The youth did ride, and soon did meet

John coming back amain; Whom in a trice he tried to stop,

By catching at his rein ;

But not performing what he meant,

And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,

And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away

Went postboy at his heels,
The postboy's horse right glad to miss

The lumb'ring of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,

Thus seeing Gilpin fly.
With postboy scamp'ring in the rear,

They rais'd the hue and cry :

Stop thief! stop thief!-a highwayman!"

Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that pass'd that way

Did join in the pursuit.

Dreading a negative, and overawid
Lest he should trespass, begg'd to go abroad.
“Go, fellow !-whither?”-turning short about

Nay. Stay at home—you 're always going out**
• Tis but a step, sir, just at the street's end."
“For what?"_“An' please you, sir, to see a friend.'
"A friend !" Horatio cried, and seem'd to start-

Yea marry shalt thou, and with all my heart-
And fetch my cloak; for, though the night be raw,
I'll see him ioo—the first I ever saw.”

I knew the man, and knew his nature mild,
And was his plaything often when a child ;
But somewhat at that moment pinch'd him close,
Else he was seldom bitter or morose.
Perhaps his confidence just then betray'd,
His grief might prompt him with the speech he made;
Perhaps 'twas mere good-humor gave it birth,
The harmless play of pleasantry and mirth.
Howe'er it was, his language, in my mind,
Bespoke at least a man that knew mankind.

But not to moralize too much, and strain,
To prove an evil, of which all complain,
(I hate long arguments verbosely span.)
One story more, dear Hill, and I have done.
Once on a time an emp'ror, a wise man,
No matter where, in China, or Japan,
Decreed, that whosoever should offend
Against the well-known duties of a friend,
Convicted once should ever after wear

But half a coat, and show his bosom bare.
The punishment importing this, no doubt,
That all was naught within, and all found out.

O happy Britain! we have not to sear
Such hard and arbitrary measure here;
Else, could a law, like that which I relate,
Once have the sanction of our triple state,
Some few, that I have known in days of old,
Would run most dreadful risk of caiching cold;
While you, my friend, whatever wind should blou
Might traverse England safely to and fro,
An honest man, close-button'd to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within

And now the turnpike gates again

Flew open in short space; The toll-men thinking, as before,

That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,

For he got first to town;
Nor stopp'd till where he had got up

He did again get down.

Now let us sing, Long live the King,

And Gilpin long live he ;
And, when he next doth ride abroad,

May I be there to see!

AN EPISTLE

TO

YARDLEY OAK.

JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all

That once liv'd here, thy brethren, at my birth, DEAR JOSEPII-five-and-twenty years ago (Since which I number ihreescore winters past.) Alas, how time escapes ! 'tis even som

A shatter'd vet'ran, hollow-trunk'd perhaps,
With frequent intercourse, and always sweet, As now, and with excoriate forks deform,
And always friendly, we were wont to cheat Relics of ages! Could a mind, imbued
A tedious hour-and now we never meet!

With truth from Heaven, created thing adore,
As some grave gentleman in Terence says, I might with rev'rence kneel, and worship thee.
("Twas therefore much the same in ancient days)
Good lack, we know not what tomorrow brings- It seems idolatry with some excuse,
Strange fluctuation of all human things!

When our forefather Druids in their oaks
True. Changes will befall, and friends may part, Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet
But distance only cannot change the heart: Unpurified by an authentic act
And, were I call'd to prove th' assertion true, Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
One proof should serve a reference to you. Lov'd not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom

Whence comes it then, that in the wane of life, of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Though nothing have occurr'd to kindle strife, Of fruit proscrib'd, as to a refuge, fled.
We find the friends we fancied we had won,
Though num’rous once, reduc'd to few or none? Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,
Can gold grow worthless, that has stood the touch? Which babes might play with ; and the thievish jay
No; gold they seem'd, but they were never such. Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd

Horatio's servant once, with bow and cringe, The auburn out that held thee, swallowing down Swinging the parlor-door upon its hinge,

Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs

And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp.

Delight in agitation, yet sustain
But Fate thy growth decreed ; autumnal rains The force that agitates, not unimpair'd ;
Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the soil But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer,

Of their best tone their dissolution owe.
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar'd
The soft receptacle, in which, secure,

Thoughi cannot spend itself, comparing still 'Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. The great and little of thy lot, thy growth

From almost nullity into a state So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search Slow, into such magnificent decay. of argument, employ'd too oft amiss,

Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Sifts half the pleasures of short life away! Could shake thee to the root-and time has been

When tempests could not. At thy firmest age Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod 'Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents, Swelling with vegetative force instinct

That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the deck Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins, or some flagg'd admiral ; and tortuous arms, Now stars; two lobes, protruding, pair'd exact ; The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,

To the four-quarter'd winds, robust and bold, And, all the elements thy puny growth

Warp'd into tough knee-timber,* many a load ! Fost'ring propitious, thou becam'st a twig.

