accepted a pension himself ! Oats he defines, ‘A grain which in England is ‘generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.’ This gave mortal offence to the natives of Scotland, and is hardly yet forgiven ; but the best reply was the happy obser- vation of Lord Elibank, ‘Yes, and where will you find such horses and such men?’ The Journey to the Western Jsles makes no pretension to scientific discovery, but it is an entertaining and finely written work. In the Highlands, the poetical imagination of Johnson expanded with the new scenery and forms of life presented to his contemplation. His love of feudalism, of clanship, and of ancient Jacobite families, found full scope ; and as he was always a close observer, his descriptions convey much pleasing and original information. His com- plaints of the want of woods in Scotland, though dwelt upon with a ludicrous perseverance and querulousness, had the effect of setting the landlords to plant their bleak moors and mountains, and improve the aspect of the country. The Lives of the Poets have a freedom of style, a vigour of thought, and happiness of illustration, rarely attained even by their author. The plan of the work was defective, as the lives begin only with Cowley, excluding all the previous poets from Chaucer downwards. Some feeble and worthless rhymsters also obtained niches in J ohnson’s gallery ; but the most serious defect of the whole is the injustice done to some of our greatest masters of song, in consequence of the political or personal prejudices of the author. To Milton he is strikingly unjust, though his criticism on Paradise Lost is able and profound. Gray is treated with a coarseness 204 and insensibility derogatory only to the critic ; and in general, as we have before had occasion to remark, the higher order of imaginative poetry suffers under the ponderous hand of J ohnson. Its beauties were too airy and ethereal for his grasp — too subtle for his feeling or understanding. A few extracts are subjoined, to illustrate his peculiar but impressive and animated style. [From the Preface to the Dictionary .] It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employ- ments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good ; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise ; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence with- out reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dic- tionaries ; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which learning and genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their pro- gress. Every other author may aspire to praise ; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few. I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary of the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of litera- ture, has itself been hitherto neglected ; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exu- berance ; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion ; and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation. No book was ever turned from one language into another without imparting something of its native idiom ; this is the most mischievous and comprehensive innovation ; single words may enter by thousands, and the fabric of the tongue continue the same; but new phraseology changes much at once; it alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our style — which I, who can never wish to see dependence multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty will hinder or destroy — let them, instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endea- vour, with all their influence, to stop the licence of translators, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be’ suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France. If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity ? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated; tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration ; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors : whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputa- I tion of English literature, must be left to time ; much ! of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease ; ; much has been trifled away ; and much has always been I spent in provision for the day that was passing over me ; I but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, foreign, nations and distant ages gain I access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. tlie teachers of truth ; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle. When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endea- voured well. That it will immediately become popular, I have not promised to myself ; a few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multi- plicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can "be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some falling away ; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient ; that he whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand ; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine ; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present ; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avoca- tions will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readi- ness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow. In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed ; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little soli- citous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggre- gated knowledge and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the censure of Beni ; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon 'their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I 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 knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona. [ Parallel between Pope and Dryden.\ [From the Lives of the Poets . ] Pope professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liber- ality; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master. Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden’ s mind was sufficiently shewn by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He 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 was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened 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. Pope was not content to satisfy : he desired to excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do his best : he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader, and expecting no indulgence from others, he shewed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable 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 hasten 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 some time afterwards to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a second time.’ His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned 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 imperfections; and the Essay on Criticism received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigour. Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden, but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope. In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive 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 comprehensive speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. 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 diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation, 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, combines, amplifies, and animates, the superiority must, with some hesita- tion, 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. Dryden’s performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed with- out 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 sentiments, 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 regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. This parallel will, I hope, when it is well considered, be found just; and if the reader should suspect 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, perhaps, shew him the reasonableness of my determination. [Picture of the Miseries of War.] [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, but 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 thousands 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 languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction ; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continu- ance of hopeless misery ; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and with- out remembrance. By incommodious 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 206 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 shew his gains without 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, contractors 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 in 1765. As a light and genial satirist, a sportive yet tender and insinuating moralist, and as an 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 essays — for the Citizen of the World consists of detached 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 Player, are in the finest vein of story-telling; while the Eastern Apologue, Asem, an Eastern Tale, and Alcander and Septimius, are tinged with the light of true poetry and imagination. Where the author speaks of actual life, and the ‘ fashion of our estate/ we see the workings of experience and a finely meditative mind. The History of Animated Nature , not published 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 calculated to awaken a love of nature and a study of its various phenomena. [Scenery of the Alps.] [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 summit 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 becomes more cold, and the earth more barren. In this dreary passage he is often entertained with a little valley of surprising verdure, caused by the reflected heat of the sun collected into a narrow spot on the surrounding heights. But it much more frequently happens that he sees only frightful precipices beneath, and lakes of amazing depth, from whence rivers are formed, and fountains derive their original. On those places next the highest summits vegetation is scarcely carried on : here and there a few plants of the most hardy kind appear. The air is intolerably cold — either continually refrigerated with frosts, or disturbed with tempests. All the ground here wears an eternal covering of ice and snow, that seem continually accumulating. Upon emerging from this war of the elements, he ascends into a purer and serener region, where vegetation is entirely ceased — where the precipices, composed entirely of rocks, rise perpendicularly above him ; while he views beneath him all the combat of the elements, clouds at his feet, and thunders darting upwards from their bosoms below. A thousand meteors, which are never seen on the plain, present themselves. Circular rainbows, mock suns, the MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. shadow of the mountain projected upon the body of the air, and the traveller’s own image reflected as in a looking-glass upon the opposite cloud. [A Sketch of the Universe.'] [From the same.] The world may be considered as one vast mansion, where man has been admitted to enjoy, to admire, and to be grateful. The first desires of savage nature are merely to gratify the importunities of sensual appetite, 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 wants are sufficiently supplied, that we can attend to the calls of curiosity ; so that in every age scientific refinement 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- pensity, 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 disquisition, 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. Astronomers 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 million of times j less than the sun, by which it is enlightened. The planets also, which, like it, are subordinate to the sun’s j influence, exceed the earth one thousand times in magni- | tude. These, which were at first supposed to wander in the heavens without any fixed path, and that took their name from their apparent deviations, have long been found to perform their circuits with great exactness and strict regularity. 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 common influence. Modern philosophy has taught us to believe, that when the great Author of nature began the work of creation, he chose to operate by second causes ; and that, suspending the constant exertion of his power, he endued matter with a quality by which the universal economy of nature might be continued, without his immediate assistance. This quality is called attraction, a sort of approximating influence, which all bodies, whether terrestrial or celestial, are found to possess ; and which, in all, increases as the quantity of matter in each increases. The sun, by far the greatest body in our system, is, of consequence, possessed of much the greatest share of this attracting power ; and all the planets, of which our earth is one, are, of course, entirely subject to its superior influence. Were this power, therefore, left uncontrolled by any other, the sun must quickly have attracted all the bodies of our celes- tial system to itself ; but it is equally counteracted by another power of equal efficacy ; namely, a pro- gressive force which each planet received when it 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 towards the sun, and that of impulsion, which drives them straight forward into the great void of space, they pursue a track between these contrary directions ; and each, like a stone whirled about in a sling, obeying two opposite forces, circulates round its great centre of heat and motion. In this manner, therefore, is the harmony of our planetary system preserved. The sun, in the midst, gives heat and light and circular motion to the planets which surround it : Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, perform their constant circuits at different distances, each taking up a time to complete its revolutions, proportioned to the greatness of the circle which it is to describe. The lesser planets, also, which are attendants upon some of the greater, are subject to the same laws ; they circulate with the same exactness, and are in the same manner influenced by their respective centres of motion. Besides those bodies which make a part of our peculiar system, and which may be said to reside within its great circumference, there are others that frequently come among us from the most distant tracts of space, and that seem like dangerous intruders upon the beautiful simplicity of nature. These are comets, whose appearance was once so terrible to mankind, and the theory of which is so little understood at present ; all we know is, that their number is much greater than that of the planets, and that, like these, they roll in orbits, in some measure obedient to solar influence. Astronomers have endeavoured to calculate the return- ing periods of many of them ; but experience has not, as yet, confirmed the veracity of their investigations. Indeed, who can tell, when those wanderers have made their excursions into other worlds and distant systems, what obstacles may be found to oppose their progress, to accelerate their motions, or retard their return ? But what we have hitherto attempted to sketch is but a small part of that great fabric in which the Deity has thought proper to manifest his wisdom and omnipotence. There are multitudes of other bodies dispersed over the face of the heavens, that lie too remote for examination ; these have no motion such as the planets are found to possess, and are therefore called fixed stars ; and from their extreme brilliancy I and their immense distance, philosophers have been induced to suppose them to be suns resembling that which enlivens our system. As the imagination, also, once excited, is seldom content to stop, it has furnished each with an attendant system of planets belonging to itself, and has even induced some to deplore the fate of those systems whose imagined suns, which sometimes happens, have become no longer visible. But conjectures of this kind, which no reasoning can ascertain nor experiment reach, are rather amusing than useful. Though we see the greatness and wisdom of the Deity in all the seeming worlds that surround us, it is our chief concern to trace him in that which we inhabit. The examination of the earth, the wonders of its contrivance, the history of its advantages, or of the seeming defects in its formation, are the proper business of the natural historian. A description of this earth, its animals, vegetables, and minerals, is the most delightful entertainment the mind can be furnished with, as it is the most interesting and useful. I would beg leave, therefore, to conclude these common-place speculations with an observation which, I hope, is not entirely so. A use, hitherto not much insisted upon, that may result from the contemplation of celestial magnificence, is, that it will teach us to make an allowance for the apparent irregularities we find below. Whenever we can examine the works of the Deity at a proper point of distance, so as to take in the whole of his design, we see nothing but uniformity, beauty, and precision. FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. The heavens present us with a plan which, though inexpressibly magnificent, is yet regular beyond the power of invention. Whenever, therefore, we find any apparent defects in the earth, instead of attempting to reason ourselves into an opinion that they are beautiful, it will be wiser to say that we do not behold them at the proper point of distance, and that our eye is laid too close to the objects to take in the regularity of their connection. In short, we may conclude that God, who is regular in his great productions, acts with equal uniformity in the little. [Scenery of the Sea-coast.] [From the same.] Those who have been much upon our coasts know that there are two different kinds of shores — that which slants down to the water with a gentle declivity, and that which rises with a precipitate boldness, and seems set as a bulwark to repel the force of the invad- ing deeps. It is to such shores as these that the whole tribe of the gull kind resort, as the rocks offer them a retreat for their young, and the sea a sufficient supply. It is in the cavities of these rocks, of which the shore is composed, that the vast variety of sea-fowl retire to "breed in safety. The waves beneath, that continually beat at the base, often wear the shore into an impend- ing boldness, so that it seems to jut out over the water, while the raging of the sea makes the place inaccessible from below. These are the situations to which sea-fowl chiefly resort, and bring up their young in undisturbed security. Those who have never observed our boldest coasts, have no idea of their tremendous sublimity. The boasted works of art, the highest towers, and the noblest domes, are but ant-hills when put in comparison ; the single cavity of a rock often exhibits a coping higher than the ceiling of a Gothic cathedral. The face of the shore offers to the view a wall of massive stone ten times higher than our tallest steeples. "What should we think of a precipice three-quarters of a mile in height ? and yet the rocks of St Kilda are still higher ! 'What must be our awe to approach the edge of that impending height, and to look down on the unfathom- able vacuity below ; to ponder on the terrors of falling to the bottom, where the waves that swell like moun- tains are scarcely seen to curl on the surface, and the roar of an ocean a thousand leagues broad appears softer than the murmur of a brook? It is in these formidable mansions that myriads of sea-fowl are for ■ever seen sporting, flying in security down the depth, half a mile beneath the feet of the spectator. The crow and the chough avoid those frightful precipices ; they choose smaller heights, where they are less exposed to the tempest; it is the cormorant, the gannet, the tarrock, and the terne, that venture to these dreadful retreats, and claim an undisturbed possession. To the spectator from above, those birds, though some of them are above the size of an eagle, seem scarce as large as a swallow, and their loudest screaming is scarcely perceptible. But the generality of our shores are not so formid- able. Though they may rise two hundred fathom above the surface, yet it often happens that the water forsakes the shore at the departure of the tide, and leaves a noble and delightful walk for curiosity on the beach. Not to mention the variety of shells with which the sand is strewed, the lofty rocks that hang over the spectator’s head, and that seem but just kept from falling, produce in him no unpleasing gloom. If to this be added the fluttering, the screaming, and the pursuits of myriads of water-birds, all either intent on the duties of incubation, or roused at the presence of a stranger, nothing can compose a scene of more peculiar solemnity. To walk along the shore when the tide is departed, or to sit in the hollow of a rock when it is come in, attentive to the various sounds that gather on every side, above and below, may raise the mind to its highest and noblest exertions. The solemn roar of the waves swelling into and subsiding from the vast caverns beneath, the piercing note of the gull, the frequent chatter of the guillemot, the loud note of the auk, the scream of the heron, and the hoarse deep periodical croaking of the cormorant, all unite to furnish out the grandeur of the scene, and turn the mind to Him who is the essence of all sublimity. [On the Increased Love of Life vnth Age] [From Goldsmith’s Essays.] Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigour of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind, and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence. Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable ! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity, and sensation assures me that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade ; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty ; some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me to pursue ; and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardour to continue the game. Whence, then, is this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years? whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarce worth the keeping ? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of man- kind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments; and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil ? Life would be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infir- mities, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood ; the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery ; but happily the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could only be prejudi- cial, and life acquires an imaginary value in proportion as its real value is no more. Our attachment to every object around us increases in general from the length of our acquaintance with it. ‘ I would not choose,’ says a French philosopher, ‘ to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted.’ A mind long habituated to a certain 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, behold 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 dark- ness for more than fifty years, and am grown familiar MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDMUND BURKE. 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 Chinvang, 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 passion 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 have built, or the posterity 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 yet unexhausted, is at once instructive and amusing ; its company pleases, yet for all this it is but little regarded. 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 smile, no new improve- ment with which to surprise, yet still we love it ; desti- tute of every enjoyment, still we love it; husband the wasting treasure with increasing frugality, and feel all the poignancy of anguish 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. He 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 present indifferent, sure it will then be execrable.’ This thought imbittered every reflection ; till 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 ; he would have boldly dared to live, and served that society by his future assiduity which he basely injured by his desertion. What cities, great as this, have once triumphed in existence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded, and, with short-sighted presumption, pro- mised 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 opulence invited the invaders, who, though |it first repulsed, returned again, conquered by persever- ance, and at last swept the defendants into undistin- guished 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 mask, 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 orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to expect redress, 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 disclaimed them : society turns its back upon their distress, 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 suffer- ings 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 aggravated 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. Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility ; or why was not my fortune adapted to its impulses ? Tenderness without the capacity of reliev- ing, only makes the man more wretched than the object which sues for assistance. [A City Night-piece.] [From the Citizen of the World.] 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, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroy- ing 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 hour like this may well display the emptiness of human vanity. There will come a time when this temporary solitude will be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room. 66 EDMUND BURKE. As an orator, politician, and author, the name of Edmund Burke stood high with his contemporaries, and time has abated little of its lustre. He is still by far the most eloquent and imaginative of all our writers on public affairs, and the most philosophical 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, but he seems soon to have abandoned his intention of prosecuting the law as a profession, and in 1753 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of Logic in the university of Glasgow. In 1756 he published anonymously a parody on the style and manner of Bolingbroke, a Vindication of Natural Society , in which the paradoxical reasoning of the noble sceptic is pushed to a ridiculous extreme, and its absurdity very happily exposed. In 1757, he published A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful , which soon attracted considerable attention, and paved the way for the author’s introduction to the society of FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1800. Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and the other emi- nent men of the day. Burke, however, was still struggling with difficulties, and compiling for book- sellers. 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 to write the historical portion of this valuable compilation. In 1761, Burke accompanied Mr W. G. Hamilton (best known as ‘ Single-speech Hamilton ’) to Ire- land, partly in the capacity of private secretary to Hamilton (who had been appointed chief-secretary to the Earl of Halifax, lord-lieutenant of Ireland), and partly as a personal friend. This connection did not last long, Burke being too independent to serve as a mere tool- of party. In 1765, he became secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, and was returned to the House of Commons as member for Wendover. He soon distinguished himself in parliament, but the Rockingham administration was dissolved in 1766, and Burke joined the opposition. In 1769, he wrote an able reply to a pamphlet, by Mr Grenville, on the State of the Nation; and in the following year, another political disquisition, Thoughts on the Present Discontents. This is a powerful argumentative treatise. We shall not attempt to follow Burke’s parliamentary career. 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 bill of Mr Pitt. Stormier times, however, were at hand : the French Revolu- tion was then ‘blackening 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 published his memorable treatise, Reflections on the French Revolution , 1790. A rupture now took place between him and his Whig friends, Mr Fox in particular ; but with character- istic 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 Proposals 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 philosophical reflection 210 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 prudence 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 will be found directed to the redress of some existing wrong, or the preser- 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 laws and government which he venerated, without ‘ coin- ing to himself Whig principles from a French die, unknown to the impress of our fathers in the constitution.’ Where inconsistencies are found in his writings between his early and later opinions, they will be seen to consist chiefly in matters of detail or in expression. The leading principles of his public life were always the same. He wished, as he says, to preserve consistency, but only by varying his means to secure the unity of his end : ‘ when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered 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 dreadful 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 bombastic, sometimes full of prophetic fire, and always with 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 naturally provoked and aggravated discussion. In one of the debates on the French Revolution, after mentioning that he understood that three thousand daggers had been ordered from Birmingham, Burke drew one from under his coat, and throwing it on the floor, exclaimed, * This is what you are to gain by an alliance with France — this is your fraternisation ! ’ Such a melodramatic exhibition was wholly unworthy of Burke, and natu- rally provoked ridicule. He stood aloof from most of his old associates, when, like a venerable tower, he was sinking into ruin and decay. Posterity, 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 Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, and there the orator spent exclusively his few remaining years. In 1795, he was rewarded with a handsome pension from the civil list. It was in contemplation to elevate him to the peerage, but the death of his only son — who was his colleague in the representation 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 imagination, con- tinued with him to the last. His Letter to a Noble Lord on his Pension (1796), his Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796 and 1797), and his Observations on the ENGLISH LITERATURE. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. EDMUND BURKE. Conduct of the : Minority (1797), bear no trace of decaying vigour, though written after the age of sixty. The keen and lively 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 observations 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 habitu- ally to principles — he was a scientific statesman.’ This reference to principles in the writings and speeches of Burke — and his speeches were all care- fully prepared for the press — renders them still popular 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 profusion 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 disgust.* 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 orator, a philosopher, and practical statesman ; and his knowledge, his industry, and perseverance, were as remarkable as his genius. The protracted and brilliant career of this great man was terminated on the 9th of July 1797, and he was interred in the church at Beaconsfield.f A complete edition of Burke’s works has been published in sixteen volumes. His Correspondence between the year 1744 and his decease, edited by Earl Fitzwilliam and Sir R. Bourke, was published in 1844, in four volumes ; and copious Lives of Burke have been written by Mr Prior, Dr Croly, and Mr Macknight. Burke’s political, and not * One of the happiest of his homely similes is contained in his reply to Pitt, on the subject of the commercial treaty with France in 1787. Pitt, he contended, had contemplated the subject with a narrowness peculiar to limited minds—* as an affair of two little counting-houses, and not of two great nations. He seems to consider it as a contention between the sign of the fleur-de-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 should 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 wish 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 checkered and speckled ; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented, and whimsically dovetailed ; 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 assorted 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-onc, I beg a thousand pardons.” I venture to say it did so happen, that persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoke to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed.’ t A plain mural tablet has been erected in the church to the memory of Burke. The orator’s residence was about a mile from the town of Beaconsfield. The house was after- wards partly destroyed by fire, and is now, we believe, wholly removed. Beaconsfield. liis philosophical writings, are now chiefly read. His Disquisition on the Sublime and Beautiful is incorrect in theory and in many of its illustrations, though containing some just remarks and elegant criticism. His mighty understanding, as Sir James Mackintosh observed, was best employed in ‘ the middle region, between the details of business and the generalities of speculation.’ In this depart- ment, his knowledge of men as well as of hooks, of passions as well as principles, was called into action, and his imagination found room for its lights and shadows among the varied realities and shifting scenes of life. A generous political opponent, and not less eloquent — though less original and less powerful — writer, has thus sketched the character of Burke : ‘ It is pretended/ says Robert Hall, ‘ that the moment we quit a state of nature, as we have given up the control of our actions in return for the superior advantages of law and government, we can never appeal again to any original principles, but must rest content with the advantages that are secured by the terms of the society. These are the views which distinguish the political writings of Mr Burke, an author whoso splendid and unequal powers have given a vogue and fashion to certain tenets which, from any other pen, would have appeared abject and contemptible. In the field of reason, the encounter would not be difficult, but who can withstand the fascination and magic of his eloquence? The excursions of his genius are immense. His imperial fancy has laid all nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art. His culogium on the queen of France is a master-piece FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. of pathetic composition ; so select are its images, so fraught with tenderness, and so rich with colours “ dipt in heaven,” that he who can read it without rapture may have merit as a reasoner, but 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 chimerical alarms — is the dupe of his own enchantments, and starts, like Prospero, at the spectres of his own creation. His intellectual views in general, how- ever, are wide and variegated, rather than distinct ; and the light he has let in on the British constitu- tion, in particular, resembles the coloured effulgence of a painted medium, a kind of mimic twilight, solemn and soothing 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 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.’ [From the Speech on Conciliation with America, 1775 .] Mr Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over j the great consideration. It is good for us to be here, j We stand where we have an immense view of what is, | and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest ; upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend j from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of I 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 whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, 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 legere, et qua sit potent cognoscere virtus. Suppose, sir, that the angel of this auspicious I youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him i one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most j fortunate men of his age, had opened to him in vision, i that, when in the fourth generation, the third prince j of the house of Brunswick had sat twelve years on i the throne of that nation, which — by the happy issue i of moderate and healing councils — was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, lord-chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a 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 speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him : ‘ Young man, there is America — which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before you taste of death, shew itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilising conquests and civilising settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by 212 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 ! * * 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 people 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 plain, 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 Tatars, 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 different, 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 peopled, 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, six*, as I do to this policy, as well as for the reasons I have just given, I 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 shewn 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 understanding a little pre- posterous to make them unserviceable, in order to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old, and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects into submission. But remember, when you have completed your system of impoverishment, that nature still proceeds in her ordinary course ; and that discontent 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 prosperity, may be strong enough to complete your ruin. Spoliatis arma supersunt. The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDMUND BURKE. fierce people, and persuade tliem that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition ; your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery. * * My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government ; they will cling and grapple to you; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But 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 every- thing hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces 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 navigation, which binds you to the commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you the commerce of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your coquets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending 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 spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English 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 which does everything for us here in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the land-tax act which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in the committee of supply which gives you your army ? or that it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline ? No ! Surely no ! It is the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us ; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material ; and 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. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom, 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 proceed- ings on America with the old warning of the church, sursum cordci! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire ; and have made the most extensive, and the only honourable conquests ; not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue, as we have got an American empire. English privi- leges have made it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it can be. In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now ( quod felix fausiumquesit) lay the first stone of the temple of peace.* [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 impositions without their consent, and maintained by that exaction ; instruments in subverting, without any process of law, great ancient establishments and respected 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 despise, and had been accustomed to awe and humble. All your majesty’s troops, in the rotation of service, will pass through this discipline, and contract these habits. If we could flatter ourselves that this would not happen, we must be the weakest of men : we must be the worst, if we were indifferent whether it hap- pened 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 deprecate this last of evils. We deprecate the effect of the doctrines which must support and countenance the government over conquered Englishmen. As it will be impossible long to resist the powerful and equitable arguments in favour of the freedom of these unhappy people, that are to be drawn from the principle of our own liberty, attempts 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 prevalent. The consequence is not certain ; but a general change of principles rarely happens among a people without leading to a change of government. * At the conclusion of this speech, Mr Burke moved that the right of parliamentary representation should be extended to the American colonies, but his motion was negatived by 270 to 78. Indeed, his most brilliant orations made little impression on the House of Commons, the ministerial party being omnipotent in numbers. FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. Sir, your throne cannot stand secure upon the prin- ciples of unconditional submission and passive obedi- ence ; on powers exercised without the concurrence of the people to be governed; on acts made in defiance of their prejudices and habits; on acquiescence procured by foreign mercenary troops, and secured by standing armies. These may possibly be the foundation of other thrones; they must be the subversion of yours. It was not to passive principles in our ancestors that we owe the honour of appearing 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 because a positive law author- ised what was then done, but because the freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws, required a proceeding paramount and superior to them. At that ever-memorable and instructive period, the letter of the law was superseded 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 regenerated. From that great principle of liberty have originated the statutes con- firming 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 possibly be laid. Convinced, sir, that you cannot have different rights, and a different security in different parts of your dominions, we wish to lay an even platform for your 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 best 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.] When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of venge- ance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. Having termin- ated his disputes with every enemy and every riyal, who buried their mutual 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 destruc- tion ; 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 woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, 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 214 of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabit- ants flying from the flaming 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 captivity, 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 creatures of sufferance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition or disturbance, almost without com- plaint, perished by a hundred a day in the streets of Madras; every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of India. I 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 decorum ; these details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting ; they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers ; they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I find it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to your general conceptions. 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, absolve 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 they not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any descrip- tion whatever. One dead uniform silence reigned over the whole region. * * The Carnatic is a country not much inferior in extent to England. Figure to yourself, Mr Speaker, the land in whose representative chair you sit ; figure to yourself the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country from Thames to Trent, north and south, and from the Irish to the Herman Sea east and west, emptied and embowelled (may God avert the omen of our crimes !) by so accomplished a desolation ! [Mr BurJce's Account of his /Son.] Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I should have been, according to my medi- ocrity, and the mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of founder of a family ; I should have left a son, who, in all the points in which 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 accomplishment, would not have shewn himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his line. His Grace very soon would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that provision which belonged more to mine than to me. He would soon have supplied every deficiency, and symmetrised every disproportion. It would not have been for that successor to resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in any ancestry. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EDMUND BURKE. He had in himself a salient living spring of generous and manly action. Every day he lived, he would have repurchased 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, whose power we are little able to resist, and whose wisdom 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 those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honours ; I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognise the divine justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his who visited his dunghill 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 deceive 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 luxury ; 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 reason, 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 shew, that he was not descended, as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. [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 itself 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 lafr, 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 nothing 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 realm — 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 in 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 France.'] It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and 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 that enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must* have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened 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 submission, that dignified obedience, that sub- ordination 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 courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness. [The Order of Nobility .] [From the same.] To be honoured and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, growing 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 absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual 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 orna- ment to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. Omnes boni nobilitati 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 teen adopted for giving a body to opinion and per- manence to fugitive esteem. It is a sour, malignant, and envious disposition, without taste for the reality, or for any image or representation of virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what had long flourished in splendour and in honour. I do not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land. 215 FROM 17G0 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. [The Difference between Mr BurJce and the Duke of Bedford.'] [The Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale attacked Mr Burke and his pension in their place in the House of Lords, and Burke replied in his Letter 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 — Nitoi' 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 shew my passport, and again and again to prove my 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 interests 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 Lauderdale, 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 subject-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 Bussell 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 acquaintance 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 1 public service, why, truly, it would not be more ridi- culous for me to compare my self 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 adulation, but uncivil irony, to say that he has any public merit of his own, to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed pensions were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are original and personal ; his, are derivative. It is his ancestor, the original pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his Grace so very delicate and exceptious 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 216 its history V He would naturally have said on his side : ‘’Tis this man’s fortune. He is as good now as my ancestor was two hundred and fifty years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions ; he is an old man with very young pensions — that ’s all.’ Why will his Grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare my 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 ? * * Since 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 pleasure in contemplating the heroic origin of their house. The first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the grants, was a Mr Russell, a person of an ancient gentle- man’s family, raised by being a minion of Henry VIII. As there generally is some resemblance of character to create these relations, the favourite was in all likeli- hood 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 improv- ing on the enormity of the first, was from the plunder of the church. In truth, his Grace is somewhat excus- able 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 pillage of any body of unoffending men ; his grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments iniquitously legal, and from possessions voluntarily surrendered by 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 everything that was great and noble. Mine has been in endeavour- ing to screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in defending the high and eminent, who in the bad times of confiscating princes, confiscat- ing chief -governors, or confiscating demagogues, 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 work, and par- taking 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 of my own time and my own country, and the whole of the national churches of all countries, from the prin- ciples and the examples which lead to ecclesiastical pillage, thence to a contempt of all prescriptive titles, thence to the pillage of all property, and 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 left no liberty to his 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, in this 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. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JUNIUS. His founder’s merits were by arts in which he served his master and made his fortune, to bring poverty, wretchedness, and depopulation on his country. Mine were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the com- merce, manufactures, and agriculture of his kingdom; in which his majesty shews an eminent example, who even in his amusements is a patriot, and in hours of leisure an improver of his native soil. [Charade)' of Howard the Philanthropist.] 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 sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples ; not to make accurate mea- surements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of modern art; nor to collect medals, or collate manuscripts, 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 distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original ; it is as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity. Already, the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country : I 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, which 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 imposi- tion 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 publication of the North Briton , a periodical edited by John Wilkes, and conducted with 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.’ The government was by no means 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 was the Public Advertiser , published by Woodfall, a man of education and respectability. 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, and 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 personal history, and did not spare even royalty itself'. The compression, point, and brilliancy of their language, their unrivalled sarcasm, boldness, and tremendous invective, at once arrested the attention of the public. Every effort that could be devised by the government, or prompted by private indignation, was made to discover their author, but in vain. ‘ It is not in the nature of things,’ he writes to his publisher, ‘ that you or anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known : all arts or inquiries or rewards would be ineffectual.’ In another place he remarks, ‘ I am the sole deposi- tary of my secret, and it shall die with me.’ The event has verified the prediction: he had drawn around himself so impenetrable a veil of secrecy, that all the efforts of inquirers, political and literary, failed in dispelling the original 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 innumerable editions ; but the best is that published in 1812 by Woodfall’s son, which includes the letters by the same writer under other signatures — probably along with others not written by him, for there is a want of direct evidence — 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 illus- trations and metaphors are also sometimes uncom- monly felicitous. The personal malevolence of his attacks it is impossible to justify. They evince a settled deliberate malignity, which could not proceed from a man of a good or noble nature, and contain allusions to obscure individuals in the public offices, which seem to have arisen less from patriot- ism 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 Identi- fied with a Celebrated Living Character. The living character was the late Sir Philip Erancis, and certainly a mass of strong circumstantial evidence has been presented in his favour. ‘ The external evidence,’ says Macaulay, ‘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 handwriting of Erancis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections 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, that he was intimately 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, Erancis passed some years in the secretary of state’s office. He was subsequently chief-clerk of the War-office. He repeatedly mentioned that lie 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 Mr Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Erancis. 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 circum- stantial evidence.’ The same acute writer considers the internal evidence to be equally clear as to the claims of Francis. Attention has been drawn to another individual, one of ten or more persons suspected at the time of publication. This is Lord FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OP to 1800. George Sackville, latterly Viscount Sackville, an able but unpopular soldier, cashiered from the army in consequence of neglect of duty at the 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 to fix the authorship of Junius upon Lord George. In 1853 the Grenville Papers were published from the originals at Stowe, and an attempt was made by their editor, Mr W. J. Smith, to prove that Lord Temple was Junius, Lady Temple acting as the amanuensis. Junius had, without disclosing himself, written three letters to Lord Temple on political topics ; but these only prove that the unknown looked for the patronage of the Temples, should that family gain an ascendency in the government. It is probable that more than one person was connected with the letters, and Temple may have been one of these supplying hints ; but the evidence given to prove that he was really Junius must be pronounced inconclusive. The claim of Prancis still remains the best. Philip Francis was the son of the Eev. Philip Francis, translator of Horace. He was born/ in Dublin in 1740, and at the early age of sixteen was placed by 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 Cherbourg; 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 Bengal, from whence he returned in 1781, after being perpetually at war with the governor-general, Warren Hastings, and being wounded by him in a duel. He afterwards sat in parliament, supporting Whig principles, 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 advanced age, and the whole complexion of his party and political senti- ments, 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 public virtue, and nursing his resentments till they attained 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 excellences of Junius, his sarcasm, compressed energy, and brilliant illustration, a few specimens may be quoted. His finest metaphor — as just in sentiment as beautiful in expression — is contained 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 understand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it. The king’s honour is that 218 of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the same. I am not contending for a vain punctilio. A clear unblemished character compre- hends 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 com- munity, it is the foundation of peace, of independ- ence, 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 III. to Wilkes, and the injudicious prosecution of that demagogue, Junius happily remarks : ‘ He said more than moderate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honour of your majesty’s personal resentment. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could not consume. Animated by the favour of the people on the one side, and heated by persecution on the other, Ills views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with oppo- sition, 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 affec- tion 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, epigram, and merciless sarcasm of his best style. The Duke of Grafton was descended from Charles II., and this afforded the satirist scope for invective : ‘ The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has made it possible 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 pos- terity ; and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, 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 inheritance of reputation. There are some hereditary 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 characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profli- gate without 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.’ In the same strain of elaborate and refined sarcasm the Duke of Bedford is addressed: ‘My lord, you are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if in the following lines a compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and perhaps an insult to your understanding. You have nice feelings, my lord, if we may judge from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JUNIUS. the illustration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness of your temper, or probably 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 panegyric is exhausted.’ 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 plans of avarice and ambition are accom- plished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fear 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 retirement ? Eor shame, my lord ! Let it not be recorded of you that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, though you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost 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 reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than probable ; at Exeter, inevitable. No honest English- man will ever forget his attachment, 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 flies, 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 hospitality. As •well might Yerres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people plundered, insulted, and oppressed, as they have been, will 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, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger ; and though you cannot be safe, you 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 that ought to be dear to a man of honour. They are still base enough to encourage 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 will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last ; and that, as you lived without 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 Philip Erancis have equal animation, but less studied brevity and force of style. The soaring ardour of youth 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 betrayed, 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 overwhelmed by adversity, if, in the wreck and ruin of his fortune, the charac- ter of the man remains unblemished. 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, whether it be a great or a little community, a number of individuals or a single person, be content to submit in silence, and to endure without resentment — if no com- plaints 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 moderation — when we cared but little by what majorities the nation was betrayed, or how many felons were acquitted by their peers — and when we were not afraid of being intoxicated by the eleva- tion of a spirit too highly rectified. In England and Scotland, 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 country, the bill of rights suspended, and, in effect, a military despotism.’ The following vigorous and Junius-like passage is from a speech made by Francis in answer to a 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 their passage to India. Sir Philip observed: ‘His second reason for obtaining a seat in parliament, was to have an opportunity of explaining his own conduct if it should be questioned, 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, by a person of high rank in this country. He was happy when he heard that his name was included in it with theirs. So highly did he respect the character of those men, that he deemed it an honour to share in the injustice it had suffered. It was in compliance witli the forms of the house, and not to shelter himself, or out of tenderness to the party, that he forbore to name him. He meant to describe him so exactly that he could not be mistaken. He declared, in his place fkom 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF To 1800. in a great assembly, and in the course of a grave deliberation, “ that it would have been happy for this country if General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr Francis, had been drowned in their passage to India.” If this poor and spiteful invective had been uttered by a man of no consequence or repute — by any light, trifling, inconsiderate person — 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 indifference, or answered without resentment. Such a man would be thought to have inquired before he pronounced. From his mouth a reproach was a sentence, an invective was a judg- ment. The accidents of life, and not any original distinction 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 Monson, and for himself. This was not a party question, nor should it be left to so feeble an advocate as he was to support it. The friends and fellow-soldiers of General Clavering and Colonel Monson would assist him in defending their memory. He demanded and expected the support of every man of honour in that house and in the kingdom. What character was safe, if slander was permitted to attack the reputation 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 authority of this man was not without weight ; but he had an infinitely higher authority to oppose to it. He had the happiness of hearing the merits of General Clavering and Colonel Monson acknowledged and applauded, in terms to which he was not at liberty to do more than to allude — they were rapid 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 sensations that animate the royal mind were easily distinguished from those which rankled in the heart of that person who was supposed 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 ardour 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 contemptible.’ This was written in January 1773. Forty-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 sentiment is striking. The style is not unworthy of J unius : ‘ 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 representa- tion, 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 exceptions, the body of the country is lost in apathy and indifference — sometimes strutting on stilts — for the most part 220 grovelling on its belly— no life-blood in the heart — and instead of reason or reflection, a caput mortuum for a head-piece ; of all revolutions this one is the worst, because it makes any other impossible.’* Among the lighter sketches of Francis may be taken 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 was directly or very nearly the reverse. His mind educated itself, not by early study or instruction, but by active listening and rapid apprehension. He said so in the House of Commons when he and Mr Burke parted. His powerful understanding grew like a forest oak, not by cultivation, but by neglect. Mr Pitt was a plant of an inferior order, though marvellous in its kind — a smooth bark, with the deciduous, pomp and decoration of a rich foliage, 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 was nothing natural and spontaneous left in him. He was too polished 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, ancl 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 character of Francis is seen in the following admirable observation, which is at once acute and profound : ‘ With a callous heart there can be no genius in the imagination or wisdom in the mind; and therefore the prayer with equal truth and sublimity says : “ Incline our hearts unto wisdom.” Resolute thoughts find words for themselves, and make their own vehicle. Impression and expression are relative ideas. He who feels deeply will express strongly. The language of slight sensations is naturally feeble and superficial.’ — Reflections on the Abundance of Paper , 1810.— Francis excelled in pointed and pithy expression. After his return to parliament in 1784, he gave great offence to Mr Pitt, by exclaiming, after he had pronounced an animated eulogy on Lord Chatham : * 15ut he is dead, and has left nothing in this world that resembles him ! ’ In a speech delivered at a political meeting in 1817. he | said : ‘ We live in times that call for wisdom in contempla- tion and virtue in action; but in which virtue and wisdom will not do without resolution.’ When 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 1816, he remarks : ‘Whether you look up to the top or down to the bottom, whether you mount with the froth or sink with the sediment, no rank in this counti’y can support a perfectly degraded name.’ ‘ My recital,’ he says to Lord Holland, ‘shall be inflicted on you, as if it were an operation, with compassion for the patient, with the brevity of impatience and the rapidity of youth; for I feel or fancy that I 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. I would not long outlive myself if I could help it, like some of my old friends who pretend to be alive, when to my certain knowledge they have been dead these seven years.’ The writer of a memoir of Francis, in the Annual Obituary (1820), 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.’ There is a remarkable coincidence— 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 I 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 solid, however moderate independence. Without it, no man can be happy, nor even honest.’ It is obvious, however, that Francis may have copied from Junius, and it has been surmised that, notwithstanding his denials of the authorship, he was not unwilling to bear the imputation. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JUNIUS* ■ of an unbounded plain, and sooner, I believe, than of any limited portion of space, whatever its dimen- sions may be. There is a calm delight, a dolce riposo, in viewing the smooth-shaven verdure of a bowling-green as long as it is near. You must learn from repetition that those properties are inseparable from the idea of a flat surface, and that flat and tiresome are synonymous. The works of nature, which command admiration at once, and never lose it, are compounded of grand inequalities. [Junius’s Celebrated Letter to the King.'] To the Printer of the Public Advertiser.— December 19, 17G9. Sir — When the complaints of a brave and powerful people are observed to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have suffered ; when, instead of sinking into submission, they are roused to resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every inferior consideration must yield to the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the state. There is a moment of diffi- culty and danger, at which flattery and falsehood 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 people, 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 prejudice against his character is removed ; that the ceremonious difficulties of an audience are surmounted ; that he feels himself 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 sentiments with dignity and firmness, but not without respect : Sir — It is the misfortune of your life, and originally 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 education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form the 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 subjects on which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dis- honourable to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by our laws, ‘that the king can do no wrong,’ is admitted without reluctance. We separate 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 condi- tion, or that of the English nation, would deserve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favourable reception of truth, by removing every pain- ful 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 which becomes the permanent dignity of a king, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a minister. You ascended the throne with a declared — and, I 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 advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have laboured to possess 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 rela- tions ; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own understanding. When you affectedly renounced the name of English- man, believe me, sir, you were persuaded to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one part of your subjects at the expense of another. While the natives of Scotland are not in actual rebellion, they are undoubtedly 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 confidence, in exclusion of your English subjects — who placed your family, and, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have supported it, upon the throne — is a mistake 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. To the same early influence we attribute it that you have descended to take a share, not only in the narrow views and interests of particular persons, but in the fatal malignity of their passions. At your accession to the throne the whole system of government was altered ; not from wisdom or deliberation, but because it had been adopted by your predecessor. 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 dis- honoured by the frowns of a king. They were dismissed, but could not be disgraced. Without entering into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent hurry with which the first overtures from France were accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of concession with which a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to purchase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. On your part we are satisfied that everything was honourable and sincere ; and if England was sold to Fiance, we doubt not that your majesty was equally betrayed. The conditions of the peace 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 prejudices and passions of others. With what firmness will you bear the mention of your own ? A man not very honourably distinguished in the world commences a formal attack upon your favourite ; 221 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. \ considering nothing but how 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 affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer. Is this a contention worthy of a king? Are you not sensible bow much the meanness of the cause gives an air of ridicule to the serious difficulties into w'hich you have been betrayed ? The destruction of one man has been now for many years the sole object of your government; and if there can be anything still more disgraceful, we have seen for such an object the utmost influence of the executive 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 unquestionable assurance that no illegal violence will be attempted. 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 unworthy personal resentment. From one false step you have been betrayed into another; and as the cause was unworthy of you, your ministers were determined 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 unhappy, that you can neither do wrong 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. 222 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 without '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 constitu- tion ; nor will anything less be accepted. I can readily believe that there is an influence sufficient 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 political life; who has taken the tenderest care of their infancy, and relieves their necessities without offending 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, consider, 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 Com- mons ? 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 Commons ; 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 I do very sincerely, that you have personally no design against the constitution, nor any view inconsistent with the good of your subjects, I 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 Eng- lish 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 con- duct with suspicion ; while those who are incapable of comprehending to what degree they are injured, afflict you with clamours equally insolent and unmeaning. Supposing it possible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you determine 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 unhappy ; arid this, perhaps, is the only poli- tical truth which he ought to be convinced of without experiment. But if the English people should no longer confine their resentment to a submissive repre- sentation of their wrongs ; if, following the glorious example 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 plundered and oppressed. In return, they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They despise the miserable governor you have sent them, because he is the creature of Lord Bute ; nor is it from any natural * Of the House of Commons, on the subject of the Middlesex election. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. JUNIUS. confusion in their ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with the disgraceful representation of him. The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take an active concern in your affairs, even if they were as well affected to your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They were ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They complained of an act of the legis- lature, 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 cause, 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 servants against America; 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 in a desert. 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 pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. It is not, then, from the alienated affections of Ireland or America that you can reasonably look for assistance : still less from the people of England, who are actually contending for their rights, and in this great question are parties against you. You are not, however, desti- tute of every appearance of support ; you have all the Jacobites, nonjurors, Roman Catholics, and Tories of this country ; and all Scotland, without exception. Considering from what family you are descended, the choice of your friends has been singularly directed ; and truly, sir, if you had not lost the Whig interest of England, I should admire your dexterity in turning the hearts of your enemies. Is it possible for you to place any confidence in men who, before they are faithful to you, must renounce every opinion, and betray every prin- ciple, both in church and state, which they inherit from their ancestors, 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 understanding so biased from your earliest infancy in their favour, that nothing less than your own misfortunes 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 absurdity 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 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 had 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 professions, as * In the king’s speech of 8th November 1768, it was declared * 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 attended with circumstances that manifested a disposition to throw off their dependence on Great Britain.’ if you were in reality not an Englishman, but a Briton 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 for- gotten, 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 indignation of his English subjects, and surrendered himself at discretion to the good faith of his own' countrymen? Without looking for support in their affections as subjects, he applied only to their honour as gentlemen 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 wise prince might draw from it two lessons of equal utility to himself : on one side he might learn to dread the undisguised resentment of a generous people who dare openly assert their rights, and who in a just cause are ready to meet their sovereign in the field ; on the other side, he would be taught to apprehend something far more formidable — a fawning treachery, against which no prudence can 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 understanding. You take the sense of the army from the conduct of the Guards, with the same justice with which you collect the sense of the people from the representations of the ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, will not make the Guards their example either as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, as they ought to do, that invari- able undistinguishing favour with which the Guards are treated ; while those gallant 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 resentment would operate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be defended by those on whom you have lavished the rewards and honours of their profession. The prsetorian 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 your eyes, you see nothing but perplexity and distress. You may detdhnine to support the very ministry who have reduced your affairs to this deplorable situation ; you may shelter yourself under the forms of a parliament, and set your people at defiance ; but be assured, sir, that such a resolution would be as imprudent- as it would be odious. If it did not immediately 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 opportunity of recalling a trust which they find has been scandalously abused. You are not to be told that the power of the House of Commons is not original; but delegated to them for the welfare of the people, from whom they received it. A question of right arises between the constituent and the representative body. By what authority shall it be decided? Will your majesty interfere in a question in which you have properly no immediate concern ? It would be a step equally odious and unnecessary. Shall the Lords be called upon to determine the rights and privileges of the Commons? from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. They cannot do it without a flagrant breach of the constitution. Or will you refer it to the judges? They have often told your ancestors that the law of parlia- ment is above them. What party, then, remains, but to leave it to the people to determine for themselves ? They alone are injured ; and since there is no superior power to which the cause can be referred, they alone ought to determine. I do not mean to perplex you with a tedious argu- ment upon a subject already so discussed, that inspira- tion could hardly throw a new light upon it. There are, however, two points of view in which it particularly imports your majesty to consider the late proceedings of the House of Commons. By depriving a subject of his birthright, they have attributed to their own vote an authority equal to an act of the whole legis- lature ; and though, perhaps, not with the same motives, have strictly followed the example of the Long Parlia- ment, which first declared the regal office useless, and soon after, with as little ceremony, dissolved the House of Lords. The same pretended power which robs an English subject of his birthright, may rob an English king of his crown. In another, view, the resolution of the House of Commons, apparently not so dangerous to your majesty, is still more alarming to your people. Not contented with divesting one man of his right, they have arbitrarily conveyed that right to another. They have set aside a return as illegal, without daring to censure those officers who were particularly apprised of Mr Wilkes’s incapacity — not only by the declaration of the house, but expressly by the writ directed to them — and who nevertheless returned him as duly elected. They have rejected the majority of votes, the only criterion by which our laws judge of the sense of the people; they have transferred the right of election from the collective to the representative body ; and by these acts, taken separately or together, they have essentially altered the original constitution of the House of Commons. Versed as your majesty undoubtedly is in the English history, it cannot easily escape you how much it is your interest, as well as your duty, to prevent one of the three estates from encroach- ing upon the province of the other two, or assuming the authority of them all. When once they have departed from the great constitutional line by which all their proceedings should be directed, who will answer for their future moderation? or what assurance will they give you, that when they have trampled upon their equals, they will submit to a superior? Your majesty may learn hereafter how nearly the slave and the tyrant are allied. Some of your council, more candid than the rest, admit the abandoned profligacy of the present House of Commons, but oppose their dissolution upon* an opinion (I confess not very unwarrantable) that their successors would be equally at the disposal of the treasury. I cannot persuade myself that the nation will have profited so little by experience. But if that opinion were well founded, you might then gratify our wishes at an easy rate, and appease the present clamour against your government, without offering any material injury to the favourite cause of corruption. You have still an honourable part to act. The affections of your subjects may still be recovered. But before you subdue their hearts, you must gain a noble victory over your own. Discard those little personal resentments which have too long directed your public conduct. Pardon this man* the remainder of his punishment ; and if resentment still prevails, make it — what it should have been long since — an act not of * Mr Wilkes, who was then under confinement in the King’s Bench, on a sentence of a fine of a thousand pounds, and twenty-two months’ imprisonment (from the 18th of June 1768), for the publication of the North Briton No. 45, and the Essay on Woman. 