Then to his Lucy's new-made grave

Conveyed by trembling swains,

One mould with her, beneath one sod,
For ever he remains.

Oft at this grave the constant hind
And plighted maid are seen;

With garlands gay and true-love knots
They deck the sacred green.

But, swain fors worn, whoe'er thou art, This hallowed spot forbear; Remember Colin's dreadful fate,

And fear to meet him there.

Tickell's satire, 'imitated' from Horace (Odes iii. 25), on the Jacobite Earl of Mar and his rash enterprise in 1715, shows a stronger and freer hand than the bulk of his verses.

An Imitation of the Prophecy of Nereus.
As Mar his round one morning took
(Whom some call earl, and some call duke),
And his new brethren of the blade,
Shivering with fear and frost, surveyed,
On Perth's bleak hills he chanced to spy
An aged wizard six foot high,

With bristled hair and visage blighted,
Wall-eyed, bare haunched, and second-sighted.
The grisly sage in thought profound
Beheld the chief with back so round,
Then rolled his eyeballs to and fro
O'er his paternal hills of snow,
And into these tremendous speeches

Broke forth the prophet without breeches :
'Into what ills betrayed by thee
This ancient kingdom do I see!
Her realms unpeopled and forlorn—
Wae's me that ever thou wert born!
Proud English loons (our clans o'ercome)
On Scottish pads shall amble home;
I see them dressed in bonnet blue
(The spoils of thy rebellious crew),
I see the target cast away,

And checkered plaid become their prey-
The checkered plaid to make a gown
For many a lass in London town.

'In vain the hungry mountaineers
Come forth in all their warlike gears,
The shield, the pistol, dirk, and dagger,
In which they daily wont to swagger,
And oft have sallied out to pillage
The hen-roosts of some peaceful village;
Or while their neighbours were asleep,
Have carried off a Lowland sheep.

'What boots thy high-born host of beggars,
Mac-leans, Mac-kenzies, and Mac-gregors,
With popish cut-throats, perjured ruffians,
And Foster's troop of raggamuffins.

In vain thy lads around thee bandy
Inflamed with bagpipe and with brandy;
Doth not bold Sutherland the trusty,
With heart so true, and voice so rusty,
(A loyal soul,) thy troops affright
While hoarsely he demands, the fight?
Dost thou not generous Ilay dread,
The bravest hand, the wisest head;
Undaunted dost thou hear th' alarms
Of hoary Athol sheathed in arms?

'Douglas, who draws his lineage down
From thanes and peers of high renown,
Fiery and young, and uncontrouled,
With knights and squires and barons bold
(His noble household band), advances,
And on his milk-white courser prances.
Thee Forfar to the combat dares,
Grown swarthy in Iberian wars;
And Monro kindled into rage,
Sourly defies thee to engage;

He'll rout thy foot, though ne'er so many,
And horse to boot-if thou hadst any.

'But see, Argyll, with watchful eyes,
Lodged in his deep intrenchments lies;
Couched like a lion in thy way,

He waits to spring upon his prey;
While like a herd of timorous deer,
Thy army shakes and pants with fear,
Led by their doughty general's skill
From frith to frith, from hill to hill.

'Is this thy haughty promise paid
That to the Chevalier was made,
When thou didst oaths and duty barter
For dukedom, generalship and garter?
Three moons thy Jemmy shall command,
With Highland sceptre in his hand,
Too good for his pretended birth,
-Then down shall fall the King of Perth!
"Tis so decreed, for George shall reign,
And traitors be forsworn in vain.
Heaven shall for ever on him smile,
And bless him still with an Argyll;
While thou pursued by vengeful foes,
Condemned to barren rocks and snows,
And hindered passing Inverlocky,

Shall burn the clan, and curse poor Jocky!'

John, Earl of Mar-here 'Jocky,' with which Inverlochy is forced into rhyme-was nicknamed 'Bobbing Joan.' The estimates of the loyal leaders have not all been confirmed by history.

