WAS born in 1685, and died in the very minute of the earthquake of 1750, of the shock of which, though speechless, he appeared to be sensible. His life was active, benevolent, and useful: he was the general friend of unfortunate genius, and his schemes for public utility were frustrated only |

VERSES WRITTEN WHEN ALONE IN AN INN AT SOUTHAMPTON.

TWENTY lost years have stolen their hours away,
Since in this inn, even in this room, I lay :
How changed! what then was rapture, fire, and air,
Seems now sad silence all and blank despair!
Is it that youth paints every view too bright,
And, life advancing, fancy fades her light?
Ah, no!-nor yet is day so far declined,
Nor can time's creeping coldness reach the mind.
'Tis that I miss the inspirer of that youth;
Her, whose soft smile was love, whose soul was truth.
Her, from whose pain I never wish'd relief,
And for whose pleasure I could smile at grief.
Prospects that, view'd with her, inspired before,
Now seen without her can delight no more.
Death snatch'd my joys, by cutting off her share,
But left her griefs to multiply my care.

Pensive and cold this room in each changed part
I view, and, shock'd, from ev'ry object start:
There hung the watch, that beating hours from day,
Told its sweet owner's lessening life away.
There her dear diamond taught the sash my name;
'Tis gone! frail image of love, life, and fame.
That glass she dress'd at, keeps her form no

more;

Not one dear footstep tunes th' unconscious floor.
There sat she-yet those chairs no sense retain,
And busy recollection smarts in vain.
Sullen and dim, what faded scenes are here!
I wonder, and retract a starting tear,
Gaze in attentive doubt-with anguish swell,
And o'er and o'er on each weigh'd object dwell.
Then to the window rush, gay views invite,
And tempt idea to permit delight.
But unimpressive, all in sorrow drown'd,
One void forgetful desert glooms around.
deceitful lure of lost desires !

Oh life

How short thy period, yet how fierce thy fires! Scarce can a passion start (we change so fast), Ere new lights strike us, and the old are past. Schemes following schemes, so long life's taste explore,

That ere we learn to live, we live no more.

by the narrowness of his circumstances. Though his manners were unassuming, his personal dignity was such, that he made Pope fairly ashamed of the attempt to insult him, and obliged the satirist to apologise to him with a mean equivocation.

Who then can think- yet sigh, to part with breath,
Or shun the healing hand of friendly death?
Guilt, penitence, and wrongs, and pain, and strife,
Form the whole heap'd amount, thou flatterer, life!
Peace, by new shipwrecks, numbers each new year?
Is it for this, that toss'd 'twixt hope and fear,
Oh take me, death! indulge desired repose,
And draw thy silent curtain round my woes.

Yet hold-one tender pang revokes that pray'r,
Still there remains one claim to tax my care.
Gone though she is, she left her soul behind,
In four dear transcripts of her copied mind.
They chain me down to life, new task supply,
And leave me not at leisure yet to die!
Busied for them I yet forego release,
And teach my wearied heart to wait for peace.
But when their day breaks broad, I welcome night,
Smile at discharge from care, and shut out light.

ALEXIS; OR, POPE. FROM A CAVEAT*.

TUNEFUL ALEXIS, on the Thames' fair side,
The ladies' plaything, and the Muses' pride;
With merit popular, with wit polite,
Easy though vain ; and elegant though light:
Desiring and deserving others' praise,
Poorly accepts a fame he ne'er repays ;
Unborn to cherish, sneakingly approves,

And wants the soul to spread the worth he loves.
This, to the juniors of his tribe, gave pain
For mean minds praise but to be praised again.
Henceforth, renouncing an ungracious Baal,
His altars smoke not, and their offerings fail:
The heat his scorn had raised, his pride inflamed,
Till what they worshipp'd first they next defamed.

[* These lines are in Hill's best manner, and excellent of themselves. He makes his individual case, which is true enough, generally true, which it is not; Pope however felt their sting, and has left a writhe in writing. Hill could hardly expect to receive what Prior and Thomson failed in finding-a return in kind for their poetic commendations.]

WILLIAM HAMILTON, of Bangour, was of an ancient family in Ayrshire. He was liberally educated, and his genius and delicate constitution seemed to mark him out for pacific pursuits alone; but he thought fit to join the standard of rebellion in 1745, celebrated the momentary blaze of its success in an ode on the battle of Gladsmuir, and finally escaped to France, after much wandering and many hardships in the Highlands. He made his peace however with the government, and came home to take possession of his paternal estate; but the state of his health requiring a warmer climate, he returned to the Continent, where he continued to reside

till a slow consumption carried him off at Lyons, in his 50th year.

