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O strange return! grew black, and gasped, and died!
Horror of horrors! what! his only son!

How looked our hermit when the fact was done!
Not hell, though hell's black jaws in sunder part,
And breathe blue fire, could more assault his heart.
Confused, and struck with silence at the deed,
He flies, but trembling, fails to fly with speed;
His steps the youth pursues: the country lay
Perplexed with roads; a servant shewed the way;
A river crossed the path; the passage o'er
Was nice to find! the servant trod before;
Long arms of oaks an open bridge supplied.
And deep the waves beneath them bending glide.
The youth, who seemed to watch a time to sin,
Approached the careless guide, and thrust him in;
Plunging he falls, and rising, lifts his head,
Then flashing turns, and sinks among the dead.
While sparkling rage inflames the father's eyes,
He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries:
Detested wretch-but scarch his speech began,
When the strange partner seemed no longer man!
His youthful face grew more serenely sweet;
His robe turned white, and flowed upon his feet;
Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair;
Celestial odours breathe through purpled air;
And wings, whose colours glittered on the day,
Wide at his back their gradual plumes display.
The form ethereal bursts upon his sight,
And moves in all the majesty of light.
Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion grew,
Sudden he gazed, and wist not what to do!
Surprise, in secret chains, his word suspends,
And in a calm, his settling temper ends;
But silence here the beauteous angel broke-
The voice of music ravished as he spoke:

"Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown,

In sweet memorial rise before the throne:

These charms success in our bright region find,
And force an angel do wn, to calm thy mind;
For this, commissioned, I forsook the sky:
Nay, cease to kneel-thy fellow-servant I.
Then know the truth of government divine,
And let these scruples be no longer thine.
The Maker justly claims that world He made;
In this the right of Providence is laid;
Its sacred majesty through all depends
On using second means to work his ends.

'Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye.
The power exerts his attributes on high;
Your action uses, nor controls your will.
And bids the doubting sons of men be still.

What strange events can strike with more surprise,
Than those which lately struck thy wondering eyes?
Yet, taught by these, confess the Almighty just,
And, where you can't uuriddle, learn to trust.
The great vain mau, who fared on costly food,
Whose life was too luxurious to be good;
Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine,
And forced his guests to morning draughts of wine,
Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost,

And still he welcomes, but with less of cost.
The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted door

Ne'er moved in pity to the wandering poor;
With him I left the cup, to teach his mind
That Heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind.
Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl,
And feels compassion touch his grateful soul.
Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead.
With heaping coals of fire upon its head;
In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And, loose from dross, the silver runs below.
Long had our pious friend in virtue trod,

But now the child half-weaned his heart from God-
Child of his age-for him he lived in pain,
And measured back his steps to earth again.

To what excesses had his dotage run!
But God to save the father took the son.
To all but thec, in fits he seemed to go,
And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow.
The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust,
Now owns in tears the punishment was just.
But how had all his fortunes felt a wrack,
Had that false servant sped in safety back!
This night his treasured heaps he meant to steal,
And what a fund of charity would fail!
Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er,
Depart in peace, resign, and sin no more.'

On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew,
The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew;
Thus looked Elisha, when, to mount on high,
His master took the chariot of the sky;
The fiery pomp ascending left the view;
The prophet gazed, and wished to follow too.
The bending Hermit here a prayer began:
'Lord, as in heaven, on earth thy will be done."
Then gladly turning, sought his ancient place,
And passed a life of piety and peace.

JOHN GAY.

