Crawford Muir, in Lanarkshire, was the birthplace of this true poet. His

father was manager of the Earl of Hopetoun's lead-mines. Allan was born

in 1686. His mother was Alice Bower, the daughter of an Englishman who

had emigrated from Derbyshire. His father died while his son was yet in

infancy; his mother married again in the same district; and young Allan

was educated at the parish school of Leadhills. At the age of fifteen,

he was sent to Edinburgh, and bound apprentice to a wig-maker there.

This trade, however, he left after finishing his term. He displayed

rather early a passion for literature, and made a little reputation by

some pieces of verse,--such as 'An Address to the Easy Club,' a convivial

society with which he was connected,--and a considerable time after by

a capital continuation of King James' 'Christis Kirk on the Green.'

In 1712, he married a writer's daughter, Christiana Ross, who was his

affectionate companion for thirty years. Soon after, he set up a

bookseller's shop opposite Niddry's Wynd, and in this capacity edited

and published two collections,--the one of songs, some of them his own,

entitled 'The Tea-Table Miscellany,' and the other of early Scottish

poems, entitled 'The Evergreen.' In 1725, he published 'The Gentle

Shepherd.' It was the expansion of one or two pastoral scenes which he

ad shewn to his delighted friends. The poem became instantly popular,

and was republished in London and Dublin, and widely circulated in the

colonies. Pope admired it. Gay, then in Scotland with his patrons the

Queensberry family, used to lounge into Ramsay's shop to get explanations

of its Scotch phrases to transmit to Twickenham, and to watch from the

window the notable characters whom Allan pointed out to him in the

Edinburgh Exchange. He now removed to a better shop, and set up for his

sign the heads of Ben Jonson and Drummond, who agreed better in figure

than they had done in reality at Hawthornden. He established the first

circulating library in Scotland. His shop became a centre of intelligence,

and Ramsay sat a Triton among the minnows of that rather mediocre day

--giving his little senate laws, and inditing verses, songs, and fables.

At forty-five--an age when Sir Walter Scott had scarcely commenced his

Waverley novels, and Dryden had by far his greatest works to produce

--honest Allan imagined his vein exhausted, and ceased to write, although

he lived and enjoyed life for nearly thirty years more. At last, after

having lost money and gained obloquy, in a vain attempt to found the

first theatre in Edinburgh, and after building for himself a curious

octagon-shaped house on the north side of the Castle Hill, which, while

he called it Ramsay Lodge, his enemies nicknamed 'The Goose-pie,' and

which, though altered, still, we believe, stands, under the name of

Ramsay Garden, the author of 'The Gentle Shepherd' breathed his last on

the 7th of January 1758. He died of a scurvy in the gums. His son became

a distinguished painter, intimate with Johnson, Burke, and the rest of

that splendid set, although now chiefly remembered from his connexion

with them and with his father.

Allan Ramsay was a poet with very few of the usual poetical faults. He

had an eye for nature, but he had also an eye for the main chance. He

'kept his shop, and his shop kept him.' He might sing of intrigues, and

revels, and houses of indifferent reputation; but he was himself a

quiet, _canny_, domestic man, seen regularly at kirk and market. He had

a great reverence for the gentry, with whom he fancied himself, and

perhaps was, through the Dalhousie family, connected. He had a vast

opinion of himself; and between pride of blood, pride of genius, and

plenty of means, he was tolerably happy. How different from poor maudlin

Fergusson, or from that dark-browed, dark-eyed, impetuous being who was,

within a year of Ramsay's death, to appear upon the banks of Doon,

coming into the world to sing divinely, to act insanely, and prematurely

to die!

A bard, in the highest use of the word, in which it approaches the

meaning of prophet, Ramsay was not, else he would not have ceased so

soon to sing. Whatever lyrical impulse was in him speedily wore itself

out, and left him to his milder mission as a broad reflector of Scottish

life--in its humbler, gentler, and better aspects. His 'Gentle Shepherd'

is a chapter of Scottish still-life; and, since the pastoral is

essentially the poetry of peace, the 'Gentle Shepherd' is the finest

pastoral in the world. No thunders roll among these solitary crags; no

lightnings affright these lasses among their _claes_ at Habbie's Howe;

the air is still and soft; the plaintive bleating of the sheep upon the

hills, the echoes of the city are distant and faintly heard, so that the

very sounds seem in unison and in league with silence. One thinks of

Shelley's isle 'mid the Aegean deep:--

'It is an isle under Ionian skies,

Beautiful as the wreck of Paradise;

And for the harbours are not safe and good,

The land would have remained a solitude,

But for some pastoral people, native there,

Who from the Elysian clear and sunny air

Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,

Simple and generous, innocent and bold.

* * * * *

The winged storms, chanting their thunder psalm

To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm

Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew,

From whence the fields and woods ever renew

Their green and golden immortality.'

Yet in the little circle of calm carved out by the magician of 'The

Gentle Shepherd' there is no insipidity. Lust is sternly excluded, but

love of the purest and warmest kind there breathes. The parade of

learning is not there; but strong common sense thinks, and robust and

manly eloquence declaims. Humour too is there, and many have laughed at

Mause and Baldy, whom all the frigid wit of 'Love for Love' and the

'School for Scandal' could only move to contempt or pity. A _dénouement_

of great skill is not wanting to stir the calm surface of the story by

the wind of surprise; the curtain falls over a group of innocent,

guileless, and happy hearts, and as we gaze at them we breathe the

prayer, that Scotland's peerage and Scotland's peasantry may always thus

be blended into one bond of mutual esteem, endearment, and excellence.

Well might Campbell say--'Like the poetry of Tasso and Ariosto, that of

the "Gentle Shepherd" is engraven on the memory of its native country.

Its verses have passed into proverbs, and it continues to be the delight

and solace of the peasantry whom it describes.'

Ramsay has very slightly touched on the religion of his countrymen. This

is to be regretted; but if he had no sympathy with that, he, at least,

disdained to counterfeit it, and its poetical aspects have since been

adequately sung by other minstrels.

LOCHABER NO MORE.

1 Farewell to Lochaber, and farewell, my Jean,

Where heartsome with thee I've mony day been;

For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,

We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.

These tears that I shed they are a' for my dear,

And no for the dangers attending on weir;

Though borne on rough seas to a far bloody shore,

Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.

2 Though hurricanes rise, and rise every wind,

They'll ne'er make a tempest like that in my mind;

Though loudest of thunder on louder waves roar,

That's naething like leaving my love on the shore.

To leave thee behind me my heart is sair pained;

By ease that's inglorious no fame can be gained;

And beauty and love's the reward of the brave,

And I must deserve it before I can crave.

3 Then glory, my Jeany, maun plead my excuse;

Since honour commands me, how can I refuse?

Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee,

And without thy favour I'd better not be.

I gae then, my lass, to win honour and fame,

And if I should luck to come gloriously hame,

I'll bring a heart to thee with love running o'er,

And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more.

THE LAST TIME I CAME O'ER THE MOOR.

1 The last time I came o'er the moor,

I left my love behind me;

Ye powers! what pain do I endure,

When soft ideas mind me!

Soon as the ruddy morn displayed

The beaming day ensuing,

I met betimes my lovely maid,

In fit retreats for wooing.

2 Beneath the cooling shade we lay,

Gazing and chastely sporting;

We kissed and promised time away,

Till night spread her black curtain.

I pitied all beneath the skies,

E'en kings, when she was nigh me;

In raptures I beheld her eyes,

Which could but ill deny me.

3 Should I be called where cannons roar,

Where mortal steel may wound me;

Or cast upon some foreign shore,

Where dangers may surround me;

Yet hopes again to see my love,

To feast on glowing kisses,

Shall make my cares at distance move,

In prospect of such blisses.

4 In all my soul there's not one place

To let a rival enter;

Since she excels in every grace,

In her my love shall centre.

Sooner the seas shall cease to flow,

Their waves the Alps shall cover,

On Greenland ice shall roses grow,

Before I cease to love her.

5 The next time I go o'er the moor,

She shall a lover find me;

And that my faith is firm and pure,

Though I left her behind me:

Then Hymen's sacred bonds shall chain

My heart to her fair bosom;

There, while my being does remain,

My love more fresh shall blossom.

FROM 'THE GENTLE SHEPHERD.'

ACT I.--SCENE II.

PROLOGUE.

A flowrie howm[1] between twa verdant braes,

Where lasses used to wash and spread their claes,[2]

A trotting burnie wimpling through the ground,

Its channel peebles shining smooth and round:

Here view twa barefoot beauties clean and clear;

First please your eye, then gratify your ear;

While Jenny what she wishes discommends,

And Meg with better sense true love defends.

PEGGY AND JENNY.

_Jenny_. Come, Meg, let's fa' to wark upon this green,

This shining day will bleach our linen clean;

The water's clear, the lift[3] unclouded blue,

Will mak them like a lily wet with dew.

_Peggy_. Gae farrer up the burn to Habbie's How,

Where a' that's sweet in spring and simmer grow:

Between twa birks, out o'er a little linn,[4]

The water fa's, and maks a singin' din:

A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass,

Kisses with easy whirls the bordering grass.

We'll end our washing while the morning's cool,

And when the day grows het we'll to the pool,

There wash oursells; 'tis healthfu' now in May,

And sweetly caller on sae warm a day.

_Jenny_. Daft lassie, when we're naked, what'll ye say,

Giff our twa herds come brattling down the brae,

And see us sae?--that jeering fellow, Pate,

Wad taunting say, 'Haith, lasses, ye're no blate.'[5]

_Peggy_. We're far frae ony road, and out of sight;

The lads they're feeding far beyont the height;

But tell me now, dear Jenny, we're our lane,

What gars ye plague your wooer with disdain?

The neighbours a' tent this as well as I;

That Roger lo'es ye, yet ye carena by.

What ails ye at him? Troth, between us twa,

He's wordy you the best day e'er ye saw.

_Jenny_. I dinna like him, Peggy, there's an end;

A herd mair sheepish yet I never kenn'd.

He kames his hair, indeed, and gaes right snug,

With ribbon-knots at his blue bonnet lug;

Whilk pensylie[6] he wears a thought a-jee,[7]

And spreads his garters diced beneath his knee.

He falds his owrelay[8] down his breast with care,

And few gangs trigger to the kirk or fair;

For a' that, he can neither sing nor say,

Except, 'How d'ye?--or, 'There's a bonny day.'

_Peggy_. Ye dash the lad with constant slighting pride,

Hatred for love is unco sair to bide:

But ye'll repent ye, if his love grow cauld;--

What like's a dorty[9] maiden when she's auld?

Like dawted wean[10] that tarrows at its meat,[11]

That for some feckless[12] whim will orp[13] and greet:

The lave laugh at it till the dinner's past,

And syne the fool thing is obliged to fast,

Or scart anither's leavings at the last.

Fy, Jenny! think, and dinna sit your time.

_Jenny_. I never thought a single life a crime.

_Peggy_. Nor I: but love in whispers lets us ken

That men were made for us, and we for men.

_Jenny_. If Roger is my jo, he kens himsell,

For sic a tale I never heard him tell.