224 mercy, but of contempt. He will soon fall back into *his natural station — a silent senator, and hardly sup- porting the weekly eloquence of a newspaper. The gentle breath of peace would leave him on the surface, neglected and unremoved ; it is only the tempest that lifts him from his place. Without consulting your minister, call together your whole council. Let it appear to the public that you can determine and act for yourself. Come forward to your people; lay aside the wretched formalities of a king, and speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man, and in the language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived : the acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honour, to your understanding. Tell them you are determined to remove every cause of complaint against your govern- ment ; that you will give your confidence to no man that does not possess the confidence of your subjects ; and leave it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future election, whether or not it be in reality the general sense of the nation, that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the present House of Commons, and the constitution betrayed. They will then do justice to their representatives and to themselves. These sentiments, sir, and the style they are con- veyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of their expressions : and when they only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell you that you have many friends whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned. The fortune which made you a king, forbade you to have a friend; it is a law of nature, -which cannot be violated with impu- nity. The mistaken prince who looks for friendship will find a favourite, and in that favourite the ruin of his affairs. The people of England are loyal to the house of Hanover, not from a vain preference of one family to another, but from a conviction that the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their civil and religious liberties. This, sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational ; fit for English- men to adopt, and well worthy of your majesty’s encour- agement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart of itself is only con- temptible : armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are formidable. The prince who imitates their conduct should be warned by their example; and while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember that as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another. JOHN HORNE TOOKE. As a philologist or grammarian, John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) is known in literature, but his chief celebrity arises from his political and social character. He was the son of Mr Horne, a wealthy London poulterer, and hence the punning answer made to his schoolfellows- who asked what his father was. ‘A Turkey merchant,’ was the boy’s reply. John Horne was well educated — first at Westminster, then at Eton, and afterwards at St John’s College, Cambridge. His father designed him for the church, and he took orders, but dislik- ing the clerical profession, he studied law at the Middle Temple. He travelled in France and Italy as travelling tutor, first to a son of Elwes the miser, and secondly to a Mr Taylor of Surrey ; Miscellaneous writers. ENGLISH LITERATURE. DE LOLME. and having cast off the clerical character in these continental tours, he never again resumed it. He became an active politician and supporter of John Wilkes, in favour of whom he wrote an anonymous pamphlet in 1765. In 1770, he distinguished himself by the part he took in a memorable public event. The king (George III.), having from the throne censured an address presented by the city authorities, the latter waited upon the sovereign with another ‘ humble address,’ remonstrance, and petition, reiterating their request for the dissolu- tion of parliament and the dismissal of ministers. They were again repulsed, the king stating that he would consider such a use of his prerogative as dangerous to the interests and constitution of the country. Horne Tooke, anticipating such a recep- tion, suggested to his friend, Mr Beckford, the lord mayor, the idea of a reply to the sovereign; a measure unexampled in our history. When the lord mayor had retired from the royal presence, ‘I saw Beckford,’ said Tooke, ‘just after he came from St James’s. I asked him what he had said to the king ; and he replied, that he had been so confused, he scarcely knew what he had said. “But,” cried I, “ your speech must be sent to the papers ; I ’ll write it for you.” ’ He did so ; it was printed and diffused over the kingdom, and was engraved on the pedestal of a statue of Beckford erected in Guildhall.* This famous unspoken speech, the composition of Horne Tooke, is as follows : Most Gracious Sovereign — Will your majesty be pleased so far to condescend as to permit the mayor of your loyal city of London to declare in your royal presence, on behalf of his fellow-citizens, how much the bare apprehension of your majesty’s displeasure would, at all times, affect their minds ? The declaration of that displeasure has already filled them with inexpres- sible anxiety, and with the deepest affliction. Permit me, sire, to assure your majesty, that your majesty has not in all your dominions any subjects more faithful, more dutiful, or more affectionate to your majesty’s person or family, or more ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes in the maintenance of the true honour and dignity of your crown. We do, therefore, with the greatest humility and submission, most earnestly suppli- cate your majesty, that you will not dismiss us from your presence without expressing a more favourable opinion of your faithful citizens, and without some comfort, without some prospect, at least of redress. Permit me, sire, further to observe that whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavour, to alienate your majesty’s affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the city of London in particular, and to withdraw your confidence in, and regard for your people, is an enemy to your majesty’s person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution as it was established at the glorious and necessary revolution. There seems little to excite popular enthusiasm in this address, but it had the appearance of ‘ beard- ing the king upon the throne,’ and the nation was then in a state of political ferment. Horne Tooke’s subsequent quarrel with Wilkes and controversy with J unius are well known. In the latter, he was* completely and eminently successful. He had ere this formally severed himself from the church (1773), and again taken to the study of the law'. Ilis spirited opposition to an enclosure bill, which it was attempted to hurry through parliament, procured * The best account of this political manoeuvre is given in the Recollections of Samuel Rogers , 1856. him the favour of a wealthy client, Mr Tooke of Burley, from whom he inherited a fortune of about £8000, and whose surname of Tooke he afterwards assumed. To this connection we must also ascribe part of the title of his greatest work, Epea Pteroenta , or the Diversions of Purley. So early as 1778, Tooke had addressed a Letter to Mr Dunning on the rudi- ments of grammar, and the principles there laid down were followed up and treated at length in the Diver - | sions, of which the first part appeared in 1786, and j a second part in 1805. Wit, politics, metaphysics, etymology, and grammar are curiously mingled in. this work. The chief object of its author was an attempt to prove that all the parts of speech, including those which grammarians considered as expletives and unmeaning particles, may be resolved into nouns and verbs. As respects the English language, he was considered to have been successful ; and his knowledge of the northern languages, na less than his liveliness and acuteness, was highly commended. But his idea that the etymological history of words is a true guide, both as to the present import of the words themselves, and as to the nature of those things which they are intended to signify, is a fanciful and fallacious assumption, ji However witty and well informed as an etymol- ogist, Horne Tooke was meagre in definition and metaphysics. He diverted himself and friends, with philosophical studies, but made politics and social i pleasure the real business of his life — thus reminding ; us more of the French savans of the last century than of any class of English students or authors. In 1794 Horne Tooke was tried for high treason — accused with Hardy, Thelwall, and others of con- spiring and corresponding with the French Conven- tion to overthrow the English constitution. His trial excited intense interest, to which the eloquence of Erskine, his counsel, has given something more than temporary importance. It lasted several days, and ended in his acquittal. For a short time Horne- i Tooke sat in parliament, as member for Old Sarum, but did not distinguish himself as a legislator or debater. His latter years were spent in a sort of lettered retirement at Wimbledon, entertaining his friends to Sunday dinners and quiet parties, and delighting them with his lively and varied conver- j sation— often more amusing and pungent than delicate or correct. DE LOLME. The Constitution of England , or an Account of ; the English Government , by M. De Lolme, was recommended by Junius ‘as a performance deep,, solid, and ingenious.’ The author was a native of i Geneva, who had studied the law. His work on the English constitution was first published: in Holland, in the French language. The English edition, enlarged and dedicated by the author to King George III., appeared in 1775. De Lolme wrote several slight political treatises, and expected to be patronised by the British government. In this he was disappointed; and his circumstances were so reduced, that he was glad to accept of relief from the Literary Fund. He left England,, and died in Switzerland in 1807, aged sixty-two. The praise of Junius has not been confirmed by the present generation, for De Lolme’s work has fallen into neglect. He evinces considerable acute- ness in tracing and pointing out the distinguishing ! features of our constitution; but his work is scarcely entitled to the appellation of ‘solid;’ his admiration is too excessive and undistinguishing to be always just. Of the ease and spirit with which 225 from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800 . this foreigner wrote our language, we give one specimen, a correct remark on the freedom with which Englishmen complain of the acts of their government : [Popular Agitation in England .] The agitation of the popular mind is not in England what it would be in other states ; it is not the symptom of a profound and general discontent, and the forerunner of violent commotions. Foreseen, regulated, even hoped for by the constitution, this agitation animates all parts of the state, and is to be considered only as the bene- ficial vicissitude of the seasons. The governing power being dependent on the nation, is often thwarted ; but so long as it continues to deserve the affection of the people, it can never be endangered. Like a vigorous tree, which stretches its branches far and wide, the slightest breath can put it in motion ; but it acquires and exerts at every moment a new degree of force, and resists the winds by the strength and elasticity of its fibres and the depth of its roots. In a word, what- ever revolutions may at times happen among the persons who conduct the public affairs in England, they never occasion the shortest interruption of the power of the laws, or the smallest diminution of the security of individuals. A man who should have incurred the enmity of the most powerful men in the state — what do I say ? — though he had, like another Yatinius, drawn upon himself the united detestation of all parties, might, under the protection of the laws, and by keeping within the bounds required by them, continue to set both his enemies and the whole nation at defiance. THE EARL OP CHATHAM. A series of letters, written at this time, has been published. The collection is inferior in literary value, but its author was one of the greatest men of his age — perhaps the first of English orators and statesmen. We allude to a volume of letters written by the Earl of Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford. This work contains much excellent advice as to life and conduct, a sincere admiration of classical learning, and great kindli- ness of domestic feeling and affection. Another collection of the correspondence of Lord Chatham was made and published in 1841, in four volumes. Some light is thrown on contemporary history and public events by this correspondence ; but its prin- cipal value is of a reflex nature, derived from our interest in all that relates to the lofty and com- manding intellect which shaped the destinies of Europe. William Pitt was born on the 15th of November 1708. He was educated at Eton, whence he removed to Trinity College, Oxford. He was afterwards a cornet in the Blues! His military career, however, was of short duration ; for, before he was quite twenty-one, he had a seat in parlia- ment. His talents for debate were soon conspicuous ; and on the occasion of a bill for registering seamen in 1740, he made his memorable reply to Mr Walpole, who had taunted him on account of his youth. This burst of youthful ardour has been immortalised by Dr Johnson, who then reported the parliamentary debates for the Gentleman’ s Magazine. Johnson was no laborious or diligent note-taker; he often had merely verbal communications of the sentiments of the speakers, which he imbued with his own energy, and coloured with his peculiar style and diction. Pitt’s reply to Walpole may therefore be considered the composition of Johnson, founded on some note or statement of the actual speech ; yet we are tempted to transcribe it, on account of its celebrity and its eloquence. 226 [Speech of Chatham on "being taunted on Account of Youth.] Sir — The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining ; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities 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 obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation ; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains 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 dissimu- lation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man. In the first 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, I 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 behaviour, 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 intrench themselves ; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment ; age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious, without punish- ment. 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 service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit uncon- cerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villainy, 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 a long and agitated period. His style of oratory was of the highest class, rapid, vehement, and overpowering, and it was adorned by all the graces of action and delivery. His public conduct was singularly pure and disinterested, considering the venality of the times in which he lived ; but as a statesman, he was often inconsistent, haughty, and impracticable. His acceptance of a peerage (in 1766) hurt his popularity with the nation, who loved and reverenced him as ‘ the great commoner;’ but he still ‘shook the senate’ with the resistless appeals of his eloquence. His speech— delivered w r hen he was upwards of sixty, and broken down and enfeebled by disease — against the employment MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. EARL OP CHATHAM. of Indians in the war with America, is too charac- teristic, too noble, to be omitted: [Speech of Chatham against the Employment of Indians in the War with America.] I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a peril- ous and tremendous moment; it is not a time for adulation ; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelop 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 infa- tuation ? Can parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them ; measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and con- tempt ? But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world : now, none so poor to do her reverence ! The people whom we at first 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 desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the English troops than I do ; I know their virtues and their valour ; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities ; 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, accumu- late every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot ; your attempts will be for ever 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 adver- saries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms : Never, never, never ! But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorise 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 barbarous war against our brethren ? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; ‘for it is perfectly allowable,’ 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 protest against such horrible barbarity ! That God and nature have put into our hands ! What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain, I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering,, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn ; upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the Genius of the Con- stitution. From the tapestry that adorn these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are en- dured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood ! against whom ? your Protestant brethren ! to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible hell- hounds of war ! Spain can no longer boast pre-emi- nence in barbarity. She armed herself with blood- hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico ; 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 procedure 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 perform a lustration, to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more ; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous principles. The last public appearance and death of Lord Chatham are thus described by Relsham, in his History of Great Britain : The mind feels interested in the minutest circum- stances relating to the last day 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 house, 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 William 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 grace- fully to them as he proceeded. He looked pale and much emaciated, but his eye retained all its native fire ; which, joined to his general deportment, and the atten- tion of the house, formed a spectacle very striking and impressive. When the Duke of Richmond had sat down, Lord Chatham rose, and began by lamenting ‘ that his bodily infirmities had so long and at so important a crisis prevented his attendance on the duties of parliament. He declared that he had made an effort almost beyond the powers of his constitution to come down to the house on this day, perhaps the last time lie 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 sovereignty of America. “My Lords,” continued he, “I rejoice that the grave has not closed FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF T0 1800. upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the load of infir- mity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture ; but, my lords, while 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 preserved with honour, why is not war commenced without hesitation ? I am i not, I 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 we must fall, let us fall like men.’ The Duke of Richmond, in reply, declared himself to be * totally ignorant of the means by which we were to resist with success the combination of America 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 independence of which they were in possession. His Grace added, that if he could not, no man could; and 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 state 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 could utter a word, pressing his hand on his bosom, he fell down suddenly in a convulsive fit. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Temple, and other lords near him, caught him in their arms. The house was immediately cleared; and his lordship being carried into an adjoining apartment, the debate was adjourned. Medical assistance being obtained, his lordship in some degree recovered, and was conveyed to his favourite villa of Hayes, in Kent, where, after lingering some few weeks, he expired May 11, 1778, in the seventieth year of his age. Grattan, the Irish orator, has drawn the character of Lord Chatham with such felicity and vigour of style, that it will ever be preserved, if only for its composition. The glittering point and antithesis of his thoughts and language have seldom been united to such originality and force : The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of anti- quity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, i no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the J vulgar level of the great ; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party ; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite ; and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished ; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour and enlightened by prophecy. The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, 228 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 counsel and to decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury 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, answered and refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spon- taneous, familiarly expressing 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 under- standing through the painful subtlety of argumentation ; nor was he, like Townsend, for ever on the rack of exertion; 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 followed. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, 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. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. Sir Willi aim Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England , published in 1765, exhibit a logical and comprehensive mind, and a correct taste in composition. They formed the first attempt to popularise legal knowledge, and were eminently successful. Junius and others have attacked their author for leaning too much to the side of pre- rogative, and abiding rather by precedents than by sense and justice ; yet in the House of Commons, when Blackstone was once advocating what was considered servile obedience, he was answered from his own book ! The Commentaries have not been supplanted by any subsequent work of the same kind, but various additions and corrections have been made by eminent lawyers in late editions. Blackstone thus sums up the relative merits of an elective and hereditary monarchy : ‘It must be owned, an elective monarchy seems to be the most obvious, and best suited of any to the rational prin- ciples of government and the freedom of human nature ; and accordingly, we find from history that, in the infancy and first rudiments of almost every state, the leader, chief-magistrate, or prince, hath usually been elective. And if the individuals who compose that state could always continue true to first principles, uninfluenced by passion or prejudice, unassailed by corruption, and unawed by violence, elective succession were as much to be desired in a kingdom as in other inferior communities. The best, the wisest, and the bravest man would then be sure of receiving that crown which his endowments have merited ; and the sense of an unbiassed majority would be dutifully acquiesced in by the few who were of different opinions. But history and observation will inform us that elections of every kind, in the present state of human nature, are too frequently brought about by influence, partiality, and artifice ; and even where the case is otherwise, these practices will be often suspected, and as con- stantly charged upon the successful, by a splenetic MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. disappointed minority. This is an evil to which all societies are liable ; as well those of a private and domestic kind, as the great community of the public, which regulates and includes the rest. But in the former there is this advantage, that such suspicions, if false, proceed no further than jealousies and murmurs, which time will effectually suppress ; and, if true, the injustice may be remedied by legal means, by an appeal to those tribunals to which every member of society has (by becoming such) virtually engaged to submit. Whereas in the great and independent society which every nation com- poses, there is no superior to resort to but the law of nature ; no method to redress the infringements of that law but the actual exertion of private force. As, therefore, between two nations complaining of mutual injuries, the quarrel can only be decided by the law of arms, so in one and the same nation, when the fundamental principles of their common union are supposed to be invaded, and more especi- ally when the appointment of their chief-magistrate is alleged to be unduly made, the only tribunal to which the complainants can appeal is that of the God of battles ; the only process by which the appeal can be carried on is that of a civil and intestine war. A hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical blood- shed and misery which the history of ancient imperial Rome, and the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the conse- quences of elective kingdoms.’ [On the Right of Property.] [From Blackstone’s Commentaries.'] In the beginning of the world, we are informed by holy writ, the all-bountiful Creator gave to man * dominion over all the earth, and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’ This is the only true and solid foundation of man’s dominion over external things, whatever aiiy metaphysical notions may have been started by fanciful writers upon this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the Creator. And while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his immediate necessities required. These general notions of property were then sufficient to answer all the purposes of human life ; and might, perhaps, still have answered them, had it been possible for mankind to have remained in a state of primeval simplicity ; as may be collected from the manners of many American nations, when first discovered by the Europeans ; and from the ancient method of living among the first Europeans themselves, if we may credit either the memorials of them preserved in the golden age of the poets, or the uniform accounts given by his- torians of those times wherein erant omnia communia et indivisa omnibus , veluti unum cunctis patrimonium esset. Not that this communion of good seems ever to have been applicable, even in the earliest ages, to aught but the substance of the thing, nor could be extended to the use of it. For, by the law of nature and reason, he who first began to use it acquired therein a kind of transient property, that lasted so long as he was using it, and no longer; or, to speak with greater precision, the right of possession continued for the same time only that the act of possession lasted. Thus the ground was in common, and no part of it was the permanent property of any man in particular ; yet, whoever was in the occupation of any determinate spot of it, for rest, for shade, or the like, acquired for the time a sort of ownership, from which it would have been unjust, and contrary to the law of nature, to have driven him by force ; but the instant that he quitted the use or occu- pation of it, another might seize it without injustice. Thus, also a vine or other tree might be said to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to its produce ; and yet any private individual might gain the sole property of the fruit, which he had gathered for his own repast ; a doctrine well illustrated by Cicero, who com- pares the world to a great theatre, which is common to the public, and yet the place which any man has taken is for the time his own. But when mankind increased in number, craft, and ambition, it became necessary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion ; and to appropriate to individuals not the immediate use only, but the very substance of the thing to be used. Otherwise, innumer- able tumults must have arisen, and the good order of the world been continually broken and disturbed, while a variety of persons were striving who should get the first occupation of the same thing, or disputing which of them had actually gained it. As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devised to render it more easy, commodious, and agree- able, as habitations for shelter and safety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, so long as he had only a usufructuary property in them, which was to cease the instant that he quitted possession ; if, as soon as he walked out of his tent, or pulled off his garment, the next stranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one, and to wear the other. In the case of habitations, in particular, it was natural to observe, that even the brute creation, to whom everything else was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young; that the birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a very flagrant injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them. Hence a property was soon established in every man’s house and home- stall, which seem to have been originally mere temporary huts or movable cabins, suited to the design of Provi- dence for more speedily peopling the earth, and suited to the wandering life of their owners, before any exten- sive property in the soil or ground was established. And there can be no doubt but that movables of every kind became sooner appropriated than the permanent substantial soil ; partly because they were more suscep- tible of a long occupance, which might be continued for months together without any sensible interruption, and at length by usage ripen into an established right ; but principally because few of them could be fit for use, till improved and meliorated by the bodily labour of the occupant; which bodily labour, bestowed upon any subject which before lay in common to all men, is universally 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 animals 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 precarious 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 history) will furnish us with frequent FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. instances of violent contentions concerning wells, the exclusive property of which appears to have been estab- lished in the first digger or occupant, even in such places where the ground and 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 Veil.’ And Isaac, about ninety years after- wards, reclaimed this his father’s property ; and after much contention with the Philistines, was suffered to enjoy it in peace. All this while the soil and pasture of the earth remained 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 property in lands (for the sake of agriculture) was earlier 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 Tatars and others in the East, where the climate itself, and the boundless 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 decline of the Eoman 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 Abraham thus endea- voured 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 I will go to the right ; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.’ This plainly implies an acknow- ledged 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 of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan ; and Lot journeyed east, and Abraham dwelled 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 mother-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 confined to the stocking and cultivation of desert, uninhabited countries, it kept strictly within the limits of the law of nature. But how far the seizing on countries already peopled, and driving out or massacring the innocent and defenceless natives, merely because they differed from their invaders in language, in religion, in customs, in government, or in colour; how far such a conduct i was consonant to nature, to reason, or to Christianity, i deserved well to be considered by those who have i rendered their names immortal by thus civilising I mankind. As the world by degrees grew more populous, it daily j 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 became necessary to I pursue some regular method of providing a constant subsistence; and this necessity produced, or at least promoted and encouraged, the art of agriculture, by a 230 regular connection and consequence; 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 quantities, 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, is the genuine state of nature. "Whereas now — so graciously has Providence interwoven our duty and our happiness together — the result of this very necessity 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 pro- perty ; 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, govern- ment, laws, punishments, and the public exercise of religious duties. Thus connected together, it was found that a part only of society was sufficient to provide, by their manual labour, for the necessary 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 per- manent 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 difference among the writers on natural law concerning the reason why occupancy should convey this right, and invest one with this absolute property; Grotius and Puffendorf insist- ing that this right of occupancy is founded upon a tacit and implied assent of all mankind, that the first occu- pant 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 justice, without any consent or compact, sufficient of itself to gain a title ; a dispute 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 ; every man seizing to his own continued use such spots of ground as he found most agreeable to his own convenience, provided he found them unoccupied by any one else. DR ADAM SMITH. Dr Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, laid the foundation of the science of political economy. Some of its leading principles had been indicated by Hobbes and Locke; Hume in his essays had also stated some curious results respecting wealth and trade ; and several French writers had made considerable advances towards the formation of a system. Smith, however, after a labour of ten years, produced a complete system of political economy; and the execution of his work evinces such indefatigable research, so much saga- city, learning, and information, derived from arts and manufactures, no less than from books, that the Wealth of Nations must always be regarded as one of the greatest works in political philosophy which MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. AD AM FERGUSON — LORD MONBODDO. the world has produced. Its leading principles, as enumerated by its best and latest commentator, Mr M‘Culloch, may be thus summed up : ‘ He shewed that the only source of the opulence of nations is labour; that the natural wish to augment our for- tunes and rise in the world is the cause of riches being accumulated. He demonstrated that labour is productive of wealth, when employed in manufac- tures and commerce, as well as when it is employed in the cultivation of land; he traced the various means by which labour may be rendered most effective ; and gave a most admirable analysis and exposition of the prodigious addition made to its efficacy by its division among different individuals and countries, and by the employment of accumu- lated wealth or capital in industrious undertakings. He also shewed, in opposition to the commonly received opinions of the merchants, politicians, and statesmen of his time, that wealth does not consist in the abundance of gold and silver, but in the abundance of the various necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human life ; that it is in every case sound policy to leave individuals to pursue their own interest in their own way ; that, in prosecuting branches of industry advantageous to themselves, they necessarily prosecute such as are at the same time advantageous to the public ; and that every regulation intended to force industry into particular channels, or to determine the species of commercial intercourse to be carried on between different parts of the same country, or between distant and independent countries, is impolitic and pernicious.’ * Though correct in his fundamental positions, Dr Smith has been shewn to be guilty of several errors. He does not always reason correctly from the principles he lays down ; and some of his distinctions— as that between the different classes of society as productive and unproductive consumers — have been shewn, by a more careful analysis and observation, to be unfounded. But these defects do not touch the substantial merits of the work, ‘ which produced,’ says Mackintosh, ‘ an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most import- ant parts of the legislation of all civilised states. In a few years it began to alter laws and treaties, and has made its way, throughout the convulsions of revolution and conquest, to a due ascendant over the minds of men, with far less than the average obstructions of prejudice and clamour, which choke the channels through which truth flows into prac- tice.’ In this work, as in his Moral Sentiments , Dr Smith is copious and happy in his illustrations. The following account of the advantages of the division of labour is very finely written : [The Division of Labour .] Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer in a civilised and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accom- modation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others, who often live in a very * M'Culloch’a Principles of Political Economy t p. 67. distant part of the country ! How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world ! What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen ! To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the brick- layer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill- wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to examine in the same manner all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he weai-s next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long land carnage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing those different con- veniences ; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilised country could not be pro- vided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extra- vagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommo- dation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages. ADAM FERGUSON — LORD MONBODDO. Dr Adam Ferguson (1724-1816), son of the minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, was educated at St Andrews : removing to Edinburgh, he became an associate of Dr Robertson, Blair, Home, &c. 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 professor of natural philosophy and of moral philosophy in the univer- sity of Edinburgh. In 1778, he went to America as secretary to the commissioners appointed to nego- tiate with the revolted colonies : on his return, he resumed the duties of his professorship. His latter days were spent in ease and affluence 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 FROM 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. Philosophy , 1769; A Reply to Dr Price on Civil and Religious Liberty , 1776; The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic , 1783 ; and Principles of Moral and Political Science , 1792. Sir Walter Scott, who was personally acquainted with 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 nothing but vegetables, and drinking only water or milk. The deep interest which he took in the French war 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 whole work. 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-winded and sententious, which those great men, had they lived in better times, and under a better government, would have avoided.’ This remark is true of all Ferguson’s writings ; his style is too succinct and compressed. His Roman History, however, is a valuable com- pendium, illustrated by philosophical views and reflections. Lord Monboddo’s Essay on the Origin and Progress of Language, published in 1771-3 and 6, is one of those singular works which at once provoke study and ridicule. The author was a man of real learn- ing and talents, but a humorist in character and opinions. He was an enthusiast in Greek liter- ature and antiquities, and a worshipper of Homer. So far did he carry this, that, finding carriages were not in use among the ancients, he never would enter one, but made all his journeys to London — which he visited once a year — and other places on horse- back, and continued the practice till he was upwards of eighty. He said it was 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 was 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 which condition they remained for ages destitute of speech, reason, and social affections. They gradually improved, accord- ing to Monboddo’s theory, as geologists say the earth was changed by successive revolutions ; but he contends that the orang-outangs are still of the human species, and that in the Bay of Bengal there exists a nation of human beings with tails like monkeys, which had been discovered a hundred and thirty years before by a Swedish skipper. When Sir Joseph Banks returned from Botany Bay, Monboddo inquired after the long-tailed men, and, according to Dr Johnson, was not pleased that they had not been found in all his peregrinations. All the moral sentiments and domestic affections were, according to this whimsical philosopher, the result of art, contrivance, and experience, as much as writing, ship-building, or any other mechanical invention ; and hence he places man, in his natural state, below beavers and sea-cats, which he terms social and political animals ! The laughable absur - dity of these doctrines must have protected their | 232 author from the fulminations of the clergy, who } were then so eager to attack all the metaphysical opponents of revealed religion. In 1779, Monboddo ; published an elaborate work on ancient metaphysics, ! in three volumes quarto, which, like his former ! publication, is equally learned and equally whim- 1 sical. After a life of study and paradox, discharging his duties as a lord of session with uprightness and integrity, and much respected in private for i his amiable dispositions, James Burnet, Lord | Monboddo, died in Edinburgh May 26, 1799, at the advanced age of eighty-five. HORACE WALPOLE. Horace Walpole, the author of the Castle of Otranto, already noticed, would have held but an insignificant place in British literature, if it had not been for his Correspondence and Memoirs, those pictures of society and manners, compounded of wit and gaiety, shrewd observation, sarcasm, censorious- ness, high life, and sparkling language. His situa- tion and circumstances were exactly suited to his character and habits. He had in early life travelled with his friend Gray, the poet, and imbibed in Italy a taste for antiquity and the arts, fostered, no doubt, by the kindred genius of Gray, who delighted in ancient architecture and in classic pursuits. He next tried public life, and sat in parliament for twenty- six years. This added to Ms observation of men and manners, but without increasing his reputation, for Horace Walpole was no orator or statesman. His aristocratic habits prevented him from courting distinction as a general author, and he accordingly commenced collecting antiques, building a baronial castle, and chronicling in secret his opinions and impressions of his contemporaries. His income, from sinecure offices and private sources, was about £4000 per annum ; and, as he was never married, his fortune enabled him, under good management and methodical arrangement, to gratify his tastes as a virtuoso. When thirty years old, he had pur- chased some land at Twickenham, near London, and here he commenced improving a small house, which by degrees swelled into a feudal castle, with turrets, towers, galleries, and corridors, windows of stained glass, armorial bearings, and all the other appropri- ate insignia of a Gothic baronial mansion. Who lias not heard of Strawberry Hill — that ‘little plaything house,’ as Walpole styled it, in which were gathered curiosities of all descriptions, works of art, rare editions, valuable letters, memorials of virtue and of vice, of genius, beauty, taste, and fashion, mouldered into dust ! This valuable collection was in 1842 scattered to the winds — dispersed at a public sale. The delight with which Walpole contemplated his suburban retreat, is evinced in many of his letters. In one to General Conway — the only man he seems ever to have really loved or regarded — he runs on in this enthusiastic manner : [Strawberry Hill.] You perceive that I have got into a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little plaything house that I have got out of this Chevenix’s shop [Straw- berry 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 roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually with coaches and chaises ; and barges, as MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HORACE WALPOLE. solemn as barons of the Exchequer, move under my window. Richmond Hill and Ham Walks hound my prospect ; but, thank God ! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. Dowagers, as plenty as flounders, inhabit all around ; and Pope’s ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight. The literary performances with which Walpole varied his life at Strawberry Hill are all character- istic of the man. In 1758 appeared his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors; in 1761 his Anecdotes of Painting in England; in 1765 his Castle of Otranto ; and in 1767 his Historic Doubts as to the character and person of Richard III. He left for publication Memoirs of the Court of George II., and a large collection of copies of his letters ; and he printed at his private press — for among the collections at Strawberry Hill was a small printing establishment — his tragedy of the Mysterious Mother. A collec- tion of his letters was printed in 1841, in six volumes, and various additions have since been made. A complete collection of the whole, chrono- logically arranged, and edited by Mr Peter Cunning- ham, was published in 1857-9 in nine volumes. The writings of Walpole are all ingenious and entertain- ing, and though his judgments on men and books or passing 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 Lord Macaulay, ‘are generally considered as his best performances, and, we think, with reason. His faults are far less offensive 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 shew itself in so unmitigated a manner as in his Memoirs. 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 importance. 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 never will. [. 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 certainly don’t love me better than I 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 effect 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 acquaint- ance. 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 senator to promise one’s vote beforehand, especially in a m on ey- matte r ; but I believe so many excellent patriots have just done the same thing, that I shall venture readily to engage my pi'omise to you, to get you any sum for the defence of Tuscany — why, it is to defend you and my own country ! | my own palace in Via de Santo Spirito, 1 my own princess epuisee, and all my family ! I shall quite make interest for you : nay, I would speak to our new ally, and your old acquaintance, Lord Sandwich, to assist in it ; but I could have no hope of getting at his ear, for he has put on such a first-rate tie-wig, on his admission to the Admiralty board, that nothing without the lungs of a boatswain can ever think to penetrate the thickness of the curls. I think, however, it does honour to the dignity of ministers : when he was but a patriot, his wig was not of half its present gravity. There are no more changes made : all is quiet yet ; but next Thursday the parliament meets to decide the complexion of the session. My Lord Chesterfield goes next week to Holland, and then returns for Ireland. The great present disturbance in politics is my Lady Granville’s assembly ; which I do assure you distresses the Pelhams infinitely more than a mysterious meeting of the States would, and far more than the abrupt breaking up of the Diet at Grodno. She had begun to keep Tuesdays before her lord resigned, which now she continues with greater zeal. Her house is very fine, she very handsome, her lord very agreeable and extra- ordinary ; and yet the Duke of Newcastle wonders that people will go thither. He mentioned to my father my going there, who laughed at him ; Cato ’s a proper person to trust with such a childish jealousy ! Harry Fox says: ‘Let the Duke of Newcastle open his own house, and see if all that come thither are his friends.’ The fashion now is to send cards to the women, and to declare that all men are welcome without being asked. This is a piece of ease that shocks the prudes of the last age. You can’t imagine how my Lady Granville shines in doing honours ; you know she is made for it. My lord has new-furnished his mother’s apartment for her, and has given her a magnificent set of dressing-plate ; he is very fond of her, and she as fond of his being so. You will have heard of Marshal Belleisle’s being made a prisoner at Hanover : the world will believe it was not by accident. He is sent for over hither : the first thought was to confine him to the Tower, but that is contrary to the politesse of modern war : they talk of sending him to Nottingham, where Tallard was. I am sure, if he is prisoner at large anywhere, we could not have a worse inmate ! so ambitious and intriguing a man, who was author of this whole war, will be no bad general to be ready to head the Jacobites on any insurrection. 2 I can say nothing more about young Gardiner, but that I don’t think my father at all inclined now to have any letter written for him. Adieu ! [The Scottish Rebellion.'] [To the same— Nov. 15, 1745.] I told you in my last what disturbance there had been about the new regiments ; the affair of rank was again disputed on the report till ten at night, and carried by a majority of twenty-three. The king had been per- suaded to appear for it, though Lord Granville made it a party-point against Mr Pelham. Winnington did not speak. I was not there, for I could not vote for it, and yielded not to give any hindrance to a public measure — or at least what was called so — just now. The prince acted openly, and influenced his people against it ; but it only served to let Mr Pelham see what, like every- thing else, he did not know — how strong he is. The 1 The street in Florence where Mr Mann lived. 2 Belleisle and his brother, who had been sent by tho king of France on a mission to the king of Prussia, were detained, while changing horses, at Elbengerode, and from thence con- veyed to England ; where, refusing to give their parole in the mode it was required, they were confined in Windsor Castle. 233 FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF to 1800. king will scarce speak to him, and he cannot yet get Pitt into place. The rebels are come into England : for two days we believed them near Lancaster, but the ministry now own that they don’t know if they have passed Carlisle. Some think they will besiege that town, which has an old wall, and all the militia in it of Cumberland and Westmoreland ; but as they can pass by it, I don’t see why they should take it, for they are not strong enough to leave garrisons. Several desert them as they advance south ; and altogether, good men and bad, nobody believes them ten thousand. By their marching west- ward to avoid Wade, it is evident that they are not strong enough to fight him. They may yet retire back into their mountains, but if once they get to Lancaster, their retreat is cut off; for Wade will not stir from Newcastle till he has embarked them deep into England, and then he will be behind them. He has sent General Handasyde from Berwick with two regiments to take possession of Edinburgh. The rebels are certainly in a very desperate situation : they dared not meet Wade ; and if they had waited for him, their troops would have deserted. Unless they meet with great risings in their favour in Lancashire, I don’t see what they can hope, except from a continuation of our neglect. That, indeed, has nobly exerted itself for them. They were suffered to march the whole length of Scotland, and take possession of the capital, without a man appearing against them. Then two thousand men sailed to them, to run from them. Till the flight of Cope’s army, Wade was not sent. Two roads still lay into England, and till they had chosen that which Wade had not taken, no army was thought of being sent to secure the other. Now Ligonier, with seven old regiments, and six of the new, is ordered to Lancashire ; before this first division of the army could get to Coventry, they are forced to order it to halt, for fear the enemy should be up with it before it was all assembled. It is uncertain if the rebels will march to the north of Wales, to Bristol, or towards London. If to the latter, Ligonier must fight them; if to either of the other, which I hope, the two armies may join and drive them into a corner, where they must all perish. They cannot subsist in Wales but by being supplied by the papists in Ireland. The best is, that we are in no fear from France ; there is no preparation for invasions in any of their ports. Lord Clancarty, 1 a Scotchman of great parts, but mad and drunken, and whose family forfeited £90,000 a year for King James, is made vice-admiral at Brest. The Duke of Bedford goes in his little round person with his regiment ; he now takes to the land, and says he is tired of being a pen-and-ink man. Lord Gower insisted, too, upon going with his regiment, but is laid up with the gout. With the rebels in England, you may imagine we have no private news, nor think of foreign. From this account you may judge that our case is far from desperate, though disagreeable. The prince, 2 while the princess lies-in, has taken to give dinners, to which he asks two of the ladies of the bed-chamber, two of the maids of honour, &c., by turns, and five or six others. He sits at the head of the table, drinks and harangues to all this medley till nine at night ; and the other day, after the affair of the regiments, drank Mr Fox’s health in a bumper, with three huzzas, for opposing Mr Pelham — * Si qua fata aspera rumpas, Tu Marcellus eris ! * You put me in pain for my eagle, and in more for the Chutes, whose zeal is very heroic, but very ill placed. I long to hear that all my Chutes and eagles are safe out of the Pope’s hands ! Pray, wish the Suares’s joy of all their espousals. Does the princess pray abundantly for 1 Donagh Maccarty, Earl of Clancarty, was an Irishman, and not a Scotchman. 2 Ferdinand of Wales. 234 her friend the Pretender? Is she extremely abattue with her devotion ? and does she fast till she has got a violent appetite for supper? And then, does she eat so long, that old Sarrasin is quite impatient to go to cards again ? Good-night ! I intend you shall still be resident from King George. P. S. — I forgot to tell you that the other day I con- cluded the ministry knew the danger was all over ; for the Duke of Newcastle ventured to have the Pretender’s declaration burnt at the Royal Exchange. Nov. 22, 1745. For these two days we have been expecting news of a battle. Wade marched last Saturday from Newcastle, and must have got up with the rebels if they stayed for him, though the roads are exceedingly bad, and great quantities of snow have fallen. But last night there was some notice of a body of rebels being advanced to Penrith. We were put into great spirits by a heroic letter from the mayor of Carlisle, who had fired on the rebels and made them retire ; he concluded with saying : ‘And so I think the town of Carlisle has done his majesty more service than the great city of Edinburgh, or than all Scotland together.’ But this hero, who was grown the whole fashion for four-and-twenty hours, had chosen to stop all other letters. The king spoke of him at his levee with great encomiums ; Lord Stair said : ‘Yes, sir, Mr Patterson has behaved very bravely.’ The Duke of Bedford interrupted him : ‘ My lord, his name is not Patterson ; that is a Scotch name : his name is Pattinson .’ But, alack ! the next day the rebels returned, having placed the women and children of the country in wagons in front of their army, and forcing the peasants to fix the scaling-ladders. The great Mr Pattinson, or Patterson — for now his name may be which one pleases — instantly surrendered the town, and agreed to pay two thousand pounds to save it from pillage. [ London Earthquakes and London 6os«p.] [To the same— March 11, 1750.] Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent. That they have lost their name. — Dryden. My text is not literally true; but as far as earth- quakes go towards lowering the price of wonderful commodities, to be sure we are overstocked. We have had a second, much more violent than the first; and you must not be surprised if, by next post, you hear of a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday last — exactly a month since the first shock — the earth had a shivering fit between one and two, but so slight, that if no more had followed, I don’t believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again — on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head ; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses : in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done : there has been some ; two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware. The bells rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than any of them : Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn. The wise say, that if we have not rain soon, we shall certainly have more. Several people are going out of town, for it has nowhere reached above ten miles from London : they say they are not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, ‘ Lord ! one can’t help going into the country!’ The only visible effect it has had was on the Ridotto, at which, being the MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HANNAH MORE. following night, there were hut four hundred people. A parson who came into White’s the morning of earth- quake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of powder-mills, went away exceedingly scandalised, and said : ‘ I protest they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.’ If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and orange-flower water; I am already planning a ierreno for Strawberry Hill. The Middlesex election is carried against the court : the Prince in a green frock — and I won’t swear but in a Scotch plaid waistcoat — sat under the park- wall in his chair, and hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all boroughs that shall be vacant — this is wise ! They will spend their money to carry a few more seats in a parliament where they will never have the majority, and so have none to carry the general elections. The omen, however, is bad for Westminster; the high-bailiff went to vote for the opposition. I now jump to another topic : I find all this letter will be detached scraps ; I can’t at all contrive to hide the seams. But I don’t care. I began my letter merely to tell you of the earthquake, and I don’t pique myself upon doing any more than telling you what you would be glad to have told you. I told you, too, how pleased I was with the triumphs of another old beauty, our friend the princess. 