But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accents adore,
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.
Can a bosom so gentle remain

Unmoved, when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that is fond of the plain,
These plains and this valley despise ?
Dear regions of silence and shade!

Soft scenes of contentment and ease! Where I could have pleasingly strayed, If aught in her absence could please. But where does my Phyllida stray?

And where are her grots and her bowers? Are the groves and the valleys as gay, And the shepherds as gentle as ours? The groves may perhaps be as fair,

And the face of the valleys as fine; The swains may in manners compare, But their love is not equal to mine.

III. SOLICITUDE.

Why will you my passion reprove?
Why term it a folly to grieve?
Ere I show you the charms of my love:
She is fairer than you can believe.
With her mien she enamours the brave,
With her wit she engages the free,
With her modesty pleases the grave;
She is every way pleasing to me.

O you that have been of her train,
Come and join in my amorous lays;
I could lay down my life for the swain,
That will sing but a song in her praise.
When he sings, may the nymphs of the town
Come trooping, and listen the while;
Nay, on him let not Phyllida frown,
But I cannot allow her to smile.

For when Paridel tries in the dance
Any favour with Phyllis to find,
O how, with one trivial glance,

Might she ruin the peace of my mind!
In ringlets he dresses his hair,

And his crook is bestudded around;
And his pipe-oh my Phyllis, beware
Of a magic there is in the sound.

"Tis his with mock passion to glow,
"Tis his in smooth tales to unfold
"How her face is as bright as the snow,
And her bosom, be sure, is as cold.
How the nightingales labour the strain,
With the notes of his charmer to vie ;
How they vary their accents in vain,
Repine at her triumphs, and die.'
To the grove or the garden he strays,
And pillages every sweet;
Then suiting the wreath to his lays,
He throws it at Phyllis's feet.
'O Phyllis, he whispers, more fair,
More sweet than the jessamine's flower!
What are pinks in a morn, to compare?
What is eglantine after a shower?

Then the lily no longer is white,
Then the rose is deprived of its bloom,
Then the violets die with despite,

And the woodbines give up their perfume.'
Thus glide the soft numbers along,

And he fancies no shepherd his peer;
Yet I never should envy the song,
Were not Phyllis to lend it an ear.

Let his crook be with hyacinths bound,
So Phyllis the trophy despise:
Let his forehead with laurels be crowned,
So they shine not in Phyllis's eyes.
The language that flows from the heart,
Is a stranger to Paridel's tongue;
Yet may she beware of his art,
Or sure I must envy the song.

IV. 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 for ever 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 Phyllis 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!

Song.-Jemmy Dawson.*

Come listen to my mournful tale,

Ye tender hearts and lovers dear; Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh, Nor will you blush to shed a tear.

* Captain James Dawson, the amiable and unfortunate subject of these stanzas, was one of the eight officers belonging to the Manchester regiment of volunteers, in the service of the young chevalier, who were hanged, drawn, and quartered, on Kennington-Common in 1746.

And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid,
Do thou a pensive ear incline;
For thou canst weep at every wo,
And pity every plaint but mine.
Young Dawson was a gallant youth,

A brighter never trod the plain;
And well he loved one charming maid,
And dearly was he loved again.
One tender maid she loved him dear,
Of gentle blood the damsel came :
And faultless was her beauteous form,
And spotless was her virgin fame.
But curse on party's hateful strife,
That led the favoured youth astray;
The day the rebel clans appeared,

O had he never seen that day!
Their colours and their sash he wore,

And in the fatal dress was found; And now he must that death endure,

Which gives the brave the keenest wound. How pale was then his true love's cheek, When Jeminy's sentence reached her ear! For never yet did Alpine snows

So pale or yet so chill appear.

With faltering voice she weeping said,

Oh Dawson, monarch of my heart!
Think not thy death shall end our loves,
For thou and I will never part.

Yet might sweet mercy find a place,
And bring relief to Jemmy's woes,
O George! without a prayer for thee
My orisons should never close.
The gracious prince that gave him life
Would crown a never-dying flame;
And every tender babe I bore

Should learn to lisp the giver's name.

But though, dear youth, thou shouldst be dragged
To yonder ignominious tree,
Thou shalt not want a faithful friend
To share thy bitter fate with thee.
O then her mourning-coach was called,
The sledge moved slowly on before;
Though borne in her triumphal car,
She had not loved her favourite more.
She followed him, prepared to view
The terrible behests of law;
And the last scene of Jemmy's woes
With calm and steadfast eye she saw.
Distorted was that blooming face,

Which she had fondly loved so long;
And stifled was that tuneful breath,
Which in her praise had sweetly sung :
And severed was that beauteous neck,

Round which her arms had fondly closed;
And mangled was that beauteous breast,

On which her love-sick head reposed:
And ravished was that constant heart,
She did to every heart prefer ;
For though it could its king forget,
'Twas true and loyal still to her.
Amid those unrelenting flames

She bore this constant heart to see;
But when 'twas mouldered into dust,
Now, now, she cried, I follow thee.
My death, my death alone can show
The pure and lasting love I bore:
Accept, O Heaven! of woes like ours,
And let us, let us weep no more.