He glowers[14] and sighs, and I can guess the cause:

But wha's obliged to spell his hums and haws?

Whene'er he likes to tell his mind mair plain,

I'se tell him frankly ne'er to do't again.

They're fools that slavery like, and may be free;

The chiels may a' knit up themselves for me.

_Peggy_. Be doing your ways: for me, I have a mind

To be as yielding as my Patie's kind.

_Jenny_. Heh! lass, how can ye lo'e that rattleskull?

A very deil, that aye maun have his will!

We soon will hear what a poor fechtin' life

You twa will lead, sae soon's ye're man and wife.

_Peggy_. I'll rin the risk; nor have I ony fear,

But rather think ilk langsome day a year,

Till I with pleasure mount my bridal-bed,

Where on my Patie's breast I'll lay my head.

There he may kiss as lang as kissing's good,

And what we do there's nane dare call it rude.

He's get his will; why no? 'tis good my part

To give him that, and he'll give me his heart.

_Jenny_. He may indeed for ten or fifteen days

Mak meikle o' ye, with an unco fraise,

And daut ye baith afore fowk and your lane:

But soon as your newfangleness is gane,

He'll look upon you as his tether-stake,

And think he's tint his freedom for your sake.

Instead then of lang days of sweet delight,

Ae day be dumb, and a' the neist he'll flyte:

And maybe, in his barlichood's,[15] ne'er stick

To lend his loving wife a loundering lick.

_Peggy_. Sic coarse-spun thoughts as that want pith to move

My settled mind; I'm o'er far gane in love.

Patie to me is dearer than my breath,

But want of him, I dread nae other skaith.[16]

There's nane of a' the herds that tread the green

Has sic a smile, or sic twa glancing een.

And then he speaks with sic a taking art,

His words they thirl like music through my heart.

How blithely can he sport, and gently rave,

And jest at little fears that fright the lave.

Ilk day that he's alane upon the hill,

He reads feil[17] books that teach him meikle skill;

He is--but what need I say that or this,

I'd spend a month to tell you what he is!

In a' he says or does there's sic a gate,

The rest seem coofs compared with my dear Pate;

His better sense will lang his love secure:

Ill-nature hefts in sauls are weak and poor.

_Jenny._ Hey, 'bonnylass of Branksome!' or't be lang,

Your witty Pate will put you in a sang.

Oh, 'tis a pleasant thing to be a bride!

Syne whinging gets about your ingle-side,

Yelping for this or that with fasheous[18] din:

To mak them brats then ye maun toil and spin.

Ae wean fa's sick, and scads itself wi' brue,[19]

Ane breaks his shin, anither tines his shoe:

The 'Deil gaes o'er John Wabster:'[20] hame grows hell,

When Pate misca's ye waur than tongue can tell.

_Peggy._ Yes, it's a heartsome thing to be a wife,

When round the ingle-edge young sprouts are rife.

Gif I'm sae happy, I shall have delight

To hear their little plaints, and keep them right.

Wow, Jenny! can there greater pleasure be,

Than see sic wee tots toolying at your knee;

When a' they ettle at, their greatest wish,

Is to be made of, and obtain a kiss?

Can there be toil in tenting day and night

The like of them, when loves makes care delight?

_Jenny_. But poortith, Peggy, is the warst of a',

Gif o'er your heads ill chance should beggary draw:

There little love or canty cheer can come

Frae duddy doublets, and a pantry toom.[21]

Your nowt may die; the speat[22] may bear away

Frae aff the howms your dainty rucks of hay;

The thick-blawn wreaths of snaw, or blashy thows,

May smoor your wethers, and may rot your ewes;

A dyvour[23] buys your butter, woo', and cheese,

But, or the day of payment, breaks and flees;

With gloomin' brow the laird seeks in his rent,

'Tis no to gie, your merchant's to the bent;

His honour maunna want, he poinds your gear;

Syne driven frae house and hald, where will ye steer?--

Dear Meg, be wise, and lead a single life;

Troth, it's nae mows[24] to be a married wife.

_Peggy_. May sic ill luck befa' that silly she,

Wha has sic fears, for that was never me.

Let fowk bode weel, and strive to do their best;

Nae mair's required--let Heaven make out the rest.

I've heard my honest uncle aften say,

That lads should a' for wives that's vertuous pray;

For the maist thrifty man could never get

A well-stored room, unless his wife wad let:

Wherefore nocht shall be wanting on my part

To gather wealth to raise my shepherd's heart.

Whate'er he wins, I'll guide with canny care,

And win the vogue at market, tron, or fair,

For healsome, clean, cheap, and sufficient ware.

A flock of lambs, cheese, butter, and some woo',

Shall first be sald to pay the laird his due;

Syne a' behind's our ain.--Thus without fear,

With love and rowth[25] we through the warld will steer;

And when my Pate in bairns and gear grows rife,

He'll bless the day he gat me for his wife.

_Jenny_. But what if some young giglet on the green,

With dimpled cheeks, and twa bewitching een,

Should gar your Patie think his half-worn Meg,

And her kenn'd kisses, hardly worth a feg?

_Peggy_. Nae mair of that:--dear Jenny, to be free,

There's some men constanter in love than we:

Nor is the ferly great, when Nature kind

Has blest them with solidity of mind;

They'll reason calmly, and with kindness smile,

When our short passions wad our peace beguile:

Sae, whensoe'er they slight their maiks[26]at hame,

'Tis ten to ane their wives are maist to blame.

Then I'll employ with pleasure a' my art

To keep him cheerfu', and secure his heart.

At even, when he comes weary frae the hill,

I'll have a' things made ready to his will:

In winter, when he toils through wind and rain,

A bleezing ingle, and a clean hearth-stane:

And soon as he flings by his plaid and staff,

The seething-pot's be ready to take aff;

Clean hag-abag[27] I'll spread upon his board,

And serve him with the best we can afford:

Good-humour and white bigonets[28] shall be

Guards to my face, to keep his love for me.

_Jenny_. A dish of married love right soon grows cauld,

And dozins[29] down to nane, as fowk grow auld.

_Peggy_. But we'll grow auld together, and ne'er find

The loss of youth, when love grows on the mind.

Bairns and their bairns make sure a firmer tie,

Than aught in love the like of us can spy.

See yon twa elms that grow up side by side,

Suppose them some years syne bridegroom and bride;

Nearer and nearer ilka year they've pressed,

Till wide their spreading branches are increased,

And in their mixture now are fully blessed:

This shields the other frae the eastlin' blast;

That in return defends it frae the wast.

Sic as stand single, (a state sae liked by you,)

Beneath ilk storm frae every airt[30] maun bow.

_Jenny_. I've done,--I yield, dear lassie; I maun yield,

Your better sense has fairly won the field.

With the assistance of a little fae

Lies dern'd within my breast this mony a day.

_Peggy_. Alake, poor pris'ner!--Jenny, that's no fair,

That ye'll no let the wee thing take the air:

Haste, let him out; we'll tent as well's we can,

Gif he be Bauldy's, or poor Roger's man.

_Jenny_. Anither time's as good; for see the sun

Is right far up, and we're not yet begun

To freath the graith: if canker'd Madge, our aunt,

Come up the burn, she'll gie's a wicked rant;

But when we've done, I'll tell you a' my mind;

For this seems true--nae lass can be unkind.

[_Exeunt_.

[1] Howm: holm.

[2] Claes: clothes.

[3] 'Lift:' sky.

[4] 'Linn:' a waterfall.

[5] 'Blate:' bashful.

[6] 'Pensylie:' sprucely.

[7] 'A-jee:' to one side.

[8] 'Owrelay:' cravat.

[9] 'Dorty:' pettish.

[10] 'Dawted wean:' spoiled child.

[11] 'Tarrows at its meat:' refuses its food.

[12] 'Feckless:' silly.

[13] 'Orp:' fret.

[14] 'Glowers:' stares.

[15] 'Barlichoods:' cross-moods.

[16] 'Skaith:' harm.

[17] 'Feil:' many.

[18] 'Fasheous:' troublesome.

[19] 'Scads itself wi' brue:' scalds itself with broth.

[20] 'Deil gaes o'er John Wabster:' all goes wrong.

[21] 'Toom:' empty.

[22] 'Speat:' land-flood.

[23] 'A dyvour:' bankrupt.

[24] 'Mows:' jest.

[25] 'Rowth:' plenty.

[26] 'Maiks:' mates.

[27] 'Hag-abag:' huckaback.

[28] 'White bigonets:' linen caps or coifs.

[29] 'Dozins:' dwindles.

[30] 'Airt:' quarter.

We come now to another cluster of minor poets,--such as Robert Dodsley,

who rose, partly through Pope's influence, from a footman to be a

respectable bookseller, and who, by the verses entitled 'The Parting

Kiss,'--

'One fond kiss before we part,

Drop a tear and bid adieu;

Though we sever, my fond heart,

Till we meet, shall pant for you,' &c.--

seems to have suggested to Burns his 'Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;'

--John Brown, author of certain tragedies and other works, including the

once famous 'Estimate of the Manners and Principles of Modern Times,' of

which Cowper says--

'The inestimable Estimate of Brown

Rose like a paper kite and charmed the town;

But measures planned and executed well

Shifted the wind that raised it, and it fell:'

and who went mad and died by his own hands;--John Gilbert Cooper, author

of a fine song to his wife, one stanza of which has often been quoted:--

'And when with envy Time transported

Shall think to rob us of our joys;

You'll in your girls again be courted,

And I'll go wooing in my boys;'--

Cuthbert Shaw, an unfortunate author of the Savage type, who wrote an

affecting monody on the death of his wife;--Thomas Scott, author of

'Lyric Poems, Devotional and Moral: London, 1773;'--Edward Thompson, a

native of Hull, and author of some tolerable sea-songs;--Henry Headley,

a young man of uncommon talents, a pupil of Dr Parr in Norwich, who,

when only twenty-one, published 'Select Beauties of the Ancient English

Poets,' accompanied by critical remarks discovering rare ripeness of mind

for his years, who wrote poetry too, but was seized with consumption, and

died at twenty-two;--Nathaniel Cotton, the physician, under whose care,

at St Alban's, Cowper for a time was;--William Hayward Roberts, author of

'Judah Restored,' a poem of much ambition and considerable merit;--John

Bampfylde, who went mad, and died in that state, after having published,

when young, some sweet sonnets, of which the following is one:--

'Cold is the senseless heart that never strove

With the mild tumult of a real flame;

Rugged the breast that music cannot tame,

Nor youth's enlivening graces teach to love

The pathless vale, the long-forsaken grove,

The rocky cave that bears the fair one's name,

With ivy mantled o'er. For empty fame

Let him amidst the rabble toil, or rove

In search of plunder far to western clime.