The Countess of Winchilsea, who died in 1720 aged about sixty, was regarded by Wordsworth as eminently meritorious in at least one respect. It is remarkable,' he says, 'that excepting the Nocturnal Reverie, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature.' Even if we do not accept this all but universal (and uncomplimentary) negative, a poem so honoured by contrast has a special interest in the history of criticism. The Nocturnal Reverie was written by Anne, daughter of Sir William Kingsmill of Kidminton near Southampton, and wife of the second Earl of Winchilsea. She was a friend of Pope and Rowe, and wrote, somewhat in Cowley's manner, one longish poem, The Spleen, which she called 'a Pindarique Ode' (1701; Matthew Green's Hudibrastic verses under that name are better known), and a volume of Miscellany Poems (1713). A line in The Spleen, 'We faint beneath the aromatic pain,' was borrowed by Pope for a familiar passage in his Essay on Man.

A Nocturnal Reverie.

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel still waking sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, holloaing clear, directs the wanderer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face;
When in some river overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbine, and the bramble rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scattered glowworms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties, watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright:
When odours which declined repelling day,
Through temperate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;

When through the gloom more venerable shews
Some ancient fabrick, awful in repose;
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their short-lived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in the inferiour world, and thinks it like her own :
In such a night let me abroad remain,

Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.

A Song.

Love, thou art best of human joys,
Our chiefest happiness below;

All other pleasures are but toys,
Music without thee is but noise,

And beauty but an empty show.

Heaven, who knew best what man would move
And raise his thoughts above the brute,
Said, Let him be, and let him love;
That must alone his soul improve,

Howe'er philosophers dispute.

A collected edition of the Countess's works, including an unacted tragedy, Aristomenes, was published in 1713.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), united as few men or women have done solid sense and learning to wit, fancy, and lively powers of description; in letter-writing she has very few equals, and scarcely a superior. Horace Walpole may be more witty and sarcastic, and Cowper more unaffectedly natural, tender, and delightful; yet if we consider the variety and novelty of the matters described in Lady Mary's letters, the fund of anecdote and observation they display, and the idiomatic clearness of her style, we shall hesitate to place her below any letter-writer that England has yet produced. She was the eldest daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, who became next year fifth Earl, and in 1715 Duke, of Kingston, and was brought up at Thoresby, Notts. Even in childhood she showed exceptional gifts, was very carefully educated, and from her youth up was a close student and indefatigable reader. Bishop Burnet encouraged her in her unusually wide course of study, which included Greek philosophy in Latin translations. In 1712 she married against her father's wishes - Edward Wortley (later Wortley Montagu), and on his being appointed in 1714 a commissioner of the Treasury, she was introduced to the courtly and polished circles. Her personal beauty and the charms of her conversation secured the friendship of Addison, Congreve, Pope, and the literati. In 1716 her husband was appointed ambassador to the Porte, and Lady Mary accompanied him to Constantinople (1717-18), going by way of Vienna, and returning by Tunis, Genoa, and Paris. During her journey and her residence in the Levant, she corresponded with her sister the Countess of Mar, Lady Rich, Pope, and others, brilliantly describing and contrasting European and Turkish scenery and manners. Having noted among the villagers in Turkey the results of inoculating for the smallpox, she confidently submitted her own son, at that time four years old, to this protective method, then practically unknown to European medical art; and by her zealous effort afterwards established the practice of inoculation in England and in Europe. In 1718, her husband being recalled from his embassy, she returned to England, and, by Pope's advice, settled at Twickenham. The rival wits did not long continue friends. Pope wrote high-flown panegyrics and half-concealed love-letters to Lady Mary, and she treated them with silence or ridicule. On one occasion he is said to have made a tender and formal declaration, which threw the lady into an immoderate fit of laughter; henceforth the sensitive poet became her implacable enemy. Lady Mary also wrote verses, town eclogues, and epigrams, and Pope confessed that she had too much wit for him. The cool self-possession of

the lady of rank and fashion, joined to her sarcastic powers, proved an overmatch for the jealous retired author, tremblingly alive to the shafts of ridicule. In 1739, for reasons unknown, Lady

Mr

Mary left England and her husband to travel and live abroad. She visited Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples, and settled first at Avignon and then at Lovere, on the Lago d'Iseo. Montagu having died in 1761, Lady Mary was prevailed upon by her daughter, the Countess of Bute, to return to England, but died in the following year.

