The poetical calendar: Containing a collection of scarce and valuable pieces of poetry: ... by the most eminent hands. Intended as a supplement to Mr. Dodsley's collection. Written and selected by Francis Fawkes, M. A. and William Woty. In twelve volumes. [pt.12]

Table of contents

- [halftitle]

- [titlepage]

- DECEMBER.

- ODE TO WINTER.

- TO WINTER.

- ON THE FIFTH OF DECEMBER, BEING THE BIRTH-DAY OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY.

- DEATH. A POEM.

- THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. A CAMBRIDGE PRIZE POEM IN MDCCLVII.

- TO FAME. AN ODE. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXXXIX.

- [poem]

- AD ORNATISSIMAM PUELLAM.

- THE SAME TRANSLATED.

- THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL, AN AR GUMENT OF ITS IMMORTALITY. INSCRIBED TO DR. THOMAS HERRING, LORD ARCH. OF CANT. MAY, MDCCL.

- DR. SAMUEL BARROW'S LATIN VERSES, PREFIXED TO MILTON'S PARADISE LOST, TRANSLATED.

- SONNET TO HIS GRACE THO. HERRING, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

- AN EPISTLE OF M. DE VOLTAIRE, UPON HIS ARRIVAL AT HIS ESTATE NEAR THE LAKE OF GENEVA, IN MARCH, MDCCLV. FROM THE FRENCH.

- CONCORD. A POEM INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF RADNOR. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCLI.

- TO THE AUTHOR OF A PANEGYRIC ON MRS. GRACE BUTLER, WHO DIED AGED LXXXVI.

- INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO OF SHELLS AT CRUX-EASTQN, THE WORK OF NINE YOUNG LADIES.

- VERSES BY MR. POPE, ON READING A POEM, ENTITLED "A FIT OF THE SPLEEN," BY DR. IBBOTT.

- VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE, ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WIL MOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER, USED AT ATTER BURY, A SEAT OF THE DUKE OF ARGYLE'S, IN OXFORDSHIRE, JULY IX, MDCCXXXIX.

- TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, UPON READING THE PREAMBLE TO THE PATENT CREATING HIM DUKE OF GREENWICH. BY THE SAME.

- A MORNING ELEGY.

- AN EVENING ELEGY.

- FRIENDSHIP. ATTEMPTED AFTER THE MANNER OF COWLEY.

- ELIZA'S WEDDING-DAY. AN ECLOGUE.

- PROLOGUE.

- POMPILIA. AN ODE. WRITTEN BY THE SIDE OF A FOUNTAIN WHOSE WATERS MIX WITH THE RIVER VANDAL.

- A DIALOGUE, BETWEEN A GENTLEMAN AND A LADY, AT A BALL AT CROYDON.

- AN APOLOGY FOR RUNNING AWAY.

- SONG TO A TUNE IN THE PARTING LOVERS.

- SONG.

- TO NANNETTE.

- TO A LADY, ON HER OBTAINING A PRIZE IN THE LOTTERY.

- WRITTEN AT VENLO DURING THE LATE WAR: ON A BEAUTIFUL CHILD BEING KILLED BY THE FALL OF A STONE FROM THE STEEPLE.

- EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

- AN INSCRIPTION DESIGNED FOR THE STATUE OF EDWARD THE SIXTH IN ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL.

- THE DEATH OF OTHO. FROM MARTIAL.

- ON A LATE PARRICIDE.

- THE ROMAN CHARITY, IN CONTRAST TO THE FOREGOING.

- EPIGRAM.

- ANOTHER.

- EPITAPH ON A MAN WHO DIED SUDDENLY AT CHURCH.

- ON ONE WHO DIED OF THE HYP.

- EPIGRAM ON THE FALSE REPORT OF MRS. H—Y'S DEATH.

- EPITAPH INTENDED FOR MY OWN TOMB-STONE.

- GRATITUDE. A POEM.

- MORE NIGHT THOUGHTS.

- ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR. JAMES THOMSON.

- SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. WILLIAM COLLINS.

- TO MISS AURELIA C—R, ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.

- GENERAL INDEX.

THE POETICAL CALENDAR.

FINIS.

THE POETICAL CALENDAR. VOL. XII. FOR DECEMBER.

THE POETICAL CALENDAR.

CONTAINING A COLLECTION Of scarce and valuable PIECES OF POETRY: With Variety of ORIGINALS AND TRANSLATIONS, BY THE MOST EMIMENT HANDS.

Written and Selected By FRANCIS FAWKES, M.A. And WILLIAM WOTY.

IN TWELVE VOLUMES.

LONDON: Printed by DRYDEN LEACH; For J. COOTE, at the King's Arms, in Pater-noster-Row. MDCCLXIII.

DECEMBER.

LAst of the months, severest of them all,

Woe to the regions where thy terrors fall!

Hail to thy tempests, which the deep deform,

Thrice hail thy ruthless hurricane and storm!

Now Eolus, let forth thy mightiest blast,

By land to rock the spire, by sea the mast;

Let earth and ocean feel thy potent sway,

And give thy blasts their full impetuous way:

For lo! the fiery horses of the sun

Thro' the twelve Signs their rapid course have run,

Time, like a serpent, bites his forked tail,

And Winter on a Goat bestrides the gale;

Rough blows the north wind near Arcturus' star,

And sweeps, unrein'd, across the polar bar,

On the world's confines, where the sea-bears prowl,

And Greenland whales, like moving islands, roll:

There, thro' the skies, on brooms, are seen to ride,

The Lapland wizzard, and his hellish bride;

There, on a sledge, the rain-deer drives the swain

To meet his mistress on the frost-bound plain:

Have mercy, Winter!—for we own thy power,

Thy flooding deluge, and thy drenching shower;

Yes—we acknowledge what thy prowess can,

But oh! have pity on the toil of man!

And, tho' the floods thy adamantine chain

Submissive wear—yet spare the treasur'd grain:

The peasants to thy mercy now resign

The infant seed—their hope and future mine:

Not always Phoebus bends his vengeful bow,

Oft in mid winter placid breezes blow,

Oft tinctur'd with the bluest transmarine,

The fretted canopy of heaven is seen;

Girded with argent lamps, the full-orb'd moon

In mild December emulates the noon;

Tho' short the respite, if the saphire blue

Stains the bright lustre with an inky hue;

Then a black wreck of clouds is seen to fly,

In broken shatters, thro' the frighted sky:

But if fleet Eurus scour the vaulted plain,

Then all the stars propitious shine again;

Like Myra's face appears the vivid scene,

And, like her mind, free, open, and serene.

ODE TO WINTER.

BY A GENTLEMAN OF CAMBRIDGE.

FRom mountains of eternal snow,

And Zembla's dreary plains;

Where the bleak winds for ever blow,

And Frost for ever reigns,

Lo! Winter comes, in fogs array'd,

With ice, and spangled dews;

To dews, and fogs, and storms be paid

The tribute of the Muse.

Each flowery carpet Nature spread

Is vanish'd from the eye;

Where'er unhappy lovers tread,

No Philomel is nigh.

(For well I ween her plaintive note,

Can soothing ease impart;

The little warblings of her throat

Relieve the wounded heart.)

No blushing rose unfolds its bloom,

No tender lillies blow,

To scent the air with rich perfume,

Or grace Lucinda's brow.

Th' indulgent Father who protects

The wretched and the poor;

With the same gracious care directs

The sparrow to our door.

Dark, scowling tempests rend the skies,

And clouds obscure the day;

His genial warmth the sun denies,

And sheds a fainter ray.

Yet blame we not the troubled air,

Or seek defects to find;

For Power Omnipotent is there,

And 'walks upon the wind.'

Hail! every pair' whom love unites

In wedlock's pleasing ties;

That endless source of pure delights,

That blessing to the wise!

Tho' yon pale orb no warmth bestows,

And storms united meet,

The flame of love and friendship glows

With unextinguish'd heat.

TO WINTER.

BY MR. WOTY.

WHat! tho' thou com'st in sable mantle clad,

Yet, Winter! art thou welcome to my eye:

Thee here I hail, tho' terrors round thee wait,

And winds tempestuous howl along the sky.

But shall I then so soon forget the days

When Ceres led me thro' her wheaten mines!

When Autumn pluck'd me, with his tawny hand,

Empurpled clusters from ambrosial vines!

So soon forget, when up the yielding pole

I saw ascend the silver-bearded hop!

When Summer, waving high her crown of hay,

Pour'd o'er the mead her odoriferous crop!

I must forget them—and thee too, O Spring!

Tho' many a chaplet thou hast weav'd for me:

For, now prepar'd to quit th' enchanting scenes,

Cold, weeping Winter! I come all to thee.

Hail to thy rolling clouds, and rapid storms!

Tho' they deform fair Nature's lovely face:

Hail to thy winds, that sweep along the earth!

Tho' trees they root up from their solid base.

How sicklied over is the face of things!

Where is the spice-kiss of the southern gale!

Where the wild rose, that smil'd upon the thorn,

The mountain flower, and lilly of the vale!

How gloomy 'tis to cast the eye around,

And view the trees disrob'd of every leaf,

The velvet path grown rough with clotting showers,

And every field depriv'd of every sheaf!

How far more gloomy o'er the rain-beat heath,

Alone to travel in the dead of night!

No twinkling star to gild the arch of heaven,

No moon to lend her temporary light:

To see the lightning spread its ample sheet,

Discern the wild waste thro' its liquid fire,

To hear the thunder rend the troubled air,

As time itself and nature would expire:

And yet, O Winter! has thy poet seen

Thy face as smooth, and placid as the Spring,

Has felt, with comfort felt, the beam of heaven,

And heard thy vallies and thy woodlands ring.

What time the sun with burnish'd locks arose,

The long lost charms of nature to renew,

When pearls of ice bedeck'd the grassy turf,

And tree-tops floated in the silver dew.

Father of heaven and earth! this change is thine:

By thee the Seasons in gradation roll,

Thou great omniscient Ruler of the world!

Thou Alpha and Omega of the whole!

Here humbly bow we down our heads to thee!

'Tis ours the voice of gratitude to raise,

Thine to diffuse thy blessings o'er the land;

Thine to receive the incense of our praise.

Pure if it rises from the conscious heart,

With thee for ever does the symbol live:

Tho' small for all thy love is man's return,

Thou ask'st no more, than he has power to give.

ON THE FIFTH OF DECEMBER, BEING THE BIRTH-DAY OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY.

HAil! eldest of the monthly train,

Sire of the winter drear,

December, in whose iron reign

Expires the chequer'd year!

Hush all the blustering blasts that blow,

And, proudly plum'd in silver snow,

Smile gladly on this blest of days:

The liveried clouds shall on thee wait,

And Phoebus shine in all his state

With more than summer rays.

Tho' jocund June may justly boast

Long days and happy hours,

Tho' August be Pomona's host,

And May be crown'd with flowers;

Tell June, his fire and crimson dies

By Harriot's blush, and Harriot's eyes,

Eclips'd and vanquish'd, fade away:

Tell August, thou canst let him see

A richer, riper fruit than he,

A sweeter flower than May.

DEATH. A POEM.

BY THE LATE CHARLES EMILY, ESQ.

THE festive roar of laughter, the warm glow

Of brisk-eyed joy, and friendship's genial bowl,

Wit's season'd converse, and the liberal flow

Of unsuspicious youth, profuse of soul,

Delight not ever; from the boisterous scene

Of riot far, and Comus' wild uproar,

From folly's crowd, whose vacant brow serene

Was never knit to wisdom's frowning lore,

Permit me, ye time-hallow'd domes, ye piles

Of rude magnificence, your solemn rest,

Amid your fretted vaults and lengthening isles

Lonely to wander; no unholy guest,

That means to break, with sacrilegious tread,

The marble slumbers of your monumented dead.

Permit me with sad musings, that inspire

Unlabour'd numbers apt, your silence drear

Blameless to wake, and with th' Orphean lyre

Fitly attemper'd, sooth the merciless ear

Of Hades, and stern Death, whose iron sway

Great Nature owns thro' all her wide domain;

All that with oary fin cleave their smooth way

Thro' the green bosom of the spawny main,

And those that to the streaming ether spread,

In many a wheeling glide, their feathery sail;

And those that creep, and those that statelier tread,

That roam o'er forest, hill, or browsed dale;

The victims each of ruthless fate must fall;

Even God's own image, man, high paramount of all.

And ye, the young, the giddy, and the gay,

That startle from the sleepful lid of light

The curtain'd rest, and with the dissonant bray

Of Bacchus, and loud Jollity, affright

Yon radiant goddess, that now shoots among

Those many window'd isles her glimmering beam;

Know, that or e'er its starr'd career along

Thrice shall have roll'd her silvery-wheeled team,

Some parent breast may heave the answering sigh,

To the slow pauses of the funeral knell;

E'en now black Atropos, with scouling eye,

Roars in the laugh, and revels o'er the bowl,

E'en now in rosy-crowned pleasure's wreath

Entwines in adder folds all-unsuspected Death.

Know, on the stealing wing of time shall flee

Some few, some short-liv'd years; and all is past;

A future bard these awful domes may see,

Muse o'er the present age as I the last;

Who mouldering in the grave, yet once like you

The various maze of life were seen to tread,

Each bent their own peculiar to pursue,

As custom urg'd, or wilful nature led;

Mix'd with the various crouds inglorious clay,

The nobler virtues undistinguish'd lie;

No more to melt with beauty's heaven-born ray,

No more to wet compassion's tearful eye,

Catch from the poet raptures not their own,

And feel the thrilling melody of sweet renown.

Where is the master-hand, whose semblant art

Chissel'd the marble into life, or taught

From the well-pencill'd portraiture to start

The nerve that beat with soul, the brow that thought!

Cold are the fingers that in stone-fixt trance

The mute attention rivetting, to the lyre

Struck language: dimm'd the poet's quick-eyed glance,

All in wild raptures flashing heaven's own fire▪

Shrunk is the sinew'd energy, that strung

The warrior arm: where sleeps the patriot breast

Whilom that heav'd impassion'd! Where the tongue

That lanc'd its lightning o'er the towering crest

Of scepter'd Insolence, and overthrew

Giant Oppression, leagued with all her earth-born crew!

These now are past; long, long, ye fleeting years

Pursue, with glory wing'd, your fated way,

Ere from the womb of time unwelcome peers

The dawn of that inevitable day,

When wrapt in shrouded clay their warmest friend

The widow'd virtues shall again deplore,

When o'er his urn in pious grief shall bend

His Britain, and bewail one Patriot more;

For soon must Thou, too soon! who spread'st abroad

Thy beaming emanations unconfin'd,

Doom'd, like some better angel sent of God,

To scatter blessings over humankind,

Thou too must fall, O Pitt! to shine no more,

And tread these deathful paths, a Faulkland trod before.

Fast to the driving winds the marshall'd clouds

Sweep discontinuous o'er th' etherial plain;

Another still upon another crouds,

All hastenihg downward to their native main.

Thus passes o'er thro' varied life's career

Man's fleeting age; the Seasons as they fly

Snatch from us in their course, year after year,

Some sweet connection, some endearing tie.

The parent ever-honour'd, ever-dear,

Claims from the filial breast the pious sigh;

A brother's urn demands the kindred tear;

And gentle sorrows gush from friendship's eye.