Give me to waste the hours in amorous play

With Delia, beauteous maid, and build the rhyme,

Praising her flowing hair, her snowy arms,

And all that prodigality of charms,

Formed to enslave my heart, and grace my lay;'--

Lord Chesterfield, who wrote some lines on 'Beau Nash's Picture at full

length, between the Busts of Newton and Pope at Bath,' of which this is

the last stanza--

'The picture placed the busts between,

Adds to the thought much strength;

Wisdom and Wit are little seen,

But Folly's at full length;'--

Thomas Penrose, who is more memorable as a warrior than as a poet,

having fought against Buenos Ayres, as well as having written some

elegant war-verses;--Edward Moore, a contributor to the _World_;--Sir

John Henry Moore, a youth of promise, who died in his twenty-fifth year,

leaving behind him such songs as the following:--

'Cease to blame my melancholy,

Though with sighs and folded arms

I muse with silence on her charms;

Censure not--I know 'tis folly;

Yet these mournful thoughts possessing,

Such delights I find in grief

That, could heaven afford relief,

My fond heart would scorn the blessing;'--

the Rev. Richard Jago, a friend of Shenstone's, and author of a pleasing

fable entitled 'Labour and Genius;'--Henry Brooke, better known for a

novel, once much in vogue, called 'The Fool of Quality,' than for his

elaborate poem entitled 'Universal Beauty,' which formed a prototype of

Darwin's 'Botanic Garden,' but did not enjoy that poem's fame;--George

Alexander Stevens, a comic actor, lecturer on 'heads,' and writer of

some poems, novels, and Bacchanalian songs:--and, in fine, Mrs Greville,

whose 'Prayer for Indifference' displays considerable genius. We quote

some stanzas:--

'I ask no kind return in love,

No tempting charm to please;

Far from the heart such gifts remove

That sighs for peace and ease.

'Nor ease, nor peace, that heart can know

That, like the needle true,

Turns at the touch of joy and woe,

But, turning, trembles too.

'Far as distress the soul can wound,

'Tis pain in each degree;

'Tis bliss but to a certain bound--

Beyond, is agony.

'Then take this treacherous sense of mine,

Which dooms me still to smart,

Which pleasure can to pain refine,

To pain new pangs impart.

'Oh, haste to shed the sovereign balm,

My shattered nerves new string,

And for my guest, serenely calm,

The nymph Indifference bring.'

ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE.

This writer was born at Burton-on-Trent, in 1705. He was educated at

Westminster and Cambridge, and studied law at Lincoln's Inn. He was a

man of fortune, and sat in two parliaments for Wenlock, in Shropshire.

He died in 1760. His imitations of authors are clever and amusing, and

seem to have got their hint from 'The Splendid Shilling,' and to have

given it to the 'Rejected Addresses.'

IMITATION OF THOMSON.

----Prorumpit ad aethera nubem

Turbine, fumantem piceo. VIRG.

O thou, matured by glad Hesperian suns,

Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid truth,

That looks the very soul; whence pouring thought

Swarms all the mind; absorpt is yellow care,

And at each puff imagination burns:

Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires

Touch the mysterious lip that chants thy praise

In strains to mortal sons of earth unknown.

Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines

Of ductile clay, with plastic virtue formed,

And glazed magnific o'er, I grasp, I fill.

From Paetotheke with pungent powers perfumed,

Itself one tortoise all, where shines imbibed

Each parent ray; then rudely rammed, illume

With the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet,

Marked with Gibsonian lore; forth issue clouds

Thought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around,

And many-mining fires; I all the while,

Lolling at ease, inhale the breezy balm.

But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join,

In genial strife and orthodoxal ale,

Stream life and joy into the Muse's bowl.

Oh, be thou still my great inspirer, thou

My Muse; oh, fan me with thy zephyrs boon,

While I, in clouded tabernacle shrined,

Burst forth all oracle and mystic song.

IMITATION OF POPE.

--Solis ad ortus

Vanescit fumus. LUCAN.

Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense

To Templars modesty, to parsons sense:

So raptured priests, at famed Dodona's shrine,

Drank inspiration from the steam divine.

Poison that cures, a vapour that affords

Content, more solid than the smile of lords:

Rest to the weary, to the hungry food,

The last kind refuge of the wise and good.

Inspired by thee, dull cits adjust the scale

Of Europe's peace, when other statesmen fail.

By thee protected, and thy sister, beer,

Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.

Nor less the critic owns thy genial aid,

While supperless he plies the piddling trade.

What though to love and soft delights a foe,

By ladies hated, hated by the beau,

Yet social freedom, long to courts unknown,

Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own.

Come to thy poet, come with healing wings,

And let me taste thee unexcised by kings.

IMITATION OF SWIFT.

Ex fumo dare lucem.--HOR.

Boy! bring an ounce of Freeman's best,

And bid the vicar be my guest:

Let all be placed in manner due,

A pot wherein to spit or spew,

And London Journal, and Free-Briton,

Of use to light a pipe or * *

* * * * *

This village, unmolested yet

By troopers, shall be my retreat:

Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray;

Who cannot write or vote for * * *

Far from the vermin of the town,

Here let me rather live, my own,

Doze o'er a pipe, whose vapour bland

In sweet oblivion lulls the land;

Of all which at Vienna passes,

As ignorant as * * Brass is:

And scorning rascals to caress,

Extol the days of good Queen Bess,

When first tobacco blessed our isle,

Then think of other queens--and smile.

Come, jovial pipe, and bring along

Midnight revelry and song;

The merry catch, the madrigal,

That echoes sweet in City Hall;

The parson's pun, the smutty tale

Of country justice o'er his ale.

I ask not what the French are doing,

Or Spain, to compass Britain's ruin:

Britons, if undone, can go

Where tobacco loves to grow.

WILLIAM OLDYS.

Oldys was born in 1696, and died in 1761. He was a very diligent

collector of antiquarian materials, and the author of a Life of Raleigh.

He was intimate with Captain Grose, Burns' friend, who used to rally him

on his inordinate thirst for ale, although, if we believe Burns, it was

paralleled by Grose's liking for port. The following Anacreontic is

characteristic:--

SONG, OCCASIONED BY A FLY DRINKING OUT OF A CUP OF ALE.

Busy, curious, thirsty fly,

Drink with me, and drink as I;

Freely welcome to my cup,

Couldst thou sip and sip it up.

Make the most of life you may--

Life is short, and wears away.

Both alike are, mine and thine,

Hastening quick to their decline:

Thine's a summer, mine no more,

Though repeated to threescore;

Threescore summers, when they're gone,

Will appear as short as one.

ROBERT LLOYD.

Robert Lloyd was born in London in 1733. He was the son of one of the

under-masters of Westminster School. He went to Cambridge, where he

became distinguished for his talents and notorious for his dissipation.

He became an usher under his father, but soon tired of the drudgery, and

commenced professional author. He published a poem called 'The Actor,'

which attracted attention, and was the precursor of 'The Rosciad.' He

wrote for periodicals, produced some theatrical pieces of no great

merit, and edited the _St James' Magazine_. This failed, and Lloyd,

involved in pecuniary distresses, was cast into the Fleet. Here he was

deserted by all his boon companions except Churchill, to whose sister he

was attached, and who allowed him a guinea a-week and a servant, besides

promoting a subscription for his benefit. When the news of Churchill's

death arrived, Lloyd was seated at dinner; he became instantly sick,

cried out 'Poor Charles! I shall follow him soon,' and died in a few

weeks. Churchill's sister, a woman of excellent abilities, waited on

Lloyd during his illness, and died soon after him of a broken heart.

This was in 1764.

Lloyd was a minor Churchill. He had not his brawny force, but he had

more than his liveliness of wit, and was a much better-conditioned man,

and more temperate in his satire. Cowper knew, loved, admired, and in

some of his verses imitated, Robert Lloyd.

THE MISERIES OF A POET'S LIFE.

The harlot Muse, so passing gay,

Bewitches only to betray.

Though for a while with easy air

She smooths the rugged brow of care,

And laps the mind in flowery dreams,

With Fancy's transitory gleams;

Fond of the nothings she bestows,

We wake at last to real woes.

Through every age, in every place,

Consider well the poet's case;

By 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.

O 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.

HENRY CAREY.

Of Carey, the author of the popular song, 'Sally in our Alley,' we know

only that he was a professional musician, composing the air as well as

the words of 'Sally,' and that in 1763 he died by his own hands.

SALLY IN OUR ALLEY.

1 Of all the girls that are so smart,

There's none like pretty Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

There is no lady in the land

Is half so sweet as Sally:

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

2 Her father he makes cabbage-nets,

And through the streets does cry 'em;

Her mother she sells laces long,

To such as please to buy 'em:

But sure such folks could ne'er beget

So sweet a girl as Sally!

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

3 When she is by, I leave my work,

(I love her so sincerely,)

My master comes like any Turk,

And bangs me most severely:

But, let him bang his belly full,

I'll bear it all for Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

4 Of all the days that's in the week,

I dearly love but one day;

And that's the day that comes betwixt

A Saturday and Monday;

For then I'm dressed all in my best,

To walk abroad with Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

5 My master carries me to church,

And often am I blamed,

Because I leave him in the lurch,

As soon as text is named:

I leave the church in sermon time,

And slink away to Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

6 When Christmas comes about again,

O then I shall have money;

I'll hoard it up, and box it all,

I'll give it to my honey:

I would it were ten thousand pounds,

I'd give it all to Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

7 My master, and the neighbours all,

Make game of me and Sally;

And, but for her, I'd better be

A slave, and row a galley:

But when my seven long years are out,

O then I'll marry Sally,

O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed,

But not in our alley.

DAVID MALLETT.

David Mallett was the son of a small innkeeper in Crieff, Perthshire,

where he was born in the year 1700. Crieff, as many of our readers know,

is situated on the western side of a hill, and commands a most varied and

beautiful prospect, including Drummond Castle, with its solemn shadowy

woods, and the Ochils, on the south,--Ochtertyre, one of the loveliest

spots in Scotland, and the gorge of Glenturrett, on the north,--and the

bold dark hills which surround the romantic village of Comrie, on the

west. Crieff is now a place of considerable note, and forms a centre

of summer attraction to multitudes; but at the commencement of the

eighteenth century it must have been a miserable hamlet. _Malloch_ was

originally the name of the poet, and the name is still common in that

part of Perthshire. David attended the college of Aberdeen, and became,

afterwards, an unsalaried tutor in the family of Mr Home of Dreghorn,

near Edinburgh. We find him next in the Duke of Montrose's family, with

a salary of £30 per annum. In 1723, he accompanied his pupils to London,

and changed his name to Mallett, as more euphonious. Next year, he

produced his pretty ballad of 'William and Margaret,' and published it

in Aaron Hill's 'Plain Dealer.' This served as an introduction to the

literary society of the metropolis, including such names as Young and

Pope. In 1733, he disgraced himself by a satire on the greatest man then

living, the venerable Richard Bentley. Mallett was one of those mean

creatures who always worship a rising, and turn their backs on a setting

sun. By his very considerable talents, his management, and his address,

he soon rose in the world. He was appointed under-secretary to the Prince

of Wales, with a salary of £200 a-year. In conjunction with Thomson, to

whom he was really kind, he wrote in 1740, 'The Masque of Alfred,' in

honour of the birthday of the Princess Augusta. His first wife, of whom

nothing is recorded, having died, he married the daughter of Lord

Carlisle's steward, who brought him a fortune of £10,000. Both she and

Mallett himself gave themselves out as Deists. This was partly owing to

his intimacy with Bolingbroke, to gratify whom, he heaped abuse upon Pope

in a preface to 'The Patriot-King,' and was rewarded by Bolingbroke

leaving him the whole of his works and MSS. These he afterwards

published, and exposed himself to the vengeful sarcasm of Johnson, who

said that Bolingbroke was a scoundrel and a coward;--a scoundrel, to

charge a blunderbuss against Christianity; and a coward, because he durst

not fire it himself, but left a shilling to a beggarly Scotsman to draw

the trigger after his death. Mallett ranked himself among the

calumniators and, as it proved, murderers of Admiral Byng. He wrote a

Life of Lord Bacon, in which, it was said, he forgot that Bacon was a

philosopher, and would probably, when he came to write the Life of

Marlborough, forget that he was a general. This Life of Bacon is now

utterly forgotten. We happened to read it in our early days, and thought

it a very contemptible performance. The Duchess of Marlborough left £1000

in her will between Glover and Mallett to write a Life of her husband.

