Selim. Rise, faithful Othman. Thus let me thank thy truth! Oth. O happy hour! [Embraces him. [my hand? Selim. Why dost thou tremble thus? Why grasp And why that ardent gaze! Thou canst not doubt me! Oth. Ah, no! I see thy sire in every line.— How did my prince escape the murderer's hand? Selim. I wrench'd the dagger from him, and gave back That death he meant to bring. The ruffian wore The tyrant's signet:-"Take this ring," he cried, "The sole return my dying hand can make thee For its accursed attempt: this pledge restored, Will prove thee slain! Safe may'st thou see Algiers, Unknown to all." This said, the assassin died. Oth. But how to gain admittance thus unknown? Selim. Disguised as Selim's murderer I come : The accomplice of the deed: the ring restored, Gain'd credence to my words. Oth. Yet ere thou camest, thy death was rumour'd here. Selim. I spread the flattering tale, and sent it hither, That babbling rumour, like a lying dream, Oth. Still in vain the tyrant Tempts her to marriage, though with impious threats Of death or violation. Think not these tears unnerve me, valiant friends! Sadi. All, all is ready. Our confederate friends Sadi. The midnight watch gives signal of our meeting; And when the second watch of night is rung, Selim. Speed, speed, ye minutes! hence Sadi. Scarce more than one. Selim. But is the city quiet? Sadi. All, all is hush'd. Throughout the empty streets, Nor voice, nor sound. As if the inhabitants, Oth. There is a solemn horror in the night, too, That pleases me: a general pause through nature: The winds are hush'd Sadi. And as I pass'd the beach, The lazy billow scarce could lash the shore: with glory, We soon shall meet again. But, oh, remember, Not to destroy, but save! nor let blind zeal, Oth. So may we prosper, As mercy shall direct us! Selim. Farewell, friends! [Exeunt Oтн. and SADI. SELIM'S SOLILOQUY BEFORE THE INSURRECTION. Selim. Now sleep and silence Brood o'er the city.-The devoted sentinel Now takes his lonely stand; and idly dreams Of that to-morrow he shall never see! In this dread interval, O busy thought, From outward things descend into thyself! Search deep my heart! bring with thee awful conscience, And firm resolve! that, in the approaching hour Of blood and horror, I may stand unmoved; MICHAEL BRUCE. [Born, 1746. Died, 1767.] MICHAEL BRUCE was born in the parish of Kinneswood, in Kinross-shire, Scotland. His father was by trade a weaver, who out of his scanty earnings had the merit of affording his son an education at the grammar-school of Kinross, and at the university of Edinburgh. Michael was delicate from his childhood, but showed an early disposition for study, and a turn for poetry, which was encouraged by some of his neighbours lending him a few of the most popular English poets. The humblest individuals who have befriended genius deserve to be gratefully mentioned. The first encouragers to whom Bruce showed his poetical productions were a Mr. Arnot, a farmer on the banks of Lochleven, and one David Pearson, whose occupation is not described. In his sixteenth year he went to the university of Edinburgh, where, after the usual course of attendance, he entered on the study of divinity, intending, probably, to be a preacher in the Burgher sect of dissenters, to whom his parents belonged. Between the latter sessions, which he attended at college, he taught a small school at Gairney bridge, in the neighbourhood of his native place, and afterwards at Forest-Hill, near Allan, in Clackmannanshire. This is nearly the whole of his sad and short history. At the latter place he was seized with a deep consumption, the progress of which in his constitution had always inclined him to melancholy. Under the toils of a day and evening school, and without the comforts that might have mitigated disease, he mentions his situation to a friend in a touching but resigned manner-"I had expected," he says, "to be happy here; but my sanguine hopes are the reason of my disappointment." He had cherished sanguine hopes of happiness, poor youth in his little village-school; but he seems to have been ill encouraged by his employers, and complains that he had no company, but what was worse than solitude. "I believe,” he adds, "if I had not a lively imagination I should fall into a state of stupidity or delirium." He was now composing his poem on Lochleven, in which he describes himself, "Amid unfertile wilds, recording thus The dear remembrance of his native fields, During the winter he quitted his school, and, returning