The praise of elegance is all that can be to his verses. In case any reader should b moderately touched with sympathy for his sufferings, it is proper to inform him, Hamilton was thought by the fair ones o day to be a very inconstant swain. A S lady, whom he teased with his addresses, ap to Home, the author of Douglas, for advice to get rid of them. Home advised her to to favour his assiduities. She did so, and were immediately withdrawn*.

O VOICE divine, whose heavenly strain
No mortal measure may attain,
O powerful to appease the smart,
That festers in a wounded heart,
Whose mystic numbers can assuage
The bosom of tumult'ous rage,
Can strike the dagger from despair,
And shut the watchful eye of care.
Oft lured by thee, when wretches call,
Hope comes, that cheers or softens all ;
Expell'd by thee, and dispossest,
Envy forsakes the human breast,
Full oft with thee the bard retires,
And lost to earth, to heaven aspires,
How nobly lost! with thee to rove
Through the long deep'ning solemn grove,
Or underneath the moonlight pale,
To silence trust some plaintive tale,
Of nature's ills, and mankind's woes,
While kings and all the proud repose ;
Or where some holy aged oak,
A stranger to the woodman's stroke,
From the high rock's aërial crown
In twisting arches bending down,
Bathes in the smooth pellucid stream,
Full oft he waits the mystic dream
Of mankind's joys right understood,
And of the all-prevailing good.
Go forth invoked, O voice divine!
And issue from thy sacred shrine.

Ascending heaven's height,

Contemplation, take thy flight:
Behold the sun, through heaven's wide space,
Strong as a giant, run his race :

Behold the moon exert her light,

As blushing bride on her love-night :
Behold the sister starry train,

Her bridemaids, mount the azure plain.
See where the snows their treasures keep;
The chambers where the loud winds sleep;
Where the collected rains abide

Till heaven set all its windows wide,
Precipitate from high to pour

And drown in violence of show'r :
Or gently strain'd they wash the earth,
And give the tender fruits a birth.
See where thunder springs his mine;
Where the paths of lightning shine.
Or tired those heights still to pursue,
From heaven descending with the dew,
That soft impregns the youthful mead,
Where thousand flowers exalt the head,
Mark how nature's hand bestows
Abundant grace on all that grows,
Tinges, with pencil slow unseen,
The grass that clothes the valley green;
Or spreads the tulip's parted streaks,
Or sanguine dyes the rose's cheeks,
Or points with light Monimia's eyes,
And forms her bosom's beauteous rise.

Ah! haunting spirit, art thou there!
Forbidden in these walks t' appear.

I thought, O Love! thou wouldst disdain
To mix with wisdom's black staid train;
But when my curious searching look
A nice survey of nature took,

[* It has not hitherto been noticed that the first translation from Homer in blank verse was made by Hamilton.]

Well pleased the matron set to show
Her mistress-work, on earth below.
Then fruitless knowledge turn aside,
What other art remains untried
This load of anguish to remove,
And heal the cruel wounds of love?
To friendship's sacred force apply,
That source of tenderness and joy;
A joy no anxious fears profane,
A tenderness that feels no pain :
Friendship shall all these ills appease,
And give the tortured mourner ease.
Th' indissoluble tie, that binds
In equal chains, two sister minds :
Not such as servile int'rests choose,
From partial ends and sordid views ;
Nor when the midnight banquet fires,
The choice of wine-inflamed desires;
When the short fellowships proceed,
From casual mirth and wicked deed;
Till the next morn estranges quite
The partners of one guilty night;
But such as judgment long has weigh'd,
And years of faithfulness have tried ;
Whose tender mind is framed to share
The equal portion of my care;
Whose thoughts my happiness employs
Sincere, who triumphs in my joys;
With whom in raptures I may stray
Through study's long and pathless way,
Obscurely blest, in joys, alone,
To the excluded world unknown.
Forsook the weak fantastic train
Of flatt'ry, mirth, all false and vain ;
On whose soft and gentle breast
My weary soul may take her rest,
While the still tender look and kind
Fair springing from the spotless mind,
My perfected delights ensure
To last immortal, free and pure.

Grant, heaven, if heaven means bliss for me,
Monimia such, and long may be.

Contemplation, baffled maid, Remains there yet no other aid? Helpless and weary must thou yield To love supreme in ev'ry field? Let Melancholy last engage, Rev'rend, hoary-mantled sage. Sure, at his sable flag's display Love's idle troop will flit away: And bring with him his due compeer, Silence, sad, forlorn, and drear.

Haste thee, Silence, haste and go, To search the gloomy world below. My trembling steps, O Sibyl, lead, Through the dominions of the dead : Where Care, enjoying soft repose, Lays down the burden of his woes ; Where meritorious Want no more Shiv'ring begs at Grandeur's door;

Unconscious Grandeur, seal'd his eyes,
On the mould'ring purple lies.
In the dim and dreary round,
Speech in eternal chains lies bound.
And see a tomb, its gates display'd,
Expands an everlasting shade.
O ye inhabitants! that dwell
Each forgotten in your cell,

O say! for whom of human race
Has fate decreed this hiding-place?