Glover threw up his share of the work, and Mallett engaged to perform the

whole, to which, besides, he was stimulated by a pension from the second

Duke of Marlborough. He got the money, but when he died it was found that

he had not written a line of the work. In his latter days he held the

lucrative office of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London.

He died on the 2lst April 1765.

Mallett is, on the whole, no credit to Scotland. He was a bad, mean,

insincere, and unprincipled man, whose success was procured by despicable

and dastardly arts. He had doubtless some genius, and his 'Birks of

Invermay,' and 'William and Margaret,' shall preserve his name after his

clumsy imitation of Thomson, called 'The Excursion,' and his long,

rambling 'Amyntor and Theodora;' have been forgotten.

WILLIAM AND MARGARET.

1 'Twas at the silent, solemn hour

When night and morning meet;

In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,

And stood at William's feet.

2 Her face was like an April-morn,

Clad in a wintry cloud;

And clay-cold was her lily hand,

That held her sable shroud.

3 So shall the fairest face appear,

When youth and years are flown:

Such is the robe that kings must wear,

When death has reft their crown.

4 Her bloom was like the springing flower,

That sips the silver dew;

The rose was budded in her cheek,

Just opening to the view.

5 But love had, like the canker-worm,

Consumed her early prime:

The rose grew pale, and left her cheek;

She died before her time.

6 'Awake!' she cried, 'thy true love calls,

Come from her midnight-grave;

Now let thy pity hear the maid,

Thy love refused to save.

7 'This is the dumb and dreary hour,

When injured ghosts complain;

When yawning graves give up their dead,

To haunt the faithless swain.

8 'Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,

Thy pledge and broken oath!

And give me back my maiden-vow,

And give me back my troth.

9 'Why did you promise love to me,

And not that promise keep?

Why did you swear my eyes were bright,

Yet leave those eyes to weep?

10 'How could you say my face was fair,

And yet that face forsake?

How could you win my virgin-heart,

Yet leave that heart to break?

11 'Why did you say my lip was sweet,

And made the scarlet pale?

And why did I, young witless maid!

Believe the flattering tale?

12 'That face, alas! no more is fair,

Those lips no longer red:

Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,

And every charm is fled.

13 'The hungry worm my sister is;

This winding-sheet I wear:

And cold and weary lasts our night,

Till that last morn appear.

14 'But, hark! the cock has warned me hence;

A long and late adieu!

Come, see, false man, how low she lies,

Who died for love of you.'

15 The lark sung loud; the morning smiled,

With beams of rosy red:

Pale William quaked in every limb,

And raving left his bed.

16 He hied him to the fatal place

Where Margaret's body lay;

And stretched him on the green-grass turf,

That wrapped her breathless clay.

17 And thrice he called on Margaret's name.

And thrice he wept full sore;

Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,

And word spake never more!

THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY.

The smiling morn, the breathing spring,

Invite the tunefu' birds to sing;

And, while they warble from the spray,

Love melts the universal lay.

Let us, Amanda, timely wise,

Like them, improve the hour that flies;

And in soft raptures waste the day,

Among the birks of Invermay.

For soon the winter of the year,

And age, life's winter, will appear;

At this thy living bloom will fade,

As that will strip the verdant shade.

Our taste of pleasure then is o'er,

The feathered songsters are no more;

And when they drop and we decay,

Adieu the birks of Invermay!

JAMES MERRICK.

Merrick was a clergyman, as well as a writer of verse. He was born in

1720, and became a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, where Lord North

was one of his pupils. He took orders, but owing to incessant pains in

the head, could not perform duty. He died in 1769. His works are a

translation of Tryphiodorus, done at twenty, a version of the Psalms, a

collection of Hymns, and a few miscellaneous pieces, one good specimen

of which we subjoin.

THE CHAMELEON.

Oft has it been my lot to mark

A proud, conceited, talking spark,

With eyes that hardly served at most

To guard their master 'gainst a post;

Yet round the world the blade has been,

To see whatever could be seen.

Returning from his finished tour,

Grown ten times perter than before;

Whatever word you chance to drop,

The travelled fool your mouth will stop:

'Sir, if my judgment you'll allow--

I've seen--and sure I ought to know.'--

So begs you'd pay a due submission,

And acquiesce in his decision.

Two travellers of such a cast,

As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed,

And on their way, in friendly chat,

Now talked of this, and then of that;

Discoursed a while, 'mongst other matter,

Of the chameleon's form and nature.

'A stranger animal,' cries one,

'Sure never lived beneath the sun:

A lizard's body lean and long,

A fish's head, a serpent's tongue,

Its foot with triple claw disjoined;

And what a length of tail behind!

How slow its pace! and then its hue--

Who ever saw so fine a blue?'

'Hold there,' the other quick replies,

''Tis green, I saw it with these eyes,

As late with open mouth it lay,

And warmed it in the sunny ray;

Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed,

And saw it eat the air for food.'

'I've seen it, sir, as well as you,

And must again affirm it blue;

At leisure I the beast surveyed

Extended in the cooling shade.'

''Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure ye.'

'Green!' cries the other in a fury:

'Why, sir, d' ye think I've lost my eyes?'

''Twere no great loss,' the friend replies;

'For if they always serve you thus,

You'll find them but of little use.'

So high at last the contest rose,

From words they almost came to blows:

When luckily came by a third;

To him the question they referred:

And begged he'd tell them, if he knew,

Whether the thing was green or blue.

'Sirs,' cries the umpire, 'cease your pother;

The creature's neither one nor t' other.

I caught the animal last night,

And viewed it o'er by candle-light:

I marked it well, 'twas black as jet--

You stare--but sirs, I've got it yet,

And can produce it.'--'Pray, sir, do;

I'll lay my life the thing is blue.'

'And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen

The reptile, you'll pronounce him green.'

'Well, then, at once to ease the doubt,'

Replies the man, 'I'll turn him out:

And when before your eyes I've set him,

If you don't find him black, I'll eat him.'

He said; and full before their sight

Produced the beast, and lo!--'twas white.

Both stared, the man looked wondrous wise--

'My children,' the chameleon cries,

(Then first the creature found a tongue,)

'You all are right, and all are wrong:

When next you talk of what you view,

Think others see as well as you:

Nor wonder if you find that none

Prefers your eyesight to his own.'

DR JAMES GRAINGER.

This writer possessed some true imagination, although his claim to

immortality lies in the narrow compass of one poem--his 'Ode to

Solitude.' Little is known of his personal history. He was born in 1721

--belonging to a gentleman's family in Cumberland. He studied medicine,

and was for some time a surgeon connected with the army. When the peace

came, he established himself in London as a medical practitioner. In

1755, he published his 'Solitude,' which found many admirers, including

Dr Johnson, who pronounced its opening lines 'very noble.' He afterwards

indited several other pieces, wrote a translation of Tibullus, and

became one of the critical staff of the _Monthly Review_. He was unable,

however, through all these labours to secure a competence, and, in 1759,

he sought the West Indies. In St Christopher's he commenced practising

as a physician, and married the Governor's daughter, who brought him a

fortune. He wrote a poem entitled 'The Sugar-cane.' This was sent over

to London in MS., and was read at Sir Joshua Reynold's table to a

literary coterie, who, according to Boswell, all burst out into a laugh

when, after much blank-verse pomp, the poet began a new paragraph thus--

'Now, Muse, let's sing of _rats_!

And what increased the ridicule was, that one of the company, slily

overlooking the reader, found that the word had been originally 'mice,'

but had been changed to rats as more dignified.

Boswell goes on to record Johnson's opinion of Grainger. He said, 'He

was an agreeable man, a man that would do any good that was in his

power.' His translation of Tibullus was very well done, but 'The Sugar-

cane, a Poem,' did not please him. 'What could he make of a Sugar-cane?

one might as well write "The Parsley-bed, a Poem," or "The Cabbage

Garden, a Poem."' Boswell--'You must then _pickle_ your cabbage with the

_sal Atticum_.' Johnson--'One could say a great deal about cabbage. The

poem might begin with the advantages of civilised society over a rude

state, exemplified by the Scotch, who had no cabbages till Oliver

Cromwell's soldiers introduced them, and one might thus shew how arts

are propagated by conquest, as they were by the Roman arms.' Cabbage, by

the way, in a metaphorical sense, might furnish a very good subject for

a literary _satire_.

Grainger died of the fever of the country in 1767. Bishop Percy

corroborates Johnson's character of him as a man. He says, 'He was not

only a man of genius and learning, but had many excellent virtues, being

one of the most generous, friendly, benevolent men I ever knew.'

Grainger in some points reminds us of Dyer. Dyer staked his reputation

on 'The Fleece;' but it is his lesser poem, 'Grongar Hill,' which

preserves his name; that fine effusion has survived the laboured work.

And so Grainger's 'Solitude' has supplanted the stately 'Sugar-cane.'

The scenery of the West Indies had to wait till its real poet appeared

in the author of 'Paul and Virginia.' Grainger was hardly able to cope

with the strange and gorgeous contrasts it presents of cliffs and crags,

like those of Iceland, with vegetation rich as that of the fairest parts

of India, and of splendid sunshine, with tempests of such tremendous

fury that, but for their brief continuance, no property could be secure,

and no life could be safe.

The commencement of the 'Ode to Solitude' is fine, but the closing part

becomes tedious. In the middle of the poem there is a tumult of

personifications, some of them felicitous and others forced.

'Sage Reflection, bent with years,'

may pass, but

'Conscious Virtue, void of fears,'

is poor.

'Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,'

is a picture;

'Retrospect that scans the mind,'

is nothing;

'Health that snuffs the morning air,'

is a living image; but what sense is there in

'Full-eyed Truth, with bosom bare?'

and how poor his

'Laughter in loud peals that breaks,'

to Milton's

'Laughter, holding both his sides!'

The paragraph, however, commencing

'With you roses brighter bloom,'

and closing with

'The bournless macrocosm's thine,'

is very spirited, and, along with the opening lines, proves

Grainger a poet.

ODE TO SOLITUDE.

O solitude, romantic maid!