to his father's house, lingered on for a few months till he expired, in his twenty-first year. During the spring he wrote an elegy on the prospect of his own dissolution, a most interesting relic of his amiable feelings and fortitude. FROM THE ELEGY ON SPRING. Now spring returns: but not to me returns The vernal joy my better years have known ; Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns, And all the joys of life with health are flown. Starting and shiv'ring in th' 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: The winged moments, whose unstaying speed I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe; Farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains! Enough for me the churchyard's lonely mound, Where melancholy with still silence reigns, And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground. There let me wander at the close of eve, When sleep sits dewy on the labourer's eyes; The world and all its busy follies leave, And talk with wisdom where my Daphnis lies. There let me sleep forgotten in the clay, When death shall shut these weary aching eyes, Rest in the hopes of an eternal day, Till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise. FROM "LOCHLEVEN." Now sober Industry, illustrious power! Fair from his hand, behold the village rise, With eye enamour'd, mark the many wreaths Or, at the purple dawn of day, Plumed Conceit himself surveying, Sage Reflection, bent with years, Health that snuffs the morning air, You, with the tragic muse retired, [* Johnson praised Grainger's Ode to Solitude, and repeated with great energy the exordium, observing, "This, Sir, is very noble."-CROKER'S Boswell, vol. iv. p. 50. What makes the poetry in the image of the marble waste of Tadmor, in Grainger's "Ode to Solitude," so much admired by Johnson? Is it the marble or the waste, the artificial or the natural object? The waste is like all other wastes; but the marble of Palmyra makes the poetry of the passage as of the place.-LORD BYRON, Works, vol. vi. p. 359. This was said by Byron in the great controversy these Specimens gave rise to between Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles the poet,-the Art and Nature squabble. Surely the poetry of the passage does not depend upon a single word: 'Tis not a lip or eye, we beauty call. "In this fine Ode," says Percy, "are assembled some of the sublimest images in nature."- Reliques, vol. ii. p. 352.] And late in Hagley you were seen, Where never sunburnt woodman came, Till the tuneful bird of night From the neighbouring poplars' height With you roses brighter bloom, sioned by the stone. He was a zealous pupil of the Shaftesbury school; and published, besides his Poems, a Life of Socrates, Letters on Taste, and Epistles to the Great from Aristippus in retirement. WAS of an ancient family in Nottinghamshire, | Fair, after a long and excruciating illness, occaand possessed the estate of Thurgarton Priory, where he exercised the active and useful duties of a magistrate. He resided, however, occasionally in London, and was a great promoter of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures. He died at his house in May SONG*. AWAY! let nought to love displeasing, What though no grants of royal donors With pompous titles grace our blood, We'll shine in more substantial honours, And, to be noble, we'll be good. Our name while virtue thus we tender, What though, from Fortune's lavish bounty, Still shall each kind returning season And that's the only life to live. [*"This beautiful address to conjugal love," says Dr. Percy, "a subject too much neglected by the libertine Muses, was, I believe, first printed in a volume of miscellaneous poems, by several hands, published by D. Lewis, 1726, 8vo. It is there said, how truly I know not, to be a translation from the ancient British language." That it was printed in 1726 is certain, which as Cooper was then only three years old, is fatal to his right. Aikin blames Percy for inserting it among his Reliques, “for the title," he says, "was only a poetic fiction, or rather a stroke of satire." Cooper printed the poem in his Letters on Taste (1755) but did not print his claim, as Aikin and others have ignorantly done.] Through youth and age, in love excelling, SONG. THE nymph that I loved was as cheerful as day, Though mild as the pleasantness zephyr that sheds, Her mind was unsullied as new-fallen snow, The sweets that each virtue or grace had in store Which treasured for me, O! how happy was I, |