And hark! methinks a spirit calls, Low winds the whisper round the walls, A voice, the sluggish air that breaks, Solemn amid the silence speaks. Mistaken man, thou seek'st to know,

What known will but afflict with woe;
There thy Monimia shall abide,
With the pale bridegroom rest a bride,
The wan assistants there shall lay,
In weeds of death, her beauteous clay.
O words of woe! what do I hear?
What sounds invade a lover's ear?
Must then thy charms, my anxious care,
The fate of vulgar beauty share?
Good heaven retard (for thine the power)
The wheels of time, that roll the hour.

Yet ah! why swells my breast with fears?
Why start the interdicted tears?
Love, dost thou tempt again? depart,
Thou devil, cast out from my heart.
Sad I forsook the feast, the ball,
The sunny bower, and lofty hall,
And sought the dungeon of despair;
Yet thou overtakest me there.
How little dream'd I thee to find
In this lone state of human kind?
Nor melancholy can prevail,
The direful deed, nor dismal tale:
Hoped I for these thou wouldst remove !
How near akin is grief to love?
Then no more I strive to shun

Love's chains: O heaven! thy will be done.
The best physician here I find,
To cure a sore diseased mind,
For soon this venerable gloom
Will yield a weary sufferer room;
No more a slave to love decreed,
At ease and free among the dead.
Come then, ye tears, ne'er cease to flow,
In full satiety of woe:

Though now the maid my heart alarms,
Severe and mighty in her charms,
Doom'd to obey, in bondage prest,
The tyrant's love commands unblest;
Pass but some fleeting moments o'er,
This rebel heart shall beat no more;
Then from my dark and closing eye,
The form beloved shall ever fly.
The tyranny of love shall cease,
Both laid down to sleep in peace;
To share alike our mortal lot,`
Her beauties and my cares forgot.

SONG.

AH the poor shepherd's mournful fate,
When doom'd to love, and doom'd to languish,
To bear the scornful fair one's hate,

Nor dare disclose his anguish.
Yet eager looks and dying sighs,

My secret soul discover ;

While rapture trembling through mine eyes,
Reveals how much I love her.

The tender glance, the reddening cheek,

O'erspread with rising blushes,
A thousand various ways they speak,
A thousand various wishes.

For oh! that form so heavenly fair, Those languid eyes so sweetly smiling, That artless blush and modest air,

So fatally beguiling!

The every look and every grace,

So charm whene'er I view thee; Till death o'ertake me in the chace,

Still will my hopes pursue thee: Then when my tedious hours are past, Be this last blessing given, Low at my feet to breathe my last, And die in sight of heaven.

THE translator of Pindar was the son of the Rev. Dr. West, who published an edition of the same classic at Oxford. His mother was sister to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards Lord Cobham. Though bred at Oxford with a view to the church, he embraced the military life for some time, but left it for the employment of Lord Townshend, then secretary of state, with whom he accompanied the king to Hanover. Through this interest he was appointed clerk extraordinary to the privy council, a situation which however was not immediately profitable.

He

married soon after, and retired to Wickham, in Kent, where his residence was often visited by Pitt and Lord Lyttelton. There he wrote his Observations on the Resurrection, for which the university of Oxford made him a doctor of laws. He succeeded at last to a lucrative clerkship of the privy council, and Mr. Pitt made him deputy treasurer of Chelsea Hospital; but this accession to his fortune came but a short time previous to his death, which was occasioned by a stroke of the palsy*.

So on he passed, till he comen hath
To a small river, that full slow did glide,
As it uneath mote find its watry path

For stones and rubbish, that did choak its tide,
So lay the mouldering piles on every side,
Seem'd there a goodly city once had been,
Albeit now fallen were her royal pride,
Yet mote her ancient greatness still be seen,
Still from her ruins proved the world's imperial
[queen.

For the rich spoil of all the continents,
The boast of art and nature there was brought,
Corinthian brass, Egyptian monuments.
With hieroglyphic sculptures all inwrought,
And Parian marbles, by Greek artists taught
To counterfeit the forms of heroes old,
And set before the eye of sober thought
Lycurgus, Homer, and Alcides bold.

All these and many more that may not here be told. [* That West had a yearly pension of two hundred and fifty pounds, is a fact new to our literary history. Southey has spoken of him as the founder or originator of the school of Akenside, Mason, Gray, and the Wartons: "His

There in the middest of a ruin'd pile, That seem'd a theatre of circuit vast, Where thousands might be seated, he erewhile Discover'd hath an uncouth trophy placed; Seem'd a huge heap of stone together cast In nice disorder and wild symmetry, Urns, broken friezes, statues half defaced, And pedestals with antique imagery Emboss'd, and pillars huge of costly porphyry.