Her letters, printed surreptitiously in 1763, were edited by her great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, in 1837. The wit and varied talents of Lady Mary are visible throughout the whole of her correspondence. Her desire to communicate piquant personal stories or to paint graphically leads her into details which modern taste hardly approves. She described what she saw and heard without mincing matters; and her strong masculine understanding and absolute frankness render her sometimes apparently unamiable and unfeeling, and frequently defective in what we account feminine delicacy. But otherwise, as models of epistolary style, easy, familiar, and elegant, no less than as pictures of foreign scenery and manners and fashionable gossip, the letters of Lady Mary must always hold their place in literature. They are truly letters, not critical or didactic essays enlivened by formal compliment and elaborate wit; though some of them are perhaps rather like a brightly-written chapter of a book of travel, or one section ('to be continued in our next') of a systematic description of life and manners abroad -such, for example, as Lady Mary's long letter to her sister describing in great and vivid detail her reception by the Grand Vizier's chief wife, and in the harem of the Vizier's chief deputy. Some rather objectionable letters, published even in Lord Wharncliffe's and, with corrective notes, in Mr Moy Thomas's editions, were assuredly not written by Lady Mary, but are forgeries presumably by John Cleland, son of Pope's friend Major Cleland, a clever but notoriously unprincipled littérateur.

On Matrimonial Happiness.

If we marry, our happiness must consist in loving one another: 'tis principally my concern to think of the most probable method of making that love eternal. You object against living in London; I am not fond of it myself, and readily give it up to you, though I am assured there needs more art to keep a fondness alive in solitude, where it generally preys upon itself. There is one article absolutely necessary-to be ever beloved, one must be ever agreeable. There is no such thing as being agreeable without a thorough good-humour, a natural sweetness of temper, enlivened by cheerfulness. Whatever natural fund of gaiety one is born with, 'tis necessary to be entertained with agreeable objects. Anybody capable of tasting pleasure, when they confine themselves to one place, should take care 'tis the place in the world the most pleasing. Whatever you may now think (now, perhaps, you have some fondness for me), though your love should continue in its full force, there are hours when the most beloved mistress would be troublesome. People are not for ever (nor is it in

human nature that they should be) disposed to be fond; you would be glad to find in me the friend and the companion. To be agreeably this last, it is necessary to be gay and entertaining. A perpetual solitude, in a place where you see nothing to raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation insensibly falls into dull and insipid. When I have no more to say to you, you will like me no longer. How dreadful is that view! You will reflect, for my sake you have abandoned the conversation of a friend that you liked, and your situation in a country where all things would have contributed to make your life pass in (the true volupté) a smooth tranquillity. I shall lose the vivacity which should entertain you, and you will have nothing to recompense you for what you have lost. Very few people that have settled entirely in the country but have grown at length weary of one another. The lady's

conversation generally falls into a thousand impertinent effects of idleness; and the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and his horses, and out of love with everything else. I am now arguing in favour of the town; you have answered me as to that point. In respect of your health, 'tis the first thing to be considered, and I shall never ask you to do anything injurious to that. But 'tis my

opinion, 'tis necessary to be happy that we neither of us think any place more agreeable than that where we are. I have nothing to do in London; and 'tis indifferent to me if I never see it more. . . .

(From a letter to Mr Wortley Montagu in 1712.)

Eastern Manners and Language.

I no longer look upon Theocritus as a romantic writer; he has only given a plain image of the way of life amongst the peasants of his country, who, before oppression had reduced them to want, were, I suppose,

all employed as the better sort of them are now. I don't doubt, had he been born a Briton, his Idylliums had been filled with descriptions of thrashing and churning, both which are unknown here, the corn being all trod out by oxen; and butter (I speak it with sorrow) unheard of.