Whether by nodding towers you tread,

Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,

Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,

Or climb the Andes' clifted side,

Or by the Nile's coy source abide,

Or starting from your half-year's sleep

From Hecla view the thawing deep,

Or, at the purple dawn of day,

Tadmor's marble wastes survey,

You, recluse, again I woo,

And again your steps pursue.

Plumed Conceit himself surveying,

Folly with her shadow playing,

Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence,

Bloated empiric, puffed Pretence,

Noise that through a trumpet speaks,

Laughter in loud peals that breaks,

Intrusion with a fopling's face,

Ignorant of time and place,

Sparks of fire Dissension blowing,

Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing,

Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer,

Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer,

Ambition's buskins, steeped in blood,

Fly thy presence, Solitude.

Sage Reflection, bent with years,

Conscious Virtue, void of fears,

Muffled Silence, wood-nymph shy,

Meditation's piercing eye,

Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,

Retrospect that scans the mind,

Rapt, earth-gazing Reverie,

Blushing, artless Modesty,

Health that snuffs the morning air,

Full-eyed Truth, with bosom bare,

Inspiration, Nature's child,

Seek the solitary wild.

You, with the tragic muse retired,

The wise Euripides inspired,

You taught the sadly-pleasing air

That Athens saved from ruins bare.

You gave the Cean's tears to flow,

And unlocked the springs of woe;

You penned what exiled Naso thought,

And poured the melancholy note.

With Petrarch o'er Vaucluse you strayed,

When death snatched his long-loved maid;

You taught the rocks her loss to mourn,

Ye strewed with flowers her virgin urn.

And late in Hagley you were seen,

With bloodshot eyes, and sombre mien,

Hymen his yellow vestment tore,

And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore.

But chief your own the solemn lay

That wept Narcissa young and gay,

Darkness clapped her sable wing,

While you touched the mournful string,

Anguish left the pathless wild,

Grim-faced Melancholy smiled,

Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn,

The starry host put back the dawn,

Aside their harps even seraphs flung

To hear thy sweet Complaint, O Young!

When all nature's hushed asleep,

Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep,

Soft you leave your caverned den,

And wander o'er the works of men;

But when Phosphor brings the dawn

By her dappled coursers drawn,

Again you to the wild retreat

And the early huntsman meet,

Where as you pensive pace along,

You catch the distant shepherd's song,

Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,

Or the rising primrose view.

Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings,

You mount, and nature with you sings.

But when mid-day fervours glow,

To upland airy shades you go,

Where never sunburnt woodman came,

Nor sportsman chased the timid game;

And there beneath an oak reclined,

With drowsy waterfalls behind,

You sink to rest.

Till the tuneful bird of night

From the neighbouring poplar's height

Wake you with her solemn strain,

And teach pleased Echo to complain.

With you roses brighter bloom,

Sweeter every sweet perfume,

Purer every fountain flows,

Stronger every wilding grows.

Let those toil for gold who please,

Or for fame renounce their ease.

What is fame? an empty bubble.

Gold? a transient shining trouble.

Let them for their country bleed,

What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?

Man's not worth a moment's pain,

Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.

Then let me, sequestered fair,

To your sibyl grot repair;

On yon hanging cliff it stands,

Scooped by nature's salvage hands,

Bosomed in the gloomy shade

Of cypress not with age decayed.

Where the owl still-hooting sits,

Where the bat incessant flits,

There in loftier strains I'll sing

Whence the changing seasons spring,

Tell how storms deform the skies,

Whence the waves subside and rise,

Trace the comet's blazing tail,

Weigh the planets in a scale;

Bend, great God, before thy shrine,

The bournless macrocosm's thine.

* * * * *

MICHAEL BRUCE.

We refer our readers to Dr Mackelvie's well-known and very able Life of

poor Bruce, for his full story, and for the evidence on which his claim

to the 'Cuckoo' is rested. Apart from external evidence, we think that

poem more characteristic of Bruce's genius than of Logan's, and have

therefore ranked it under Bruce's name.

Bruce was born on the 27th of March 1746, at Kinnesswood, parish of

Portmoak, county of Kinross. His father was a weaver, and Michael was

the fifth of a family of eight children.

Poor as his parents were, they were intelligent, religious, and most

conscientious in the discharge of their duties to their children. In the

summer months Michael was sent out to herd cattle; and one loves to

imagine the young poet wrapt in his plaid, under a whin-bush, while the

storm was blowing,--or gazing at the rainbow from the summit of a

fence,--or admiring at Lochleven and its old ruined castle,--or weaving

around the form of some little maiden, herding in a neighbouring field

--some 'Jeanie Morrison'--one of those webs of romantic early love which

are beautiful and evanescent as the gossamer, but how exquisitely

relished while they last! Say not, with one of his biographers, that his

'education was retarded by this employment;' he was receiving in these

solitary fields a kind of education which no school and no college could

furnish; nay, who knows but, as he saw the cuckoo winging her way from

one deep woodland recess to another, or heard her dull, divine monotone

coming from the heart of the forest, the germ of that exquisite strain,

'least in the kingdom' of the heaven of poetry in size, but immortal in

its smallness, was sown in his mind? In winter he went to school, and

profited there so much, that at fifteen (not a very early period, after

all, for a Scotch student beginning his curriculum--in our day twelve

was not an uncommon age) he was judged fit for going to college. And

just in time a windfall came across the path of our poet, the mention of

which may make many of our readers smile. This was a legacy which was

left his father by a relative, amounting to 200 merks, or £11, 2s.6d.

With this munificent sum in his pocket, Bruce was sent to study at

Edinburgh College. Here he became distinguished by his attainments, and

particularly his taste and poetic powers; and here, too, he became

acquainted with John Logan, afterwards his biographer. After spending

three sessions at college, supported by his parents and other friends,

he returned to the country, and taught a school at Gairney Bridge (a

place famous for the first meeting of the first presbytery of the

Seceders) for £11 of salary. Thence he removed to Foresthill, near

Alloa, where a damp school-room, poverty, and hard labour in teaching,

united to injure his health and depress his spirits. At Foresthill he

wrote his poem 'Lochleven,' which discovers no small descriptive power.

Consumption began now to make its appearance, and he returned to the

cottage of his parents, where he wrote his 'Elegy on Spring,' in which

he refers with dignified pathos to his approaching dissolution. On the

5th of July 1767, this remarkable youth died, aged twenty-one years and

three months. His Bible was found on his pillow, marked at the words,

Jer. xxii. 10, 'Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep

sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his

native country.'

Lord Craig wrote some time afterwards an affecting paper in the _Mirror_,

recording the fate, and commending the genius of Bruce. John Logan, in

1770, published his poems. In the year 1807, the kind-hearted Principal

Baird published an edition of the poems for the behoof of Bruce's mother,

then an aged widow. And in 1837, Dr William Mackelvie, Balgedie, Kinross-

shire, published what may be considered the standard Life of this poet,

along with a complete edition of his Works.

It is impossible from so small a segment of a circle as Bruce's life

describes, to infer with any certainty the whole. So far as we can judge

from the fragments left, his power was rather in the beautiful, than in

the sublime or in the strong. The lines on Spring, from the words 'Now

spring returns' to the close, form a continuous stream of pensive

loveliness. How sweetly he sings in the shadow of death! Nor let us too

severely blame his allusion to the old Pagan mythology, in the words--

'I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe,

I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore;'

remembering that he was still a mere student, and not recovered from

that fine intoxication in which classical literature drenches a young

imaginative soul, and that at last we find him 'resting in the hopes of

an eternal day.' 'Lochleven' is the spent echo of the 'Seasons,' although,

as we said before, its descriptions possess considerable merit. His 'Last

Day' is more ambitious than successful. If we grant the 'Cuckoo' to be

his, as we are inclined decidedly to do, it is a sure title to fame,

being one of the sweetest little poems in any language. Shakspeare would

have been proud of the verse--

'Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year.'

Bruce has not, however, it has always appeared to us, caught so well as

Wordsworth the differentia of the cuckoo,--its invisible, shadowy,

shifting, supernatural character--heard, but seldom seen--its note so

limited and almost unearthly:--

'O Cuckoo, shall I call thee bird,

Or but a _wandering voice_?'

How fine this conception of a separated voice--'The viewless spirit of a

_lonely_ sound,' plaining in the woods as if seeking for some incarnation

it cannot find, and saddening the spring groves by a note so contradictory

to the genius of the season. In reference to the note of the cuckoo we

find the following remarks among the fragments from the commonplace-book

of Dr Thomas Brown, printed by Dr Welsh:--'The name of the cuckoo has

generally been considered as a very pure instance of imitative harmony.

But in giving that name, we have most unjustly defrauded the poor bird of

a portion of its very small variety of sound. The second syllable is not

a mere echo of the first; it is the sound reversed, like the reading of

a sotadic line; and to preserve the strictness of the imitation we should

give it the name of Ook-koo.' _This_ is the prose of the cuckoo after its

poetry.

TO THE CUCKOO.

1 Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!

The messenger of spring!

Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,

And woods thy welcome sing.

2 Soon as the daisy decks the green,

Thy certain voice we hear;

Hast thou a star to guide thy path,

Or mark the rolling year?

3 Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,

And hear the sound of music sweet,

From birds among the bowers.

4 The school-boy, wandering through the wood

To pull the primrose gay,

Starts thy curious voice to hear,

And imitates the lay.

5 What time the pea puts on the bloom,

Thou fli'st thy vocal vale,

An annual guest in other lands,

Another spring to hail.

6 Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year.

7 Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!

We'd make with joyful wing

Our annual visit o'er the globe,

Attendants on the spring.

ELEGY, WRITTEN IN SPRING.

1 'Tis past: the North has spent his rage;

Stern Winter now resigns the lengthening day;

The stormy howlings of the winds assuage,

And warm o'er ether western breezes play.

2 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.

3 Far to the North grim Winter draws his train,

To his own clime, to Zembla's frozen shore;

Where, throned on ice, he holds eternal reign,

Where whirlwinds madden, and where tempests roar.

4 Loosed from the bonds 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.

5 Behold! the trees new-deck their withered boughs;

Their ample leaves, the hospitable plane,

The taper elm, and lofty ash disclose;

The blooming hawthorn variegates the scene.

6 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.

7 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.

8 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.

9 While the sun journeys down the western sky,

Along the green sward, marked with Roman mound,

Beneath the blithesome shepherd's watchful eye,

The cheerful lambkins dance and frisk around.

10 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.

11 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.

12 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.

13 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.

14 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.

15 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.

16 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.

17 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:

18 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 at peace with them at rest.

19 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.

20 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.

21 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.

22 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 of wisdom where my Daphnis lies.

23 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.

CHRISTOPHER SMART.

We hear of 'Single-speech Hamilton.' We have now to say something of

'Single-poem Smart,' the author of one of the grandest bursts of

devotional and poetical feeling in the English language--the 'Song to

David.' This poor unfortunate was born at Shipbourne, Kent, in 1722.