To-day we frolic in the rosy bloom

Of jocund youth—The morrow knells us to the tomb.

Who knows how soon in this sepulchral spot,

Shall heaven to me the drear abode assign!

How soon the past irrevocable lot

Of these, that rest beneath me, shall be mine!

Haply, when Zephyr to thy native bourn

Shall waft thee o'er the storm'd Hibernian wave,

Thy gentle breast, my Tavistock, shall mourn

To find me sleeping in the senseless grave.

No more the social leisure to divide,

In the sweet intercourse of soul and soul,

Blithe or of graver brow; no more to chide

The lingering years impatient as they roll,

Till all thy cultur'd virtues shall display,

Full-blossom'd, their bright honours to the gazing day.

Ah dearest youth! these vows perhaps unheard,

The rude wind scatters o'er the billowy main;

These prayers at friendship's holy shrine preferr'd

May rise to grasp their father's knees in vain.

Soon, soon may nod the sad funereal plume

With solemn horror o'er thy timeless hearse,

And I survive to grave upon thy tomb

The mournful tribute of memorial verse.—

That leave to Heaven's decision—Be it thine,

Higher than yet a parent's wishes flew,

To soar in bright pre-eminence, and shine

With self-earn'd honours, eager to pursue

Where glory, with her clear unsullied rays,

The well-born spirit lights to deeds of mightiest praise.

Twas she thy god-like Russell's bosom steel'd

With confidence untam'd, in his last breath

Stern-smiling. She, with calm composure, held

The patriot axe of Sidney, edg'd with death.

Smit with the warmth of her impulsive flame,

Wolfe's gallant virtue flies to worlds a-far,

Emulous to pluck fresh wreaths of well-earn'd fame

From the grim frowning brow of laurell'd war.

'Twas she, that on the morn of direful birth,

Bared thy young bosom to the fatal blow,

Lamented Armytage!—the bleeding youth!—

O bathe him in the pearly caves below,

Ye Nereids: and ye Nymphs of Camus hoar,

Weep—for ye oft have seen him on your haunted shore.

Better to die with glory, than recline

On the soft lap of ignominious peace,

Than yawn out the dull droning life supine

In Monkish apathy and Gowned ease.

Better employ'd in honour's bright career

The least division on the dial's round,

Than thrice to compass Saturn's livelong year,

Grown old in sloth, the burthen of the ground;

Than tug with sweating toil the slavish oar

Of unredeem'd affliction, and sustain

The feverous rage of fierce diseases sore

Unnumber'd, that in sympathetic chain

Hang ever thro' the sick circumfluous air,

All from the drizzly verge of yonder star-girt sphere.

Thick in the many-beaten road of life,

A thousand maladies are posted round,

With wretched man to wage eternal strife

Unseen, like ambush'd Indians, till they wound.

There the swollen Hydrops stands, the watery Rheum,

The northern Scurvy, blotch with leperous scale;

And moping ever in the cloister'd gloom

Of learned sloth, the bookish Asthma pale:

And the shun'd hag unsightly, that ordain'd

On Europe's sons to wreak the faithless sword

Of Cortez, with the blood of millions stain'd,

O'er dog-eyed Lust the torturing scourge abhorr'd

Shakes threatening; since the while she wing'd her flight

From Amazon's broad wave, and Andes' snow-clad height.

Where the wan daughter of the yellow year

The chattering Ague chill, the writhing Stone,

And he of ghastly feature, on whose ear

Unheeded croaks the death-bird's warning moan,

Marasmus; knotty Gout; and the dead life

Of nerveless Palsy; there on purpose fell

Dark brooding, whets his interdicted knife

Grim Suicide, the damned fiend of hell.

There too is the stunn'd Apoplexy pight[*],

The bloated child of gorg'd Intemperance foul;

Self-wasting Melancholy, black as night

Lowering, and foaming fierce with hideous howl

The dog Hydrophoby, and near allied

Scar'd Madness, with her moon-struck eye-balls staring wide.

There, stretch'd One huge, beneath the rocky mine,[†]

With boiling sulphur fraught, and smouldering fires;

He, the dread delegate of wrath divine,

E'er while that stood o'er Taio's hundred spires

Vindictive; thrice he wav'd th' earth-shaking wand,

Powerful as that the Son of Amron bore,

And thrice he rais'd, and thrice he check'd his hand.

He struck the rocking ground, with thunderous roar

Yawn'd; here from street to street hurries, and there

Now runs, now stops, then shrieks and scours amain,

Staring Distraction; many a palace fair,

With millions sinks ingulpht, and pillar'd fane;

Old Ocean's farthest waves confest the shock;

Even Albion trembled conscious on his stedfast rock.

The meagre Famine there, and drunk with blood

Stern War; and the loath'd monster, whom of yore

The slimy Naiad of the Memphian flood

Engendering, to the bright-hair'd Phoebus bore,

Foul Pestilence, that on the wide stretch'd wings

Of commerce speeds from Cairo's swarthy bay

His westering flight, and thro' the sick air flings

Spotted Contagion; at heels Dismay

And Desolation urge their fire-wheel'd yoke

Terrible; as long of old, when from the height

Of Paran came unwrath'd the Mightiest, shook

Earth's firm fix'd base tottering; thro' the black night

Glanc'd the flash'd lightnings: heaven's rent roof abroad

Thunder'd; and universal Nature felt its God.

Who on that scene of terror, on that hour

Of roused indignation, shall withstand

Th' Almighty, when he meditates to shower

The bursting vengeance o'er a guilty land!

Canst thou, secure in reason's vaunted pride,

Tongue-doughty miscreant, who but now didst gore

With more than Hebrew rage the innocent side

Of agonizing mercy, bleeding sore,

Canst thou confront, with stedfast eye unaw'd,

The sworded Judgment stalking far and near?

Well may'st thou tremble, when an injur'd God

Disclaims thee—guilt is ever quick of fear—

Loud whirlwinds howl in Zephyr's softest breath;

And every glancing meteor glares imagin'd death.

The good alone are fearless—they alone,

Firm and collected in their virtue, brave

The wreck of worlds, and look unshrinking down

On the dread yawnings of the ravenous grave:

Thrice happy! who the blameless road along

Of honest praise hath reach'd the vale of death;

Around him, like ministrant Cherubs, throng

His Better Actions; to the parting breath

Singing their blessed requiems: he the while,

Gently reposing on some friendly breast,

Breaths out his benizons; then, with a smile

Of soft complacence, lays him down to rest,

Calm as the slumbering infant: from the goal

Free and unbounded flies the disembodied soul.

Whether some delegated charge below,

Some much-lov'd friend its hovering care may claim,

Whether it homeward soars, again to know

That long forgotten country whence it came;

Conjecture ever, the misfeatur'd child

Of letter'd arrogance, delights to run

Thro' speculation's puzzling mazes wild,

And all to end at last where it begun.

Fain would we trace, with reason's erring clue,

The darksome paths of destiny aright;

In vain; the task were easier to pursue

The trackless wheeling of the swallow's flight.

From mortal ken himself the Almighty shrouds

Pavilion'd in thick night, and circumambient clouds.

Notes

*
Placed.
↵

†
Alluding to the earthquake at Lisbon.
↵

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
A CAMBRIDGE PRIZE POEM IN MDCCLVII.

BY R. GLYNN, M.D.

THY justice, heavenly King, and that great day,

When virtue, long abandon'd and forlorn,

Shall raise her pensive head; and vice, that erst

Rang'd unreprov'd and free, shall sink appall'd;

I sing adventurous.—But what eye can pierce

The vast immeasurable realms of space,

O'er which Messiah drives his flaming car

To that bright region, where enthron'd He sits,

First-born of heaven, to judge assembled worlds,

Cloath'd in celestial radiance! Can the Muse,

Her feeble wing all damp with earthly dew,

Soar to that bright empyreal, where, around,

Myriads of angels, God's perpetual choir,

Hymn hallelujahs; and, in concert loud,

Chant songs of triumph to their Maker's praise?—

Yet will I strive to sing, albeit unus'd

To tread poetic soil. What tho' the wiles

Of Fancy me enchanted ne'er could lure

To rove o'er fairy lands; to swim the streams

That thro' her valleys weave their mazy way,

Or climb her mountain tops; yet will I raise

My feeble voice, to tell what harmony

(Sweet as the music of the rolling spheres)

Attunes the moral world: that virtue still

May hope her promis'd crown; that vice may dread

Vengeance, tho' late; that reasoning pride may own

Just, tho' unsearchable, the ways of heaven.

Sceptic! whoe'er thou art, who say'st the soul,

That particle divine, which God's own breath

Inspir'd into the mortal mass, shall rest

Annihilate, till duration has unroll'd

Her never-ending line; tell, if thou know'st,

Why every nation, every clime, tho' all

In laws, in rites, in manners disagree,

With one content expect another world,

Where wickedness shall weep? why Paynim bards

Fabled Elysian plains; Tartarean lakes,

Styx and Cocytos? tell, why Hali's sons

Have feign'd a paradise of mirth, and love,

Banquets, and blooming Nymphs? or rather tell,

Why on the brink of Orellana's stream,

Where never Science rear'd her sacred torch,

Th' untutor'd Indian dreams of happier worlds

Behind the cloud-topt hill? why in each breast

Is plac'd a friendly monitor, that prompts,

Informs, directs, encourages, forbids?

Tell why, on unknown evil, grief attends;

Or joy on secret good? Why conscience acts

With tenfold force, when sickness, age, or pain,

Stands tottering on the precipice of death?

Or why such horror gnaws the guilty soul

Of dying sinners; while the good man sleeps

Peaceful and calm, and with a smile expires?

Look round the world! with what a partial hand

The scale of bliss and misery is sustain'd!

Beneath the shade of cold obscurity

Pale Virtue lies; no arm supports her head;

No friendly voice speaks comfort to her soul;

Nor soft-eyed Pity drops a melting tear:

But, in their stead, Contempt and rude Disdain

Insult the banish'd wanderer: on the goes

Neglected and forlorn: disease, and cold,

And famine, worst of ills, her steps attend:

Yet patient, and to heaven's just will resign'd,

She ne'er is seen to weep, or heard to sigh.

Now turn your eyes to yon sweet-smelling bower,

Where, flush'd with all the insolence of wealth,

Sits pamper'd Vice! for him th' Arabian gale

Breathes forth delicious odours; Gallia's hills

For him pour nectar from the purple vine;

Nor think for these he pays the tribute due

To heaven: of heaven he never names the name;

Save when with imprecations, dark, and dire,

He points his jest obscene. Yet buxom Health

Sits on his rosy cheek; yet Honour gilds

His high exploits; and downy-pinion'd Sleep

Sheds a soft opiate o'er his peaceful couch.

See'st thou this, righteous Father! see'st thou this,

And wilt thou ne'er repay? shall good and ill

Be carried undistinguish'd to the land

Where all things are forgot?—Ah! no; the day

Will come, when Virtue from the cloud shall burst

That long obscur'd her beams; when Sin shall fly

Back to her native hell; there sink eclips'd

In penal darkness; where nor star shall rise,

Nor ever sunshine pierce th' impervious gloom.

On that great day the solemn trump shall sound,

(That trump, which once, in heaven, on man's revolt,

Convok'd th' astonish'd seraphs;) at whose voice

Th' unpeopled graves shall pour forth all their dead.

Then shall th' assembled nations of the earth

From every quarter at the judgment-seat

Unite; Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks,

Parthians; and they who dwelt on Tyber's banks,

Names fam'd of old: or who of later age,

Chinese, and Russian, Mexican, and Turk,

Tenant the wide terrene; and they who pitch

Their tents on Niger's banks; or, where the sun

Pours on Golconda's spires his early light,

Drink Ganges' sacred stream. At once shall rise

Whom distant ages to each others sight

Had long denied: before the throne shall kneel

Some great Progenitor, while at his side

Stands his descendant thro' a thousand lines.

Whate'er their nation, and whate'er their rank,

Heroes, and patriarchs, slaves, and sceptred kings,

With equal eye the God of All shall see;

And judge with equal love. What tho' the great

With costly pomp, and aromatic sweets,

Embalm'd his poor remains; or thro' the dome

A thousand tapers shed their gloomy light,

While solemn organs to his parting soul

Chanted slow orisons? say, by what mark

Do'st thou discern him from that lowly swain,

Whose mouldering bones beneath the thorn-bound turf

Long lay neglected?—All at once shall rise;

But not to equal glory: for, alas!

With howlings dire, and execrations loud,

Some wail their fatal birth.—First among these

Behold the mighty murtherers of mankind;

They who in sport whole kingdoms slew; or they

Who to the tottering pinnacle of power

Waded thro' seas of blood! how will they curse

The madness of ambition! how lament

Their dear-bought laurels; when the widow'd wife,

And childless mother, at the judgment-seat

Plead trumpet-tongu'd against them!—Here are they

Who sunk an aged father to the grave:

Or, with unkindness hard, and cold disdain,

Slighted a brother's sufferings:—Here are they,

Whom fraud and skilful treachery long secur'd;

Who from the infant virgin tore her dower,

And eat the orphan's bread:—who spent their stores

In selfish luxury; or, o'er their gold

Prostrate and pale, ador'd the useless heap.—

Here too who stain'd the chaste connubial bed;—

Who mix'd the poisonous bowl;—or broke the ties

Of hospitable friendship;—And the wretch,

Whose listless soul, sick with the cares of life,

Unsummon'd, to the presence of his God

Rush'd in with insult rude. How would they joy

Once more to visit earth; and, tho' oppress'd

With all, that pain or famine can inflict,

Pant up the hill of life? vain wish! the Judge

Pronounces doom eternal on their heads,

Perpetual punishment. Seek not to know

What punishment! for that th' Almighty Will

Has hid from mortal eyes. And shall vain man,

With curious search refin'd, presume to pry

Into thy secrets, Father! no: let him

With humble patience all thy works adore,

And walk in all thy paths: so shall his meed

Be great in heaven; so haply shall he 'scape

Th' immortal worm, and never-ceasing fire.

But who are they, who, bound in ten-fold chains,

Stand horribly aghast? this is that crew

Who strove to pull Jehovah from his throne,

And, in the place of heaven's eternal King,

Set up the phantom Chance. For them in vain

Alternate seasons cheer'd the rolling year;

In vain the sun, o'er herb, tree, fruit, and flower,

Shed genial influence, mild; and the pale moon

Repair'd her waning orb.—Next these is plac'd

The vile blasphemer; he, whose impious wit

Profan'd the sacred mysteries of faith;

And 'gainst th' impenetrable walls of heaven

Planted his feeble battery.—By these stands

The arch-Apostate: He with many a wile

Exhorts them still to foul revolt. Alas!

No hope have they from black despair, no ray

Shines thro' the gloom to cheer their sinking souls.

In agonies of grief they curse the hour

When first they left Religion's onward way.