I read over your Homer here with an infinite pleasure, and find several little passages explained that I did not before entirely comprehend the beauty of; many of the customs and much of the dress then in fashion being yet retained, and I don't wonder to find more remains here of an age so distant than is to be found in any other country, the Turks not taking that pains to introduce their own manners as has been generally practised by other nations that imagine themselves more polite. It would be too tedious to you to point out all the passages that relate to present customs. But I can assure you that the princesses and great ladies pass their time at their looms, embroidering veils and robes, surrounded by their maids, which are always very numerous, in the same manner as we find Andromache and Helen described. The description of the belt of Menelaus exactly resembles those that are now worn by the great men, fastened before with broad golden clasps, and embroidered round with rich work. The snowy veil that Helen throws over her face is still fashionable; and I never see half-a-dozen of old pashas (as I do very often), with their reverend beards, sitting basking in the sun but I recollect good king Priam and his counsellors. Their manner of dancing is certainly the same that Diana is sung to hive danced on the banks of the Eurotas. The great lady still leads the dance, and is followed by a troop of young girls, who imitate her steps, and if she sings, make up the chorus. The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet with something in them wonderfully soft. The steps are varied according to the pleasure of her that leads the dance, but always in exact time, and infinitely more agreeable than any of our dances, at least in my opinion. I sometimes make one in the train, but am not skilful enough to lead; these are Grecian dances, the Turkish being very different.

I should have told you, in the first place, that the eastern manners give a great light into many Scripture passages that appear odd to us, their phrases being commonly what we should call Scripture language. The vulgar Turk is very different from what is spoken at court, or amongst the people of figure, who always mix so much Arabic and Persian in their discourse that it may very well be called another language. And 'tis as ridiculous to make use of the expressions commonly used in speaking to a great man or lady, as it would be to speak broad Yorkshire or Somersetshire in the drawing-room. Besides this distinction, they have what they call the sublime, that is, a style proper for poetry, and which is the exact Scripture style. I believe you will be pleased to see a genuine example of this; and I am very glad I have it in my power to satisfy your curiosity, by sending you a faithful copy of the verses that Ibrahim Pasha, the reigning favourite, has made for the young princess, his contracted wife, whom he is not yet permitted to visit without witnesses, though she is gone home to his house. He is a man of wit and learning; and whether or no he is capable of writing good verse himself, you may be sure that on such an occasion he would not want the assistance of the best poets in the empire. Thus the verses may be looked upon as a

sample of their finest poetry; and I don't doubt you'll be of my mind, that it is most wonderfully resembling the Song of Solomon, which was also addressed to a royal bride.

I.

The nightingale now wanders in the vines :
Her passion is to seek roses.

I went down to admire the beauty of the vines :
The sweetness of your charms has ravished my soul.
Your eyes are black and lovely,

But wild and disdainful as those of a stag.

II.

The wished possession is delayed from day to day;
The cruel sultan Achmet will not permit me
To see those cheeks, more vermilion than roses.
I dare not snatch one of your kisses;

The sweetness of your charms has ravished my soul.
Your eyes are black and lovely,

But wild and disdainful as those of a stag.

III.

The wretched Ibrahim sighs in these verses :
One dart from your eyes has pierced through my heart.
Ah! when will the hour of possession arrive?
Must I yet wait a long time?

The sweetness of your charms has ravished my soul.
Ah, Sultana! stag-eyed-an angel amongst angels !

I desire, and my desire remains unsatisfied.
Can you take delight to prey upon my heart?

IV.

My cries pierce the heavens !

My eyes are without sleep!

Turn to me, Sultana-let me gaze on thy beauty. Adieu! I go down to the grave.

If you call me, I return.

My heart is hot as sulphur; sigh, and it will flame.
Crown of my life! fair light of my eyes!
My Sultana! my princess!

I rub my face against the earth-I am drowned in scalding tears-I rave!

Have you no compassion? Will you not turn to look upon me?

I have taken abundance of pains to get these verses in a literal translation; and if you were acquainted with my interpreters, I might spare myself the trouble of assuring you that they have received no poetical touches from their hands.

(From a letter to Mr Pope, dated Adrianople, April 1, 0.S., 1717; one of six long letters to various persons bearing the same date-surely a good day's work.)

On Inoculation for Small-pox.

Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they make parties for this purpose, and when

they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together) the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what veins you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell; and in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of opening one in the middle of the forehead, one in each arm, and one on the breast, to mark the sign of the cross; but this has a very ill effect, all these wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by those that are not superstitious, who choose to have them in the legs, or that part of the arm that is concealed. The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or thirty in their faces, which never mark; and in eight days time they are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded, there remain running sores during the distemper, which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year thousands undergo this operation; and the French embassador says pleasantly that they take the small-pox here by way of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of any one that has died in it; and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of the experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son. I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England; and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue for the good of mankind. But that distemper is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps if I live to return, I may however have courage to war with them. Upon this occasion, admire the heroism in the heart of your friend.

(From a letter to Mrs Sarah Chiswell, dated Adrianople, April 1, O.S., 1717.)

France in 1718.

I cannot give my dear Lady R. [Rich] a better proof of the pleasure I have in writing to her than choosing to do it in this seat of various amusements, where I am accablée with visits, and those so full of vivacity and compliment that 'tis full employment to hearken, whether one answers or not. The French embassadress at Constantinople has a very considerable and numerous family here, who all come to see me, and are never weary of making enquiries. The air of Paris has already had a good effect upon me; for I was never in better health, though I have been extremely ill all the road from Lyons to this place. You may judge how agreeable the journey has been to me, which did not need that addition to make me dislike it. I think nothing so terrible as objects of misery, except one had the Godlike attribute of being capable to redress them; and all the country villages of France shew nothing else. While the post-horses are changed, the whole town comes out to beg, with such miserable starved faces, and thin tattered clothes, they need no other eloquence to persuade one of the wretched

ness of their condition. This is all the French magnificence till you come to Fontainebleau. There you begin to think the country rich, when you are shewed one thousand five hundred rooms in the king's huntingpalace. The apartments of the royal family are very large, and richly gilt; but I saw nothing in the architecture or painting worth remembering. . . . A propos of countenances, I must tell you something of the French ladies; I have seen all the beauties, and such - (I can't help making use of the coarse word) nauseous [creatures] so fantastically absurd in their dress! so monstrously unnatural in their paint! their hair cut short, and curled round their faces, and so loaded with powder, that makes it look like white wool! and on their cheeks to their chins, unmercifully laid on, a shining red japan, that glistens in a most flaming manner, that they seem to have no resemblance to human faces, and I am apt to believe that they took the first hint of their dress from a fair sheep newly ruddled. 'Tis with pleasure I recollect my dear pretty countrywomen and if I was writing to anybody else, I should say that these grotesque daubers give me still a higher esteem of the natural charms of dear Lady R.'s auburn hair, and the lively colours of her unsullied complexion. (From a letter to Lady Rich, dated Paris, October 10, O.S., 1718.)

To the Countess of Bute-On Female Education. LOVERE, Jan. 28, N.S. 1753.

I

DEAR CHILD-You have given me a great deal of satisfaction by your account of your eldest daughter. I am particularly pleased to hear she is a good arithmetician; it is the best proof of understanding: the knowledge of numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and the brutes. If there is anything in blood, you may reasonably expect your children should be endowed with an uncommon share of good sense. Mr Wortley's family and mine have both produced some of the greatest men that have been born in England; I mean Admiral Sandwich, and my grandfather, who was distinguished by the name of Wise William. have heard Lord Bute's father mentioned as an extraordinary genius, though he had not many opportunities of shewing it; and his uncle the present Duke of Argyll has one of the best heads I ever knew. I will therefore speak to you as supposing Lady Mary not only capable, but desirous of learning; in that case, by all means let her be indulged in it. You will tell me I did not make it a part of your education; your prospect was very different from hers. As you had no defect either in mind or person to hinder, and much in your circumstances to attract the highest offers, it seemed your business to learn how to live in the world, as it is hers to know how to be easy out of it. It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so) without considering that nothing is beautiful that is displaced. Hence we see so many edifices raised that the raisers can never inhabit, being too large for their fortunes. Vistas are laid open over barren heaths, and apartments contrived for a coolness very agreeable in Italy, but killing in the north of Britain; thus every woman endeavours to breed her daughter a fine lady, qualifying her for a station in which she will never appear, and at the same time incapacitating her for that retirement to which she is destined. Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make her contented, but happy in it. No