1 Bo you know, I have found a history that has great resemblance to hers ; that is, that will be very like hers, if hers is but like it. I will tell it you in as few words as I can. Madame la Marechale de l’Hopital was the daughter of a sempstress; 2 a young gentleman fell in love with her, and was going to be married to her, but the match was broken off. An old fermier-gbn&ral, who had retired into the province where this happened, hearing the story, had a curiosity to see the victim ; he liked her, married her, died, and left her enough not to care for her inconstant. She came to Paris, where the Marechal de l’Hopital married her for her riches. After the marechal’s death, Casimir, the abdicated king of Poland, who was retired into France, fell in love with the marechale, and privately married her. If the event ever happens, I shall certainly travel to Nancy, to hear her talk of rna belle fille la Heine de France. What pains my Lady Pomfret would take to prove 3 that an abdicated king’s wife did not take place of an English countess ; and how the princess herself would grow still fonder of the Pretender 4 for the similitude of his fortune with that of le Roi mon marif Her daughter, Mirepoix, was frightened the other night with Mrs Nugent’s calling out, un voleur/ un voleur! The ambassadress had heard so much of robbing, that she did not doubt but dans ce pais cy , they robbed in the middle of an assembly. It turned out to be a thief in the candle / Good-night ! 1 The Princess Craon, who, it had been reported, was to marry Stanislaus Leczinsky, Duke of Lorraine and ex-king of Poland, whose daughter, Maria Leczinsky, was married to Louis XV., king of France. 2 This is the story of a woman named Mary Mignot. She was near marrying a young man of the name of La Gardie, who afterwards entered the Swedish service, and became a field-marshal in that country. Her first husband was, if I mistake not, a procureur of Grenoble ; her second was the Marechal de l’Hdpital ; and her third is supposed to have been Casimir, the ex-king of Poland, who had retired, after his abdication, to the monastery of St Germain des Prfes. It does not, however, appear certain whether Casimir actually married her or not. 3 Lady Pomfret and Princess Craon did not visit at Florence, upon a dispute of precedence. 4 The Pretender, when in Lorraine, lived in Prince Craon’s house. MRS MONTAGU AND MRS OHAPONE. Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (1720-1800) and Mrs Hester Chapone (1727-1801) were ladies of learn- ing and ability, holding — particularly the former — a prominent place in the literary society of the period. Mrs Montagu was left a widow with a large fortune, and her house became the popular resort of persons of both sexes distinguished for rank, classical taste, and literary talent. Numerous references to this circle will be found in Boswell’s Johnson , in the Life of Dr Beattie , the works of Hannah More, &c. Mrs Montagu was authoress of a work highly popular in its day, Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare , compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets , with some Remarks upon the Misrepresentations of M. de Voltaire , 1769. This essay is now chiefly valued as shewing the low state of poetical and Shakspearean criticism at the time it was written. Voltaire’s theory of art then found many admirers, and though Mrs Montagu undertook the defence of the great dramatist, it was in a patronising, apologetic tone. Her work, how- ever, has many excellent and ingenious observations. Beattie said of Mrs Montagu: ‘I have known several ladies eminent in literature, but she excelled them all ; and in conversation she had more wit than any other person, male or female, whom I have ever known.’ Mrs Chapone’s principal work is Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, 1773. Two years afterwards she published a volume of Miscel- lanies in Prose and Verse. All her writings are distinguished for their piety and good sense. HANNAH MORE. Hannah More adopted fiction as a means of conveying religious instruction. She can scarcely £e said to have been ever 1 free of the corporation ’ of novelists; nor would she perhaps have cared much to owe her distinction solely to her connec- tion with so motley and various a band. Hannah 235 FROM 1760 CYCLOPEDIA OF withdrew from the fascinations of London society, the theatres and opera, in obedience to what she considered the call of duty, and we suspect Tom Jones and Peregrine Piclde would have been as unworthy in her eyes. This excellent woman was one of five daughters, children of Jacob More, who taught a school in the village of Stapleton, in Gloucestershire, where Hannah was bom in the year 1745. The family afterwards removed to Bristol, and there Hannah attracted the attention and patronage of Sir James Stonehouse, who had been many years a physician of eminence, but afterwards took orders and settled at Bristol. In her seventeenth year she published a pastoral drama, The Search after Happiness , which in a short time went through three editions. Next year she brought out a tragedy, The Inflexible Captive. In 1773 or 1774 she made her entrance into the society of London, and was domesticated with Garrick, who proved one of her kindest and steadiest friends. She was received with favour by Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, &c. Her sister has thus described her first interview with the great English moralist of the eighteenth century : [.fVrsf Interview with Johnson .] We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds; she had sent to engage Dr Percy — Percy’s Collection , now you know him — quite a sprightly modem, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected ; he was no sooner gone than the most amiable and obliging of women, Miss Reynolds, ordered the coach to take us to Dr Johnson’s very own house: yes, Abyssinian Johnson! Dictionary Johnson ! Ramblers, Idlers, and Irene Johnson ! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion ? The conversation turned upon a new work of his just going to the press — the Tour to the Hebrides — and his old friend Richardson. Mrs Williams, the blind poet, who lives with him, was intro- duced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said ‘she was a silly thing!’ When our visit was ended, he called for his hat, as it rained, to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. We are engaged with him at Sir Joshua’s on Wednesday evening — what do you think of us ? I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little parlour when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius : when he heard it, he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Boswell and himself when they stopped a night, as they imagined, where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth. The idea so worked on their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However, they learned the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country. In a subsequent letter (1776), after the publication of Hannah’s poem, Sir Eldred of the Bower, the same lively writer says : If a wedding should take place before our return, don’t be surprised — between the mother of Sir Eldred and the father of my much -loved Irene ; nay, Mrs Montagu says if tender words are the precursors of connubial engagements, we may expect great things, i for it is nothing but ‘child,’ ‘little fool,’ ‘love,’ and ‘ dearest.’ After much critical discourse, he turns round to me, and with one of his most amiable looks, 236 to 1800. which must be seen to form the least idea of it, he says : ‘ I have heard that you are engaged in the useful and honourable employment of teaching young ladies.’ Upon which, with all the same ease, familiarity, and confidence we should have done had only our own dear Dr Stonehouse been present, we entered upon the history of our birth, parentage, and education ; shewing how we were born with more desires than guineas, and how, as years increased our appetites, the cupboard at home began to grow too small to gratify them ; and how, with a bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket, we set out to seek our fortunes; and how we found a great house with nothing in it ; and how it was like to remain so till, looking into our knowledge-boxes, we happened to find a little laming , a good thing when land is gone, or rather none ; and so at last, by giving a little of this little laming to those who had less, we got a good store of gold in return ; but how, alas ! we wanted the wit to keep it. ‘ I love you both,’ cried the inamorato — * I love you all five. I never was at Bristol — I will come on purpose to see you. What ! five women live happily together ! I will come and see you — I have spent a happy evening — I am glad I came — God for ever bless you ! you live lives to shame duchesses.’ He took his leave with so much warmth and tenderness, we were quite affected at his manner. If Hannah’s head stands proof against all the adulation and kindness of the great folks here, why, then, I will venture to say nothing of this kind will hurt her hereafter. A literary anecdote : Mrs Medalle — Sterne’s daughter — sent to all the correspondents of her deceased father, begging the letters which he had written to them; among other j wits, she sent to Wilkes with the same request. He ! sent for answer, that as there happened to be nothing 1 extraordinary in those he had received, he had burnt or lost them. On which the faithful editor of her father’s works sent back to say, that if Mr Wilkes would be so good as to write a few letters in imitation of her father's style, it would do just as well, and she would insert them. In 1777, Garrick brought out Miss More’s tragedy of Percy at Drury Lane, where it was acted seven- teen nights successively. Her theatrical profits amounted to £600, and for the copyright of the play she got £150 more. Two legendary poems, Sir Eldred of the Bower, and The Bleeding Rock , formed her next publication. In 1779, the third and last tragedy of Hannah More was produced; it was entitled The Fatal Falsehood, but was acted only three nights. At this time, she had the misfortune to lose her friend Mr Garrick by death, an event of which she has given some interesting particulars in her letters. [ Death and Character of Garrick .] From Dr Cadogan’s I intended to have gone to the Adelphi, but found that Mrs Garrick was at that moment quitting her house, while preparations were making for the last sad ceremony: she very wisely fixed on a private friend’s house for this purpose, where she could be at her ease. I got there just before her ; she was prepared for meeting me; she ran into my arms, and we both remained silent for some minutes ; at last she whispered : ‘ I have this moment embraced his coffin, and you come next’ She soon recovered herself, and said with great composure : ‘ The goodness of God to me is inexpressible ; I desired to die, but it is his will that I should live, and he has convinced me he will not let my life be quite miserable, for he gives astonishing strength to my body, and grace to my heart ; neither do I deserve, but I am thankful for both.’ She thanked me a thousand times for such a real act of friendship, and bade me be comforted, for it was God’s MISCELLANEOUS writers. ENGLISH LITERATURE. HANNAH MORE. will. She told me they had just returned from Althorp, Lord Spencer’s, where he had been reluctantly dragged, for he had felt unwell for some time ; but during his visit he was often in such fine spirits, that they could not believe he was ill. On his return home, he appointed Cadogan to meet him, who ordered him an emetic, the warm bath, and the usual remedies, but with very little effect. On the Sunday, he was in good spirits and free from pain ; but as the suppression still continued, Dr Cadogan became extremely alarmed, and sent for Pott, Heberden, and Schomberg, who gave him up the moment they saw him. Poor Garrick stared to see his room full of doctors, not being conscious of his real state. No change happened till the Tuesday evening, when the surgeon who was sent for to blister and bleed him made light of his illness, assuring Mrs Garrick that he would be well in a day or two, and insisted on her going to lie down. Towards morning, she desired to be called if there was the least change. Every time that she administered the draughts to him in the night, he always squeezed her hand in a particular manner, and spoke to her with the greatest tenderness and affection. Immediately after he had taken his last medicine, he softly said : ‘ 0 dear ! ’ and yielded up his spirit with a groan, and in his perfect senses. His behaviour during the night was all gentleness and patience, and he frequently made apologies to those about him for the trouble he gave them. On opening him, a stone was found that measured five inches and a half round one way, and four and a half the other ; yet this was not the immediate cause of his death ; his kidneys were quite gone. I paid a melancholy visit to the coffin yesterday, where I found room for meditation till the mind ‘burst with thinking.’ His new house is not so pleasant as Hampton, nor so splendid as the Adelphi, but it is commodious enough for all the wants of its inhabitant ; and besides, it is so quiet that he never will be disturbed till the eternal morning, and never till then will a sweeter voice than his own be heard. May he then find mercy ! They are preparing to hang the house with black, for he is to lie in state till Monday. I dislike this pageantry, and cannot help thinking that the disembodied spirit must look with contempt upon the farce that is played over its miserable relics. But a splendid funeral could not be avoided, as he is to be laid in the Abbey with such illustrious dust, and so many are desirous of testifying their respect by attending. I can never cease to remember with affec- tion and gratitude so warm, steady, and disinterested a friend ; and I can most truly bear this testimony to his memory, that I never witnessed in any family more decorum, propriety, and regularity, than in his ; where I never saw a card, nor even met — except in one instance — a person of his own profession at his table, of which Mrs Garrick, by her elegance of taste, her correctness of manners, and very original turn of humour, was the brightest ornament. All his pursuits and tastes were so decidedly intellectual, that it made the society, and the conversation which was always to be found in his circle, interesting and delightful. In 1782, Miss More presented to the world a volume of Sacred Dramas , with a poem annexed, entitled Sensibility. All her works were successful, and Johnson said he thought her the best of the female versifiers. The poetry of Hannah More is now forgotten, but Percy is a good play, and it is clear that the authoress might have excelled as a dramatic writer, had she devoted herself to that difficult species of composition. In 1786, she pub- lished another volume of verse, Florio , a Tale for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies ; and The Bas Bleu , or Conversation. The latter — which Johnson compli- mented as ‘ a great performance ’ — was an elaborate eulogy on the Bas Bleu Club, a literary assembly that met at Mrs Montagu’s.* The following couplets have been quoted and remembered as terse and pointed : In men this blunder still you find, All think their little set mankind. Small habits well pursued betimes, May reach the dignity of crimes. Such lines mark the good sense and keen observa- tion of the writer, and these qualities Hannah now resolved to devote exclusively to high objects. The gay life of the fashionable world had lost its charms, and, having published her Bas Bleu , she retired to a small cottage and garden near Bristol, where her sisters kept a flourishing boarding-school. Her first prose publication was Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society , produced in 1788. This was followed in 1791 by an Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. As a means of counteracting the political tracts and exertions of the Jacobins and levellers, Hannah More, in 1794, wrote a number of tales, published monthly under the title of The Cheap Repository , which attained to a sale of about a million each number. Some of the little stories — as the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain — are well told, and contain striking moral and reli- gious lessons. With the same object, our authoress published a volume called Village Politics. Her other principal works are — Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education , 1799 ; Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess , 1805 ; Ccelebs in Search of a Wife , comprehending Observa- tions on Domestic Habits and Manners , Religion and Morals , two volumes, 1809 ; Practical Piety , or the Influence of the Religion of the Heart on the Conduct of Life , two volumes, 1811 ; Christian Morals , two volumes, 1812; Essay on the Character and Writings of St Paul, two volumes, 1815 ; and Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic , with Reflections on Prayer , 1819. The collection of her works is comprised in eleven volumes octavo. The work entitled Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess, was written with a view to the education of the Princess Charlotte, on which subject the advice and assist- ance of Hannah More had been requested by Queen Charlotte. Of Ccelebs, we are told that ten editions were sold in one year— a remarkable proof of the popularity of the work. The tale is admirably written, with a fine vein of delicate irony and sar- casm, and some of the characters are well depicted, but, from the nature of the story, it presents few incidents or embellishments to attract ordinary novel-readers. It has not inaptly been styled ‘a dramatic sermon.’ Of the other publications of the authoress, we may say, with one of her critics, ‘ it would be idle in us to dwell on works so well known as the Thoughts on the Manners of the Great , the Essay on the Religion of the Fashionable World, and so on, which finally established Miss More’s name as a great moral writer, possessing a masterly com- mand over the resources of our language, and devoting a keen wit and a lively fancy to the best and noblest of purposes.’ In her latter days, there * These meetings were called the Blue Stocking Club, in consequence of one of the most admired of the members, Mr Benjamin Stillingfleet, always wearing blue stockings. The appellation soon became general as a name for pedantic or ridiculous literary ladies. Hannah More’s poem proceeds on the mistake of a foreigner, who, hearing of the Blue Stocking Club, translated it literally * Bas Bleu.’ Byron wrote a light satirical sketch of the Blues of his day— the frequenters of the London saloons— but it is unworthy of his genius. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. was perhaps a tincture of unnecessary gloom or severity in her religious views ; yet, when we recol- lect her unfeigned sincerity and practical benevolence — her exertions to instruct the poor miners and cottagers— and the untiring zeal with which she laboured, even amidst severe bodily infirmities, to inculcate sound principles and intellectual cultiva- tion, from the palace to the cottage, it is impossible not to rank her among the best benefactors of mankind. The great success of the different works of our authoress enabled her to live in ease, and to dis- pense charities around her. Her sisters also secured a competency, and they all lived together at Barley Grove, a property of some extent which they pur- chased and improved. ‘From the day that the school was given up, the existence of the whole sisterhood appears to have flowed on in one uniform current of peace and contentment, diversified only by new appearances of Hannah as an authoress, and the ups and downs which she and the others met with in the prosecution of a most brave and humane experiment — namely, their zealous effort to extend the blessings of education and religion among the inhabitants of certain villages situated in a wild country some eight or ten miles from their abode, who, from a concurrence of unhappy local and tem- porary circumstances, had been left in a state of ignorance hardly conceivable at the present day.’ * These exertions were ultimately so successful, that the sisterhood had the gratification of witnessing a yearly festival celebrated on the hills of Cheddar, where above a thousand children, with the members of female clubs of industry — also established by them — after attending church-service, were regaled at the expense of their benefactors. Hannah More died on the 7th of September 1833, aged eighty- eight. She had made about £30,000 by her writings, and she left, by her will, legacies to charitable and religious institutions amounting to £10,000. In 1834, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More , by William Roberts, Esq., were published in four volumes. In these we have a full account by Hannah herself of her London life, and many interesting anecdotes. SAMUEL AND WILLIAM HENRY IRELAND. Samuel Ireland, a dealer in scarce books, prints, &c., was author of several picturesque tours, illustrated by aquatinta engravings ; but is chiefly remarkable as having been made by his son, a youth of eighteen, the unconscious instrument of giving to the world a variety of Shakspearean forgeries. William Henry Ireland (1777-1834) was articled to a conveyancer in New Inn, and, like Chatterton, began early to imitate ancient writings. His father was morbidly anxious to discover some scrap of Shakspeare’s handwriting, and this set the youth to manufacture a number of documents, which he pretended to have accidentally met with at the house of a gentleman of fortune. ‘ Amongst a mass of family papers,’ says the elder Ireland, ‘ the contracts between Sliakspeare, Lowine, and Condelle, and the lease granted by him and Hemynge to Michael Fraser, which was first found, were discovered; and soon afterwards the deed of gift to William Henry Ireland (described as the friend of Shakspeare, in consequence of his having saved his life on the river Thames), and also the deed of trust to John Hemynge, were discovered. In pursuing this search, he (his son) was so fortu- * Quarterly Review, 1834. 238 nate as to meet with some deeds very material to the interests of this gentleman, and such as estab- lished beyond all doubt his title to a considerable property; deeds of which this gentleman was as ignorant as he was of his having in his possession any of the manuscripts of Shakspeare. In return for this service, added to the consideration that the young man bore the same name and arms with the person who saved the life of Shakspeare, this gentle- man promised him everything relative to the present subject, that had been, or should be found, either in town or at his house in the country. A& this house the principal part of the papers, together with a great variety of books, containing his manuscript notes, and three manuscript plays, with part of another, were discovered.’ These forged documents included, besides the deeds, a Protestant Confession of Faith by Shakspeare, letters to Anne Hathaway, the Earl of Southampton, and others, a new version of King Lear , and one entire original drama, entitled Vortigern and Rowena. Such a treasure was pronounced invaluable, and the manuscripts were exhibited at the elder Ireland’s house, in Norfolk Street. A controversy arose as to the genuineness of the documents, in which Malone took a part, proving that they were forged ; but the productions found many admirers and believers. They were published by subscription, in a large and splendid volume, and Vortigern was brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, John Kemble acting the principal character. Kemble, however, was not to be duped by the young forger, being probably, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, warned by Malone. The representa- tion of the play completely broke up the imposture. The structure and language of the piece were so feeble, clumsy, and extravagant, that no audience could believe it to have proceeded from the immortal dramatist. As the play proceeded, the torrent of ridiculous bombast swelled to such a height as to bear down critical patience ; and when Kemble uttered the line, And when this solemn mockery is o’er, the pit rose and closed the scene with a discordant howl. We give what was considered the ‘ most sublime passage ’ in Vortigern : O sovereign Death ! That hast for thy domain this world immense ; Church-yards and charnel-houses are thy haunts, And hospitals thy sumptuous palaces ; And when thou wouldst be merry, thou dost choose The gaudy chamber of a dying king. Oh, then thou dost wide ope thy bony jaws, And with rude laughter and fantastic tricks, Thou clapp’ st thy rattling fingers to thy sides; With icy hand thou tak’st him by the feet, And upward so till thou dost reach his heart, And wrapt him in the cloak of lasting night. So impudent and silly a fabrication was perhaps never before thrust upon public notice. The young adventurer, foiled in this attempt, attempted to earn distinction as a novelist and dramatist, but utterly failed. In 1805, he published a confession of the Shakspearean forgery, An Authentic Account of the Shakspeare Manuscripts, in which he makes this declaration : * I solemnly declare, first, that my father was perfectly unacquainted with the whole affair, believing the papers most firmly the produc- tions of Shakspeare. Secondly, that I am myself both the author and writer, and had no aid from any soul living, and that I should never have gone so far, but that the world praised the papers so much, and thereby flattered my vanity. Thirdly, ENGLISH LITERATURE. WORKS ON TASTE, ETC. SIR J. REYNOLDS — REV. G. WHITE. that any publication which may appear tending to prove the manuscripts genuine, or to contradict what is here stated, is false ; this being the true account.’ Several other novels, some poems, and attempts at satire proceeded from the pen of Ireland, but they are unworthy of notice, and the last thirty years of the life of this industrious but unprincipled litterateur were passed in obscurity and poverty. should have * lived and laboured for nearly half a century, and yet have left little or nothing to the world that was truly and originally his own.’ WORKS ON TASTE, NATURAL HISTORY, AND ANTIQUITIES. EDMUND MALONE — RICHARD PORSON. Edmund Malone (1741-1812), who was con- spicuous in the detection and exposure of Ireland’s forgeries, was an indefatigable dramatic critic and commentator, as well as a zealous literary anti- quary. He edited Shakspeare (1790), wrote memoirs of Dryden, Sir Joshua Reynolds, W. Gerard Hamil- ton, &c. ; was the friend of Goldsmith, Burke, and Johnson, and still more emphatically the friend of Johnson’s biographer, Boswell; and in nearly all literary questions for half a century, he took a lively interest, and was always ready with notes or illustrations. Mr Malone was the son of an Irish judge, and born in Dublin. After studying at Trinity College, he repaired to London, was entered of the Inner Temple, and called to the bar in 1767. His life, however, was devoted to literature, in which he was a useful and delighted pioneer. The fame of English scholarship and classical criticism descended from Bentley to Porson. Richard Porson (1759-1808) was in 1793 unani- mously elected professor of Greek in the university of Cambridge. Besides many fugitive and miscel- laneous contributions to classical journals, Porson edited and annotated the first four plays of Euripides, which appeared separately between 1797 and 1801. He collected the Harleian manuscript of the Odyssey for the Grenville edition of Homer (1800), and corrected the text of Aeschylus and part of Herodotus. After his death, his Adversaria , or Notes and Emenda- tions of the Greek Poets , were published by Pro- fessor Monk and Mr J. C. Blomfield — afterwards bishop of London — and his Tracts and Miscellaneous Criticisms were collected and published by the Rev. T. Kidd. Porson, as a Greek critic, has never perhaps been excelled. He rose from a humble station— his father was a parish-clerk in Norfolk — solely by his talents and early proficiency ; his memory was prodigious, almost unexampled, and his acuteness and taste in Greek literature were unerring. The habits of this great scholar were, however, fatal to his success in life. He was as intemperate as Sheridan, careless of the usual forms and courtesies of society, and impracticable in ordinary affairs. His love of drink amounted to a passion, or rather disease. Hi3 redeeming qualities besides his scholastic acquirements and natural talents, were his strict integrity and love of truth. Many of his pointed sayings were remembered by his friends. Being on one occasion informed that Southey considered his poem of Madoc as likely to be a valuable possession to his family, Porson answered : ‘ Madoc will be read — when Homer and Virgil, are forgotten.’ The ornate style of Gibbon was his aversion: ‘There could not,’ he said, ‘be a better exercise for a school-boy than to turn a page of The Decline and Fall into English .’ He disliked reading folios, ‘because,’ said he, ‘we meet with so few mile-stones ’ — that is, we have such long inter- vals between the turning over of the leaves. On the whole, though Porson was a critic of the highest order, and though conceding to classical literature all the respect that can be claimed for it, we must lament, with one of his friends, that such a man Several interesting and valuable treatises on subjects of Taste, Natural History, and Antiquities, were published about this time, and had considerable influence. The Discourses on Painting , by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), are elegant and agreeable compositions, containing a variety of literary illus- tration, and suggestive thought, but they are not always correct or definite in their criticism and rules for artists. Sir Joshua was elected president of the Royal Academy on its institution in 1769, and from that time to 1790, he delivered fifteen lectures or discourses on the principles and practice of painting. The readers of Johnson and Gold- smith need not be told how much Reynolds was beloved and respected by his associates, while his exquisite taste and skill as a portrait-painter have preserved to us, as Macaulay remarks, ‘ the thought- ful foreheads of many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of many noble matrons.’ Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) commenced in 1761 a body of British zoology, originally published in four volumes folio, and afterwards gave to the world treatises on quadrupeds, birds, arctic zoology, and other departments of natural science. He made tours into Scotland and Wales, of which he pub- lished copious accounts ; but though a lively and pleasant traveller, and diligent antiquary, Pennant was neither correct nor profound. The popularity of his works stimulated others, and had the effect of greatly promoting the extension of his favourite studies. Francis Grose (1731-1791) was a still more superficial antiquary, but voluminous writer. He published the Antiquities of England and Wales , in eight volumes, the first of which appeared in 1773, and the Antiquities of Scotland, in two volumes, published in 1790. To this work Burns contributed his Tam o’ Shanter, which Grose characterised as a ‘ pretty poem ! ’ He wrote also treatises on ancient armour and weapons, military antiquities, &c. Richard Gough (1735-1809) was a celebrated topographer and antiquary. His British Topography , Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain , his enlarged edition of Camden’s Britannia, and various other works, evince great research and untiring industry. His valuable collection of books and manuscripts he bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) published a series of letters addressed by him to Pennant and Daines Barrington, descriptive of the natural objects and appearances of the parish of Selborne in Hampshire. White was rector of this parish, and had spent in it the greater part of his life, engaged in literary occupations and the study of nature. His minute and interesting facts, the entire devotion of the amiable author to his subject, and the easy elegance and simplicity of his style, render White’s history a universal favourite— some- thing like Izaak Walton’s book on angling, which all admire, and hundreds have endeavoured to copy. The retired naturalist was too full of facts and observations to have room for sentimental writing, yet in sentences like the following — however humble be the theme — we may trace no common power of picturesque painting. from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. [The Rooks Returning to their iVesfs.] The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the roots are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk, they return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne- down, where they wheel round in the air, and sport and dive in a playful manner, all the while exerting their voices, and making a loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by the distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a confused noise or chiding; or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagi- nation, and not unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow echoing woods, or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day they retire for the night to the deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl, who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on such an occurrence, in the true spirit of physico -theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers ; and yet this child was much too young to be aware that the Scriptures have said of the Deity, that ‘he feedeth the ravens who call upon him.’ The migration of the swallows, the instincts of ani- mals, the blossoming of flowers and plants, and the humblest phenomena of ever-changing nature, are recorded by Gilbert White in the same earnest and unassuming manner. Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), a zealous literary antiquary and critic, was indefatigable in his labours to illustrate English literature, particularly the neglected ballad-strains of the nation. He pub- lished in 1783 a valuable collection of English songs ; in 1790, Ancient Songs, from the time of Henry III. to the Revolution; in 1792, Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry; in 1794, A Collection of Scottish Songs ; in 1795, A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, &c., relating to Robin Hood, &c. Ritson was a faith- ful and acute editor, profoundly versed in literary antiquities, but of a jealous irritable temper, which kept him in a state of constant warfare with his brother-collectors. He was in diet a strict Pytha- gorean, and wrote a treatise against the use of animal food. Sir Walter Scott, writing to his friend Mr Ellis in 1803, remarks: ‘Poor Ritson is no more. All his vegetable soups and puddings have not been able to avert the evil day, which, I understand, was preceded by madness.’ Scott has borne ample testimony to the merits of this unhappy gleaner in the by-paths of literature. Among works on the subject of taste and beauty, in which philosophical analysis and metaphysics are happily blended with the graces of refined thought and composition, a high place must be assigned to the writings of the Rev. William Gilpin (1724-1804) and Sir Uvedale Price (1747-1829). The former was author of Remarks on Forest Scenery, and Observations on Picturesque Beauty, as connected with the English lakes and the Scottish Highlands. As vicar of Boldre, in the New Forest, Hampshire, Mr Gilpin was familiar with the characteristics of forest scenery, and his work on this subject (1791) is equally pleasing and profound — a storehouse of images and illustrations of external nature, remarkable for their fidelity and beauty, and an analysis ‘ patient and comprehensive, with no feature of the chilling metaphysics of the schools.* His Remarks on Forest Scenery consist of a description of the various kinds of trees. ‘ It is no exaggerated praise,’ he says, ‘to call a tree the grandest and most beautiful of all the productions 240 of the earth. In the former of these epithets nothing contends with it, for we consider rocks and moun- tains as part of the earth itself. And though among inferior plants, shrubs, and flowers, there is great beauty, yet when we consider that these minuter productions are chiefly beautiful as individuals, and are not adapted to form the arrangement of com- position in landscape, nor to receive the effect of light and shade, they must give place in point of beauty — of picturesque beauty at least — to the form, and foliage, and ramification of the tree. Thus the splendid tints of the insect, however beautiful, must yield to the elegance and proportion of animals which range in a higher class.’ Having described trees as individuals, he considers them under their various combinations, as clumps, park-scenery, the copse, glen, grove, the forest, &c. Their permanent and incidental beauties in storm and sunshine, and through all the seasons, are afterwards delineated in the choicest language, and with frequent illustration from the kindred pages of the poets ; and the work concludes with an account of the English forests and their accompaniments — lawns, heaths, forest distances, and sea-coast views; with their proper appendages, as wild horses, deer, eagles, and other picturesque inhabitants. As a specimen of Gilpin’s manner — though a very inadequate one — we subjoin his account of the effects of the sun, ‘ an illustrious family of tints,’ as fertile sources of incidental beauty among the woods of the forest: [Sunrise and Sunset in the Woods.] The first dawn of day exhibits a beautiful obscurity. When the east begins just to brighten with the reflec- tions only of effulgence, a pleasing progressive light, dubious and amusing, is thrown over the face of things. A single ray is able to assist the picturesque eye, which by such slender aid creates a thousand imaginary forms, if the scene be unknown, and as the light steals gradu- ally on, is amused by correcting its vague ideas by the real objects. What in the confusion of twilight perhaps seemed a stretch of rising ground, broken into various parts, becomes now vast masses of wood and an extent of forest. As the sun begins to appear above the horizon, another change takes place. What was before only form, being now enlightened, begins to receive effect. This effect depends on two circumstances — the catching lights which touch the summits of every object, and the mistiness in which the rising orb is commonly enveloped. The effect is often pleasing when the sun rises in unsullied brightness, diffusing its ruddy light over the upper parts of objects, which is contrasted by the deeper shadows below ; yet the effect is then only transcendent when he rises accompanied by a train of vapours in a misty atmosphere. Among lakes and mountains, this happy accompaniment often forms the most astonishing visions, and yet in the forest it is nearly as great. With what delightful effect do we sometimes see the sun’s disk just appear above a woody hill, or, in Shakspeare’s language, Stand tiptoe on the misty mountain’s top, and dart his diverging rays through the rising vapour. The radiance, catching the tops of the trees as they hang midway upon the shaggy steep, and touching here and there a few other prominent objects, imper- ceptibly mixes its ruddy tint with the surrounding mists, setting on fire, as it were, their upper parts, while their lower skirts are lost in a dark mass of varied confusion, in which trees and ground, and radiance and obscurity, are all blended together. When the eye is fortunate enough to catch the glowing instant ■works on taste, ETC. ENGLISH LITERATURE. sir u. price — rev. a. alison. —for it is always a vanishing scene — it furnishes an idea worth treasuring among the choicest appearances of nature. Mistiness alone, we have observed, occasions a confusion in objects which is often picturesque ; but the glory of the vision depends on the glowing lights which are mingled with it. Landscape-painters, in general, pay too little atten- tion to the discriminations of morning and evening. "We are often at a loss to distinguish in pictures the rising from the setting sun, though their characters are very different both in the lights and shadows. The ruddy lights, indeed, of the evening are more easily distinguished, but it is not perhaps always sufficiently observed that the shadows of the evening are much less opaque than those of the morning. They may be brightened perhaps by the numberless rays floating in the atmosphere, which are incessantly reverberated in every direction, and may continue in action after the sun is set; whereas in the morning the rays of the preceding day having subsided, no object receives any light but from the immediate lustre of the sun. What- ever becomes of the theory, the fact I believe is well •ascertained. The incidental beauties which the meridian sun •exhibits are much fewer than those of the rising sun. In summer when he rides high at noon, and sheds his perpendicular ray, all is illumination ; there is no shadow to balance such a glare of light, no contrast to ■oppose it. The judicious artist, therefore, rarely repre- sents his objects under a vertical sun. And yet no species of landscape bears it so well as the scenes of the forest. The tuftings of the trees, the recesses among them, and the lighter foliage hanging over the darker, may all have an effect under a meridian sun. I speak chiefly, however, of the internal scenes of the forest, which bear such total brightness better than any other, as in them there is generally a natural gloom to balance it. The light obstructed by close intervening trees will rarely predominate ; hence the effect is often fine. A strong sunshine striking a wood through some fortunate chasm, and reposing on the tuftings of a clump, just removed from the eye, and strengthened by ! the deep shadows of the trees behind, appears to great j advantage ; especially if some noble tree, standing on | the foreground in deep shadow, flings athwart the sky j its dark branches, here and there illumined with a | splendid touch of light. In an open country, the most fortunate circumstance : that attends a meridian sun is cloudy weather, which I occasions partial lights. Then it is that the distant I forest scene is spread with lengthened gleams, while the other parts of the landscape are in shadow; the tuftings of trees are particularly adapted to catch this effect with advantage; there is a richness in them from the strong opposition of light and shade, which is wonderfully fine. A distant forest thus illumined wants only a foreground to make it highly picturesque. As the sun descends, the effect of its illumination becomes stronger. It is a doubt whether the rising or the setting sun is more picturesque. The great beauty of both depends on the contrast between splendour and obscurity. But this contrast is pro- duced by these different incidents in different ways. The grandest effects of the rising sun are produced by the vapours which envelop it — the setting sun rests its glory on the gloom which often accompanies its parting rays. A depth of shadow hanging over the eastern hemisphere gives the beams of the setting sun such powerful effect, that although in fact they are by no means equal to the splendour of a meridian sun, yet through force of contrast they appear superior. A distant forest scene under this brightened gloom is particularly rich, and glows with double splendour. The verdure of the summer leaf, and the varied tints of the autumnal one, are all lighted up with the most resplendent colours. 68 The internal parts of the forest are not so happily disposed to catch the effects of a setting sun. The meridian ray, we have seen, may dart through the openings at the top, and produce a picture, but the flanks of the forest are generally too well guarded against its horizontal beams. Sometimes a recess fronting the west may receive a beautiful light, spread- ing in a lengthened gleam amidst the gloom of the woods which surround it ; but this can only be had in the outskirts of the forest. Sometimes also we find in its internal parts, though hardly in its deep recesses, splendid lights here and there catching the foliage, which though in nature generally too scattered to produce an effect, yet, if judiciously collected, may be beautiful on canvas. We sometimes also see in a woody scene coruscations like a bright star, occasioned by a sunbeam darting through an eyelet-hole among the leaves. Many painters, and especially Rubens, have been fond of introducing this radiant spot in their landscapes. But in painting, it is one of those trifles which produces no effect, nor can this radiance be given. In poetry, indeed, it may produce a pleasing image. Shakspeare hath introduced it beautifully, where, speaking of the force of truth entering a guilty conscience, he compares it to the sun, which Fires the proud tops of the eastern pines, And darts his light through every guilty hole. It is one of those circumstances which poetry may offer to the imagination, but the pencil cannot well produce to the eye. The Essays on the Picturesque , by Sir Uvedale Price, were designed by their accomplished author to explain and enforce the reasons for studying the works of eminent landscape-painters, and the prin- ciples of their art, with a view to the improvement of real scenery, and to promote the cultivation of what has been termed landscape-gardening. He examined the leading features of modern gardening, in its more extended sense, on the general principles of painting, and shewed how much the character of the picturesque has been neglected, or sacrificed to a false idea of beauty. The best edition of these essays, improved by the author, is that of 1810 ; but Sir Thomas Dick Lauder has published editions of both Gilpin and Price — the latter a very handsome volume, 1842 — with a great deal of additional matter. Besides his Essays on the Picturesque, Six Uvedale has written essays on artificial water, on house decora- tions, architecture, and buildings — all branches of his original subject, and treated with the same taste and elegance. The theory of the author is, that the picturesque in nature has a character separate from the sublime and the beautiful ; and in enforcing and maintaining this, he attacked the style of ornamental gardening which Mason the poet had recommended, and Kent and Brown, the great landscape improvers, had reduced to practice. Some of Price’s positions have been overturned by Dugald Stewart in his Philosophical Essays; but the exquisite beauty of his descriptions must ever render his work interesting, independently altogether of its metaphysical or philosophical distinctions. His criticism of painters and paintings is equally able and discriminating; and by his works wc consider Sir Uvedale Price has been highly instrumental in diffusing those just sentiments on matters of taste, and that improved style of landscape-gardening, which so eminently distinguish the English aris- tocracy of the present times. The Rev. Archibald Alison published in 1790 Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste , designed to prove that material objects appear beautiful or from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. sublime in consequence of their association with our moral feelings and affections. The objects presented to the eye generate trains of thought and pleasing emotion, and these constitute our sense of beauty. This theory, referring all our ideas of beauty to the law of association, has been disputed and condemned as untenable, but part of Mr Alison’s reasoning is just, and his illustrations and language are particu- larly apposite and beautiful. For example, he thus traces the pleasures of the antiquary: [Memorials of the Past.'] Even the peasant, whose knowledge of former times extends but to a few generations, has yet in his village some monuments of the deeds or virtues of his fore- fathers, and cherishes with a fond veneration the memo- rial of those good old times to which his imagination returns with delight, and of which he loves to recount the simple tales that tradition has brought him. And what is it that constitutes the emotion of sublime delight, which every man of common sensibility feels upon his first prospect of Rome? It is not the scene of destruction which is before him. It is not the Tiber, diminished in his imagination to a paltry stream, flowing amidst the ruins of that magnificence which it once adorned. It is not the triumph of superstition over the wreck of human greatness, and its monuments erected upon the very spot where the first honours of humanity have been gained. It is ancient Home which fills his imagination. It is the country of Caesar, of Cicero, and Virgil, which is before him. It is the mistress of the world which he sees, and who seems to him to rise again from her tomb to give laws to the universe. All that the labours of his youth, or the studies of his maturer age, have acquired with regard to the history of this great people, open at once on his imagination, and present him with a field of high and solemn imagery which can never be exhausted. Take from him these associations — conceal from him that it is Eome that he sees, and how different would be his emotion ! [The Effect of Sounds as modified hy Association.] The howl of the wolf is little distinguished from the howl of the dog, either in its tone or in its strength ; but there is no comparison between their sublimity. There are few, if any, of these sounds so loud as the most com- mon of all sounds, the lowing of a cow. Yet this is the very reverse of sublimity. Imagine this sound, on the contrary, expressive of fierceness or strength, and there can be no doubt that it would become sublime. The hooting of the owl at midnight, or amid ruins, is strik- ingly sublime ; the same sound at noon, or during the day, is very far from being so. The scream of the eagle is simply disagreeable when the bird is either tame or confined ; it is sublime only when it is heard amid rocks and deserts, and when it is expressive to us of liberty and independence, and savage majesty. The neighing of a war-horse in the field of battle, or of a young untamed horse when at large among mountains, is powerfully sublime. The same sound in a cart-horse, or a horse in the stable, is simply indifferent, if not disagreeable. No sound is more absolutely mean than the grunting of swine. The same sound in the wild boar — an animal remarkable both for fierceness and strength — is sublime. The low and feeble sounds of animals which are generally considered the reverse of sublime, are rendered so by association. The hissing of a goose, and the rattle of a child’s plaything, are both contemptible sounds ; but when the hissing comes from the mouth of a dangerous serpent, and the noise of the rattle is that of the rattle- snake, although they do not differ from the others in intensity, they are both of them highly sublime 242 There is certainly no resemblance, as sounds, between j the noise of thunder and the hissing of a serpent — between the growling of a tiger and the explosion of gunpowder — between the scream of the eagle and the shouting of a multitude ; yet all of these are sublime. In the same manner, there is as little resemblance between the tinkling of the sheep-fold bell and the murmuring of the breeze — between the hum of the beetle and the song of the lark — between the twitter of the swallow and the sound of the curfew ; yet all these are beautiful Mr Alison published also two volumes of Sermons , j remarkable for elegance of composition. He was j a prebendary of Salisbury and senior minister of i the Episcopal Chapel, Edinburgh — a man of most amiable character and varied accomplishments. He j died, at an advanced age, in 1839. BIOGRAPHERS. The French have cultivated biography with more diligence than the English; but much has been done of late years to remedy this defect in our national literature. Individual specimens of great value we have long possessed. The lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, by Izaak Walton, are entitled to the highest praise for the fulness of their domestic details, no less than for the fine simplicity and originality of their style. The Lives of the Poets by Johnson, and the occasional memoirs by Gold- smith, Mallet, and other authors, are either too general or too critical to satisfy the reader as representations of the daily life, habits, and opinions of those whom we venerate or admire. Mason’s life of Gray was a vast improvement on former biographies, as the interesting and characteristic correspondence of the poet and his literary diary and journals, bring him personally before us pur- suing the silent course of his studies, or mingling occasionally as a retired scholar in the busy world around him. The success of Mason’s bold and wise experiment prompted another and more complete work — the life of Dr Johnson by Boswell. James Boswell (1740-1795) was by birth and education a gentleman of rank and station — the son of a Scottish judge, and heir to an ancient family and estate. He had studied for the bar, but being strongly impressed with admiration of the writings and character of Dr Johnson, he attached himself to the rugged moralist, soothed and flattered his irritability, submitted to his literary despotism and caprice ; and, sedulously cultivating his acquaintance and society when- ever his engagements permitted, he took faithful and copious notes of his conversation. In 1773 he accompanied Johnson to the Hebrides, and after the death of the latter, he published, in 1785, his journal of the tour, being a record of each day’s occurrences, and of the more striking parts of Johnson’s conversation. The work was eminently successful; and in 1791 Boswell gave to the world his full-length portrait of his friend. The Life of Samuel Johnson , LL.D., in two volumes quarto. A second edition was published in 1794, and the author was engaged in preparing a third when he died. A great number of editions have since been printed, the latest of which was edited by Mr J. W. Croker. Anecdotes and recollections of Johnson were also published by Mrs Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins, Malone, Miss Reynolds, &c. Bos- well had awakened public curiosity, and shewn how much wit, wisdom, and sagacity, joined to real worth and benevolence, were concealed under the travellers. ENGLISH LITERATURE. macartney — bruce. personal oddities and ungainly exterior of Johnson. Never was there so complete a portraiture of any single individual. The whole time spent hy Boswell in the society of his illustrious friend did not amount to more than nine months, yet so diligent was he in writing and inquiring — so thoroughly did he devote himself to his subject, that, notwith- standing his limited opportunities, and his mediocre abilities, he was able to produce what all mankind have agreed in considering the best biography in existence. Though vain, shallow, and conceited, Boswell had taste enough to discern the racy vigour and richness of Johnson’s conversation, and he was observant enough to trace the peculiarities of his character and temperament. He forced himself into society, and neglected his family and his profession, to meet his friend; and he was content to be ridi- culed and slighted, so that he could thereby add one page to his journal, or one scrap of writing to his col- lection. He sometimes sat up three nights in a week to fulfil his task, and hence there is a freshness and truth in his notes and impressions which attest their fidelity. He must have possessed considerable dramatic power to have rendered his portraits and dialogues so animated and varied. His work intro- duces us to a great variety of living characters, who speak, walk, and think, as it were, in our presence ; and besides furnishing us with useful, affecting, and ennobling lessons of morality, live over again the past for the delight and entertainment of countless generations of readers. Boswell’s convivial habits hastened his death. In 1856 a volume of letters addressed by Boswell to his friend the Rev. Mr Temple, was published, and illustrated the weakness and vanity of his character. With a pardonable and engaging egotism, which forms an interesting feature in his character, the historian Gibbon had made several sketches of his own life and studies. Erom these materials, and embodying verbatim the most valuable portions, Lord Sheffield compiled a memoir, which was published, with the miscellaneous works of Gibbon, in 1795. A number of the historian’s letters were also included in this collection; but the most important and interesting part of the work is his journal and diary, giving an account of his literary occupations. The calm unshrinking perseverance and untiring energy of Gibbon form a noble example to all literary students ; and where he writes of his own personal history and opinions, his lofty philo- sophical style never forsakes him. Thus he opens his slight memoir in the following strain: 1 A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seemed to have lived in the persons of our forefathers : it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. Eifty or a hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we step forwards beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the experi- ence of mankind.’ Gibbon states, that before entering upon the perusal of a book, he wrote down or considered what he knew of the subject, and afterwards examined how much the author had added to his stock of knowledge. A severe test for some authors ! Erom habits like this sprung the Decline and Fall. In 1800 Dr James Currie (1756-1805) published his edition of the works of Burns for the benefit of the poet’s family, and enriched it with an excellent memoir, that has served for the groundwork of many subsequent lives of Burns. The candour and ability displayed by Currie have scarcely been sufficiently appreciated. Such a task was new to him, and was beset with difficulties. He believed that Burns’s mis- fortunes arose chiefly from his errors — he lived at a time when this impression was strongly prevalent — yet he touched on the subject of the poet’s frailties with delicacy and tenderness. He estimated his genius highly as a great poet, without reference to his personal position, and thus in some measure anticipated the more unequivocal award of posterity. His remarks on Scottish poetry, and on the condition of the Scottish peasantry, appear now somewhat prolix and affected; but at the time they were written, they tended to interest and inform the English reader, and to forward the author’s bene- volent object in extending the sale of the poet’s works. By his generous labours, Dr Currie realised for the family of Burns a sum of £1400. TRAVELLERS. MACARTNEY, STAUNTON, BRUCE, MUNGO PARK. The growing importance of our trade with China suggested a mission to the imperial court, in order to obtain some extension of the limits within which the traffic was confined. In 1792 an embassy was formed on a liberal scale, Lord Macartney (1737-1806) being placed at its head, and Sir George L. Staunton (1737-1801) being secretary of legation or envoy- extraordinary. These two able diplomatists and travellers had served together in India, Macartney as governor of Madras, and Staunton as his secretary. The latter negotiated the peace with Tippoo Saib in 1784, for which he was elevated to the baronetcy, and received from the East India Company a pension of £500 a year. The mission to China did not result in securing the commercial advantages anticipated, but the Journal published by Lord Macartney, and the Authentic Account of the Embassy by Sir George Staunton, added greatly to our knowledge of the empire and people of China. Sir George’s work was in two volumes quarto, and formed one of the most interesting and novel books of travels in the language. It was read with great avidity, and translated into Erench and German. One of the most romantic and persevering of our travellers was James Bruce of Kinnaird, a Scottish gentleman of ancient family and property, who devoted several years to a journey into Abyssinia to discover the sources of the river Nile. The foun- tains of celebrated rivers have led to some of our most interesting exploratory expeditions. Super- stition has hallowed the sources of the Nile and the Ganges, and the mysterious Niger long wooed our adventurous travellers into the sultry plains of Africa. The inhabitants of mountainous countries still look with veneration on their principal streams, and as they roll on before them, connect them in imagination with the ancient glories or traditional legends of their native land. Bruce partook largely of this feeling, and was a man of an ardent enthu- siastic temperament. He was born at Kinnaird House, in the county of Stirling, on the 14th of December 1730, and was intended for the legal : from 1760 CYCLOPAEDIA OF to 1800. profession. He was averse, however, to the study of the law, and entered into business as a wine- merchant in London. Being led to visit Spain and Portugal, he was struck with the architectural ruins and chivalrous tales of the Moorish dominion, and applied himself diligently to the study of Eastern antiquities and languages. On his return to England he became known to the government, and it was | proposed that he should make a journey to Barbary, ! which had been partially explored by Dr Shaw. At I the same time, the consulship of Algiers became ! vacant, and Bruce was appointed to the office. He j left England, and arrived at Algiers in 1762. Above ! six years were spent by our traveller at Algiers and | in various travels — during which he surveyed and ■sketched the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec — and it was not till June 1768 that he reached Alexandria. ' From thence he proceeded to Cairo, and embarked J on the Nile. He arrived at Gondar, the capital of • Abyssinia, and after some stay there, he set out for | the sources of Bahr-el-Azrek, under an impression that this was the principal branch of the Nile. The j spot was at length pointed out by his guide — a j ! hillock of green sod in the middle of a watery plain, j I The guide counselled him to pull off his shoes, as J the people were all pagans, and prayed to the river as if it were God. ‘ Half undressed as I was,’ continues Bruce, ‘ by the j loss of my sash, and throwing off my shoes, I ran down i the hill towards the hillock of green sod, which was | about two hundred yards distant ; the whole side of | the hill was thick grown with flowers, the large bulbous | roots of which appearing above the surface of the : ground, and their skins coming off on my treading upon them, occasioned me two very severe falls before I | reached the brink of the marsh. I after this came to ' the altar of green turf, which was apparently the work ; of art, and I stood in rapture above the principal foun- i tain, which rises in the middle of it. It is easier to • guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that ; moment — standing in that spot which had baffled the ; genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and : modems for the course of near three thousand years, i Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of ' armies, and each expedition was distinguished from j i the last only by the difference of numbers which had | perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which ! j had uniformly, and without exception, followed them j all. Fame, riches, and honour had been held out for a J series of ages to every individual of those myriads these I princes commanded, without having produced one man I eapable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or ' wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of ; mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encourage- • ment of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I j triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies ! and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where j I stood, the object of my vainglory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumph. I was but a few j minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through j numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which | would have overwhelmed me but for the continual j goodness and protection of Providence : I was, however, I but then half through my journey, and all those dangers through which I had already passed awaited me on my return ; I found a despondency gaining ground fast, and j blasting the crown of laurels which I had too rashly , woven for myself.’ After several adventures in Abyssinia, in the course of which he received high personal distinc- j j tions from the king, Bruce obtained leave to depart. . j He returned through the great deserts of Nubia ' | into Egypt, encountering the severest hardships | 244 and dangers from the sand-floods and simoom | of the desert, and his own physical sufferings and ! exhaustion. It was not until seventeen years after his return | that Bruce published his travels. Parts had been ! made public, and were much ridiculed. Even j Johnson doubted whether he had ever been in 1 Abyssinia ! The work appeared in 1790, in five I large quarto volumes, with another volume of plates. The strangeness of the author’s adventures at the court at Gondar, the somewhat inflated style of ' the narrative, and the undisguised vanity of the j traveller, led to a disbelief of his statements, and | numerous lampoons and satires, both in prose and Staircase at Kinnaird flouse, Stirlingshire— Scene of Bruce’s Fatal Accident. verse, were directed against him. The really honourable and superior points of Bruce’s char- acter — such as his energy and daring, his various knowledge and acquirements, and his disinterested zeal in undertaking such a journey at his own expense — were overlooked in this petty war of the wits. Bruce felt their attacks keenly ; but he was a proud-spirited man, and did not deign to reply to pasquinades impeaching his veracity. He survived his publication only four years. The foot which had trod without failing the deserts of Nubia, slipped one evening in his own staircase, while handing a lady to her carriage, and he died in consequence of the injury then received, April 16, 1794. A second edition of the Travels, edited by Dr Alexander Murray — an excellent Oriental scholar — was published in 1805, and a third in 1813. The style of Bruce is prolix and inelegant, though occasionally energetic. He seized upon the most prominent points, and coloured them highly. The general accuracy of his work has been confirmed from different quarters. Mu Hexbt Salt, the next European traveller in Abyssinia, twice penetrated into the interior of the country — in 1805 and 1810 — but without reaching so far as Bruce. This gentleman confirms the historical parts of Bruce’s narrative ; and Mr Nathaniel Pearce — who resided many years in Abyssinia, and was engaged TRAVELLERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. MUNGO PARK. by Salt — verifies one of Bruce’s most extraordinary statements — the practice of the Abyssinians of eat- ing raw meat cut out of a living cow ! This was long ridiculed and disbelieved, though in reality it is not much more barbarous than the custom of the poor Highlanders in Scotland of bleeding their cattle in winter for food. Pearce witnessed the operation : a cow was thrown down, and two pieces of flesh, weighing about a pound, cut from the buttock, after which the wounds were sewed up, and plastered over with cow-dung. Dr Clarke and other travellers have borne testimony to the correct- ness of Bruce’s drawings and maps. The only disingenuousness charged against our traveller is his alleged concealment of the fact, that the Nile, whose sources have been in all ages an object of curiosity, was the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, flowing from the west, and not the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue River, which descends from Abyssinia, and which he explored. It seems also clear that Paez, the Portuguese traveller, had long previously visited the source of the Bahr-el-Azrek. Next in interest and novelty to the travels of Bruce are those of Mungo Park in Central Africa. Mr Park was born at Eowlshiels, near Selkirk, on the 10th of September 1771. He studied medi- cine, and performed a voyage to Bencoolen in the capacity of assistant-surgeon to an East Indiaman. The African Association, founded in 1778 for the purpose of promoting discovery in the interior of Africa, had sent out several travellers — John Ledyard, Lucas, and Major Houghton — all of whom had died. Park, however, undeterred by these examples, embraced the society’s offer, and set sail in May 1795. On the 21st of June following he arrived at Jillifree, on the banks of the Gambia. He pursued his journey towards the kingdom of Bambarra, and saw the great object of his mission, the river Niger flowing towards the east. The sufferings of Park during his journey, the various incidents he encountered, his captivity among the Moors, and his description of the inhabitants, their manners, trade, and customs, constitute a narrative of the deepest interest. The traveller returned to England towards the latter end of the year 1797, when all hope of him had been abandoned, and in 1799 he published his travels. The style is simple and manly, and replete with a fine moral feeling. One of his adventures — which had the honour of being turned into verse by the Duchess of Devon- shire — is thus related. The traveller had reached the town of Sego, the capital of Bambarra, and wished to cross the river towards the residence of the king : I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity of crossing the river, during which time the people who had crossed carried information to Mansong, the king, that a white man was waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him. He immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that the king could not possibly see me until he knew what had brought me into his country ; and that I must not presume to cross the river without the king’s permis- sion. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for the night, and said that in the morning he would give me further instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. However, as there was no remedy, I set off for the village, where I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree ; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable — for the wind rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain — and the wild beasts are so very numerous in the neighbourhood, that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree and resting amongst the branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her ; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and 'told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night: Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress — pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehen- sion — called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these : ‘ The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk — no wife to grind his corn. Chorus . — Let us pity the white man — no mother has he,’ &c. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I pre- sented my compassionate landlady with two of the four- brass buttons which remained on my waistcoat — the only recompense I could make her. His fortitude under suffering, and the natural piety of his mind, are beautifully illustrated by an incident related after he had been robbed and stript of most of his clothes at a village near Kooma: After the robbers were gone, I sat for some time looking around me with amazement and terror. Whichever way I turned, nothing appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a vast- wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone, surrounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. All these circumstances, crowded at once on my recollection, and I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and perish. The influence of religion, however, aided and supported me. I reflected that no human prudence or foresight could possibly have averted my present sufferings. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land, yet I was still under the protecting eye of that Provi- dence who has condescended to call himself the stranger’s friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this to shew from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation ; for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate con- formation of its roots, leaves, and capsula, without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small Fnoir 1800 CYCLOPEDIA OP to 1830. importance, look -with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image ? Surely not. Reflections like these would not allow me to despair. I started up, and, disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forwards, assured that relief was at hand ; and I was not disappointed. In a short time I came to a small village, at the entrance of which I overtook the two shepherds who had come with me from Kooma. They were much surprised to see me; for they said they never doubted that the Foulahs, when they had robbed, had murdered me. Departing from this village, we travelled over several rocky ridges, and at sunset arrived at Sibidooloo, the frontier town of the kingdom of Handing. Park had discovered the Niger — or Joliba, or Quorra — flowing to the east, and thus set at rest the doubts as to its direction in the interior of Africa. He was not satisfied, however, but longed to follow up his discovery by tracing it to its termination. For some years he was constrained to remain at home, and he followed his profession of a surgeon in the town of Peebles. He embraced a second offer from the African Association, and arrived at Goree on the 28th of March 1805. Before he saw the Niger once more ‘rolling its immense stream along the plain,’ misfortunes had thickened around him. His expedition consisted originally of forty-four men; now, only seven remained. He built a boat at Sansanding to prosecute his voyage down the river, and entered it on the 17th of November 1805, with the fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger, or to perish in the attempt. The party had sailed several days, when, on passing a rocky part of the river named Boussa, the natives attacked them, and Park, and one of his companions (Lieutenant Martyn) were drowned while attempting to escape by swimming. The letters and journals of the traveller had been sent by him to Gambia previous to his embarking on the fatal voyage, and a narrative of the journey compiled from them was published in 1815. w CONCLUSION OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. AND REIGN OF GEORGE IY. FROM 1 800 TO 1830. HE new century brought with it several illustrious names, and accelerated progress in every department of literature. In poetry, the period was pre-emi- nently distinguished, and is the only one which challenges com- parison, in any degree, with the brilliant Elizabethan age. In fiction, or imaginative invention, the name of Scott is inferior only to that of ^ Shakspeare ; in criticism, a new era may he dated from the establishment of the Edinburgh Review ; and in historical composition, if we have no Hume or Gibbon, we have the results of valuable and diligent research. Truth and nature have been more truly and devoutly worshipped, and real excel- 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 the 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 ground- less fear. It did not damp the ardour of Scott or Byron, or the fancy of Moore, and it has not pre- vented the poetry of Wordsworth from gradually working its way into public favour. If we have not the chivalry and romance of the Elizabethan age, we have the ever-living passions of human nature and the wide theatre of the world, now accurately known and discriminated, as a field for the exercise ! of genius. We have the benefit of all past knowledge and literature to exalt our standard of j imitation and taste, and a more sure reward in the encouragement and applause of a populous and i enlightened nation. ‘ The literature of England,’ 246 says Shelley, ‘has arisen, as it were, from a new birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy which would undervalue contemporary merit, cur own will j be a memorable age in intellectual achievements, and we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since 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 accumula- tion 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 compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day, without being j startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a compre- hensive 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. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present ; the words which express what they under- stand not ; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is I moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknow- ! ledged legislators of the world.’ ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS, POETS. Before the great lights come prominently on the horizon, there are some of their precursors deserving of notice. And first for some poetesses, who each enjoyed considerable popularity in the higher circles of society at the beginning of the century. MP.S OPIE — MRS HUNTER — MRS GRANT — MRS TIGHE. Mrs Amelia Opie (1769-1853) was the daughter of a popular physician, Dr Alderson, of Norwich, and widow of John Opie, the celebrated artist. In 1802 she published . a volume of miscellaneous poems, characterised by a simple and placid tender- ness. She is more celebrated for her novels — to be afterwards noticed — and for her general literary merits and association with all the eminent persons of her day. — Mrs John Hunter (1742-1821) was a retired but 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. — Mrs Anne Grant (1754-1838) in 1803 published a volume of miscellaneous poems, chiefly in illus- tration of the people and manners of the Scottish Highlands. She was widow of the minister of Laggan in Inverness-shire. Mrs Grant was author of several interesting prose works. She wrote Letters from the Mountains , giving a description 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 Highlanders , 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 romantic features of the Scottish Highlands, afterwards so fertile a theme for the genius of Scott. An Irish poetess, Mrs 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 Orphan Boy's Tale. [From Mrs Opie’s Poems.] ‘Stay, lady, stay, for mercy’s sake, And hear a helpless orphan’s tale; Ah ! sure my looks must pity wake ; ’Tis want that makes my cheek so pale. MRS OPIE— MRS HUNTER. Yet I was once a mother’s pride, And my brave father’s hope and joy ; But in the Nile’s proud fight he died, And I 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 me a poor orphan boy. ‘ The people’s shouts were long and loud, My mother, shuddering, closed 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 ! She called me her poor orphan boy. “ What is an orphan boy?” I cried, As in her face I looked, and smiled ; My mother through her tears replied : “ You’ll know too soon, ill-fated child !” And now they ’ve tolled my mother’s knell, And I’m no more a parent’s joy ; O lady, I have learned too well What ’tis to be an orphan boy ! ‘ Oh, were I by your bounty fed ! Nay, gentle lady, do not chide— Trust me, I mean to earn my bread ; The sailor’s orphan boy has pride. Lady, you weep ! — ha ! — this to me ? You’ll give me clothing, food, employ ? Look down, dear parents ! look, and see Your happy, happy, orphan boy !’ Song. [From the same.] Go, youth beloved, in distant glades New friends, new hopes, new joys to find f Yet sometimes deign, ’midst fairer maids, To think on her thou leav’st behind. Thy love, thy fate, dear youth, to share, Must never be my 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 I 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 ! Song. [From Mrs Ilunter’s Poems.] The season comes when first we met, But you return no more ; Why cannot I the days forget, Which time can ne’er restore ? O days too sweet, too bright to last, 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 ! I wake to endless woes, And tears the fading visions close ! 247 FKOM 1800 CYCLOPAEDIA OF 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, When 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 ! The Death-song , Written for , and Adapted to , an Original Indian Air. [From the same.] The sun sets in night, 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. Bemember 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 scalps which we bore from your nation away. Now the flame rises fast ; you exult in my pain ; But the son of Alknomook can never complain. I go to the land where my father is gone, His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his son ; Death comes, like a friend, to relieve me from pain ; And thy son, 0 Alknomook ! has scorned to complain. To my Daughter , on being separated from her on her Marriage. [From the same.] Dear to my heart as life’s warm stream Which 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 ! the groundless hope were vain, For so we ne’er can meet again ! May he who claims thy tender heart Deserve its love, as I 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 ! [ 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. 248 to 1830. ’Tis hard to smile when one would weep ; To speak when one would silent be ; To wake 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 J And time guides with unerring feet The weary wanderers home. [On 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. Flower 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^ Gem 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. 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 ! [The Highland Poor.] [From Mrs Grant’s poem of The Highlander.] 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 ; ENGLISH LITERATURE. POETS. In vain her eyes the watery waste explore For heroes — fated to 'return no more ! Let others bless the morning’s Reddening beam, Foe to her peace — 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 day, 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 from pity’s eye, The ‘ still small voice ’ of sacred sympathy, In vain the mourner’s sorrows would beguile, Or steal from weary woe one languid smile ; Yet what they can they do — the scanty store, 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 flower 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 woe, And of their little all a part bestow. Let those to wealth and proud distinction born, 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 1 Psyche.’’] [The marriage of Cupid and Psyche in the Palace of Love. Psyche afterwards gazes on Love while asleep, and is banished from the Island of Pleasure.] She rose, and all enchanted gazed On the rare beauties of the pleasant scene : Conspicuous far, a lofty palace blazed Upon a sloping bank of softest 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 pillars stand, In grace-attempered majesty, sublimely grand. Gently ascending from a silvery flood, Above the palace rose the shaded hill, 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, And bids bright lustre sparkle o’er the tide ; The clear blue ocean at a distance seen, Bounds 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. MRS TIGHE. When lo ! a voice divinely sweet she hears, From unseen lips proceeds the heavenly sound ; ‘ Psyche approach, dismiss thy timid fears, At length his bride thy longing spouse has found, 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 pride, 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 deathless fame. There the green emerald, there cornelians glow, And rich carbuncles pour eternal light, With all that India and Peru can shew, Or Labrador can give so flaming bright To the charmed mariner’s half-dazzled sight : The 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-prepared 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, And gently veiled with gradual hand the sky, Lo ! the bright folding doors retiring far, Display to Psyche’s captivated eye All that voluptuous ease could e’er supply To soothe the spirits in serene repose : Beneath the velvet’s purple canopy, Divinely formed, a downy couch arose, While alabaster lamps a milky light disclose. 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 ray, And soon in fragrant death extinguished lie : Then virgin terrors Psyche’s soul dismay, When through the obscuring gloom she nought can spy, But softly rustling sounds declare some being nigh. 24'J FROM 1800 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 Elysium’s happy grove ; You best can tell the rapture Psyche feels, When Love’s ambrosial lip the vows of Hymen seals. *’Tis he, ’tis my deliverer ! deep imprest Upon my heart those sounds I well recall,’ The blushing maid exclaimed, and on his breast A tear of trembling ecstasy 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 eyelid: spread. The Lily. [Bv 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. 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 • 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 ! 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 ; £50 TO 1830. 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 bom 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 Robert Bloomfield. 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 shoemaker. His two years of country service, and occasional visits to his friends in Suffolk, were of inestimable importance to him as a poet, for they afforded materials for his Farmer's Boy , and gave a freshness and reality to his descriptions. It was in the shoe- maker’s garret, however, that his poetry was chiefly composed ; and the merit of introducing it to the world belongs to Mr Capel Lofft, a literary gentle- man residing at Troston, near Bury, to whom the manuscript was shewn, after being rejected by several London booksellers. Mr Lofft warmly befriended the poet, and had the satisfaction 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 Farmer's Boy immediately became popular ; the Duke of Grafton patronised the poet, settling on him a small annuity, and through the influence of this nobleman, he was appointed to a situation in the Seal-office. In 1810, Bloomfield published a collection of Rural Tales , which fully supported his reputation; and to these were afterwards added Wild Floicers, Hazlewood Hall , a village drama, and Mayday with the Muses. The last was published in the year of his death, and opens with a fine burst of poetical, though melancholy feeling. CYCLOPAEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 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 my 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 circumstances 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- office 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 Aeolian 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 Rogers exerted himself to procure a pension for Bloomfield, and Mr Southey also took much interest in his welfare ; but his last days were embittered 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 smoothness 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 principal poem : 0 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, Retrace the steps 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 ecstasies 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 tells. 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 path are sown, And youthful minds have feelings of their own, Quick-springing sorrows, transient as the dew, Delights from trifles, trifles ever new. ’Twas thus with Giles, meek, fatherless, and poor, Labour his portion, but he felt no more ; No stripes, no tyranny his steps 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 changed 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 Suffolk. Both are true, but coloured with the respective peculiarities, in their style of observation and feeling, of the two poets. Bloom- field describes the various occupations of a farm-boy j in seed-time, at harvest, tending cattle and sheep, | Austin’s Farm, the early residence of Bloomfield. and other occupations. In his tales, he embodies more moral feeling and painting, and his incidents 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. [Turnip-sowing — Wheat Ripening — Sparroios — Insects — The Slcy-lark — Reaping ,