These on the left are rang'd: but on the right

A chosen band appears, who fought beneath

The banner of Jehovah, and defied

Satan's united legions. Some, unmov'd

At the grim tyrant's frown, o'er barbarous climes

Diffus'd the gospel's light: Some, long immur'd,

(Sad servitude!) in chains, and dungeons pin'd:

Or, rack'd with all the agonies of pain,

Breath'd out their faithful lives. Thrice happy they

Whom heaven elected to that glorious strife!—

Here are they plac'd, whose kind munificence

Made heaven-born Science raise her drooping head;

And on the labours of a future race

Entail'd their just reward.—Thou, amongst these,

Good [*]Seaton! whose well-judg'd benevolence,

Fostering fair genius, bad the poet's hand

Bring annual offerings to his Maker's shrine,

Shalt find the generous care was not in vain.—

Here is that favourite band, whom mercy mild,

God's best lov'd attribute, adorn'd; whose gate

Stood ever open to the stranger's call;

Who fed the hungry; to the thirsty lip

Reach'd out the friendly cup: whose care benign

From the rude blast secur'd the pilgrim's side;

Who heard the widow's tender tale; and shook

The galling shackle from the prisoners feet:

Who each endearing tie, each office knew,

Of meek-eyed, heaven-descended Charity.—

O Charity, thou Nymph divinely fair!

Sweeter than those whom antient poets bound

In Amity's indissoluble chain,

The Graces! how shall I essay to paint

Thy charms, celestial Maid; and, in rude verse,

Blazon those deeds thy self didst ne'er reveal?

For thee nor rankling Envy can infect,

Nor rage transport, nor high o'erweening Pride

Puff up with vain conceit: ne'er didst thou smile

To see the sinner, as a verdant tree,

Spread his luxuriant branches o'er the stream;

While like some blasted trunk the righteous fall,

Prostrate, forlorn.—When prophecies shall fail,

When tongues shall cease, when knowledge is no more,

And this great day is come; thou by the throne

Shalt sit triumphant.—Thither, lovely Maid,

Bear me, Oh bear me on thy soaring wing;

And thro' the adamantine gates of heaven

Conduct my steps; safe from the fiery gulph,

And dark abyss, where Sin, and Satan reign!

But, can the Muse, her numbers all too weak,

Tell how that restless element of fire

Shall wage with seas and earth intestine war,

And deluge all creation? Whether (so

Some think) the comet, as thro' fields of air

Lawless he wanders, shall rush headlong on

Thwarting th' ecliptic, where th' unconscious earth

Rolls in her wonted course: whether the sun,

With force centripetal, into his orb

Attract her long reluctant: or the caves,

Those dread volcanos, where engendering lie

Sulphureous minerals. from their dark abyss

Pour streams of liquid fire; while from above,

As erst on Sodom, heaven's avenging hand

Rains fierce combustion.—Where are now the works

Of art, the toil of ages? Where are now

Th' imperial cities, sepulchres, and domes,

Trophies, and pillars?—Where is Egypt's boast,

Those lofty pyramids, which high in air

Rear'd their aspiring heads, to distant times

Of Memphian pride a lasting monument?—

Tell me where Athens rais'd her towers?—Where Thebes

Open'd her hundred portals?—Tell me, where

Stood sea-girt Albion?—Where imperial Rome,

Propt by seven hills, sat like a sceptred queen,

And aw'd the tributary world to peace?—

Shew me the rampart, which o'er many a hill,

Thro' many a valley stretch'd its wide extent,

Rais'd by that mighty monarch, to repel

The roving Tartar, when, with insult rude,

'Gainst Pekin's towers he bent th' unerring bow.

But what is mimic Art? even Nature's works,

Seas, meadows, pastures, the meandring streams,

And everlasting hills, shall be no more.

No more shall Teneriff, cloud-piercing height,

O'er-hang th' Atlantic surge.—Nor that fam'd cliff,

Thro' which the Persian steer'd with many a sail,

Throw to the Lemnian isle its evening shade

O'er half the wide Aegaean.—Where are now

The Alps, that confin'd with unnumber'd realms,

And from the Black Sea to the Ocean stream

Stretch'd their extended arms?—Where's Ararat,

That hill on which the faithful Patriarch's ark,

Which seven long months had voyag'd o'er its top,

First rested, when the earth, with all her sons,

As now by streaming cataracts of fire,

Was whelm'd by mighty waters?—All at once

Are vanish'd and dissolv'd: no trace remains,

No mark of vain distinction: heaven itself,

That azure vault with all those radiant orbs

Sinks in the universal ruin lost.—

No more shall planets round their central sun

Move in harmonious dance; no more the moon

Hang out her silver lamp: and those fix'd stars

Spangling the golden canopy of night,

Which oft the Tuscan with his optic glass

Call'd from their wonderous height, to read their names,

And magnitude, some winged minister

Shall quench: and (surest sign that all on earth

Is lost) shall rend from heaven the mystic bow.

Such is that awful, that tremendous day,

Whose coming who shall tell? for as a thief

Unheard, unseen, it steals with silent pace

Thro' night's dark gloom—Perhaps as here I sit,

And rudely carol these incondite lays,

Soon shall the hand be check'd, and dumb the mouth

That lisps the faultering strain—O! may it ne'er

Intrude unwelcome on an ill-spent hour;

But find me wrapt in meditations high,

Hymning my great Creator! "Power supreme!

" O everlasting King! to Thee I kneel;

" To Thee I lift my voice. With fervent heat

" Melt all ye elements! and thou, high heaven,

" Shrink, like a shrivell'd scroll!—But think, O Lord,

" Think on the best the noblest of thy works;

" Think on thine own bright image! think on Him,

" Who died to save us from thy righteous wrath;

" And 'midst the wreck of worlds remember man!"

Notes

*
The gentleman who, by will, left an annual premium to the author of the best poem on some divine subject, who must be M.A. of Cambridge.
↵

TO FAME. AN ODE.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXXXIX.

LO! on yon promontory's pendent brow,

That threats the shadow'd gulph below,

In the dun air sublime;

Fame spreads her hasty pinions wide,

Disdaining Britain's sluggish clime,

And, in a moment's flight,

Determines to alight

On active Gaul's more formidable side—

—Stay, Goddess, I conjure thee, stay!

And, ere irrevocably soar'd away,

Thy piercing trump apply,

And pour so vehement a blast,

As shall alarm earth, sea, and sky,

Amaze the present age, and echo to the last!—

—She hears the Muse's call!

And, with obedient breath

Inspires the mystic strain!—

Hark! hark! the swelling sound

Tempests the air around;

Rouses the sleeping main,

Shakes earth's remotest bound;

Pierces the very centre of the ball,

And almost wakens death!

Again! again th' upbraiding peal renew!

Make courtly Deafness hear,

Make tyrant Power and base Corruption fear;

The Furies close their guilty steps pursue!

Again, again it rushes loud,

As thunder from a bursting cloud!

The distant Russians catch the fierce alarm!

And, fir'd with martial flame,

Luxurious Persians arm,

And bravely emulate the Greek and Roman name.

But, death to honest eyes!

Britannia's Genius slumbering lies,

Effeminately soft on carpets spread;

Deaf to the honourable sound,

That kindles virtue thro' the world's vast round;

Numb'd with inglorious peace,

Enervated with sloth and ease,

And to all sense of emulation dead!

Her useless shield is hurl'd aside;

And her neglected lance,

The terror once of trembling France!

Disdainful Cupids wantonly bestride:

Unmov'd she feels her idle hands

Fetter'd with golden bands;

The victor-laurel too

Drop wither'd from her brow;

While, in its stead, sarcastic Humour ties

A rose-wreath, emblem of a victim doom'd for sacrifice!

Oh, where are all her antient honours flown?

Her senators of high renown;

Her patriots, such as dar'd withstand

The frowns of power, the charm of gold;

Made proud Oppression quit her greedy hold,

And from the jaws of ruin snatch'd their parent-land?

Alas! the monumental bust

That guards their awful dust,

And the historian's faithful page,

〈◊〉 the sole reliques of that nobler age!

Unless then, Goddess, thy awakening strain

Can rouse the mighty dead again,

Give, give thy fruitless labour o'er,

And quit for ever this degenerate shore!

For, where all vices make their joint abode,

••me's to be fear'd as heaven's severest rod,

〈◊〉 night-begot Oblivion worshipp'd as a God.

AD ORNATISSIMAM PUELLAM.

BY DR. LOWTH.

VAnae sit arti, sit studio modus,

Formosa virgo; sit speculo quies;

Curamque quaerendi decoris

Mitte, supervacuosque cultus.

Ut fortuitis verna coloribus

Depicta vulgo rura magis placent,

Nec invident horto nitenti

Divitias operosiores:

Lenique fons cum murmure pulchrior

Obliquat ultrò praecipitem fugam,

Inter reluctantes lapillos, et

Ducit aquas temere sequentes;

Utque inter undas, inter et arbores,

Jam vere primo dulcè strepunt aves,

Et arte nullâ gratiores

Ingeminant sine lege cantus:

Nativa sic te gratia, te nitor

Simplex decebit, te veneres tuae:

Nudus Cupido suspicatur

Artifices nimis apparatus.

Ergo fluentem tu malè sedula,

Ne saevâ inuras semper acu comam;

Neu sparsa odorato nitentes

Pulvere dedecores capillos;

Quales nec olim vel Ptolemaeia

Jactabat uxor, sidereo in choro

Ut cunque devotae refulgent

Verticis exuviae decori;

Nec Diva Mater, cum similem tuae

Mentita formam, et pulchrior aspici

Permisit incomtas protervis

Fusa comas agitare ventis.

THE SAME TRANSLATED.

BY WILLIAM DUNCOMBE, ESQ.

NO longer seek the needless aid

Of studious art, dear lovely maid!

Vainly, from side to side, forbear

To shift thy glass, and braid each straggling hair.

As the gay flowers, which nature yields,

Spontaneous, on the verdant fields,

Delight the fancy more than those

Which gardens trim arrange in equal rows:

As tho pure rill, whose mazy train

The prattling pebbles check in vain,

Gives native pleasures, while it leads

Its random waters winding thro' the meads;

As birds, the groves and streams among,

In artless strains the vernal song

Warbling, their wood-notes wild repeat,

And sooth the ear, irregularly sweet:

So simple dress and native grace

Will best become thy lovely face!

For naked Cupid still suspects,

In artful ornaments, conceal'd defects.

Cease then, with idly-cruel care,

To torture thus thy flowing hair;

O! cease, with tasteless toil, to shed

A cloud of scented dust around thy head.

Not Berenice's locks could boast

A grace like thine; among the host

Of stars, tho' radiant now they rise,

And add new lustre to the spangled skies;

Nor Venus, when her charms divine,

Improving in a form like thine,

She gave her tresses unconfin'd,

To wave around her neck, and wanton in the wind.

THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL, AN ARGUMENT OF ITS IMMORTALITY.
INSCRIBED TO DR. THOMAS HERRING, LORD ARCH. OF CANT. MAY, MDCCL.

BY THE SAME.

SO oft indulg'd, the philosophic Muse

Again, my lord, for your protection sues;

Small her pretensions, who no merit knows,

But what th' importance of her theme bestows.

Oh! could her verse attain that happy art,

Which charms, persuades, and melts the human heart;

That grace, that warmth, that energy divine,

Which in your language, looks, and gesture shine,

When truths sublime you cloath in radiant dress,

And heav'n's commands on listning crowds impress,

Smooth then would flow each modulated strain,

And every heart intire conviction gain.

Pleas'd with the honest praise of meaning well,

Your candid censures prompt us to excel:

Your steady friendship, nothing can impair;

Who share your love, your love for ever share!

THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL.

THE active soul, by which man lives and move;

By her high faculties her lineage proves;

Her faculties, so variously bestow'd,

Display the source divine from which they flow'd,

And of his creatures rational require,

A hymn of praise to their all-gracious sire.

To tame the barren earth by toil and skill,

Raise the low stream, and sink the lofty hill,

The soul first taught; and o'er the mounting tide,

Borne by the winds, in floating forts to ride;

From various climes to bring their various store.

Silver and gold from rich Peruvia's shore;

Spices and pearls from realms of dawning day,

While Persia's costly silks our limbs array.

By letters we converse with every sage,

That grac'd the Grecian or the Roman age:

Hence in the sacred academic grove,

With Plato and with Xenophon we rove;

At Tusculum attend to Tully's tongue,

Of truth and virtue while he reasons strong.

By letters, with our knowledge we adorn,

And teach our arts to nations yet unborn.

Thus foremost in the learned train shall stand,

Newton and Clarke in each politer land.

The mind, with numberless ideas fraught,

Exerts by memory each latent thought,

Till her frail casket moulders into clay,

And every fair impression fades away.

To pleasing objects boundless fancy roves,

And, charm'd with cooling springs or shady groves,

With ready pencil paints each rural scene,

The mossy fountain, or the level green.

Thus Eden's bowers in Milton gaily bloom:

Here fragrant gales the balmy air perfume;

There the great artist's lively tints have drawn

The tufted thicket, and the verdant lawn;

Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains:

Joy here, unmix'd with cares and sorrows, reigns;

Warble the birds; along the flowing stream

The bounding fish reflect the golden beam.

Here shines each lovely flower, there fountains play;

Or gliding rivers in meanders stray,

And to each plant refreshing streams dispense,

While fruits and blossoms charm the various sense;

The boughs at once both fruits and blossoms bear;

With flavour please the taste, with fragrance 〈◊〉 the air

The fleeting race of flowers, not wholly dead,

Revive in spring, and wave the dewy head;

In spring once more the virgin lillies blow,

Whitening the vales with vegetable snow;

In spring the varied tulips paint the field,

Tho' to the rigour of the year they yield,

Bound up by winter's frost; and must this span,

This dream of life, comprise the whole of man?

For better ends th' Almighty, wise and good,

With such high faculties the soul endued.

The steady judgment's penetrating eye

Into th' abyss of future times can pry;

And some have made the prophet's praise their own,

For things to come by past and present known.

Tiresias thus, and Phineus, sages old,

The secrets of futurity foretold;

Their outward eyes, tho' clos'd in endless night,

Were amply recompens'd by mental light.

Rais'd by philosophy from narrow earth,

The soul, heaven-born, asserts her heavenly birth;

On Contemplation's wing she boldly flies,

And claims acquaintance with her native skies;

Can there each sun, each peopled world behold,

Thro' space immense, with course unerring roll'd;

Their periods, distance, size, eclipses knows,

And why the sea alternate ebbs and flows:

Can measure even the speed of solar light,

Than which thought only boasts a swifter flight;

Soars, like a seraph, unconfin'd by sense,

To grasp the wonders of Omnipotence!

But higher still ascends the moral soul;

Nor can corporeal forms her search controul:

By this th' Almighty's attributes we trace,

And ponder time, eternity, and space;

By this are taught our follies to restrain,

To curb our passions with a streighten'd rein,

And imitate the bounteous power above,

In justice, goodness, purity, and love!

But will the wise Creator throw away

Such talents on the creature of a day?

A creature, which to virtue's heights can soar,

And, drinking deep of knowledge, thirsts for more.

Shall he! cut off from life, no more to bloom,

For ever sleep forgotten in the tomb?

Or may we not, with humble hope, conclude,

That since, with such prerogatives endued,

Our heavenly Sire will bid his image rise

To happier seats, an inmate of the skies.

DR. SAMUEL BARROW'S LATIN VERSES, PREFIXED TO MILTON'S PARADISE LOST, TRANSLATED.

BY THE SAME.

WHO reads Lost Paradise, the fall

Of wretched man, what reads he less than all?

All Nature's works, from whence they rose,

Their fates and ends, these lofty lines disclose.

Whatever in the womb of night

Lay hid before, here stands reveal'd to sight.