The Italian opera and English pastorals-both sources of fashionable and poetical affectation-were driven out of the field at this time by the easy, indolent, good-humoured JOHN GAY (1688-1732), who seems to have been the most artless and the best-beloved of all the Pope and Swift circle of wits and poets. Gay was born in Devonshire, the second son of John Gay, Esq., of Frithelstock, near Great Torrington. The family was reduced in circumstances, and both parents dying when the poet was about six years of age, he was, after receiving his education in the town of Barnstaple, put apprentice to a silk-mercer in the Strand, London. He disliked this employment, and at length obtained his discharge from his master. In 1708, he published a poem in blank verse, entitled Wine;' and in 1713 appeared his Rural Sports,' a descriptive poem, dedicated to Pope, in which we may trace his joy at being emancipated from the drudgery of a shop:

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But I, who ne'er was blessed by Fortune's hand,
Nor brightened ploughshares in paternal land;
Long in the noisy town have been immured,
Respired its smoke, and all its cares endured.
Fatigued at last, a calm retreat I chose,

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And soothed my harassed mind with sweet repose,
Where fields. and shades, and the refreshing clime
Inspire the sylvan song, and prompt my rhyme.

The same year, Gay obtained the appointment of domestic secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth. He also brought out a comedy, 'The Wife of Bath,' which was not successful. In 1714, he published his 'Shepherd's Week, in six Pastorals,' written to throw ridicule on those of Ambrose Philips; but containing so much genuine comic humour, and entertaining pictures of country-life, that they became popular, not as satires, but on account of their intrinsic merits, as affording a prospect of his own country.' In an address to the 'courteous reader,' Gay says: Thou wilt not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves; or if the hogs are astray, driving them to their sties. My shepherd gathereth none other nosegays but what are the growth of our fields; he sleepeth not under myrtle shades, but under a hedge; nor doth he vigilantly defend his flock from wolves, because there are none.' This matter-of-fact view of rural life has been admirably followed by Crabbe, with a moral aim and effect to which Gay never aspired. His next attempt was dramatic. In February 1714-15 appeared 'What d'ye Call It? a tragi-comic pastoral farce, which the audience had not wit enough to take;' and next year he produced his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London,' and The Fan,' a poem in three books. The former of these is in the mock-heroic style, in which he was assisted by Swift, and gives a graphic account of the dangers and impediments then encountered in traversing the narrow, crowded, ill-lighted, and vice-infested thoroughfares of the metropolis. His paintings of city-life are in the Dutch style, low and familiar, but correctly and forcibly drawn. The following sketch of the frequenters of book-stalls in the streets may still be verified:

Volumes on sheltered stalls expanded lie,

And various science lures the learned eye;

The bending shelves with ponderous scholiasts groan,
And deep divines, to modern shops unknown;
Here, like the bee, that on industrious wing

Collects the various odours of the spring,

Walkers at leisure learning's flowers may spoil,

Nor watch the wasting of the midnight oil;

May morals snatch from Plutarch's tattered page,

A mildewed Bacon, or Stagyra's sage:

Here sauntering 'prentices o'er Otway weep,

O'er Congreve smile, or over D'Urfey sleep;

Pleased sempstresses the Lock's famed Rape unfold;
And Squirts read Garth till apozems grow cold.

The poet gives a lively and picturesque account of the great frest in London, in 1716, when a fair was held on the river Thames:

O roving Muse! recall that wondrous year
When winter reigned in black Britannia's air;

Squirt is the name of an apothecary's boy in Garth's Dispensary.

When hoary Thames, with frosted osiers crowned,
Was three long moons in icy fetters bound.
The waterman, forlorn, along the shore,
Pensive rechines upon his useless oar:
See harnessed steeds desert the stony town,
And wander roads unstable, not their own,
Wheels o'er the hardened water smoothly glide,
And raze with whitened tracks the slippery tide;
Here the fat cook piles high the blazing fire,
And scarce the spit can turn the steer entire;
Booths sudden hide the Thames, long streets appear,
And numerous games proclaim the crowded fair.
So, when a general bids the martial train
Spread their encampment o'er the spacious plain,
Thick-rising tents a canvas city build,

And the loud dice resound through all the field.

Gay was always sighing for public employment, for which he was eminently unfit, and in 1714 he had obtained a short glimpse of this fancied happiness. He wrote with joy to Pope: 'Since you went out of the town, my Lord Clarendon was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Hanover, in the room of Lord Paget; and by making use of those friends which I entirely owe to you, he has accepted me for his secretary. The poet accordingly quitted his situation in the Monmouth family, and accompanied Lord Clarendon on his embassy. He seems, however, to have held it only for about two months; for on the 23d of September of the same year, Pope welcomes him to his native soil, and counsels him, now that the queen was dead, to write something on the king, or prince, or princess. Gay was an anxious expectant of court favor, and he complied with Pope's request. He wrote a poem on the princess, and the royal family went to see his play of What d'ye Call It?' Gay was stimulated to another drama'ic attempt (1717), and produced a piece entitled Three Hours After Marriage. Some personal satire and indecent dialogue, together with the improbability of the plot, sealed its fate with the public. It soon fell into disgrace; and its author, being afraid that Pope and Arbuthnot would suffer injury from their supposed connection with it, took all the shame on himself. The trio of wits, however, were attacked in two pamphlets, and Pope's quarrel with Cibber originated in this unfortunate drama. Gay was silent and dejected for some time; but in 1720 he published his poems by subscription, and realised a sum of $1000. He received, also, a present of South Sea stock, and was supposed to be worth £20,000, all of which he lost by the explosion of that famous delusion. This serious calamity, to one fond of finery in dress and of luxurious liv ing, almost overwhelmed him, but his friends were zealous, and he was prompted to further literary exertion. In 1724, Gay brought out another drama, The Captives,' which was acted with moderate success; and in 1726 he wrote a volume of. Fables,' designed for the special improvement of the Duke of Cumberland, who certainly did not learn mercy or humanity from them. The accession of the prince

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and princess to the throne seemed to augur well for the fortunes of Gay; but he was only offered the situation of gentleman-usher to one of the young princesses, and considering this an insult, he rejected it. In 1726, Swift came to England, and resided two months with Pope at Twickenham. Among other plans, the Dean of St. Patrick suggested to Gay the idea of a Newgate pastoral, in which the characters should be thieves and highwaymen; and the Beggars' Opera' was the result. When finished, the two friends were doubtful of the success of the piece; but it was received with unbounded applause. The songs and music aided greatly its popularity, and there was also the recommendation of political satire; for the quarrel between Peachum and Lockit was an allusion to a personal collision between Walpole and his colleague, Lord Townshend. The spirit and variety of the piece, in which song and sentiment are so happily intermixed with vice and roguery, still render the Beggars' Opera' a favourite with the public; but as Gay has succeeded in making highwaymen agreeable, and even attractive, it cannot be commended for its moral tendency. Of this, we suspect, the Epicurean author thought little. The opera had a run of sixty-two nights, and became the rage of town and country. Its success had also the effect of giving rise to the English opera, a species of light comedy enlivened by songs and music, which for a time supplanted the Italian opera, with all its exotic and elaborate graces. By this successful opera, Gay, as appears from the manager's account book, cleared £693,13s. 6d. besides what he derived from its publication. He tried a sequel to the Beggars' Opera,' under the title of 'Polly' but as it was supposed to contain sarcasms on the court, the lord chamberlain prohibited its representation. The poet had recourse to publication; and such was the zeal of his friends, and the effect of party-spirit, that 'Polly' produced a profit of £1100 or £1200. The Duchess of Marlborough gave £100 as her subscription for a copy. Gay had now amassed £3000 by his writings, which he resolved to keep entire and sacred.' He was at the same time received into the house of his kind patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, with whom he spent the remainder of his life. His only literary occupa tion was composing additional fables, and corresponding occasionally with Pope and Swift. A sudden attack of inflammatory fever hurried him out of life in three days. He died on the 4th of December 1782, aged 44. Pope's letter to Swift announcing the event was endorsed: On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death. Received, December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune.' The friendship of these eminent men seems to have been sincere and tender; and nothing in the life of Swift is more touching or honourable to his memory than those passages in his letters where the recollection of Gay melted his haughty stoicism, and awakened his deep though unavailing sorrow. Pope was equally grieved by the loss of him whom he has characterised as

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