But the ax spar'd thee. In those thrifiier days,

Oaks fell noi, hewn by thousands, to supply Who liv'd, when thou wast such? O couldst thou The bottomless demands of contest, wag'd speak,

For senatorial honors. Thus to Time As in Dodona once thy kindred trees

The task was left to whittle thee away Oracular, I would not curious ask

With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge, The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more, Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.

Disjoining from the rest, has, unobsery'd,

Achiev'd a labor, which had far and wide, By thee I might correct, erroneous oft,

By man perform d, made all the forest ring. 'The clock of history, facts and events Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts

Embowel'd now, and of thy ancient self Recov'ring, and misstated setting right

Possessing nought, but the scoop'd rind, that seems Desp’rate attempt, till trees shall speak again! An huge throai, calling to the clouds for drink,

Which it would give in rivulets to thy root, Time made thee what thou wast, king of the Thou lemptest none, but rather much forbidd'st wood;

The seller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite. And Time hath made thee what thou art-a cave Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock, For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs A quarry of stout spurs, and knotted fangs, O'erhung the champaign ; and the num'rous flocks, Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp That graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect. Uncrowded, yet safe-shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee ow. Thou hast outliv'd So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet Thy popularity, and art become

Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing

Though all the superstructure, by the tooth Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.

Pulveriz'd of venality, a shell

Stands now, and semblance only of itself!
While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd
Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass ;

Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent Then livig; then sapling; and, as cent'ry roll'd

them off Slow after century, a giant-bulk

Long since, and rovers of the forest wild, Of girih enormous, with moss-cushion'd root With bow and shaft, have burnt them. Some have left Upheav'd above the soil, and sides emboss'd A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy white; With prominent wens globose-uill at the last And some, memorial none, where once they grew. The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth On other mighty ones, found also thee.

Proof not contemptible of what she can,

Even where death predominates. The spring What exhibitions various hath the world

Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force, Witness'd of mutability, in all

Than yonder upstarts of the neighb'ring wood, That we account most durable below!

So much thy juniors, who their birth receivid
Change is the diet on which all subsist,

Half a millennium since the date of thine.
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. Skies uncertain now the heat But since, although well qualified by age
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds May be expected from thee, seated here
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life

me Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, In all that live, plant, animal, and man,

which, by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads,

to the angle forned where the deck and the ship's sides Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,

JAMES BEATTIE.

JAMES BEATTIE, an admired poet and a moralist, priety applied to such a person as he represents, and was born about 1735, in the county of Kincardine, the “Gothic days” in which he is placed are not hisin Scotland. His father was a small farmer, who, torically to be recognized, yet there is great beauty, though living in indigence, had imbibed so much of both moral and descriptive, in the delineation, and the spirit of his country, that he procured for his son perhaps no writer has managed the Spenserian stanza a literary education, first at a parochial school, and with more dexterity and harmony. The second part then at the college of New Aberdeen, in which he of this poem, which contains the maturer part of the entered as a bursar or exhibitioner. In the intervals education of the young baru, did not appear till 1774, of the sessions, James is supposed to have added to and then left the work a fragment. But whatever his scanty pittance by teaching at a country-school. may be the defects of the Minstrel, it possesses beauReturning to Aberdeen, he obtained the situation of ties which will secure it a place among the approved assistant to the master of the principal grammar- productions of the British muse. school, whose daughter he married. From youth he Beattie visited London for the first time in 1771, had cultivated a talent for poetry; and in 1760 he where he was received with much cordiality by the ventured to submit the fruit of his studies in this admirers of his writings, who found equal cause to walk to the public, by a volume of Original Poems love and esteem the author. Not long afterwards, and Translations." They were followed, in 1765, by the degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by his “ 'The Judgment of Paris ;” and these performances, college at Aberdeen. In 1777 a new edition, by subwhich displayed a familiarity with poetic diction, and scription, was published of his " Essay on Truth,” harmony of versification, seem to have made him to which were added three Essays on subjects of favorably known in his neighborhood.

polite literature. In 1783 he published “ DisserThe interest of the Earl of Errol acquired for him tations Moral and Critical,” consisting of detached the post of professor of moral philosophy and logic essays, which had formed part of a course of lecin the Marischal College of Aberdeen; in which tures delivered by the author as professor. His last capacity he published a work, entitled “ An Essay on work was “ Evidences of the Christian Religion, the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in opposition briefly and plainly stated,” 2 vols. 1786. His time to Sophistry and Scepticism," 1770. Being written was now much occupied with the duties of his in a popular manner, it was much read, and gained station, and particularly with the education of his the author many admirers, especially among the most eldest son, a youth of uncommon promise. His distinguished members of the Church of England ; death, of a decline, was a very severe trial of the and, at the suggestion of Lord Mansfield, he was father's fortitude and resignation; and it was folrewarded with a pension of 2001. from the King's lowed some years after by that of his younger son. privy-purse.