The land, the sea, the skies around,

And Erebus, with flaming gulph profound;

All that in earth, in sea, or hell,

Or in high heaven's enlighten'd regions dwell;

Whatever is by space confin'd,

Unbounded Chaos and unbounded mind,

And (could ought else more boundless prove)

To man, in Christ, God's reconciling love!

This If we wish'd, whose hope so bold,

So fond a wish accomplish'd to behold?

Yet this Britannia's sons now read,

And find the work their fondest wish exceed.

Chieftains in war how great he sings!

With what shrill notes his swelling trumpet rings!

See Satan stalk! how vast his might!

To Michael's self almost a match in fight!

What strength by each archangel shown,

To seize, or vindicate, th' Almighty's throne!

While these, the mimic thunder throw,

And those, with mountains whelm the boasting foe.

In deep suspense which host should sway,

All Nature fears to fall that dreadful day.

But see, to end this impious war

Ordain'd, Messiah's ensigns blaze from far!

Self-mov'd his rushing chariot rolls,

And shakes, with whirlwind sound, th' eternal poleo.

From living wheels true lightnings fly,

Ten thousand thunders bellow thro' the sky,

Launch'd by his arm—with terror tost,

" Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, lost,"

Stop short th' apostates!—Pale affright

Unnerves their hands, and withers all their might.

Headlong from heaven themselves they throw,

And plunge into th' abyss of endless woe.

Romans and Grecians yield the bays,

Yield, all ye bards of old or modern days!

Who reads this nobler work will own

Homer sung frogs, and Virgil gnats alone.

SONNET TO HIS GRACE THO. HERRING, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

BY MR. THO. EDWARDS.

PRelate, whose steady hand, and watchful eye

The sacred vessel of Religion guide,

Secure from Superstition's dangerous tide,

And fatal rocks of Infidelity;

Think not, in this bad age of obloquy,

When Christian virtues Christians dare deride,

And worth by party-zeal alone is tried,

To 'scape the poison'd shafts of calumny;

No—tho' the tenor of thy blameless life,

Like His, whose flock is to thy care consign'd,

Be spent in teaching truth, and doing good;

Yet, 'mongst the sons of bigotry and strife,

Thou too, like him, must hear thy good malign'd,

Thy person slander'd, and thy truths withstood.

AN EPISTLE OF M. DE VOLTAIRE, UPON HIS ARRIVAL AT HIS ESTATE NEAR THE LAKE OF GENEVA, IN MARCH, MDCCLV.
FROM THE FRENCH.

O Take, O keep me, ever blest domains,

Where lovely Flora with Pomona reigns;

Where Art fulfils what Nature's voice requires,

And gives the charms to which my verse aspires;

Take me, the world with transport I resign,

And let your peaceful solitude be mine!

Yet not in these retreats I boast to find

That perfect bliss that leaves no wish behind;

This, to no lonely shade kind Nature brings,

Nor Art bestows on courtiers, or on kings;

Not even the Sage this boon has e'er possess'd,

Tho' join'd with wisdom, virtue shar'd his breast;

This transient life, alas! can ne'er suffice

To reach the distant goal, and snatch the prize;

Yet, sooth'd to rest, we feel suspence from woe,

And tho' not perfect joy, yet joy we know.

Enchanting scenes! what pleasure you dispense

Where'er I turn, to every wondering sense!

An [*]ocean here, where no rude tempest roars,

With crystal waters laves the hallow'd shores;

Here flowery fields with rising hills are crown'd,

Where clustering vines empurple all the ground;

Now by degrees from hills to Alps they rise,

Hell groans beneath, above they pierce the skies!

See the proud summit, white with endless frost,

Eternal bulwark of the blissful coast!

The blissful coast the hardy Lombards gain,

And frost and mountains cross their course in vain;

Here Glory beckon'd mighty chiefs of old,

And planted laurels to reward the bold;

Charles, Otho, Conti heard her trumpet sound,

And, borne on victory's wings, they spurn'd the mound.

See, on those banks where yon calm waters swell,

The hair-clad epicure's luxurious cell!

See fam'd Ripaille, where once so grave, so gay,

Great Amedeus[†] pass'd from prayer to play:

Fantastic wretch! thou riddle of thy kind!

What strange ambition seiz'd thy frantic mind?

Prince, hermit, lover! blest thro' every hour

With blissful change of pleasure and of power,

Couldst thou, thus paradis'd, from care remote,

Rush to the world, and fight for Peter's boat?

Now by the Gods of sweet repose I swear,

I would not thus have barter'd ease for care,

Spight of the keys that move our fear and hope,

I ne'er would quit such penance to be Pope.

Let him who Rome's stern tyrant stoop'd to praise,

The tuneful chanter of sweet georgic lays,

Let Maro boast of streams that Nature pours

To lave proud villas on Italia's shores;

Superior far the streams that court my song,

Superior far the shores they wind along:

Blest shores! the dwelling of that sacred power

Who rules each joyful, and each glorious hour,

Queen of whate'er the good or great desire,

The patriot's eloquence, the hero's fire,

Shrin'd in each breast, and near the tyrant's sword

Invok'd in whispers, and in sighs ador'd,

Immortal Liberty, whose generous mind

With all her gifts would bless all human-kind!

See, from Morat[*] she comes in martial charms,

And shines like Pallas in celestial arms,

Her sword the blood of boastful Austria stains,

And Charles, who threaten'd with opprobrious chains.

Now hostile crowds Geneva's towers assail,

They march in secret, and by night they scale;

The Goddess comes—they vanish from the wall,

Their launces shiver, and their heroes fall,

For fraud can ne'er elude, nor force withstand

The stroke of Liberty's victorious hand[*].

She smiles; her smiles perpetual joys diffuse;

A shouting nation where she turns pursues;

Their heart-felt Paeans thunder to the sky,

And echoing Appenines from far reply:

Such wreaths their temples crown as Greece entwin'd

Her hero's brows at Marathon[†] to bind;

Such wreaths the sons of freedom hold more dear,

Than circling gold and gems that crown the peer,

Than the broad hat which shades the Pontiff's face,

Or the cleft mitre's venerable grace.

Insulting grandeur, in gay tinsel drest,

Shows here no star embroider'd on the breast,

No tissued ribbon on the shoulder tied,

Vain gift implor'd by vanity from pride!

Nor here stern Wealth, with supercilious eyes,

The faltering prayer of weeping want denies;

Here no false Pride at honest Labour sneers,

Men here are brothers, equal but in years;

Here heaven, O! Liberty, has fix'd thy throne,

Fill'd, glorious Liberty! by thee alone.

Rome sees thy face, since Brutus fell, no more,

A stranger thou on many a cultur'd shore:

The Polish lord, of thy embraces vain,

Pricks his proud courser o'er Sarmatia's plain;

Erects his haughty front in martial pride,

And spurns the burgher, grovelling at his side;

The grovelling burgher burns with secret fires,

Looks up, beholds thee, sighs, despairs, expires.

Britain's rough sons in thy defence are bold,

Yet some pretend at London thou art sold,

I heed them not, to sell too proud, too wise,

If blood must buy, with blood the Briton buys.

On Belgic bogs, 'tis said, thy footsteps fail,

But thou secure may'st scorn the whisper'd tale;

To latest times the race of great Nassau,

Who rais'd seven altars[*] to thy sacred law,

With faithful hand thy honours shall defend,

And bid proud factions to thy fasces bend.

Thee Venice keeps, thee Genoa now regains;

And next the throne thy seat the Swede maintains;

How few in safety thus with kings can vie!

If not supreme, how dangerous to be high!

O! still preside where'er the law's thy friend,

And keep thy station, and thy rights defend;

But take no factious League's[†] reproachful name,

Still prone to change, and zealous still to blame,

Cloud not the sunshine of a conquering race,

Whom wisdom governs, and whom manners grace;

•ond of their sovereign, of subjection vain,

They wish no favours at thy hands to gain,

Nor need such vassals at their lord repine,

Whose easy sway they fondly take for thine.

Thro' the wide east less gentle is thy fate,

Where the dumb murderer guards the sultan's gate;

Here pale and trembling, in the dust o'erturn'd,

With chains dishonour'd, and by eunuchs spurn'd,

The sword and bow-string plac'd on either side

Thou mourn'st, while slaves of life and death decide.

Spol'd of thy cap thro' all the bright Levant

Tell[*] gave thee his, and well supplied the want.

O! come my Goddess, in thy chosen hour,

And let my better fortune hail thy power;

Fair friendship calls thee to my green retreat,

O! come, with friendship share the mossy seat;

Like thee she flies the turbulent and great,

The craft of business, and the farce of state;

To you, propitious powers, at last I turn,

To you, my vows ascend, my altars burn;

Let me of each the pleasing influence share,

My joys now heighten'd, and now sooth'd my care;

Each ruder passion banish'd from my breast,

Bid the short remnant of my Days be blest.

Notes

*
The lake of Geneva.
↵

†
Amedeus the Pacific, first duke of Savoy, in 1434 retired to the priory of Ripaille, where he affected to live like an hermit, and suffered his beard to grow to an enormous length; but he kept a mistress in his cell, and in other respects lived in great luxury; yet he joined with a faction against Pope Eugenius IV. and being elected to the see of Rome, he was crowned Pope by the name of Felix V. but afterwards resigned at the request of Charles VII. king of France.
↵

*
Morat is a little town in the canton of Fribourgh in Switzerland, famous for a battle which the Switzers gained against Charles the Rash, duke of Burgundy, by which they recovered and established their liberty. Charles himself was wounded, and left 18,000 Austrians dead on the spot.
↵

*
The duke of Sivoy once attempted to surprize Geneva, and take it in the night escalade, but the first man that mounted the wall was discovered by a woman, who courageously knocked him down, and alarmed the Genevese, who drove off the assailants, and sallying after them, made a great slaughter.
↵

†
At Marathon Miltiades, with 10,000 Athenians, defeated an army of more than 100,000 Persians, and delivered his country from a foreign yoke.
↵

*
The Union of the Seven Provinces.
↵

†
The author alludes to the famous League formed against
〈◊〉
of France.

↵

*
William Tell was the means of restoring liberty and independance to Switzerland by killing Grisler, the tyrant who governed it for the emperor Albert.
↵

CONCORD.
A POEM INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF RADNOR.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCLI.

BY JAMES HARRIS, ESQ.

THE deeds of discord, or in prose or rhyme,

Let others tell. 'Tis mine (the better theme)

Concord to sing; and thus begins the song:

Congenial things to things congenial tend:

So rivulets their little waters join

To form one river's greater stream: so haste

The rivers, from their different climes, to meet,

And kindly mix, in the vast ocean's bed:

So earth to earth down goes; and upwards slies

To fires etherial, each terrestrial blaze,

Such elemental Concord.—Yet not here

Confin'd the sacred sympathy, but wide

Thro' plant and animal diffusely spread.

How many myriads of the grassy blade

Assemble, to create one verdant plain?

How many cedars towering heights conspire,

Thy tops, O cloud-capt Lebanon! to deck?

Life-animal still more conspicuous gives

Her fair examples. Here the social tie

We trace, ascending from th' ignoble swarms

Of insects, up to flocks and grazing herds;

Thence to the polities of bees and ants,

And honest beavers, bound by friendly league

Of mutual help and interest.—Cruel man!

For love of gain, to persecute, to kill,

This gentle, social, and ingenious race,

That never did you wrong.—But stop, my Muse,

Stop thy sad song, nor deviate to recount

Man's more inhuman deeds; for man too feels

Benign affection, nor dares disobey,

Tho' oft reluctant, Nature's mighty voice,

That summons all to harmony and love.

Else would to Nature's Author foul impute

Of negligence accrue, while baser things

He knits in holy friendship, thus to leave

His chief and last work void of sweet attract,

And tendence to its fellow. But not so,

Not so, if truly sings the heaven-born Muse:

And she can tell; for she the limpid fount

Of truth approaches; rumours only reach

Our earth-born ears. Then mark her tale divine.

Ere yet creation was, ere sun and moon

And stars bedeck'd the splendid vault of heaven,

Was God; and God was Mind; and Mind was Beauty,

And Truth, and Form, and Order: For all these

In Mind's profound recess, and union pure

Together dwelt, involv'd, inexplicate.

Then matter (if then matter was) devoid,

Formless, indefinite, and passive lay;

Mysterious Being, in one instant found,

Nor any thing, nor nothing; but at once

Both all and none; none by privation, all

By vast capacity, and pregnant power.

This passive nature th' active Almighty Mind

Deeming fit subject for his art, at once

Expell'd privation, and pour'd forth himself;

Himself pour'd forth thro' all the mighty mass

Of matter, now first bounded. Then was beauty

And truth, and form, and order, all evolv'd,

Was open'd all, that lay enwrapp'd and hid

In the great mind of Godhead. Forth it went,

Forth went the pure quintessence far and wide

Thro' the vast whole; nor did its force not feel

The last of minim atoms. So (great things

It we compare with small) in sable cloud

Invelop'd, lies the lightning: mortal men

Look up, and dread th' event: When, lo! illum'd

All in a moment, the small nitrous seeds

Expanding, fill heaven's mighty vault, and quick

From pole to pole the fiery terror flies.

Thus Mind thro' all things pass'd, essence and worth

Giving and limiting to each in bounds

Proportion'd to its kind. To clods and stones

It gave cohesion; to things vegetant

Nutrition, and the power of growth; to brutes,

Sense, appetite, and motion: but to man

All these it gave, and join'd to these the grace,

The chosen grace, of reason, beam divine!

Hence man, allied to all, in all things meets

Congenial being, effluence of mind.

And as the tuneful string spontaneous sounds

The answer to his kindred note; so he

The secret harmony within him feels,

When aught of beauty offers. This the joy,

While verdant plains and grazing herbs we view,

Or ocean's mighty vastness; or the stars,

In midnight silence as along they roll.

Hence to the rapture, while th' harmonious bard

Attunes his vocal song; and hence the joy,

While what the sculptor graves, the painter paints,

And all the pleasing mimickries of art

Strike our accordant minds. Yet chief by far,

Chief is man's joy, when, mixt with human kind

He feels affection melt the social heart;

Feels friendship, love, and all the charities

Of father, son, and brother. Here the pure

Sincere congenial, free from all alloy,

With bliss he recognizes. For to man

What dearer is than man? say you, who prove

The kindly call, the social sympathy,

What but this call, this social sympathy,

Tempers to standard due the vain exult

Of prosperous fortune? what but this refines

Soft pity's pain, and sweetens every care,

Each friendly care, we feel for human kind?

O Gomez! gives thy pelf such bliss? or ye,

Who wade thro' blood to fame, and worse than wolves,

Prey on your kind, can your vain triumphs give

Such solid happiness? like giants old,

Ye fight 'gainst Nature, Nature's order spurn,

And would o'erthrow. But she, be well assur'd,

Will baffle all your efforts vain, and plant

Fell daggers in your hearts, terror and guilt,

Heart-burning hate, and dreary black remorse.

When Rome her last of heroes lost (e'er since

The wretched nurse of Caesars, and of Monks,)

When Brutus, urg'd by faction, and a mob

For basest servitude now ripen'd, sled

From Latian soil, then, to attend her lord,

Fled to the faithful partner of his bed,

The wise, the virtuous Portia. Much she fear'd;

For much she lov'd. He, godlike man, inspir'd

Not with less love, tho' with superior strength

Of reason, thus her anxious thoughts reliev'd:

" O Portia, best of wives, grateful thy sight,

" Grateful thy converse. Yet, whene'er we part,

" (And soon we must) then do not, Portia, thou,

" Like other women, sink; but bravely rouse

" Thy mighty sire's remembrance. His firm deeds

" May steel thy soul to sufferance. Me the fates

" O'er distant seas to hostile arms compel.

" Should we succeed, then is thy lot and mine

" Fortunate virtue; should we fail, 'tis still,

" Still, Portia, virtue: think on that; then turn

" Thy mental eye to every worst event:

" And, by premeditating, learn to bear

" Whate'er befalls of ill. Joys will not come

" The less for this; and each joy unforeseen

" With doubled energy will bless thy soul."

Thus he with balmy words the labouring pain

Within her bosom sooth'd, and she was cheer'd:

Stedfast she travell'd, stedfast she arriv'd

To the sea-brink, where many a vessel lay

With fails expanded, Brutus to receive.

Now were they lodg'd in hospitable house,

The tender scene of their long last farewel:

Yet stedfast still she was; stedfast she saw

The mariners prepare. When lo! by chance

A picture meets her wandering eye. It show'd,

In living lines, brave Hector's last embrace,

When from his weeping long-lov'd spouse he went,

Never to see her more. Ah, Portia! then

Where fled thy courage? where thy stedfast heart?

Thou look'st, thou feel'st: The sad moving scene

Too near resemblance bears. Forth gush thy tears,

Thy spirits sink, thy limbs forget their strength,

And thou forgettest all thy Brutus said.

Yet he forgives—forgives? yet still he loves,

Loves thee, that thou forgettest all he said;

For well he knows the cause: 'twas faithful love,

By faithful love affected, like by like;

Congenial by congenial.—

But thy song

'Tis time, my Muse, to end. This verse, O thou,

Radnor! who prov'st a secret sympathy

With all that's fair; patron and judge of arts;

Studious of elegance in every form,

Radnor! this verse be consecrate to thee.

TO THE AUTHOR OF A PANEGYRIC ON MRS. GRACE BUTLER, WHO DIED AGED LXXXVI.

BY MR. POPE.

The spirit of Mrs. Butler is supposed to speak.

STript to the naked soul, escap'd from clay,

From doubts unfetter'd, and dissolv'd in day;

Unwarm'd by vanity; unreach'd by strife;

And all my hopes and fears thrown off with life,

Why am I charm'd by friendship's fond essays,

And, tho' unbodied, conscious of thy praise?

Has pride a portion in the parted soul?

Does passion still the formless mind controul?

Can gratitude out-pant the silent breath?

Or a friend's sorrow pierce the glooms of death?

No,—'tis a spirit's nobler taste of bliss!

That feels the worth it left, in proofs like this;

That not its own applause, but thine, approves;

Whose practice praises, and whose virtue loves!

Who liv'st, to crown departed friends with fame;

Then, dying late, shalt all thou gav'st reclaim.

INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO OF SHELLS AT CRUX-EASTQN, THE WORK OF NINE YOUNG LADIES.

BY THE SAME.

HEre, shunning idleness at once and praise,

This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;

The glittering emblem of each spotless dame,

Clear as her soul, and shining as her frame;

Beauty which Nature only can impart,

And such a polish as disgraces art;

But fate dispos'd them in this humble sort,

And hid in deserts what would charm a court.

VERSES BY MR. POPE, ON READING A POEM, ENTITLED "A FIT OF THE SPLEEN," BY DR. IBBOTT[*].

WHat are t•• falling rills, the pendent shades,

The morni•• bowers, the evening colonades,

But soft recesses for 〈◊〉 uneasy mind,

To sigh unheard in to the passing wind?

So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,

Lies down to die—the arrow in his heart;

There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,

Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away.

Notes

*
See Dodsley's collection, Vol. V. p. 202.
↵

VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE, ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER, USED AT ATTERBURY, A SEAT OF THE DUKE OF ARGYLE'S, IN OXFORDSHIRE, JULY IX, MDCCXXXIX.

WIth no poetic ardor fir'd,

I press the bed where Wilmot lay;

That here he lov'd, or here expir'd,

Begets no numbers grave or gay.

But in thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie,

Stretch'd out in honour's nobler bed,

Beneath a nobler roof, the sky.

Such flames as high in patriots burn,

Yet stoop to bless a child, or wife;

And such as wicked kings may mourn,

When freedom is more dear than life.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, UPON READING THE PREAMBLE TO THE PATENT CREATING HIM DUKE OF GREENWICH. BY THE SAME.

MIndless of fate, in these low vile abodes,

Tyrants have oft usurp'd the style of Gods:

But that the Mortal may be thought Divine,

The Herald strait new-modell'd all his line;

And venal Priest, with well-dissembled lye,

Preambled to the crowd the mimic Deity.

Not so great Saturn's son, imperial Jove,

He reigns, unquestion'd, in his realms above;

No title from descent he need infer,

His red right arm proclaims the Thunderer.

This, Campbell, be thy pride, illustrious Peer,

Alike to shine distinguish'd in thy sphere.

All merit but thine own thou may'st disdain,

And Kings have been thine ancestors in vain.

A MORNING ELEGY[*].

HAil, bright-eyed harbinger of sacred light!

Nature, refresh'd, beholds thy cheering ray,

At thy approach the gloomy shades of night,

And all its dreary horrors, pass away:

Yet not to him, within whose manly breast

Reason, with olive-twined sceptre, sways,

I there in darkness aught that can molest;

But nights serene succeed to virtuous days.

Unlike that Lucifer whose baleful reign

Excites to every deed of foulest dye,

Repine and Lust, and all the savage train

Retire, abash'd, before thy holy eye.

With silver hair, bright-flowing in the east,

And ruby-tinctur'd mantle, lightly spread,

With pearl-bestudded girdle bound her vest,

Aurora rises from her coral bed.

I feel her sweet breath in the balmy gale,

Purging from noxious fumes the humid air,

Shedding fresh odours on the flowery vale,

And genuine roses on the village fair.

I see the dappled fleece, her favourite woof,

And golden-fringed clouds adorn the sky,

Skimming with light wing o'er its azure roof,

And softening every object to the eye.

While yet the mind retains her tranquil ease,

From day's perplexing cares and passions free.

While Nature's charms are best array'd to please,

And Health and Pleasure join in amity,

Oft let me rove beneath thy gentle beam,

Ere sultry Phoebus mounts his burning throne,

And to the soaring sky-lark's grateful theme,

In numbers less melodious join my own:

And as I range th' ambrosial fields along,

Or climb the verdant hills unshaded height,

Pause on those blessings that inspire my song,

And gather thence instruction and delight.

Springs not a blade upon the spacious plain,

Bends not a flower beneath the crystal tear,

Chirps not an insect of the turf in vain;

But Contemplation Wisdom's voice can hear.

See! yonder feather'd parent, skimming round,

Sudden she darts upon her humble food:

Yet, nobly scorning hunger, spurns the ground,

And soars aloft, to serve her callow brood:

Sweet moralist! to reason-vaunting man

Thy generous lesson teach; oft, in thy place,

Despising Nature's all-instructive plan,

He feeds his follies, and neglects his race.

What sudden burst of oriental rays

Disturbs the peaceful musings of my breast,

Involves the ample firmament in blaze,

And shoots its glories to the distant west?

How bright the scene! magnificent and large,

The orb of light reveals his glorious face,

Rejoicing in his high Creator's charge,

To spread his bounties thro' the realms of space.

Fitted to mortal eye, thy splendors mild

More great appear than at meridian height;

So shone the holy Virgin's heavenly child,

Disclosing grace divine to human sight.

In prime advancing, now the jocund day,

Laughs in the fulness of unclouded joy,

Fresh-springing flowrets strew his radiant way,

The woodland harmonists their notes employ:

From hill to dale, from grove to verd'rous spring,

Sweet sounds, responsive, fill the ambient air,

Sweet sounds, responsive, make the valleys ring,

And banish thence the family of care:

Nor cheerless is the herd's majestic low,

Loud-calling for the milk-maid's easing hand,

Or white slocks bleating on the mountain's brow,

Or plowman's whistling o'er his furrow'd land.

Ye blest inhabitants of fields and shades,

Elysium soft of undisturb'd repose!

No artificial want your breast invades,

No painful foretaste of succeeding woes:

By simple instinct led, to you unknown

The tender throb of exquisite desire;

The wealth of Avarice, and Ambition's throne,

No raging wish, no discontent inspire:

To you sufficing, that the genial beam

Of day's enlivening planet wakes to joy,

Satiate, ye quaff the pure untainted stream,

And feast on dainties that can never cloy.

O! to my heart your sacred lore convey,

Let Nature be my wealth, my joy, my guide,

And be the business of each rising day

To check my wants, my passions, and my pride.

Notes

*
This and the three following poems are by Mr. Abr. Portal.
↵

AN EVENING ELEGY.

WElcome thou sober evening, calm and grey,

Now Phoebus' rage, and every blast is laid,

Now fost'ring clews descend, and turb'lent day

Retires beneath the halcyon wing of shade.

Now lucid Venus, grac'd with beamy hair,

To dance nocturnal tempts the starry train,

Commanding toil to cease, and anxious care

From vexing mortal bosoms to refrain.

Yet will not Avarice, cursed fiend! forbear

To break wise Nature's best-appointed law,

She pensive-plodding sits, with downcast air

Refusing rest, her fraudful plan to draw.

Pursuing which, nor Themis' righteous lore,

Nor precious relatives blood-binding tie,

Nor all that heaven for virtue has in store

Can draw aside her Mammon-fixed eye:

O'er rocks and seas unheeded bounds she flies,

Explores the cold extreme of either Pole,

Dares the fierce heats of equinoctial skies,

Nor slacks her race, till Death's unwelcome goal.

Far from my breast, kind heaven, such lust remove,

At every grateful, tranquil eve's return,

Let me, while doubtful Cynthia cheers the grove,

With naught but love, or pious ardor burn.

And as along some placid stream I range,

Viewing the wild flowers close their gaudy bloom,

Or birds the free expanse of ether change,

To seek the shady covert's inmost gloom,

Ah! let me tread with cautious step and slow,

Where thick-set hawthorns shed their odours wide,

Where intermingled roses sweetly blow,

And rambling woodbines cling on every side;

Perchance, within the fragrant thicket hid,

Some tuneful warbler rests his wearied throat,

Who, ere the sun beneath th' horizon slid,

Had sooth'd my bosom with his dulcet note:

Perchance, close-perch'd aside his brooding mate,

With bill to bill inclin'd, in silent joy,

He cheers her lonely hours, and watchful state,

And cares lest aught should her repose destroy.

Sweet harmonists! your tender vigils keep

Secure for me, I will not do ye wrong,

The rustling boughs my garments shall not sweep,

And ye shall pay me with your future song.

But hark! what voice the sacred stillness breaks?

Softer than silence are those melting strains,

Or lover's sighs, when pleading Nature speaks;

'Tis sadly-pleasing Philomel complains.

Long let me drink the magic of thy lay,

Nor humming chafers baulk my thirsty ear,

The time insensibly shall wear away,

Till night approach, and every star appear:

Then as my lagging feet I homewards draw,

My passions all in heavenly concord bound,

The solemn scene shall fill my soul with awe,

And God Omnipotent my tongue resound.

Methinks, when clad in beaming glories mild,

Full and majestic shines the queen of night,

Around her throne innumerous squadrons fil'd

Of hosts celestial, ministers of light,

It should remind us of that holy hour,

When heaven and earth's all-gracious Judge shall come,

In the full splendor of his Father's power,

With guard seraphic, to pronounce our doom.

May I, when life's short day begins to close,

The star of age pale-glimmering o'er my head,

Unvex'd by troublous blast my mind compose,

Nor fortune's frowns, nor sacred vengeance dread:

From every anxious busy scene retir'd,

Let me the world's mad tumult view from far,

Smile at what erst each raging passion fir'd,

Nor deem short pleasure worth unceasing care.

Within some humbly-decent rural shed,

There let my sun of life in radiance set,

Thro' smiling hope, when Death's black night is sled,

A course more glorious shall its orient wait.

FRIENDSHIP.
ATTEMPTED AFTER THE MANNER OF COWLEY.

FRiendship, how sweet! how comely dost thou seem!

But art thou aught indeed, besides a dream?

A pleasing dream, where mines of wealth we own;

But, by distress awak'd, we find our comfort flown:

Yet have I read amongst the poets tales

What mighty things have been by friendship done;

Or if the world of fiction naught avails,

View Israel's royal youth and Jesse's son:

Their love above the love of women rose,

Etherial flame, purg'd from each grosser fire,

Their bosoms throb'd with the same joys and woes,

Like notes accordant from th' harmonious lyre.

Barometers alike thus rise and fall,

Elate with sunshine, or by clouds deprest,

The same sublime affection moves on all;

So friendship acts upon the social breast.

But most, like pasteboard figures, seem t' agree,

Which when the sky is neither foul nor fair,

At neighbouring doors, in kindly amity,

Partake the common privilege of air;

But if, perchance, the brightening sky should clear,

And Phoebus spread his shining tresses wide,

Or threatning cloud drop some foreboding tear,

Far as they can the former friends divide.

And some there are, I ween, who, like the sun,

Cheer the fair opening bud with friendly gleam;

But, when expanded wide, its beauties shun,

Or envious wither with oppressive beam.

Others, like wanton dames, exhaust their charms

On all alike, nor heed th' intrinsic worth,

And lose, within a thousand different arms,

What one alone had foster'd into birth.

Some, like the tuneful tenants of the shade,

A fond and close, but short alliance make,

The purpose serv'd which first their union made,

A long farewel the future strangers take.

Others (whom fortune blast) with smooth-tongued guile,

The unsuspecting social heart betray,

Like treacherous Syrens murdering with a smile,

Like comets blazing with malignant ray.

Amid this threatning deluge, far outspread,

Where shall the faithful dove of friendship rest?

Return, sweet bird, to thy domestic shed,

The poets age, and miracles are ceas'd.

Ah, yet return not! spread thy pinions wide,

No labour spare; encompass land and sea;

Let naught th' inestimable jewel hide,

Find me a friend, if any friend there be:

Nay, better thou should'st suffer fair deceit,

Than solitary to my breast return;

Who dreams of pleasure is not so complete

A wretch, as he who only wakes to mourn.

ELIZA'S WEDDING-DAY. AN ECLOGUE.

INTRODUCTION.

O Could my Muse, with gentle Gay,

Upon the boxen hautboy play,

Or, with sweet pipe of shepherd's boy,

Make Windsor's shades resound with joy,

Maria's beauties still should live,

And mournful Strephon cease to grieve;

Eliza's love, Eliza's truth,

Unfading bloom in endless youth,

And every bright delicious charm

The barbed hand of Time disarm;

But ah, poor Colin! vain thy lay;

Yet do thy best, and pipe away.

COLIN.

While from on high the flaming sun displays

The scorching fury of his noontide rays,

And, at the foot of this oak-shaded hill,

Our browsing cattle seek the cooling rill,

Let us beguile the time with pleasing song,

And stretch our languid limbs at ease along.

STREPHON.

What boots it, Colin, that our limbs are laid,

Compos'd, beneath the oak's refreshing shade,

Or that around us, on the yellow plain,

The fertile ground is stock'd with plenteous grain?

What tho' the meadows smile with cheerful green,

And waving copses ornament the scene,

Can shades or plenty, or delightful views,

O'er wounded minds the smiles of joy diffuse?

When fond Maria fled her shepherd's arms,

Plains, meads, and copses, lost their wonted charms.

C.

Tho' just the cause, ah! what avails your grief,

Since the pale Tyrant is to pity deaf?

S.

Tho' from my bosom Death has rudely torn

The fragrant rose, he left the pointed thorn.

Well may you, Colin, blithesome strains compose,

Happy in love, and stranger to my woes,

Those blessings which your life with transports crown,

Four moons agone I boasted as my own;

But now, tho' vigour, youth, and love remain,

The charming object I lament in vain.

C.

And who that knew the lovely nymph forbears

The willing tribute of condoling tears?

Bright was her form, with graces richly deck'd,

Commanding love, attemper'd with respect;

Sweet Modesty, with social Freedom join'd,

Her manners form'd, and wit adorn'd her mind:

How kind! how courteous she to every swain!

My wounded memory recollects with pain;

But be all sorrows laid aside this day,

To Colin's joys, let Strephon's griefs give way.

S.

As soon the hare shall quit the sheltering brake,

And linnets grey the yellow furze forsake:

As soon shall British nymphs lose power to charm,

And Afric' maids the shepherds bosoms warm,

As I from this afflicted breast remove

The sad remembrance of Maria's love.

Weep skies, sigh gales, droop all ye fading woods,

Die every flower, and murmuring mourn ye floods;

Ye gay-plum'd warblers, cease your tuneful strains,

Bats, ravens, screech-owls scream along the plains;

In pity to my woes, ye swains around,

Strip off the honours from the loaded ground,

And let the fields, deserted and forlorn,

Three dismal months my lost Maria mourn:

Then shall returning Spring their bosoms cheer;

But ah! in mine, 'tis Winter all the year.

C.

My dear Eliza lov'd Maria more

Than bees the fragrance of the gaudy flower:

Then, while her praise I sing, your woe suspend,

And lose the lover in the generous friend.

Ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and shady groves,

To distant plains resound our mutual loves.

Twice three revolving happy years and one,

Since sacred wedlock join'd our hands are flown;

Seven times the shifting seasons went and came,

The seasons change, our hearts remain the same.

Ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and shady groves,

To distant plains resound our mutual loves.

Of every hue of every blossom dyed,

The gay carnation is the garden's pride;

So every beauty bright Eliza wears,

Blest Colin's pride, and softner of his cares.

The fragrant clove in sweetness most excels,

The lilly's fairest of the flowery belles;

More sweet than cloves, than spotless lillies fair,

In Colin's eyes, Eliza's beauties are.

Ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and shady groves,

To distant plains resound our mutual loves.

Tell every nymph, that mourns her swain's deceit,

The lov'd Eliza is as good as sweet;

When they, like her, each social virtue prove,

Their swains, like Colin, shall return their love.

Guiltless of anger, harmless lambkins rove,

The loving turtles coo within the grove,

My constant Tray ne'er quits his master's side,

The prudent ants unthinking swains deride,

And bees beneficent, with pleasing pains,

Collect sweet honey to enrich the swains;

Lambs, turtles, Tray, and ants and bees may find

Their virtues blended in Eliza's mind:

Ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and shady groves,

To distant plains resound our mutual loves.

Ye witless clowns, who marriage joys deride,

Nor know the comforts of a faithful bride,

Attentive listen to my tender tale,

Nor to your loss let prejudice prevail.

By Winter's false inclement skies betray'd,

A burning fever on my vitals prey'd;

My fleecy charge Eliza's care supplied,

Respondent to each groan Eliza sigh'd;

Twelve sleepless nights sharp anguish rack'd my breast,

Twelve sleepless nights Eliza banish'd rest,

With care unwearied watch'd aside my bed,

And with fond arm sustain'd my restless head,

Each cooling herb applied to sooth my pain,

Nor were her tender labours wrought in vain;

Kind symptoms of returning health appear'd,

And Love's rich cordial my weak spirits cheer'd;

My strength renew'd, joy sparkled in her eye,

And fill'd my soul with grateful extasy.

Ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and shady groves,

To distant plains resound our mutual loves.

Ye mantling vines that form the conscious bower,

Where oft we pass the soft endearing hour,

Whilst you, to imitate our joys divine,

In wanton folds your amorous branches twine,

A thousand kisses whisper from your leaves;

But barren of those sweets Eliza gives:

For not the mingling arms, or frequent kiss,

But souls united cause the heart-felt bliss.

Ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and shady groves,

To distant plains resound our mutual loves.

Eliza's presence with supreme delights

Shortens the summer's days, and winter's nights:

No irksome toil shall Colin e'er regard,

Her happiness and love the rich reward.

Blest be the day, at each return thrice blest,

That gave Eliza to my raptur'd breast:

This day, may no misfortune vex the swains,

No ripen'd corn be laid by furious rains;

No luckless reaper meet with painful wound,

Or tread the stinging adder on the ground;

No nipping blasts the hopeful grapes assail,

Or make the downy peaches withering fail;

But may propitious Love excite to mirth,

And Ceres' honours grace the teeming earth;

With golden fruit the loaded trees be crown'd,

And purple clusters on the vines abound.

Now cease, ye hills, ye dales, ye streams, and groves,

To tell the distant plains our mutual loves.

S.

Well hast thou, Colin, tun'd the oaten reed,

Thy songs the songs of nightingales exceed;

Unable to withstand thy powerful lay,

The melancholy fiend is hied away;

To fate resign'd, I feel returning rest,

Sweet friendship, now, has all my soul possest,

And Colin young, with his Eliza fair,

Shall equal portions of my bosom share:

Long may succeeding years their love renew,

A pattern for each nymph and shepherd true,

And may Eliza fair, and Colin young,

To distant times by happy pairs be sung:

[*]PROLOGUE.

BY E.R.

LAdies, the ends for which we meet to-night,

Are social good, and innocent delight,

Past scenes of mirth, by present, we restore,

And thanks return for honours dealt before.

These too aloud for gratitude shall call,

Whene'er your presence cheers a future ball.

The voids of life are often unsupplied

From aukward shame, or ill-consider'd pride:

Still of our talents diffident or vain,

We dread as vassals, or as kings disdain;

Diseas'd with spleen, or impotence of mind,

Skulking, sad fugitives, from human-kind.

Converse, no doubt, an institute divine,

Corrects our manners, bids our virtues shine;

For still imperfect was the Maker's plan,

Till this improv'd the savage into man.

Yet ill by friendship man with man, we strive

To keep the soul of social bliss alive:

Friendship among ourselves is seldom true,

But always proves more faithful made by you.

Fir'd by your sex it vies with joys above,

It mounts, it glows exalted into love.

Say, then, ye tender, and ye truly fair,

Since heaven has form'd you with distinguish'd care,

And made a parent lavish of his store,

In Nature's blessings rich, in Virtue's more;

Say, could such gifts be ever meant the lot

Of the pert coxcomb, or the stupid sot?

Oh, if impartially you dart your frowns

On well-bred Fribbles, and on ill-bred Clowns;

If men from honour, as from shame exempt,

The false and venal share your just contempt;

When the smit youth of spirit, and of sense,

Attacks your hearts, forbear a long defence;

Dire fruits of Smithfield-sales let truth avert,

And bless with beauty, where you find desert.

Notes

*
This, and as far as page 96 inclusive, by the same gentleman.
↵

POMPILIA. AN ODE.
WRITTEN BY THE SIDE OF A FOUNTAIN WHOSE WATERS MIX WITH THE RIVER VANDAL.

FAir crystal fount, whose peaceful bed

Unnumber'd pebbles hide,

From whence, by Nature's bounty fed,

Perennial waters glide.

What Nymph, by Satyrs hot pursued,

Attempting swift escape,

Did, to thy streams transform'd, elude

The meditated rape?

'Twas she, Pompilia, virgin pure,

Of chaste Diana's train,

By Vandal lov'd, but ah! secure,

By Vandal lov'd in vain.

Now tow'rds his banks, her only trust,

Fear gave her footsteps wing;

She swoon'd, she fell, deform'd with dust,

To rise a silver spring.

Then, Vandal, first thy longing arms

The passive fair sustain'd,

And ow'd to lawless lust the charms,

Thy love had never gain'd.

Yet coy, as when a maid of old,

Tho' bright as noon-tide ray;

She trembles still, and, icy-cold,

In silence steals away.

A DIALOGUE, BETWEEN A GENTLEMAN AND A LADY, AT A BALL AT CROYDON.

BY E.R.

LADY.

GET along, sir—I hate you, that's flat—

Let me go then—Lord bless me—be quiet—

If you wont keep your hands off, take that—

D'ye think I came here to a riot?

G.

Why, madam,—how now? do you scratch?

In short, miss, I wont bear this usage—

You're a little, unthinking cross-patch—

And yet you're of miss I know who's age.

L.

Of this, or of that miss's age,

What business have fellows with me, sir?—

Put yourself into ne'er such a rage,

I care not three skips of a flea, sir—

G.

Lord, madam, I hope no offence;—

My words seldom bear any meaning:—

Besides, you're a lady of sense,

And anger would scorn to be seen in.

L.

Such rudeness would ruffle a saint—

I wish you would learn to be civil.—

G.

One kiss, and I will, I'll maintain't—

L.

Well! sure you're an impudent devil—

There!—now are you satisfied?

G.

No:

L.

How can folks be so mortally teazing?

G.

While your lips so much sweetness bestow,

Your nails can do nothing displeasing.

AN APOLOGY FOR RUNNING AWAY.

WHene'er superior force defies,

'Tis good the battle to decline;

Grotius himself would so advise,

And I may make his motives mine.

Who roams, a stronger foe to seek,

Is sure unhappily employ'd;

Retreat's the wisdom of the weak;

'Tis oft a triumph to avoid.

Mackheath, on either side attack'd,

With artless honesty, affirms,

Oppos'd by odds, he cannot act,

And fights not, but on equal terms.

That, therefore, conquest may accrue,

Your corps should half its strength detach;

What fool would make attempt on two,

When one may prove above his match?

SONG
TO A TUNE IN THE PARTING LOVERS.

AND must thou leave us, Nancy,

And quit thy conquests round?

Ah! can no necromancy

To bring thee back be found?

Thou Venus' smock wert wrapt in,

Who gave those charms, we see,

So fatal to the captain,

Thy zealous devotee.

What tho' thy father cruel

Decrees thy triumphs o'er,

Soon absence heaps with fuel,

The love that blaz'd before.

Thy blade, to change the sentence,

Shall summon force and skill,

And thou, by Dad's repentance,

Revisit Dupper's Hill.

SONG.

TEll me where the weakness lies,

You who seem above it,

Whence we joys in hand despise,

Whence remote we covet?

If, when objects distant move,

Still they can allure us,

Will that nigh they worthless prove

Not suffice to cure us?

Strange! our will perverse and blind

Schemes of peace opposes;

Strange! we look aloft to find

What's beneath our noses.

Go, ye anxious fools, and stun

Heaven with vain addresses;

He obtains your vows in one,

Who content possesses.

TO NANNETTE.

TIme flies, Nannette, to seal our doom,

Nor backward turns his head,

But sweeps with unremitted plume

The living to the dead.

Alas! those eyes, which warm the soul,

But gild a summer's day,

Too soon in vain their orbs shall roll,

And soon their fires decay.

Those dimples, where the Loves reside,

And mock the dread of sin,

In wrinkles must their glories hide,

As if they ne'er had been.

Nor this alone; for age will prey

A vulture on the mind,

And, stealing brilliant thoughts away,

Leave nought but cares behind.

Thee black Reflection shall surprise

Neglected, and uncouth,

All passions lost, but what suffice

To curse thy pride of youth.

Prevent the ills these notes foretell,

Be kind, lest men complain,

That Nature has but trifled well,

And form'd thee fair in vain.

TO A LADY, ON HER OBTAINING A PRIZE IN THE LOTTERY.

MAdam, to you since Fortune proves so kind,

Sure, ill they paint who represent her blind:

At least, 'tis plain, that, destitute of sight,

She needs no eyes to place her favours right.

WRITTEN AT VENLO DURING THE LATE WAR: ON A BEAUTIFUL CHILD BEING KILLED BY THE FALL OF A STONE FROM THE STEEPLE.

ONE summer's day, invited by the shade,

As near a time-shook tower an infant play'd,

From the high summit, whence a pigeon fled,

A sever'd fragment crush'd his blameless head.

Ye ruthless hosts, whose desolating skill

Makes lightnings slash, and mimic thunders kill;

Destructive engines need your rage employ,

When time can temples, doves can life destroy?

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

HEre, doom'd the sabbath of the grave to keep,

In peace, dear child, (so pray thy parents) sleep;

Sleep till the God of Nature bids thee wake;

And of thy raptures may they then partake.

AN INSCRIPTION DESIGNED FOR THE STATUE OF EDWARD THE SIXTH IN ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL.

ON Edward's brow no laurels cast a shade,

Nor at his feet are warlike spoils display'd;

Yet here, since first his bounty rais'd the pile,

The lame grow active, and the languid smile:

See this, ye chiefs, and, struck with envy, pine,

To kill is brutal, but to save, divine.

THE DEATH OF OTHO.
FROM MARTIAL.

WHen fierce Bellona doubtful held the scale,

And yet in arms soft Otho might prevail,

Shock'd at the bloodshed civil strife must deal,

Deep in his breast he plung'd the fatal steel;

Cato was greater living none deny,

But say, than Otho did he greater die?

ON A LATE PARRICIDE.

DEtested deed! what rites shall purge the land,

Where dies the parent by the [*]daughter's hand?

Fell tygers rend the lamb and sportive kid,

Yet hold the slaughter of their race forbid.

O grant me instinct! if from reason flows

A fierceness more than savage nature knows.

Notes

*
Miss Blandy.
↵

THE ROMAN CHARITY, IN CONTRAST TO THE FOREGOING.

THE Latian dame, a prison's nightly guest,

To sate a father's hunger drain'd her breast;

No less could filial piety confer,

Than cherish life in him who gave it her.

EPIGRAM.

CAssandra from her spark receiv'd

The gift of prophesying,

Yet so, that all who her believ'd

The wench was given to lying.

Thy gift of midwifry, O G—n,

Thy looks alike disparage,

Preventing oft a lying-in,

By causing a miscarriage.—

ANOTHER.

OLD Ayres subpoenaed to the grave,

The world consents to call a knave:

This, G—n, of thee is seldom said;

The cause is plain—Thou art not dead.—

EPITAPH ON A MAN WHO DIED SUDDENLY AT CHURCH.

HEre lies a man (behold what faith can do!)

At once found righteous, and rewarded too.

Whose spirit, mounting on the wings of prayer,

Scal'd heaven's blest seats, and crav'd acceptance there.

God, pleas'd the soul so high essay'd to soar,

Approv'd its zeal, and gave it back no more.

ON ONE WHO DIED OF THE HYP.

DEath, by a conduct strange and new,

Prov'd here th' effect, and motive too:

Ned met the blow he meant to fly,

And died, because—he fear'd to die.

EPIGRAM ON THE FALSE REPORT OF MRS. H—Y'S DEATH.

ON wings of winds his journey Rumor sped,

Proclaiming wide illustrious H—y dead:

Suspended tears stood big in every eye,

Till Truth's fair aspect chas'd the recent lye:

Slow mov'd the tears to sorrow's sad employ,

But gush'd a torrent in the cause of joy.

EPITAPH INTENDED FOR MY OWN TOMB-STONE.

THat Power supreme who taught me first to breathe,

Now bids my clay augment the dust beneath:

Enough to sense, that, form'd of human kind,

I fill'd that space for which I was design'd;

Enough to Nature, if I fill'd it well—

This the great day of final doom shall tell.

GRATITUDE. A POEM.

BY WILLIAM THOMPSON, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE.

SHall foreign lands for Pomfret wake the lyre,

And Tyber's more than Isis' banks inspire?

Let Isis' groves with Pomfret's name resound;

Not Rome alone can boast of classic ground.

Ye sons of harmony, the wreath prepare,

The living laurel wreath, to bind her hair.

Hail, fair exemplar of the good and great,

The Muses hail thee to their honour'd seat,

And ne'er, since Anna with her presence blest,

They sung a nobler, more auspicious guest.

Behold our youth, transported at the sight;

Behold our virgins, sparkling with delight;

Even venerable age forgets its snow,

The splendor catches, and consents to glow.

Ye youths, with Pomfret's praises tune the shell;

Ye virgins, learn from Pomfret to excel:

For her let age, with fervent prayers and pure,

The blessings of all-bounteous heaven secure.

Their breathing incense let the Graces bring;

Their grateful Paeans let the Muses sing.

If praise be guilt, ye laurels, cease to grow,

Oxford to sing, and Seraphims to glow.

No altars to an idol-power we raise,

Nor consecrate the worthless with our praise,

To merit only, and to goodness just,

We rear the arch-triumphal and the bust.

Sprung from the [*]Pembroke race, their nation's pride,

Allied by science, as by blood allied,

Illustrious rare! sure to protect or please

With patriot freedom, or with courtly ease;

Blest with the graceful form, and tuneful mind,

To Oxford dear, as to the Muses kind!

Thy gifts, O Pomfret, we with wonder view,

And while we praise their beauties think of you.

Who but a Venus could a Cupid send,

And who a Tully but Minerva's friend?

A speechless Tully, lest he should commend.

The praise you merit you refuse to hear;

No marble orator can wound your ear.

Mere statues, worse than statues we should be,

If Oxford's sons more silent were than he.

Scarce silent, and impatient of the stone,

He seems to thunder from his rostral throne:

He wakes the marble, by some Phidias taught,

And, eloquently dumb, he looks a thought.

With hopes and fears we tremble or rejoice,

Deceiv'd we listen, and expect a voice.

This station satisfies his noble pride,

Disdaining, but in Oxford, to reside.

Here safely we behold fierce Marius frown,

Glad that we have no Marius, save in stone,

So animated by the master's skill,

The Gaul, awe-strucken, dares not—cannot kill.

The sleeping Cupids happily exprest

The fiercer passions foreign to thy breast.

Long strangers to the laughter-loving Dame,

They from Arcadia, not from Paphos, came.

Whene'er his lyre thy kindred Sidney strung,

The flocking Loves around their Poet hung:

Whene'er he fought, they flutter'd by his side,

And stiffen'd into marble, when he died.

Half-drop'd their quivers, and half-seal'd their eyes,

They only sleep:—for Cupid never dies.

" A sleeping Cupid!" (cries some well-drest smart,)

" 'Tis false! I feel his arrows in my heart."

I own, my friend, your argument is good,

And who denies, that's made of flesh and blood;

But yon bright circle, strong in native charms,

No Cupid's bow requires, nor borrow'd arms:

The radiant Messenger of conquest flies

Keen from each glance, and pointed from their eyes.

His heart, whom such a prospect cannot move,

Is harder, colder, than the Marble-Love.

But Modesty rejects what Justice speaks:

—I see soft blushes stealing o'er their cheeks.—

Not Phidian labours claim the verse alone,

The figur'd brass, or fine-proportion'd stone.

To make you theirs the Sister Arts conspire,

You animate the canvas or the lyre:

A new creation on your canvas flows,

Life meets your hand, and from your pencil glows:

How swells your various lyre, or melts away,

While every Muse attends on every lay!

The bright contagion of Hesperian skies,

Burn'd in your soul, and lightned in your eyes,

To view what Raphael painted, Vinci plann'd,

And all the wonders of the classic land.

Proud of your charms, applauding Rome confest

Her own Cornelias breathing in your breast.

The Virtues, which each foreign realm renown,

You bore in triumph home, to grace your own.

Apelles thus to form his finish'd piece,

The beauteous Pomfret of adoring Greece,

In one united, with his happy care,

The fair perfections of a thousand fair.

Tho' Virtue may with moral lustre charm,

Religion only can the bosom warm.

In thee Religion wakens all her fires,

Perfumes thy heart, and spotless soul inspires.

A Cato's Daughter might of virtue boast,

Nobly to vice, tho' not to glory, lost:

A Pomfret, taught by Piety to rise,

Looks down on glory, while she hopes the skies.

Angels with joy prepare the starry crown,

And Seraphs feed a flame, so like their own.

One statue more let Rhedicina raise,

To charm the present, brighten future days;

The sculptur'd column grave with Pomfret's name,

A column, worthy of thy temple, Fame!

Praxitiles might such a form commend,

And borrow graces which he us'd to lend;

Where ease with beauty, force with softness meet,

Tho' mild majestic, and tho' awful sweet.

Of gold and elephant, on either hand,

Let Piety and Bounty, graceful, stand;

With fillets this, with roses that entwin'd,

And breath their virtues on the gazer's mind.

Low at her feet, the sleeping Cupids plac'd,

By Marius guarded, and with Tully grac'd:

A monument of gratitude remain

The bright Palladium of Minerva's fane.

Notes

*
The Pembroke family have been remarkable for genius. Mary, countess of Pembroke, sister to Sir Philip Sidney, for whose entertainment he wrote his Arcadia, published a tragedy called Antonius. Ann, countess of Pembroke, had Daniel for her tutor, and erected to Spenser the monument in Westminster Abbey. Wil
•
iam, earl of Pembroke, printed a volume of poems. Shakespeare's and Fletcher's works, in their first editions, are dedicated to the earl of Pembroke: and Thomas, who ought particularly to be mentioned on this occasion, made the largest and finest collection of statues of any nobleman in Europe.

↵

MORE NIGHT THOUGHTS.

BY MR. W.

O Night, dark Night! wrapt round with Stygian gloom,

Thy riding-hood opaque! wove by the hands

Of Clotho and of Atropos:—Those hands

That spin my thread of life,—how near its end!

Ah wherefore, silent Goddess, should'st thou thus

Awake my terrors? silence sounds alarms

To me, and darkness dazzles my weak mind.

Hark!—'tis the death-watch!—posts themselves can speak

Death's language!—stop, O stop, insatiate worm,

I feel thy summons; to my fellow-worms

Thou bidst me hasten!—I obey thy call;—

For wherefore should I live?—vain life to me

Is but a tatter'd garment, a patch'd rag,

That ill defends us from the cold of age.

Cramp'd are my faculties, my eyes grow dim,

No music charms my ear, no meats my taste;

The females fly me, and my very wife—

Poor woman!—knows me not.—

Ye flattering, idle vanities of life,

Where are ye flown? the birds, that us'd to sing

Amidst my spreading branches, now forsake

This leafless trunk, and find no shelter there,

What's life?—what's death? thus coveted and fear'd?—

Life is a fleeting shadow—death's no more:—

Death's a dark lantern; life a candle's end,

Stuck on a save-all, soon to end in stench—

Foh! death's a privy; life the alley green,

That leads to't; where, perchance, from either side

A sweet briar hedge, or shrubs of broader leaf,

And more commodious, breathe their treacherous sweets.

Death follows life, and stops it ere it reach

The topmost spoke of Fortune's envied wheel!—

Wheel!—life's a wheel, and each man is the ass,

That turns it; oft receiving in the end

But water and rank thistles for his pains.

And yet, Lorenzo, if consider'd right,

A life of labour is a life of ease!

Pain is true joy, and want is luxury!

Vain mirth's an opera tune, a tortur'd sigh,

The breath of eunuchs; it dismembers bliss,

Makes man not man, and castrates real joy.

Would you be merry?—seek some charnel-house

Where death inhabits, give a ball to death,

A dooms-day ball, and lead up Holben's dance.

How weak? how strong? how gentle? how severe

Are Laughter's chains, that gall a willing world!

The noisy Idiot shakes her bells at all,

Not e'en the Bible, or the Night-Thoughts 'scape—

Fools spare not Heaven itself, O Y—! nor thee.

ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR. JAMES THOMSON.

BY MR. WILLIAM COLLINS[*].

IN yonder grove a Druid lies

Where slowly winds the stealing wave!

The Year's best sweets shall duteous rise

To deck its Poet's sylvan grave!

In yon deep bed of whispering reeds

His airy harp[†] shall now be laid,

That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds,

May love thro' life the soothing shade.

Then maids and youths shall linger here,

And while its sounds at distance swell,

Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear

To hear the Woodland Pilgrim's knell.

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore

When Thames in summer-wreaths is drest,

And oft suspend the dashing oar

To bid his gentle spirit rest!

And oft as Ease and Health retire

To breezy lawn, or forest deep,

The friend shall view yon whitening [*]spire,

And 'mid the varied landscape weep.

But thou, who own'st that earthy bed,

Ah! what will every dirge avail?

Or tears, which Love and Pity shed

That mourn beneath the gliding sail!

Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye

Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near?

With him, sweet Bard, may Fancy die,

And Joy desert the blooming year.

But thou, lorn Stream, whose sullen tide

No sedge-crown'd Sisters now attend,

Now waft me from the green hill's side

Whose cold turf hides the buried Friend!

And see, the fairy valleys fade,

Dun Night has veil'd the solemn view!

—Yet once again, dear parted Shade,

Meek Nature's Child again adieu!

The genial meads assign'd to bless

Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom,

Their hinds, and shepherd-girls shall dress

With simple hands thy rural tomb.

Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay

Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes,

O! vales, and wild woods, shall he say,

In yonder grave your Druid lies!

The following character of Mr. Thomson, in his poem called the Castle of Indolence, is said to be written by Lord L—.

A Bard there dwelt, more fat than Bard beseems,

Who void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,

On Virtue still, and Nature's pleasing themes,

Pour'd forth his unpremeditated strain,

The world forsaking with a calm disdain:

Here laugh'd he careless, in his easy seat,

Here quaff'd encircled with the joyous train;

Oft-moralizing Sage his ditty sweet!

He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.

Notes

*
The scene of the following stanzas is supposed to lie on the Thames near Richmond. This ode and the subsequent account of the author were, by an unlucky accident, omitted in our last number.
↵

†
The harp of Aeolus, of which see a description in the Castle of Indolence.
↵

*
Richmond church.
↵

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. WILLIAM COLLINS.

MR. William Collins was born at Chichester in Sussex, in the year 1721: in which city his father was a reputable tradesman. He was admitted a scholar of Winchester college, Feb. 23, 1733. where he spent seven years under the care of the learned Dr. Burton. In the year 1740, in consideration of his merit, he was placed first in the list of those scholars who are elected from Winchester college to New college in Oxford: but no vacancy happening at the latter, he was entered, the same year, a commoner of Queen's college, Ox. and July 29, 1741. was elected a demy, or scholar, of Magdalen college in the same university. At school he began to study poetry and criticism, particularly the latter. The following epigram, made by him while at Winchester-school, discovers a genius, and turn of expression, very rarely to be met with in juvenile compositions.

TO MISS AURELIA C—R, ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.

CEase, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn;

Lament not Hannah's happy state;

You may be happy in your turn,

And seize the treasure you regret.

With Love united Hymen stands,

And softly whispers to your charms;

" Meet but your lover in my bands,

" You'll find your sister in his arms."

His Latin exercises were never so much admired as his English.—At Oxford he wrote the epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Oriental eclogues, which were first published in 1742, under the title of Persian eclogues. About the year 1743, he left Oxford, having taken the degree of bachelor of arts, weary of the confinement and uniformity of an academical life; fondly imagining that a man of parts was sure of making his fortune in London; and struck with the name of author and poet, without consulting his friends, he immediately removed to town, and rashly resolved to live by his pen, without undertaking the drudgery of any profession. Here he soon dissipated his small fortune, to compensate for which, he projected the history of the revival of learning in Italy, under the pontificates of Julius II. and Leo X. His subscription for this work not answering his expectations, he engaged with a bookseller, to translate Aristotle's Poetics, and to illustrate it with a large and regular comment. This scheme also being laid aside, he turn'd his thoughts to dramatic poetry, and being intimately acquainted with the manager, resolved to write a tragedy, which however he never executed. In the year 1746 he published his odes; and shortly after went abroad to our army in Flanders, to attend his uncle, colonel Martin, who, dying soon after his arrival, left him a considerable fortune; which however he did not live long to enjoy, for he fell into a nervous disorder, which continued, with but short intervals, till his death, which happened in 1756. and with which disorder his head and intellects were at times affected.

For a man of such an elevated genius, Mr. Collins has wrote but little: his time was chiefly taken up in laying extensive projects, and vast designs, which he never even begun to put in execution.

We have been favoured with the following account of Mr. Collins by a gentleman, deservedly eminent in the republic of letters, who knew him intimately well.

Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but with the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of inchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfals of Elysian gardens. This was however the character rather of his inclination than his genius, the grandeur of wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were always desired by him, but were not always attained. But diligence is never wholly lost: if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity, they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity and splendour. This idea, which he had formed of excellence, led him to oriental fictions, and allegorical imagery; and, perhaps, while he was intent upon description, he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment: his poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished with knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obstructed in its progress, by deviation in quest of mistaken beauties.

His morals were pure, and his opinions pious. In a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almost destroyed, and long association with fortuitous companions will at last relax the strictness of truth, and abate the fervour of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as he was, passed always unentangled through the snares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to affirm. But it may be said, that at least he preserved the source of action unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure, or casual temptation.

The latter part of his life cannot be remembred but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right, without the power of pursuing it. These clouds, which he found gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed into France, but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned: he was for some time confined in a house of lunatics, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister in Colchester, where death at last came to his relief.

After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a visit at Islington, where he was waiting for his sister, whom he had directed to meet him: there was then nothing of disorder discernable in his mind by any but himself, but he had then withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English testament, such as children carry to the school; when his friend took it into his hand, out of curiosity to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, "I have but one book," says Collins, "but that is the best."

GENERAL INDEX.

{inverted ⁂}The numerals refer to the volumes, and the figures to the pages.

A

- ABelard to Eloisa, by Pattison, iv. 27

- Ditto to ditto, by Mr. Cawthorn, iv. 47

- Accident, a pastoral elegy, v. 112

- Advice to an author, v. 123

- African prince to Zara, iv. 13

- Alcove, verses in one, vi. 9

- Amanda, ode to, xi. 12

- Amoret, on her recovery from sickness. iii. 116

- Amoroso, vii. 100

- Anacreon, ode xxviii. imitated, ii. 73

- — Imitated, vi. 62

- Anacreontic on the spring, iv. 12

- Aningait and A jut, by mrs. Penny. vii. 81

- Apology for running away, xii. 86

- Arachne, on the death of, iii. 33

- Atheism, the folly of, v. 122

- Atterbury, bishop, poems by, viii. 74

- — on his funeral, viii. 79

- —, bishop, on his preaching, by d. Wharton, xi. 7

- Author, further advice to one, vi. 121

- Autumnal ode, ix. 3

- Autumn, by Brerewood, ix. 7

- — The decline of, x. 5

B

- Bacchanalian, ii. 95

- Barreaux's sonnet translated, viii. 65

- Barrow, his verses on Milton translated, xii. 43

- Belisarius, on seeing the picture of, x. 64

- Birth-day, to a lady on her's, April the first, iv. 7

- — ode, vi. 112

- — by Whitehead, vii. 120

- Bramston, James, to capt. Hinton, viii. 94

- Breach of the rivers, v. 105

- Bridgewater, duke, to his memory, ix. 122

- Byng, admiral, on his return from Minorca, vi. 74

C

- Carnation, verses sent with one, vi. 6

- Charity, to, iii. 84

- Charles I. on a quiet conscience, viii. 66

- C—d, lord, on the duchess of R—d, iii. 111

- Chloe's soliloquy, vi. 117

- Cicero, on the banishment of, by the d. of Whirton, xi. 5

- Cit's country-box, iv. 102

- Cleanthes, his hymn to God, i. 72

- Colin and Lucy, a fragment, iii. 119

- Collins, William, poems by,

- Oriental eclogues, xi. 17

- Twelve odes, xi. 31

- Epistle to Sir Tho. Hanmer, xi. 67

- Song from Shakespear's Cymbeline, xi. 74

- Ode on the death of Thomson, xii. 104

- Comparison, vii. 123

- Complaint, a pastoral elegy, iii. 86

- Concord, xii. 53

- Congreve, his epistle to lord Cobham, iii. 108

- Contemplation, an ode, vi. 7

- Contraste to mrs. Carter's ode to wisdom, iv. 91

- Copernican system, a poem, iii. 67

- Copper farthing, x. 48

- Country church-yard, soliloquy in, ii. 49

- Cunningham, poems by, iv. 81. vii. 109

D

- Daughter, to the memory of one, iv. 73

- Death, a poem, xii. 9

- Deity, a poem, by S. Boyse, ii. 9

- Denis, mr. fables by him, ii. 97

- Fables by ditto, i. 97

- Devil-painter, vi. 118

- Dialogue in the senate-house, ix. 92

- — at Croydon, xii. 84

- Doubt, origin of, iv. 60

- Dryads, a poem, by mr. Diaper, ix. 17

- Dryden, mr. on the old bust of, ii. 119

- Duncombe, mr. John, poems by him, vii. 17, 34, &c.

- By ditto, x. 65, &c.

- Dyer, his epistle to a friend in town, iii. 112

E

- Elegy, vi. 68

- — on a pile of ruins, vii. 10

- Elegies, four, morning, noon, owning, midnight, viii. 20

- Elegy, written among some ruins, viii. 88

- — on a drowned shepherd, xi. 85

- Eliza's wedding-day, xii. 75

- Enquiries, on theological, iv. 63

- Epigram, on cutting down some college-trees, iv. 111

- — on the passage of the Israelites, vi. 67

- — on a glass, viii. 18

- — on mrs. Collier's dedication, xi. 97

- — on some dull verses, xi. 102

- Epigrams and epitaphs, several by E. R, xii. 90, &c.

- Epistle to a lady, iv. 97

- — from Mary the cook-maid, xi. 98

- Richard's answer, xi. 100

- Epitaph, by mr. Gray, viii. 121

- — on general Wolfe, viii. 122

- Epitaph on Theodore, king of Corsica, ix. 123

- Epitaph, written in the vapours, xi. 97

- Essex, earl of, verses by, vii. 113, &c.

- Evadne to Emma, vii. 71

- Eupolis, his hymn to the Creator, i. 66

- Evening contemplation in coll. a parody on Grey, vii. 34

- — ode, ix. 11

- — hymn, by Sir Tho. Brown, xi. 121

- — elegy, xii. 60

F

- Fables for grown gentleman, x. 17

- Fame, an ode, xii. 31

- Farewell hymn to the country, by Potter, v. 51

- — to summer, x. 7

- — to the country, x. 11

- Father's advice to his son, xi. 76

- Feminead, a poem, by mr. Duncombe, vii. 17

- Fire-side, by I. H. Browne, esq. ix. 14

- Fire, water, and reputation, a fable, ix. 88

- Fitzgerald, to the rev. mr. ix. 61

- Fog, on that in London, vi. 57

- Force of love, by mr. Cowley, viii, 80

- Forester, on captain, travelling in the Highlands, i. 10

- Friendship and Love, a dialogue, vi, 107

- Friendship, xi. 118.

- —, in imitation of Cowler, xii. 71

G

- Garden inscriptions, by mr. Thompson, viii. 97, &c.

- Genius of Britain, to mr. Pitt, vi. 102

- — ode to, vii. 7

- George II. physical cause of his death, iv. 80

- George II. on his death, by Warton, ii. 81

- God is love, vi. 64

- Granby, on the marquis of, losing his hat, iii. 101

- Gratitude, a poem, xii. 97

- Griffiths, on mother, iv. 123

- Gymnasiad, an epic poem, viii. 45

H

- Hairs, on the falling off, ix. 10

- Harvest-scene, vii. 6

- Health, hymn to, iii. 97

- — ode to, iv. 116

- — ode to, vi. 10

- Hedges, mr. to Sir Hans Sloane, viii. 91

- Henry to Rosamond, by Pattnon, iv. 45

- Hervey, James, pieces by, viii. 83

- Hope, ode to, iii. 44

- —, a pastoral ballad, xi. 93

- Horace, ode iv. book 1. imitated, ii. 8

- — ode xiv. book ii. ditto, ix. 118

- — ode xxx. b. i. ditto, ix. 119

- — part of sat. vi. b. ii. translated, x. 113

- — a parody on his city and country mouse, x. 116

- — epist. v. b. i. imitated, x. 119

- Horse, on the death of a favourite, vi. 60

- Hours of love, in four elegies, vi. 90

- Howard, doctor, his preachment, ix 121

- Hughes, mr. to the memory of, iii. 29

- —, his verses on the wandering beauty, iv. 112

- Hymn to the Creator, by mr. Merrick, i. 75

- — occasioned by psalm 65th, i. 79

- — from psalm 8th, i. 80

I

- Inconstancy, the cause of, xi. 111

- Indifference, a prayer for, vi. 76

- Inn, reflections at one, iii. 99

- Inscription for an hermitage, iv. 11

- — on the tubs in Ham-walks, v. 87

- — on a pedestal near Richmond ferry, v. 89

- — for an oak, vi. 111

- — for General Wolfe's monument, vi. 115

- Inscription by Gib. Weft, esq viii. 102

- Jourdan, the fall of Chloe's, by J. Philips, iv. 107

- Journey to Doncaster, ix. 105

- Irby, Sir William, on his being created a peer, viii. 17

- Judgment, day of, xii. 20

K

- Kent, man of, vii 111

- The kite, an heroic-comic poem, iii. 49

L

- Labour in vain, a song. v. 110

- Lady and linnet, a tale, vi. 15

- Ladies lamentation, xi. 91

- Lady, advice to one who intended to turn nun, xi. 107

- Lass of Isleworth mill, a ballad, xi. 80

- Layng, to mr. on his sermon, v. 118

- Leaf, on the fall of, x. 3

- Life, for and against, from the Greek, ii. 66

- Life, an ode, iii. 41

- Locke, mr. poems by, viii. 71

- Lotteries, a few thoughts on, xi. 105

- Love-elegy, ii. 113

- — at Oxford, v. 119

- Love-verses, in two elegies, v. 65

- Love-elegies, two, v. 76

- Lucian, epigram by, translated, ii. 72

M

- Marloe, Christopher, poem by, ii. 53

- —, imitation of, ii. 59

- Marriage, verses before, vii. 97

- — eight years after, vii. 98

- Materials for a monody, v. 111

- May, hymn on the approach of, iv. 113

- Melcolme, lord, to doctor Young, viii. 16

- Melpomene, an ode, vi. 37

- Metastasio, imitation of, vii. 77

- Milton, sonnet by him, viii. 67

- —, a fragrant by, viii. 68

- —, to him on Paradise loft, viii. 69

- —, on Bentley's emendations of, viii. 70

- Minister of state, xi. 100

- Moonlight night, v. 32

- Moonlight, ode by a lady, vii. 68

- Morgan, doctor, on the death of, ix. 98

- Morning, hymn to, in summer, vii. 3

- Morning, elegy, xii 65

- Mulberry-garden, viii. 5

N

- Needle a poem in five cantos, ix. 65

- Newmarket, a satire, x. 54

- Nothing, a poem, xi. 9

- Nuptials, on the royal, by mrs. Penny, i. 169

- — on ditto. by mr. Spence, iv. 93

- — on those of lord Grey, and ix. 116

- — card, ix. 117

O

- Oak and dunghill, a fable, ix 47

- Oblivion, ode to, vi. 52

- Obscurity, ode to, vi. 46

- Ode to pleasure, iii. 47

- — on darkness, i. 117

- — on the new year, by Whitehead, ii. 86

- — on Ranelagh, a parody on Grey's ode, v. 93

- — to evening. vi. 13

- Ode, written before a college vacation, vii. 106

- — to solitude, viii. 19

- — four by mr. Hudson, vi. 22

- Oldfield, mrs. on her death, ii. 116

- Orrery, written on his remarks on Swift, iv. 120

P

- Parne, doctor, on the death of, x. 14

- Pastor Fido, imitation of, vii. 76

- Pastoral hymn, from the 23d psalm, xi. 113

- — the same, by doctor Byron, xi. 115

- Peace, on occasion of, i. 112

- Petronius, passage from, translated, ii. 70

- Petrach and Laura, xi. 109

- Pin, a poem on one, ix. 63

- Pinnell, mr. poems by him, i. 81, &c.

- Pitt, Christopher, imitations of Horace, and poems by him, x. 81

- Pleasure, the man of, ii. 92

- Podisippus, parody on, by lord Verulam, ii. 68

- Pompilia, an ode, xii. 83

- Pope, poems by, xii. 60

- Poyntz, mr. on his birth-day, ii. 120

- Progress of poetry, by mr. Maden, iii. 71

- Prologue to the Grateful Fair, by C. Smart, iv. 123

- — to the Distrest Mother, xi. 119

- Prologue, xii. 81

- Prospect, on an extensive one, vii. 5

- Psalm, 104th imitated, by Blacklock, iii. 78

- Puellam, ad onnatissimam, xii. 34

R

- Raleigh, Sir Walter, poems by, ii. 55, & vi. 55

- Rattle, a song, xi. 14

- Recantation, an ode, v. 73

- Redbreast, to one, viii. 58

- Resignation, hymn to, vii. 74

- Rival-beauties, a poem, v. 98

- Robin, a pastoral elegy, ii. 75

- Rosamond to Henry, by Pattison, iv. 34

S

- Salt-water condemned, x. 121

- — celebrated, xi. 103

- Seasons, a poem, by Mendez, v. 35

- Sensibility, ode to, xi. 95

- Shaw, on the death of a lady, i. 81

- Silent lover, by Sir Walter Raleigh, vi. 55

- Sneerers, the two, xi. 16

- Somerville, mr. to lady Anne Coventry, iii. 103

- — his epistle to mr Thomson, iii. 106

- Song for the Park at high mall, iv. 118

- — to Cleora, vi. 12

- — when a nymph at her toilet, vii. 122

- —, by Akenside, vi. 110

- — to Chloe, xi. 83

- Songs, xii. 87, &c.

- Sonnets, from the Italian, vii. 78

- — by Edwards, ix. 112 — xii. 45

- Sonnet, xi. 110

- Sorrow, the man of, ii. 89

- Soul, the faculties of, xii. 39

- Spring, a rural song, by Brerewood, iii. 9

- — in London, v. 30

- —, stanzas on a forward, ii. 3

- —, on the approach of, iii. 5

- —, stanzas on, iv. 9

- Stockings, to a lady with a pair, x. 45

- Summer, a rural song, by Brerewood, vii. 5

- Supplication, by a lady before marriage, i. 95

- Sweet William, at the christening of, v. 117

T

- Tame and Isis, on the marriage of, iii. 115

- Tears, theory of, ix. 51

- Theocritus, idyllium 3d, translated, ii. 61

- — 19th, ditto, ii. 65

- — 30th, ditto, iii. 113

- Thompson, William, his hymn to May, v. 1

- Thought in a garden, vii. 96

- — from Marcus Antoninus, viii. 96

- — at waking, xi, 122

- Thunder-storm, a sacred lyric on, i. 76

- Tickell, poems by him, i. 18. — iii. 117

- Trust in God, a poem, i. 81

- Truth at court, iii. 96

- —, the sentiments of, xi. 113

- Turner, doctor, on his illness, ix. 59

V

- Valentine's-day, to a lady on, ii, 79

- Vernal ode, iii. 3

- Violet, a poem, iii. 13

- Virtue and Fame, by lord L—n, viii. 11

- Voltaire, an epistle by him, xii. 46

W

- Warburton, to bishop, vii. 63

- Watch, reflections on one, ix. 12

- Water-mills, on the invention of. ii. 71

- Wine, a poem, by mr. Gay, viii. 35

- Winter, a pastoral-ballad, by Brerewood, i. 5

- Woman's age, v. 103

- Woman, song in praise of, vi. 116

- Wreight, mrs. poems by, vi. 79, &c.

- Wynter, doctor, to doctor Cheyne, &c. viii. 86

Y

- Yalden, mr. to sir Humphry Mackworth, iv. 65

- York and Kent, or the contest, xi. 107

- Young lady, on the death of one, iv. 100

- Young gentleman, an the drath of one, vii. 71

- Young lady, on the birth of one, viii. 59

- —, on the death of one, viii. 62

Z

- Zara to the Arican prince, iv. 20

- Zelis to Ibrahim, xi. 87

Information about this book

Title statement

The poetical calendar: Containing a collection of scarce and valuable pieces of poetry: ... by the most eminent hands. Intended as a supplement to Mr. Dodsley's collection. Written and selected by Francis Fawkes, M. A. and William Woty. In twelve volumes. [pt.12]

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http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/5370

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1106023692

ID [isbn13]

9781106023698

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K113952.012

ID [BIBNO]

CW3313380558

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0579800312

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— The poetical calendar: Containing a collection of scarce and valuable pieces of poetry: ... by the most eminent hands. Intended as a supplement to Mr. Dodsley's collection. Written and selected by Francis Fawkes, M. A. and William Woty. In twelve volumes., Fawkes, Francis, 1720-1777., Woty, William, 1731?-1791.. The second edition.. 12v. ; 8⁰. London :: printed by Dryden Leach; for J. Coote,. 1763-64.. [The half-title to each volume bears the volume number and the commemorated month.] [Vol.3 is dated 1764, vols.4-5 and 8-9 are dated 1763.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT146609.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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