His father was steward to Lord Barnard, who, after his death, continued

his patronage to the son, who was then eleven years of age. The Duchess

of Cleveland, through Lord Barnard's influence, bestowed on Christopher

an allowance of £40 a-year. With this he went to Pembroke Hall, Cam-

bridge, in 1739; was in 1745 elected a Fellow of Pembroke, and in 1747

took his degree of M.A. At college, Smart began to display that reckless

dissipation which led afterwards to such melancholy consequences. He

studied hard, however, at intervals; wrote poetry both in Latin and

English; produced a comedy called a 'Trip to Cambridge; or, The Grateful

Fair,' which was acted in the hall of Pembroke College; and, in spite of

his vices and follies, was popular on account of his agreeable manners

and amiable dispositions. Having become acquainted with Newberry,

the benevolent, red-nosed bookseller commemorated in 'The Vicar of

Wakefield,'--for whom he wrote some trifles,--he married his step-

daughter, Miss Carnan, in the year 1753. He now removed to London, and

became an author to trade. He wrote a clever satire, entitled 'The

Hilliad,' against Sir John Hill, who had attacked him in an underhand

manner. He translated the fables of Phaedrus into verse,--Horace into

prose ('Smart's Horace' used to be a great favourite, under the rose,

with schoolboys); made an indifferent version of the Psalms and

Paraphrases, and a good one, at a former period, of Pope's 'Ode on St

Cecilia's Day,' with which that poet professed himself highly pleased.

He was employed on a monthly publication called _The Universal Visitor_.

We find Johnson giving the following account of this matter in Boswell's

Life:--'Old Gardner, the bookseller, employed Rolt and Smart to write a

monthly miscellany called _The Universal Visitor_.' There was a formal

written contract. They were bound to write nothing else,--they were to

have, I think, a third of the profits of the sixpenny pamphlet, and the

contract was for ninety-nine years. I wrote for some months in _The

Universal Visitor_ for poor Smart, while he was mad, not then knowing

the terms on which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing him

good. I hoped his wits would soon return to him. Mine returned to me, and

I wrote in _The Universal Visitor_ no longer.'

Smart at last was called to pay the penalty of his blended labour and

dissipation. In 1763 he was shut up in a madhouse. His derangement had

exhibited itself in a religious way: he insisted upon people kneeling

down along with him in the street and praying. During his confinement,

writing materials were denied him, and he used to write his poetical

pieces with a key on the wainscot. Thus, 'scrabbling,' like his own hero,

on the wall, he produced his immortal 'Song to David.' He became by and

by sane; but, returning to his old habits, got into debt, and died in the

King's Bench prison, after a short illness, in 1770.

The 'Song to David' has been well called one of the greatest curiosities

of literature. It ranks in this point with the tragedies written by Lee,

and the sermons and prayers uttered by Hall in a similar melancholy state

of mind. In these cases, as well as in Smart's, the thin partition

between genius and madness was broken down in thunder,--the thunder of a

higher poetry than perhaps they were capable of even conceiving in their

saner moments. Lee produced in that state--which was, indeed, nearly his

normal one--some glorious extravagancies. Hall's sermons, monologised

and overheard in the madhouse, are said to have transcended all that he

preached in his healthier moods. And, assuredly, the other poems by Smart

scarcely furnish a point of comparison with the towering and sustained

loftiness of some parts of the 'Song to David.' Nor is it loftiness

alone,--although the last three stanzas are absolute inspiration, and

you see the waters of Castalia tossed by a heavenly wind to the very

summit of Parnassus,--but there are innumerable exquisite beauties and

subtleties, dropt as if by the hand of rich haste, in every corner of

the poem. Witness his description of David's muse, as a

'Blest light, still gaining on the gloom,

The more _than Michal of his bloom_,

The _Abishag of his age_!

The account of David's object--

'To further knowledge, silence vice,

And plant perpetual paradise,

When _God had calmed the world_.'

Of David's Sabbath--

''Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,

And heavenly melancholy tuned,

To bless and bear the rest.'

One of David's themes--

'The multitudinous abyss,

Where secrecy remains in bliss,

And wisdom hides her skill.'

And, not to multiply instances to repletion, this stanza about gems--

'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.'

Incoherence and extravagance we find here and there; but it is not the

flutter of weakness, it is the fury of power: from the very stumble of

the rushing steed, sparks are kindled. And, even as Baretti, when he

read the _Rambler_, in Italy, thought within himself, If such are the

lighter productions of the English mind, what must be the grander and

sterner efforts of its genius? and formed, consequently, a strong desire

to visit that country; so might he have reasoned, If such poems as

'David' issue from England's very madhouses, what must be the writings

of its saner and nobler poetic souls? and thus might he, from the

parallax of a Smart, have been able to rise toward the ideal altitudes

of a Shakspeare or a Milton. Indeed, there are portions of the 'Song to

David,' which a Milton or a Shakspeare has never surpassed. The blaze of

the meteor often eclipses the light of

'The loftiest star of unascended heaven,

Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.'

SONG TO DAVID.

1 O thou, that sitt'st upon a throne,

With harp of high, majestic tone,

To praise the King of kings:

And voice of heaven, ascending, swell,

Which, while its deeper notes excel,

Clear as a clarion rings:

2 To bless each valley, grove, and coast,

And charm the cherubs to the post

Of gratitude in throngs;

To keep the days on Zion's Mount,

And send the year to his account,

With dances and with songs:

3 O 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.

4 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!

5 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.

6 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.

7 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.

8 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.

9 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.

10 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.

11 Contemplative--on God to fix

His musings, and above the six

The Sabbath-day he blessed;

'Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,

And heavenly melancholy tuned,

To bless and bear the rest.

12 Serene--to sow the seeds of peace,

Remembering when he watched the fleece,

How sweetly Kidron purled--

To further knowledge, silence vice,

And plant perpetual paradise,

When God had calmed the world.

13 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.

14 Constant--in love to God, the Truth,

Age, manhood, infancy, and youth;

To Jonathan his friend

Constant, beyond the verge of death;

And Ziba, and Mephibosheth,

His endless fame attend.

15 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.

16 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.

17 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.

18 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.

19 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.

20 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.

21 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.

22 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.

23 Of fowl--even every beak and wing

Which cheer the winter, hail the spring,

That live in peace, or prey;

They that make music, or that mock,

The quail, the brave domestic cock,

The raven, swan, and jay.

24 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.

25 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.

26 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.

27 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.

28 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.

29 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.'

30 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.

31 Alpha, the cause of causes, first

In station, fountain, whence the burst

Of light and blaze of day;

Whence bold attempt, and brave advance,

Have motion, life, and ordinance,

And heaven itself its stay.

32 Gamma supports the glorious arch

On which angelic legions march,

And is with sapphires paved;

Thence the fleet clouds are sent adrift,

And thence the painted folds that lift

The crimson veil, are waved.

33 Eta with living sculpture breathes,

With verdant carvings, flowery wreathes

Of never-wasting bloom;

In strong relief his goodly base

All instruments of labour grace,

The trowel, spade, and loom.

34 Next Theta stands to the supreme--

Who formed in number, sign, and scheme,

The illustrious lights that are;

And one addressed his saffron robe,

And one, clad in a silver globe,

Held rule with every star.

35 Iota's tuned to choral hymns

Of those that fly, while he that swims

In thankful safety lurks;

And foot, and chapiter, and niche,

The various histories enrich

Of God's recorded works.

36 Sigma presents the social droves

With him that solitary roves,

And man of all the chief;

Fair on whose face, and stately frame,

Did God impress his hallowed name,

For ocular belief.

37 Omega! greatest and the best,

Stands sacred to the day of rest,

For gratitude and thought;

Which blessed the world upon his pole,

And gave the universe his goal,

And closed the infernal draught.

38 O David, scholar of the Lord!

Such is thy science, whence reward,

And infinite degree;

O strength, O sweetness, lasting ripe!

God's harp thy symbol, and thy type

The lion and the bee!

39 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.

40 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, O Lord, Thou Art.

41 Thou art--to give and to confirm,

For each his talent and his term;

All flesh thy bounties share:

Thou shalt not call thy brother fool;

The porches of the Christian school

Are meekness, peace, and prayer.

42 Open and naked of offence,

Man's made of mercy, soul, and sense:

God armed the snail and wilk;

Be good to him that pulls thy plough;

Due food and care, due rest allow

For her that yields thee milk.

43 Rise up before the hoary head,

And God's benign commandment dread,

Which says thou shalt not die:

'Not as I will, but as thou wilt,'

Prayed He, whose conscience knew no guilt;

With whose blessed pattern vie.

44 Use all thy passions!--love is thine,

And joy and jealousy divine;

Thine hope's eternal fort,

And care thy leisure to disturb,

With fear concupiscence to curb,

And rapture to transport.

45 Act simply, as occasion asks;

Put mellow wine in seasoned casks;

Till not with ass and bull:

Remember thy baptismal bond;

Keep from commixtures foul and fond,

Nor work thy flax with wool.

46 Distribute; pay the Lord his tithe,

And make the widow's heart-strings blithe;

Resort with those that weep:

As you from all and each expect,

For all and each thy love direct,

And render as you reap.

47 The slander and its bearer spurn,

And propagating praise sojourn

To make thy welcome last;

Turn from old Adam to the New:

By hope futurity pursue:

Look upwards to the past.

48 Control thine eye, salute success,

Honour the wiser, happier bless,

And for thy neighbour feel;

Grutch not of mammon and his leaven,

Work emulation up to heaven

By knowledge and by zeal.

49 O David, highest in the list

Of worthies, on God's ways insist,

The genuine word repeat!

Vain are the documents of men,

And vain the flourish of the pen

That keeps the fool's conceit.

50 Praise above all--for praise prevails;

Heap up the measure, load the scales,

And good to goodness add:

The generous soul her Saviour aids,

But peevish obloquy degrades;

The Lord is great and glad.

51 For Adoration all the ranks

Of angels yield eternal thanks,

And David in the midst;

With God's good poor, which, last and least

In man's esteem, thou to thy feast,

O blessed bridegroom, bidst.

52 For Adoration seasons change,

And order, truth, and beauty range,

Adjust, attract, and fill:

The grass the polyanthus checks;

And polished porphyry reflects,

By the descending rill.

53 Rich almonds colour to the prime

For Adoration; tendrils climb,

And fruit-trees pledge their gems;

And Ivis, with her gorgeous vest,

Builds for her eggs her cunning nest,

And bell-flowers bow their stems.

54 With vinous syrup cedars spout;

From rocks pure honey gushing out,

For Adoration springs:

All scenes of painting crowd the map

Of nature; to the mermaid's pap

The scaled infant clings.

55 The spotted ounce and playsome cubs

Run rustling 'mongst the flowering shrubs,

And lizards feed the moss;

For Adoration beasts embark,

While waves upholding halcyon's ark

No longer roar and toss.

56 While Israel sits beneath his fig,

With coral root and amber sprig

The weaned adventurer sports;

Where to the palm the jasmine cleaves,

For Adoration 'mong the leaves

The gale his peace reports.

57 Increasing days their reign exalt,

Nor in the pink and mottled vault

The opposing spirits tilt;

And by the coasting reader spied,

The silverlings and crusions glide

For Adoration gilt.

58 For Adoration ripening canes,

And cocoa's purest milk detains

The western pilgrim's staff;

Where rain in clasping boughs enclosed,

And vines with oranges disposed,

Embower the social laugh.

