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THE following attempts in Verse are laid before the public with extreme diffidence. The Author is very conscious that the juvenile efforts of a youth, who has not received the polish of Academical discipline, and who has been but sparingly blessed with opportunities for the prosecution of scholastic pursuits, must necessarily be defective in the accuracy and finished elegance which mark the works of the man who has passed his life in the retirement of his study, furnishing his mind with images, and at the same time attaining the power of disposing those images to the best advantage.

The unpremeditated effusions of a boy, from his thirteenth year, employed, not in the acquisition of literary information, but in the more active business of life, must not be expected to exhibit any considerable portion of the correctness of a Virgil, or the vigorous compression of a Horace. Men are not, I believe, frequently known to bestow much labour on their amusements: and these Poems were, most of them, written merely to beguile a leisure hour, or to fill up the languid intervals of studies of a severer nature.

Πας το οικείος έργον αγαπαω, 66 Every one loves his own work," says the Stagyrite; but it was no overweening affection of this kind which induced this publication. Had the author relied on his own judgment only, these Poems would not, in all probability, ever have seen the light.

Perhaps it may be asked of him, what are his motives for this publication? He answers-simply

these: The facilitation, through its means, of those studies which, from his earliest infancy, have been the principal objects of his ambition; and the increase of the capacity to pursue those inclinations which may one day place him in an honourable station in the scale of society.

The principal Poem in this little collection (Clifton Grove) is, he fears, deficient in numbers and harmonious coherency of parts. It is, however, merely to be regarded as a description of a nocturnal ramble in that charming retreat, accompanied with such reflections as the scene naturally suggested. It was written twelve months ago, when the author was in his sixteenth year.-The Miscellanies are some of them the productions of a very early age. Of the Odes that "To an early Primrose" was written at thirteen-the others are of a later date.-The Sonnets are chiefly irregular; they have, perhaps, no other claim to that SPECIFIC denomination, than that they consist only of fourteen lines.

Such are the Poems towards which I entreat the lenity of the public. The critic will doubtless find in them much to condemn; he may likewise possibly discover something to commend. Let him scan my faults with an indulgent eye, and in the work of that correction which I invite, let him remember he is holding the iron mace of criticism over the flimsy superstructure of a youth of seventeen, and, remembering that, may he forbear from crushing, by too much rigour, the painted butterfly whose transient colours may otherwise be capable of affording a moment's innocent amusement.

H. K. WHITE.

Nottingham.

TO MY LYRE.

AN ODE.

I.

THOU Simple Lyre!-Thy music wild
Has served to charm the weary hour,
And many a lonely night has 'guiled,
When even pain has own'd and smiled,
Its fascinating power.

II.

Yet, oh my Lyre! the busy crowd
Will little heed thy simple tones:
Them mightier minstrels harping loud
Engross, and thou and I must shroud
Where dark oblivion 'thrones.

III.

No hand, thy diapason o'er,

Well skill'd, I throw with sweep sublime;

For me, no academic lore

Has taught the solemn strain to pour,

Or build the polish'd rhyme.

IV.

Yet thou to Sylvan themes can soar;

Thou know'st to charm the woodland train:

The rustic swains believe thy power

Can hush the wild winds when they roar,

And still the billowy main.

V.

These honours, Lyre, we yet may keep,
I, still unknown, may live with thee,
And gentle zephyr's wing will sweep
Thy solemn string, where low I sleep,
Beneath the alder tree.

VI.

This little dirge will please me more
Than the full requiem's swelling peal;
I'd rather than that crowds should sigh
For me, that from some kindred eye
The trickling tear should steal.

VII.

Yet dear to me the wreath of bay,

Perhaps from me debarr'd:

And dear to me the classic zone,

Which, snatch'd from learning's labour'd

Adorns the accepted bard.

VIII.

[throne

And O! if yet 'twere mine to dwell
Where Cam or Isis winds along,
Perchance, inspired with ardour chaste,
I yet might call the ear of taste

To listen to my song.

IX.

Oh! then, my little friend, thy style

I'd change to happier lays,

Oh! then, the cloister'd glooms should smile, And through the long, the fretted aisle

Should swell the note of praise.

CLIFTON GROVE:

A SKETCH IN VERSE.

Lo! in the west, fast fades the lingering light,
And day's last vestige takes its silent flight.
No more is heard the woodman's measured stroke
Which, with the dawn, from yonder dingle broke;
No more hoarse clamouring o'er the uplifted head,
The crows assembling, seek their wind-rock'd bed;
Still'd is the village hum-the woodland sounds
Have ceased to echo o'er the dewy grounds,
And general silence reigns, save when below,
The murmuring Trent is scarcely heard to flow;
And save when, swung by 'nighted rustic late,
Oft, on its hinge, rebounds the jarring gate;
Or when the sheep-bell, in the distant vale,
Breathes its wild music on the downy gale.

Now, when the rustic wears the social smile,
Released from day and its attendant toil,
And draws his household round their evening fire,
And tells the oft-told tales that never tire;
Or where the town's blue turrets dimly rise,
And manufacture taints the ambient skies,
The pale mechanic leaves the labouring loom,
The air-pent hold, the pestilential room,

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