Aloft on this strange basis was ypight With girlonds gay adorn'd a golden chair, In which aye smiling with self-bred delight, In careless pride reclined a lady fair, And to soft music lent her idle ear ; The which with pleasure so did her enthral, That for aught else she had but little care, For wealth, or fame, or honour feminal, Or gentle love, sole king of pleasures natural. poems," says Coleridge, with far more justice, "have the merit of chaste and manly diction: but they are cold, and, if I may express it, only dead-coloured."]

Als by her side in richest robes array'd,
An eunuch sate, of visage pale and dead,
Unseemly paramour for royal maid!
Yet him she courted oft and honoured,
And oft would by her place in princely sted,
Though from the dregs of earth he springen were,
And oft with regal crowns she deck'd his head,
And oft, to sooth her vain and foolish ear,
She bade him the great names of mighty Kesars bear.

Thereto herself a pompous title bore,
For she was vain of her great ancestry,
But vainer still of that prodigious store
Of arts and learning, which she vaunts to lie
In the rich archives of her treasury.
These she to strangers oftentimes would show,
With grave demean and solemn vanity,
Then proudly claim as to her merit due,
The venerable praise and title of Vertù.
Vertù she was yclept, and held her court
With outward shows of pomp and majesty,
To which natheless few others did resort,
But men of base and vulgar industry.
Or such perdy as of them cozen'd be,

Mimes, fiddlers, pipers, eunuchs squeaking fine, Painters and builders, sons of masonry, Who well could measure with the rule and line, And all the orders five right craftily define.

But other skill of cunning architect, How to contrive the house for dwelling best, With self-sufficient scorn they wont neglect, As corresponding with their purpose least; And herein be they copied of the rest, Who aye pretending love of science fair, And generous purpose to adorn the breast With liberal arts, to Vertù's court repair, Yet nought but tunes and names and coins away do bear.

For long, to visit her once-honour'd seat The studious sons of learning have forbore: Who whilom thither ran with pilgrim feet, Her venerable reliques to adore,

And load their bosom with the sacred store, Whereof the world large treasure yet enjoys. But sithence she declined from wisdom's lore, They left her to display her pompous toys To virtuosi vain and wonder-gaping boys.

COLLINS published his Oriental Eclogues while at college, and his lyrical poetry at the age of twenty-six. Those works will abide comparison with whatever Milton wrote under the age of thirty. If they have rather less exuberant wealth of genius, they exhibit more exquisite touches of pathos. Like Milton, he leads us into the haunted ground of imagination; like him, he has the rich economy of expression haloed with thought, which by single or few words often hints entire pictures to the imagination. In what short and simple terms, for instance, does he open a wide and majestic landscape to the mind, such as we might view from Benlomond or Snowden, when he speaks of the hut

"That from the mountain's side

Views wilds and swelling floods."

And in the line "Where faint and sickly winds for ever howl around," he does not merely seem to describe the sultry desert, but brings it home to the senses.

A cloud of obscurity sometimes rests on his highest conceptions, arising from the fineness of! his associations, and the daring sweep of his allusions; but the shadow is transitory, and interferes very little with the light of his imagery, or the warmth of his feelings. The absence of even this speck of mysticism from his Ode on the Passions is perhaps the happy circumstance

that secured its unbounded popularity. Nothing is common-place in Collins. The pastoral eclogue, which is insipid in all other English hands, assumes in his a touching interest, and a picturesque air of novelty. It seems that he himself ultimately undervalued those eclogues, as deficient in characteristic manners; but surely no just reader of them cares any more about this circumstance than about the authenticity of the tale of Troy*.

In his Ode to Fear he hints at his dramatic ambition, and he planned several tragedies. Had he lived to enjoy and adorn existence, it is not easy to conceive his sensitive spirit and harmonious ear descending to mediocrity in any path of poetry; yet it may be doubted if his mind had not a passion for the visionary and remote forms of imagination too strong and exclusive for the general purposes of the drama. His genius loved to breathe rather in the preternatural and ideal element of poetry, than in the atmosphere of

[*These eclogues by Mr. Collins," says Goldsmith, "are very pretty: the images, it must be owned, are not very local; for the pastoral subject could not well admit of it. The description of Asiatic magnificence and manners is a subject as yet unattempted amongst us, and, I believe capable of furnishing a great variety of poetical imagery." Of eastern imagery our poetry is now nearly stuffed fullthanks to Collins, Sir William Jones, Mr. Southey, and Mr. Moore.]