59 Now labour his reward receives,

For Adoration counts his sheaves

To peace, her bounteous prince;

The nect'rine his strong tint imbibes,

And apples of ten thousand tribes,

And quick peculiar quince.

60 The wealthy crops of whitening rice

'Mongst thyine woods and groves of spice,

For Adoration grow;

And, marshalled in the fenced land,

The peaches and pomegranates stand,

Where wild carnations blow.

61 The laurels with the winter strive;

The crocus burnishes alive

Upon the snow-clad earth:

For Adoration myrtles stay

To keep the garden from dismay,

And bless the sight from dearth.

62 The pheasant shows his pompous neck;

And ermine, jealous of a speck,

With fear eludes offence:

The sable, with his glossy pride,

For Adoration is descried,

Where frosts the waves condense.

63 The cheerful holly, pensive yew,

And holy thorn, their trim renew;

The squirrel hoards his nuts:

All creatures batten o'er their stores,

And careful nature all her doors

For Adoration shuts.

64 For Adoration, David's Psalms

Lift up the heart to deeds of alms;

And he, who kneels and chants,

Prevails his passions to control,

Finds meat and medicine to the soul,

Which for translation pants.

65 For Adoration, beyond match,

The scholar bullfinch aims to catch

The soft flute's ivory touch;

And, careless, on the hazel spray

The daring redbreast keeps at bay

The damsel's greedy clutch.

66 For Adoration, in the skies,

The Lord's philosopher espies

The dog, the ram, and rose;

The planets' ring, Orion's sword;

Nor is his greatness less adored

In the vile worm that glows.

67 For Adoration, on the strings

The western breezes work their wings,

The captive ear to soothe--

Hark! 'tis a voice--how still, and small--

That makes the cataracts to fall,

Or bids the sea be smooth!

68 For Adoration, incense comes

From bezoar, and Arabian gums,

And from the civet's fur:

But as for prayer, or e'er it faints,

Far better is the breath of saints

Than galbanum or myrrh.

69 For Adoration, from the down

Of damsons to the anana's crown,

God sends to tempt the taste;

And while the luscious zest invites

The sense, that in the scene delights,

Commands desire be chaste.

70 For Adoration, all the paths

Of grace are open, all the baths

Of purity refresh;

And all the rays of glory beam

To deck the man of God's esteem,

Who triumphs o'er the flesh.

71 For Adoration, in the dome

Of Christ, the sparrows find a home;

And on his olives perch:

The swallow also dwells with thee,

O man of God's humility,

Within his Saviour's church.

72 Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,

And drops upon the leafy limes;

Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:

Sweet is the lily's silver bell,

And sweet the wakeful tapers' smell

That watch for early prayer.

73 Sweet the young nurse, with love intense,

Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;

Sweet when the lost arrive:

Sweet the musician's ardour beats,

While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,

The choicest flowers to hive.

74 Sweeter, in all the strains of love,

The language of thy turtle-dove,

Paired to thy swelling chord;

Sweeter, with every grace endued,

The glory of thy gratitude,

Respired unto the Lord.

75 Strong is the horse upon his speed;

Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,

Which makes at once his game:

Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;

Strong through the turbulent profound

Shoots xiphias to his aim.

76 Strong is the lion--like a coal

His eyeball--like a bastion's mole

His chest against the foes:

Strong the gier-eagle on his sail,

Strong against tide the enormous whale

Emerges as he goes.

77 But stronger still in earth and air,

And in the sea the man of prayer,

And far beneath the tide:

And in the seat to faith assigned,

Where ask is have, where seek is find,

Where knock is open wide.

78 Beauteous the fleet before the gale;

Beauteous the multitudes in mail,

Ranked arms, and crested heads;

Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild.

Walk, water, meditated wild,

And all the bloomy beds.

79 Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;

And beauteous when the veil's withdrawn,

The virgin to her spouse:

Beauteous the temple, decked and filled,

When to the heaven of heavens they build

Their heart-directed vows.

80 Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these,

The Shepherd King upon his knees,

For his momentous trust;

With wish of infinite conceit,

For man, beast, mute, the small and great,

And prostrate dust to dust.

81 Precious the bounteous widow's mite;

And precious, for extreme delight,

The largess from the churl:

Precious the ruby's blushing blaze,

And alba's blest imperial rays,

And pure cerulean pearl.

82 Precious the penitential tear;

And precious is the sigh sincere;

Acceptable to God:

And precious are the winning flowers,

In gladsome Israel's feast of bowers,

Bound on the hallowed sod.

83 More precious that diviner part

Of David, even the Lord's own heart,

Great, beautiful, and new:

In all things where it was intent,

In all extremes, in each event,

Proof--answering true to true.

84 Glorious the sun in mid career;

Glorious the assembled fires appear;

Glorious the comet's train:

Glorious the trumpet and alarm;

Glorious the Almighty's stretched-out arm;

Glorious the enraptured main:

85 Glorious the northern lights astream;

Glorious the song, when God's the theme;

Glorious the thunder's roar:

Glorious hosannah from the den;

Glorious the catholic amen;

Glorious the martyr's gore:

86 Glorious--more glorious is the crown

Of Him that brought salvation down,

By meekness called thy Son;

Thou that stupendous truth believed,

And now the matchless deed's achieved,

Determined, Dared, and Done.

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

The history of this 'marvellous boy' is familiar to all the readers of

English poetry, and requires only a cursory treatment here. Thomas

Chatterton was born in Bristol, November 20, 1752. His father, a teacher

in the free-school there, had died before his birth, and he was sent to

be educated at a charity-school. He first learned to read from a black-

letter Bible. At the age of fourteen, he was put apprentice to an

attorney; a situation which, however uncongenial, left him ample leisure

for pursuing his private studies. In an unlucky hour, some evil genius

seemed to have whispered to this extra-ordinary youth,--'Do not find or

force, but forge thy way to renown; the other paths to the summit of the

hill are worn and common-place; try a new and dangerous course, the

rather as I forewarn thee that thy time is short.' When, accordingly,

the new bridge at Bristol was finished in October 1768, Chatterton sent

to a newspaper a fictitious account of the opening of the old bridge,

alleging in a note that he had found the principal part of the

description in an ancient MS. And having thus fairly begun to work the

mint of forgery, it was amazing what a number of false coins he threw

off, and with what perfect ease and mastery! Ancient poems, pretending

to have been written four hundred and fifty years before; fragments of

sermons on the Holy Spirit, dated from the fifteenth century; accounts

of all the churches of Bristol as they had appeared three hundred years

before; with drawings and descriptions of the castle--most of them

professing to be drawn from the writings of 'ane gode prieste, Thomas

Rowley'--issued in thick succession from this wonderful, and, to use

the Shakspearean word in a twofold sense, 'forgetive' brain. He next

ventured to send to Horace Walpole, who was employed on a History of

British Painters, an account of eminent 'Carvellers and Peyneters,' who,

according to him, once flourished in Bristol. These labours he plied in

secret, and with the utmost enthusiasm. He used to write by the light of

the moon, deeming that there was a special inspiration in the rays of

that planet, and reminding one of poor Nat Lee inditing his insane

tragedies in his asylum under the same weird lustre. On Sabbaths he was

wont to stroll away into the country around Bristol, which is very

beautiful, and to draw sketches of those objects which impressed his

imagination. He often lay down on the meadows near St Mary's Redcliffe

Church, admiring the ancient edifice; and some years ago we saw a

chamber near the summit of that edifice where he used to sit and write,

his 'eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' and where we could imagine him, when

a moonless night fell, composing his wild Runic lays by the light of a

candle burning in a human skull. It was actually in one of the rooms of

this church that some ancient chests had been deposited, including one

called the 'Coffre of Mr Canynge,' an eminent merchant in Bristol, who

had rebuilt the church in the reign of Edward IV. This coffer had been

broken up by public authority in 1727, and some valuable deeds had been

taken out. Besides these, they contained various MSS., some of which

Chatterton's father, whose uncle was sexton of the church, had carried

off and used as covers to the copy-books of his scholars. This furnished

a hint to Chatterton's inventive genius. He gave out that among these

parchments he had found many productions of Mr Canynge's, and of the

aforesaid Thomas Rowley's, a priest of the fifteenth century, and a

friend of Canynge's. Chatterton had become a contributor to a periodical

of the day called _The Town and Country Magazine_, and to it from time

to time he sent these poems. A keen controversy arose as to their

genuineness. Horace Walpole shewed some of them, which Chatterton had

sent him, to Gray and Mason, who were deemed, justly, first-rate

authorities on antiquarian matters, and who at once pronounced them

forgeries. It is deeply to be regretted that these men, perceiving, as

they must have done, the great merit of these productions, had not made

more particular inquiries about them, and tried to help and save the

poet. Walpole, to say the least of it, treated him coldly, telling him,

when he had discovered the forgery, to attend to his own business, and

keeping some of his MSS. in his hands, till an indignant letter from the

author compelled him to restore them.

Chatterton now determined to go to London. His three years' apprenticeship

had expired, and there was in Bristol no further field for his aspiring

genius. He found instant employment among the booksellers, and procured

an introduction to Beckford, the patriot mayor, who tried to get him

engaged upon the Opposition side in politics. Our capricious and

unprincipled poet, however, declared that he was a poor author that could

not write on both sides; and although his leanings were to the popular

party, yet on the death of Beckford he addressed a letter to Lord North

in support of his administration. He had projected some large works, such

as a History of England and a History of London, and wrote flaming

letters to his mother and sisters about his prospects, enclosing them at

the same time small remittances of money. But his bright hopes were soon

overcast. Instead of a prominent political character, he found himself a

mere bookseller's hack. To this his poverty no more than his will would

consent, for though that was great it was equalled by his pride. His life

in the country had been regular, although his religious principles were

loose; but in town, misery drove him to intemperance, and intemperance,

in its reaction, to remorse and a desperate tampering with the thought,

'There is one remedy for all.'

At last, after a vain attempt to obtain an appointment as a surgeon's

mate to Africa, he made up his mind to suicide. A guinea had been sent

him by a gentleman, which he declined. Mrs Angel, his landlady, knowing

him to be in want, the day before his death offered him his dinner, but

this also he spurned; and, on the 25th of August 1770, having first

destroyed all his papers, he swallowed arsenic, and was found dead in

his bed.

He was buried in a shell in the burial-place of Shoe-Lane Workhouse.

He was aged seventeen years nine months and a few days. Alas for

'The sleepless soul that perished in his pride!'

Chatterton, had he lived, would, perhaps, have become a powerful poet,

or a powerful character of some kind. But we must now view him chiefly

as a prodigy. Some have treated his power as unnatural--resembling a

huge hydrocephalic head, the magnitude of which implies disease,

ultimate weakness, and early death. Others maintain that, apart from the

extraordinary elements that undoubtedly characterised Chatterton, and

constituted him a premature and prodigious birth intellectually, there

was also in parts of his poems evidence of a healthy vigour which only

needed favourable circumstances to develop into transcendent excellence.

Hazlitt, holding with the one of these opinions, cries, 'If Chatterton

had had a great work to do by living, he would have lived!' Others

retort on the critic, 'On the same principle, why did Keats, whom you

rate so high, perish so early?' The question altogether is nugatory,

seeing it can never be settled. Suffice it that these songs and rhymes

of Chatterton have great beauties, apart from the age and position of

their author. There may at times be madness, but there is method in it.

The flight of the rhapsody is ever upheld by the strength of the wing,

and while the reading discovered is enormous for a boy, the depth of

feeling exhibited is equally extraordinary; and the clear, firm judgment

which did not characterise his conduct, forms the root and the trunk of

much of his poetry. It was said of his eyes that it seemed as if fire

rolled under them; and it rolls still, and shall ever roll, below many

of his verses.

BRISTOWE TRAGEDY.

1 The feathered songster, chanticleer,

Hath wound his bugle-horn,

And told the early villager

The coming of the morn.

2 King Edward saw the ruddy streaks

Of light eclipse the gray,

And heard the raven's croaking throat

Proclaim the fated day.

3 'Thou'rt right,' quoth he, 'for by the God

That sits enthroned on high!

Charles Bawdin and his fellows twain

To-day shall surely die.'

4 Then with a jug of nappy ale

His knights did on him wait;

'Go tell the traitor that to-day

He leaves this mortal state.'

5 Sir Canterlone then bended low,

With heart brimful of woe;

He journeyed to the castle-gate,

And to Sir Charles did go.

6 But when he came, his children twain,

And eke his loving wife,

With briny tears did wet the floor,

For good Sir Charles' life.

7 'O good Sir Charles!' said Canterlone,

'Bad tidings I do bring.'

'Speak boldly, man,' said brave Sir Charles;

'What says the traitor king?'

8 'I grieve to tell; before that sun

Doth from the heaven fly,

He hath upon his honour sworn,

That thou shalt surely die.'

9 'We all must die,' quoth brave Sir Charles;

'Of that I'm not afeard;

What boots to live a little space?

Thank Jesus, I'm prepared:

10 '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.'

11 Then Canterlone he did go out,

To tell the mayor straight

To get all things in readiness

For good Sir Charles' fate.

12 Then Master Canynge sought the king,

And fell down on his knee;

'I'm come,' quoth he, 'unto your Grace

To move your clemency.'

13 'Then,' quoth the king, 'your tale speak out;

You have been much our friend;

Whatever your request may be,

We will to it attend.'

14 'My noble liege! all my request

Is for a noble knight,

Who, though perhaps he has done wrong,

He thought it still was right:

15 'He has a spouse and children twain--

All ruined are for aye,

If that you are resolved to let

Charles Bawdin die to-day.'

16 'Speak not of such a traitor vile,'

The king in fury said;

'Before the evening star doth shine,

Bawdin shall lose his head:

17 'Justice does loudly for him call,

And he shall have his meed;

Speak, Master Canynge! what thing else

At present do you need?'

18 'My noble liege!' good Canynge said,

'Leave justice to our God,

And lay the iron rule aside;--

Be thine the olive rod.

19 '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.

20 'Let mercy rule thine infant reign;

'Twill fix thy crown full sure;

From race to race thy family

All sovereigns shall endure:

21 'But if with blood and slaughter thou

Begin thy infant reign,

Thy crown upon thy children's brow

Will never long remain.'

22 'Canynge, away! this traitor vile

Has scorned my power and me;

How canst thou then for such a man

Entreat my clemency?'

23 'My noble liege! the truly brave

Will valorous actions prize;

Respect a brave and noble mind,

Although in enemies.'

24 'Canynge, away! By God in heaven,

That did me being give,

I will not taste a bit of bread

While this Sir Charles doth live.

25 'By Mary, and all saints in heaven,

This sun shall be his last.'--

Then Canynge dropped a briny tear,

And from the presence passed.

26 With heart brimful of gnawing grief,

He to Sir Charles did go,

And sat him down upon a stool,

And tears began to flow.

27 'We all must die,' quoth brave Sir Charles;

'What boots it how or when?

Death is the sure, the certain fate

Of all us mortal men.

28 '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?'

29 Quoth godly Canynge, 'I do weep,

That thou so soon must die,

And leave thy sons and helpless wife;

'Tis this that wets mine eye.'

30 'Then dry the tears that out thine eye

From godly fountains spring;

Death I despise, and all the power

Of Edward, traitor king.

31 '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.

32 'Before I saw the lightsome sun,

This was appointed me;--

Shall mortal man repine or grudge

What God ordains to be?

33 'How oft in battle have I stood,

When thousands died around;

When smoking streams of crimson blood

Imbrued the fattened ground?

34 'How did I know that every dart,

That cut the airy way,

Might not find passage to my heart,

And close mine eyes for aye?

35 'And shall I now from fear of death

Look wan and be dismayed?

No! from my heart fly childish fear,

Be all the man displayed.

36 '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.

37 'My honest friend, my fault has been

To serve God and my prince;

And that I no timeserver am,

My death will soon convince.

38 'In London city was I born,

Of parents of great note;

My father did a noble arms

Emblazon on his coat:

39 'I make no doubt that he is gone

'Where soon I hope to go;

Where we for ever shall be blest,

From out the reach of woe.

40 'He taught me justice and the laws

With pity to unite;

And likewise taught me how to know

The wrong cause from the right:

41 'He taught me with a prudent hand

To feed the hungry poor;

Nor let my servants drive away

The hungry from my door:

42 'And none can say but all my life

I have his counsel kept,

And summed the actions of each day

Each night before I slept.

43 'I have a spouse; go ask of her

If I denied her bed;

I have a king, and none can lay

Black treason on my head.

44 'In Lent, and on the holy eve,

From flesh I did refrain;

Why should I then appear dismayed

To leave this world of pain?

45 'No, hapless Henry! I rejoice

I shall not see thy death;

Most willingly in thy just cause

Do I resign my breath.

46 'O fickle people, ruined land!

Thou wilt know peace no moe;

While Richard's sons exalt themselves,

Thy brooks with blood will flow.

47 'Say, were ye tired of godly peace,

And godly Henry's reign,

That you did change your easy days

For those of blood and pain?

48 '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!

49 'What though uphoisted on a pole,

My limbs shall rot in air,

And no rich monument of brass

Charles Bawdin's name shall bear?

50 'Yet in the holy book above,

Which time can't eat away,

There, with the servants of the Lord,

My name shall live for aye.

51 'Then welcome death! for life eterne

I leave this mortal life:

Farewell, vain world! and all that's dear,

My sons and loving wife!

52 '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.'

53 Quoth Canynge, ''Tis a goodly thing

To be prepared to die;

And from this world of pain and grief

To God in heaven to fly.'

54 And now the bell began to toll,

And clarions to sound;

Sir Charles he heard the horses' feet

A-prancing on the ground:

55 And just before the officers

His loving wife came in,

Weeping unfeigned tears of woe,

With loud and dismal din.

56 'Sweet Florence! now, I pray, forbear;

In quiet let me die;

Pray God that every Christian soul

May look on death as I.

57 'Sweet Florence! why those briny tears?

They wash my soul away,

And almost make me wish for life,

With thee, sweet dame, to stay.

58 ''Tis but a journey I shall go

Unto the land of bliss;

Now, as a proof of husband's love,

Receive this holy kiss.'

59 Then Florence, faltering in her say,

Trembling these words she spoke,--

'Ah, cruel Edward! bloody king!

My heart is well-nigh broke.

60 'Ah, sweet Sir Charles! why wilt thou go

Without thy loving wife?

The cruel axe that cuts thy neck

Shall also end my life.'

61 And now the officers came in

To bring Sir Charles away,

Who turned to his loving wife,

And thus to her did say:

62 '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:

63 'Teach them to run the noble race

That I their father run;

Florence! should death thee take--adieu!--

Ye officers, lead on.'

64 Then Florence raved as any mad,

And did her tresses tear;--

'Oh, stay, my husband, lord, and life!'--

Sir Charles then dropped a tear;--

65 Till tired out with raving loud,

She fell upon the floor:

Sir Charles exerted all his might,

And marched from out the door.

66 Upon a sledge he mounted then,

With looks full brave and sweet;

Looks that did show no more concern

Than any in the street.

67 Before him went the council-men,

In scarlet robes and gold,

And tassels spangling in the sun,

Much glorious to behold:

68 The friars of St Augustine next

Appeared to the sight,

All clad in homely russet weeds

Of godly monkish plight:

69 In different parts a godly psalm

Most sweetly they did chaunt;

Behind their backs six minstrels came,

Who tuned the strong bataunt.

70 Then five-and-twenty archers came;

Each one the bow did bend,

From rescue of King Henry's friends

Sir Charles for to defend.

71 Bold as a lion came Sir Charles,

Drawn on a cloth-laid sled

By two black steeds, in trappings white,

With plumes upon their head.

72 Behind him five-and-twenty more

Of archers strong and stout,

With bended bow each one in hand,

Marched in goodly rout:

73 Saint James's friars marched next,

Each one his part did chaunt;

Behind their backs six minstrels came

Who tuned the strong bataunt:

74 Then came the mayor and aldermen,

In cloth of scarlet decked;

And their attending men, each one

Like eastern princes tricked:

75 And after them a multitude

Of citizens did throng;

The windows were all full of heads,

As he did pass along.

76 And when he came to the high cross,

Sir Charles did turn and say,--

'O Thou that savest man from sin,

Wash my soul clean this day!'

77 At the great minster window sat

The king in mickle state,

To see Charles Bawdin go along

To his most welcome fate.

78 Soon as the sledge drew nigh enough

That Edward he might hear,

The brave Sir Charles he did stand up,

And thus his words declare:

79 'Thou seest me, Edward! traitor vile!

Exposed to infamy;

But be assured, disloyal man!

I'm greater now than thee.

80 'By foul proceedings, murder, blood,

Thou wearest now a crown;

And hast appointed me to die,

By power not thine own.

81 'Thou thinkest I shall die to-day;

I have been dead till now,

And soon shall live to wear a crown

For ever on my brow:

82 'Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few years

Shall rule this fickle land,

To let them know how wide the rule

'Twixt king and tyrant hand:

83 'Thy power unjust, thou traitor slave!

Shall fall on thy own head'----

From out of hearing of the king

Departed then the sled.

84 King Edward's soul rushed to his face,

He turned his head away,

And to his brother Gloucester

He thus did speak and say:

85 'To him that so much dreaded death

No ghastly terrors bring,

Behold the man! he spake the truth,

He's greater than a king!'

86 'So let him die!' Duke Richard said;

'And may each of our foes

Bend down their necks to bloody axe,

And feed the carrion crows!'

87 And now the horses gently drew

Sir Charles up the high hill;

The axe did glisten in the sun,

His precious blood to spill.

88 Sir Charles did up the scaffold go,

As up a gilded car

Of victory, by valorous chiefs,

Gained in the bloody war:

89 And to the people he did say,--

'Behold, you see me die,

For serving loyally my king,

My king most rightfully.

90 '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.

91 'You leave your good and lawful king

When in adversity;

Like me unto the true cause stick,

And for the true cause die.'