These afflictions, with other domestic misfortunes, In 1771 his fame was largely extended by the entirely broke his spirits, and brought him to his first part of his “ Minstrel," a piece the subject of grave at Aberdeen, in August, 1803, in the 68th which is the imagined birth and education of a poet. year of his age. Although the word Minstrel is not with much pro

While from his bending shoulder, decent hung
His harp, the sole companion of his way,
Which to the whistling wind responsive rung.
And ever as he went some merry lay he sung.

THE MINSTREL;

OR,

PREFACE.

Fret not thyself, thou glimering child of pride,
THE PROGRESS OF GENIUS. That a poor villager inspires my strain;

With thee let Pageanıry and Power abide :
The gentle Muses haunt the sylvan reign;

Where through wild groves at eve the lonely swain The design wns, to trace the progress of a poetical Enraptur'd roams, to gaze on Nature's charms.

genius, born in a rude age, froin the first dawning They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain,
of fancy and reason, till that period at which he The parasite their influence never warms,
may be supposed capable of appearing in the Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms
world as a Minstrel, that is, as an itinerant poet
and musician ;-a character which, according to Though richest hues the peacock's plumes adorn,
the notions of our forefathers, was not only re. Yet horror screams from his discordant throat
spectable but sacred.

Rise, sons of harmony, and hail the morn,
I have endeavored 10 imitate Spenser in the measure While warbling larks on russet pinions float:

of his verse, and in the harmony, simplicity, and Or seek at noon the woodland scene remote,
variety of his composition. Antique expressions where the grey linnels carol from the hill.
have avoided; admitting, however, some old worus, o let them ne'er, with artificial note,
where they seemed to suit ihe subject : but I hope To please a tyrant, strain the little bill,
none will be found that are now obsolete, or in But sing what Heaven inspires, and wander whero
any degree not intelligible to a reader of English

they will. poetry. To those who may be disposed to ask, what could Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's hand;

induce me to write in so difficult a measure, I can Nor was perfection made for man below.
only answer, that it pleases my ear, and seems. Yet all her schemes with nicest art are plann'd,
from its Gothic structure and original, to bear Good counteracting ill, and gladness woe.
some relation to the subject and spirit of the poem. With gold and gems if Chilian mountains glow;
It admits both simplicity and magnificence of sound If bleak and barren Scotia's hills arise;
and of language, beyond any other stanza that 1 'There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow;
am acquainted with. It allows the sententiousness Here peaceful are the vales, and pure the skies,
of the couplet, as well as the more complex modu- And freedom fires ihe soul, and sparkles in the eyes
lation of blank verse. What some critics have re-
marked, of its uniformity growing at last tiresome Then grieve vot, thou, to whom th' indulgent Muse
to the ear, will be found to hold true, only when Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire:
the poetry is faulty in other respects.

Nor blame the partial Fates, if they refuse
Th' imperial banquet, and the rich attire.

Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre.
Воок І.

Wilt thou debase the heart which God refind?

No; let thy heaven-taught soul to Heaven aspire, Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

To fancy, freedom, harmony, resign'd; The steep where Fame's proud temple shines asar; Ambition's grovelling crew for ever left behind. Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star,

Canst thou forego the pure ethereal soul And waged with Fortune an eternal war;

In each fine sense so exquisitely keen, Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, On the dull couch of Luxury to loll, And Poverty's unconquerable bar,

Stung with disease, and stupefied with spleen, In life's low vale remote has pined alone,

Fain to implore the aid of Flattery's screen, Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown! Even from thyself thy lothesome heart to hide,

(The mansion then no more of joy serene,) And yet the languor of inglorious days,

Where sear, distrust, malevolence, abide,
Not equally oppressive is to all ;

And impotent desire, and disappointed pride?
Him, who ne'er listen'd to the voice of praise,
The silence of neglect can ne'er appal.

O how canst thou renounce the boundless store There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition's call, of charms which Nature to her votary yields ! Would shrink to hear th' obstreperous trump of The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, Fame;

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; Supremely blest, if to their portion fall

All that the genial ray of morning gilds, Health, competence, and peace. Nor higher aim And all that echoes to the song of even, Had he, whose simple tale these artless lines pro- All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, claim.

And all the dread magnificence of Heaven.

O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven The rolls of fame I will not now explore ; Nor need I here describe in learned lay,

These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health, How forth the Minstrel far'd in days of yore,

And love, and ntleness, and joy, impart. Right glad of heart, though homely in array ; But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth His waving locks and beard a!l hoary grey: E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart :