The welcome sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve,
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round his spiral course he winds,
And, as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again, and reäscends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods,
Where pure Niemi's' fairy mountains rise,

2

And fringed with roses Tenglio rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employed,
Their kind unblemished wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy race! by poverty secured
From legal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell interest never yet has sown

The seeds of vice: whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious deed, nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters woe.

THE POLAR REGIONS; HECLA; GREENLAND; THE POLE; THE
ETERNAL PALACE AND MAGAZINE OF WINTER.

Still pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake, And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow, And furthest Greenland, to the pole itself, Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out, The Muse expands her solitary flight; And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene, Beholds new seas beneath another sky. 3 Throned in his palace of cerulean ice, Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court; And through his airy hall the loud misrule Of driving tempest is forever heard ; Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath; Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost, Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows, With which he now oppresses half the globe.

THE ARCTIC COASTS; ETERNAL SNOWS; ICEBERGS; AVALANCHES; THE VERY OCEAN FROZEN.

Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast, She sweeps the howling margin of the main ; Where undissolving, from the first of time, Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky; And icy mountains high on mountains piled Seem to the shivering sailor from afar, Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds. Projected huge, and horrid o'er the surge, Alps frown on Alps; or, rushing hideous down, As if old chaos were again returned, Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole. Ocean itself no longer can resist The binding fury; but, in all its rage

1 M. de Maupertuis, after describing the beautiful lake and mountain of Niemi, in Lapland, says, From this height we had opportunity several times to see those vapors rise from the lake, which the people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains. We had been frighted with stories of bears that haunted this place, but saw none. It seemed rather a place of resort for fairies and genii than bears.'

The same author observes, I was surprised to see upon the banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens."

3 The other hemisphere.

Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward.

SHIPS LOCKED IN POLAR ICE. FATE OF SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. ARZINA.

Miserable they!

Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with ten-fold frost,
The long, long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate,
As with first prow (what have not Britons dared!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.

THE SAMOIEDES, ETC.- THE OBY. — GROSS AND STUPID LIFE.

[stream

Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men; And half enlivened by the distant sun, That rears and ripens man, as well as plants, Here human nature wears its rudest form. Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves, Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer, They waste the tedious gloom. Immersed in furs, Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song, Nor tenderness, they know; nor aught of life Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without. Till morn at length, her roses drooping all, Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields, And calls the quivered savage to the chase.

PETER THE GREAT. HIS CONQUESTS OVER NATURE, THE RUSSIANS, AND BARBARISM; HIS HEROIC SELF-EDUCATION.

[shores,

What cannot active government perform, New-moulding man? Wide-stretching from these A people savage from remotest time, A huge neglected empire, one vast mind, By Heaven inspired, from Gothic darkness called. Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! He His stubborn country tamed, her rocks, her fens, Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons; And while the fierce barbarian he subdued, To more exalted soul he raised the man. Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toiled Through long successive ages to build up A laboring plan of state, behold at once The wonder done! behold the matchless prince! Who left his native throne, where reigned till then

1 Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the north-east passage.

A mighty shadow of unreal power;

Who greatly spurned the slothful pomp of courts;
And roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool,
Gathered the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.

PETER FOUNDS CITIES, DIGS CANALS, BUILDS A NAVY, SUBDUES CHARLES XII. AND THE TURKS. HAPPY RESULTS.

Charged with the stores of Europe home he goes!
Then cities rise amid the illumined waste;
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign;
Far-distant flood to flood is social joined ;
The astonished Euxine hears the Baltic roar ;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foamed
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the North,

And awing there stern Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance and Vice,
Of old dishonor proud; it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that roused the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade;
For what his wisdom planned, and power enforced,
More potent still, his great example showed.

THE SOUTH WIND THAW. FRESHETS; POLAR ICE BREAKS
UP FIELDS OF ICE; ICEBERGS.

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet descends, And floods the country round. The rivers swell, Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once; And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas, That washed the ungenial pole, will rest no more Beneath the shackles of the mighty north; But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave. And hark! the lengthening roar continuous runs Athwart the rifted deep at once it bursts, And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.

THE VESSEL CAUGHT AMONGST THE FLOATING ICE-FIELDS. -SUFFERINGS OF HER CREW; WHALE; SEA MONSTERS; DELIVERANCE.

Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charged, That, tossed amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,

While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure
The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round?
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renewed with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosened brine, while through the gloom,

"T is come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! Awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death
Forever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To Reason's eye refined clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraigned: see now the cause
Why unassuming Worth in secret lived,
And died neglected, why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul,
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined
In starving solitude, while Luxury
In palaces lay straining her low thought
To form unreal wants, why heaven-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge, why licensed Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosomed foe,
Embittered all our bliss. Ye good distressed!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deemed evil, is no more :
The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

SHENSTONE'S "ABSENCE.”

YE shepherds so cheerful and gay, Whose flocks never carelessly roam; Should Corydon's happen to stray,

O, call the poor wanderers home. Allow me to muse and to sigh,

Nor talk of the change that ye find; None once was so watchful as I :—

I have left my dear Phillis behind.

Now I know what it is to have strove

With the torture of doubt and desire; What it is to admire and to love,

And to leave her we love and admire. Ah! lead forth my flock in the morn, And the damps of each evening repel : Alas! I am faint and forlorn :

I have bade my dear Phillis farewell.
Since Phillis vouchsafed me a look,

I never once dreamed of my vine;
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine!
I prized every hour that went by,

Beyond all that had pleased me before; But now they are passed, and I sigh,

And I grieve that I prized them no more.

But why do I languish in vain?

Why wander thus pensively here? O, why did I come from the plain Where I fed on the smiles of my They tell me, my favorite maid,

dear?

The pride of that valley, is flown; Alas! where with her I have strayed,

I could wander with pleasure alone. When forced the fair nymph to forego, What anguish I felt at my heart! Yet I thought, but it might not be so, "T was with pain when she saw me depart. She gazed as I slowly withdrew ;

My path I could hardly discern ; So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far-distant shrine,
If he bear but a relic away,

Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus, widely removed from the fair,
Where my vows, my devotion, I owe,
Soft hope is the relic I bear,

And my solace wherever I go.

SHENSTONE'S "DISAPPOINTMENT.”

YE shepherds, give ear to my lay,
And take no more heed of my sheep:
They have nothing to do but to stray,
I have nothing to do but to weep.
Yet do not my folly reprove :

She was fair, and my passion begun ;
She smiled, and I could not but love;

She is faithless, and I am undone.

Perhaps I was void of all thought;
Perhaps it was plain to foresee
That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire:

It banishes wisdom the while;
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems forever adorned with a smile!
She is faithless, and I am undone ;

Ye that witness the woes I endure,
Let reason instruct you to shun

What it cannot instruct you to cure. Beware how you loiter in vain

Amid nymphs of a higher degree: It is not for me to explain

How fair and how fickle they be.

Alas! from the day that we met

What hope of an end to my woes, When I cannot endure to forget

The glance that undid my repose !
Yet time may diminish the pain :

The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.
The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,

The sound of a murmuring stream,
The peace which from solitude flows,

Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme.
High transports are shown to the sight,
But we are not to find them our own:
Fate never bestowed such delight
As I with my Phillis had known.

O, ye woods, spread your branches apace;
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chase,
I would vanish from every eye.
Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun ;
How she smiled, and I could not but love;
Was faithless, and I am undone !

BURIALS.

ARGUMENT.

True Christian resignation not frequently to be seen. The Register a melancholy record. A dying man, who at length sends for a priest; for what purpose? answered. Old Collet, of the inn, an instance of Dr. Young's slowsudden death; his character and conduct. The manners and management of the Widow Goe; her successful attention to business; her decease unexpected. The infant boy of Gerard Ablett dies; reflections on his death, and the survivor, his sister-twin. The funeral of the deceased lady of the manor described; her neglected mansion; undertaker and train: the character which her monument will hereafter display. Burial of an ancient maiden; some former drawback on her virgin fame; description of her house and household; her manners, apprehensions, death. Isaac Ashford, a virtuous peasant, dies; his manly character; reluctance to enter the poor-house; and why. Misfortune and derangement of intellect in Robin Dingley; whence they proceeded; he is not restrained by misery from a wandering life; his various returns to his parish; his final return. Wife of farmer Frankford dies in prime of life; affliction in consequence of such death; melancholy view of her house, &c., on her family's return from her funeral; address to Sorrow. Leah Cousins, a midwife; her character; and successful practice; at length opposed by Doctor Glibb; opposition in the parish; argument of the doctor; of Leah; her failure and decease. Burial of Roger Cuff, a sailor; his enmity to his family; how it originated; his experiment and its consequence. The Register terminates; a bell heard; inquiry for whom. The sexton. Character of old Dibble, and the five rectors whom he served. Reflections. Conclusion.

CHEERFUL DEATH-BEDS UNUSUAL.

THERE was, 't is said, and I believe, a time, When humble Christians died with views sublime; When all were ready for their faith to bleed, But few to write or wrangle for their creed; When lively faith upheld the sinking heart, And friends assured to meet, prepared to part; When love felt hope, when sorrow grew serene, And all was comfort, in the death-bed scene. Alas! when now the gloomy king they wait, 'Tis weakness yielding to resistless fate; Like wretched men upon the ocean cast, They labor hard and struggle to the last; 'Hope against hope,' and wildly gaze around, In search of help, that never shall be found; Nor, till the last strong billow stops the breath, Will they believe them in the jaws of death!

GLOOMY RETROSPECTION. RESIGNATION UNUSUAL.

When these my records I reflecting read,
And find what ills these numerous births succeed;
What powerful griefs these nuptial ties attend,
With what regret these painful journeys end;
When from the cradle to the grave I look,
Mine I conceive a melancholy book.

Where now is perfect resignation seen?
Alas! it is not on the village-green,
I've seldom known, though I have often read,

Of happy peasants on their dying bed;
Whose looks proclaimed that sunshine of the breast,
That more than hope, that heaven itself expressed.

COMMON DEATH-BED SCENES.

What I behold are feverish fits of strife, "Twixt fears of dying and desire of life; Those earthly hopes, that to the last endure; Those fears, that hopes superior fail to cure ; At best, that sad submission to the doom, That, turning from the danger, lets it come. Sick lies the man, bewildered, lost, afraid, His spirits vanquished and his strength decayed; No hope the friend, the nurse, the doctor, lend 'Call then a priest, and fit him for his end;' A priest is called, 't is now, alas! too late, Death enters with him, at the cottage gate; Or time allowed- he goes, assured to find The self-commending, all-confiding mind; And sighs to hear what we may justly call Death's Commonplace, the train of thought in all.

DEATH-BED COMMONPLACE.

'True, I'm a sinner,' feebly he begins 'But trust in mercy, to forgive my sins: ' (Such cool confession no passed crimes excite! Such claim on mercy, as a sinner's right!) 'I know mankind are frail, that God is good, And none have lived as wisdom wills they should; We're sorely tempted in a world like this; All men have done, and I, like all, amiss; But now, if spared, it is my full intent To think about beginning to repent: Wrongs against me I pardon, great and small, And if I die, I die in peace with all.'

His merits thus and not his sins confessed,

He speaks his hopes and leaves to heaven the rest.
Alas! are these the prospects, dull and cold,
That dying Christians to their priests unfold?
Or mends the prospect, when the enthusiast cries,
'I die assured!' and in a rapture dies?

PROPER DEATH-BED FEELINGS DESCRIBED.

Ah, where that humble, self-abasing mind, With that confiding spirit shall we find ; That feels the useful pain repentance brings, Dejection's sorrows and contrition's stings; And then the hope that Heaven these griefs approve, And lastly joy that springs from pardoning love? Such have I seen in death, and much deplore So many dying - that I see no more: Lo! now my records, where I grieve to trace, How death has triumphed in so short a space;

Who are the dead, how died they, I relate,
And snatch some portion of their acts from fate.

THE WICKED LANDLORD.

With Andrew Collet we the year begin,
The blind, fat landlord of the old Crown-Inn :
Big as his butt, and for the self-same use,
To take in stores of strong, fermenting juice.
On his huge chair beside the fire he sate,
In revel chief, and umpire in debate ;
Each night his string of vulgar tales he told,
When ale was cheap, and bachelors were bold;
His heroes all were famous in their days,

Cheats were his boast, and drunkards had his praise.
'One in three draughts three mugs of ale took down,
As mugs were then- the champion of the Crown;
For thrice three days another lived on ale,
And knew no change but that of mild and stale;
Two thirsty soakers watched a vessel's side,
When he the tap with dextrous hand applied;
Nor from their seats departed, till they found
That butt was out, and heard the mournful sound.'
He praised a poacher, precious child of fun!
Who shot the keeper with his own spring-gun ;
Nor less the smuggler who the exciseman tied,
And left him hanging at the birch-wood side,
To perish there; - but one who saw him hang
Cut the good cord -
-a traitor of the gang.

His own exploits with boastful glee he told,
What ponds he emptied and what pikes he sold ;
And how, when blessed with sight alert and gay,
The night's amusements kept him through the day.
He sang the praises of those times, when all
'For cards and dice as for their drink might call;
When justice winked on every jovial crew,
And ten-pins tumbled in the parson's view.'

He told, when angry wives provoked to rail, Or drive a third-day drunkard from his ale, What were his triumphs, and how great the skill That won the vexed virago to his will;

Who raving came, then talked in milder strain, — Then wept, then drank, and pledged her spouse

again;

Such were his themes: how knaves o'er laws prevail, Or, when made captives, how they fly from jail ; The young how brave, how subtle were the old; And oaths attested all that folly told.

On death like his what name shall we bestow, So very sudden, yet so very slow?

'T was slow; -disease, augmenting year by year, Showed the grim king by gradual steps brought near: "T was not less sudden; - in the night he died, He drank, he swore, he jested, and he lied; Thus aiding folly with departing breath :'Beware, Lorenzo, the slow-sudden death.'

THE THRIFTY WIDOW.

Next died the Widow Goe, an active dame, Famed ten miles round, and worthy all her fame; She lost her husband when their loves were young, But kept her farm, her credit, and her tongue ;

|

Full thirty years she ruled with matchless skill, With guiding judgment and resistless will; Advice she scorned, rebellions she suppressed, And sons and servants bowed at her behest. Like that great man's who to his Saviour came, Were the strong words of this commanding dame; 'Come,' if she said, they came; if 'go,' were gone; And if 'do this,' that instant it was done : Her maidens told she was all eye and ear, In darkness saw and could at distance hear; No parish business in the place could stir, Without direction or assent from her; In turn, she took each office as it fell; Knew all their duties, and discharged them well; The lazy vagrants in her presence shook, And pregnant damsels feared her stern rebuke; Who looked on want with judgment clear and cool, Who felt with reason and bestowed by rule; She matched both sons and daughters to her mind, And lent them eyes, for love she heard was blind; Yet ceaseless still she throve, alert, alive, The working bee in full or empty hive; Like that industrious kind, no thoughts of sex, No cares of love, could her chaste soul perplex; But when our farmers made their amorous vows, She talked of market-steeds and patent ploughs. Not unemployed her evenings passed away, Amusement closed as business waked the day; When to her toilet's brief concern she ran, And conversation with her friends began ; Who all were welcome at her board to share, And joyous neighbors praised her Christmas fare; That none around might in their scorn complain Of Gossip Goe as greedy in her gain.

Thus long she reigned, admired if not approved, Praised if not honored, feared if not beloved; When, as the busy days of spring drew near, That called for all the forecast of the year; When lively hope the rising crops surveyed,

And April promised what September paid;
When strayed her lambs where gorse and green-

weed grow;

When rose her grass in richer vales below;
When pleased she looked on all the smiling land,
And viewed the hinds who wrought at her command,
As Bridget churned the butter for her hand
(Geese, hens, and turkeys following where she went):
Then, dread o'ercame her- that her days were spent.
'Bless me! I die, and not a warning given, -
With much to do on earth, and all for heaven!
No reparation for my soul's affairs,

No leave petitioned for the barn's repairs;
Accounts perplexed, my interest yet unpaid,
My mind unsettled, and my will unmade;
A lawyer haste, and in your way a priest;
And let me die in one good work, at least.'
She spake, and trembling dropped upon her knees,
Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys :
And as the more she found her life decay,
She grasped with greater force those signs of sway;