The dismal scene was o'er and past,

The lover's mournful hearse retired; The maid drew back her languid head, And, sighing forth his name, expired. Though justice ever must prevail,

The tear my Kitty sheds is due;
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.

[Written at an Inn at Henley.]

To thee, fair Freedom, I retire
From flattery, cards, and dice, and din;
Nor art thou found in mansions higher
Than the low cot or humble inn.
'Tis here with boundless power I reign,
And every health which I begin
Converts dull port to bright champagne :
Such freedom crowns it at an inn.
I fly from pomp, I fly from plate,

fly from falsehood's specious grin ;
Freedom I love, and form I hate,
And choose my lodgings at an inn.
Here, waiter! take my sordid ore,

Which lackeys else might hope to win ;
It buys what courts have not in store,
It buys me freedom at an inn.
Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.

DAVID MALLET.

DAVID MALLET, author of some beautiful ballad stanzas, and some florid unimpassioned poems in blank verse, was a successful but unprincipled literary adventurer. He praised and courted Pope while living, and, after experiencing his kindness, traduced his memory when dead. He earned a disgraceful pension by contributing to the death of a brave naval officer, Admiral Byng, who fell a victim to the clamour of faction; and by various other acts of his life, he evinced that self-aggrandisement was his only steady and ruling passion. When Johnson, therefore, states that Mallet was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend, he pays a compliment to the virtue and integrity of the natives of Scotland. The original name of the poet was Malloch, which, after his removal to London, and his intimacy with the great, he changed to Mallet, as more easily pronounced by the English. His father kept a small inn at Crieff, Perthshire, where David was born about the year 1700. He attended Aberdeen college, and was afterwards received, though without salary, as tutor in the family of Mr Home of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. He next obtained a similar situation, but with a salary of £30 per annum, in the family of the Duke of Montrose. In 1723, he went to London with the duke's family, and next year his ballad of William and Margaret appeared in Hill's periodical, The Plain Dealer. He soon numbered among his friends Young, Pope, and other eminent persons, to whom his assiduous attentions, his agreeable manners, and literary taste, rendered his society acceptable. In 1733 he published a satire on Bentley, inscribed to Pope, entitled Verbal Criticism, in which he characterises the venerable scholar as

In error obstinate, in wrangling loud,
For trifles cager, positive, and proud;
Deep in the darkness of dull authors bred,
With all their refuse lumbered in his head.

Mallet was appointed under secretary to the Prince of Wales, with a salary of £200 per annum; and, in conjunction with Thomson, he produced, in 1740, the Masque of Alfred, in honour of the birth-day of the Princess Augusta. A fortunate second marriage (nothing is known of his first) brought to the poet a fortune of £10,000. The lady was daughter of Lord Carlisle's steward. Both Mallet and his wife professed to be deists, and the lady is said to have surprised some of her friends by commencing her arguments with-Sir, we deists.' When Gibbon the historian was dismissed from his college at Oxford for embracing popery, he took refuge in Mallet's house, and was rather scandalised, he says, than reclaimed, by the philosophy of his host. Wilkes mentions that the vain and fantastic wife of Mallet one day lamented to a lady that her husband suffered in reputation by his name being so often confounded with that of Smollett; the lady wittily answered, Madam, there is a short remedy; let your husband keep his own name.' To gratify Lord Bolingbroke, Mallet, in his preface to the Patriot King, heaped abuse on the memory of Pope, and Bolingbroke rewarded him by bequeathing to him the whole of his works and manuscripts. When the government became unpopular by the defeat at Minorca, he was employed to defend them, and under the signature of a Plain Man, he published an address imputing cowardice to the admiral of the fleet. He succeeded: Byng was shot, and Mallet was pensioned. On the death of the Duchess of Marlborough, it was found that she had left £1000 to Glover, author of Leonidas,' and Mallet, jointly, on condition that they should draw up from the family papers a life of the great duke. Glover, indignant at a stipulation in the will, that the memoir was to be submitted before publication to the Earl of Chesterfield, and being a high-spirited man, devolved the whole on Mallet, who also received a pension from the second Duke of Marlborough, to stimulate his industry. He pretended to be busy with the work, and in the dedication to a small collection of his poems published in 1762, he stated that he hoped soon to present his grace with something more solid in the life of the first Duke of Marlborough. Mallet had received the solid money, and cared for nothing else. On his death, it was found that not a single line of the memoir had been written. In his latter days the poet held the lucrative situation of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London. He died April 21, 1765.

Mallet wrote some theatrical pieces, which, though partially successful on their representation, are now utterly forgotten. Gibbon anticipated, that, if ever his friend should attain poetic fame, it would be acquired by his poem of Amyntor and Theodora. This, the longest of his poetical works, is a tale in blank verse, the scene of which is laid in the solitary island of St Kilda, whither one of his characters, Aurelius, had fled to avoid the religious persecutions under Charles II. Some highly-wrought descriptions of marine scenery, storms, and shipwreck, with a few touches of natural pathos and affection, constitute the chief characteristics of the poem. The whole, however, even the very names in such a locality, has an air of improbability and extravagance. Another work of the same kind, but inferior in execution, is his poem The Excursion, written in imitation of the style of Thomson's 'Seasons.' The defects of Thomson's style are servilely copied; some of his epithets and expressions are also borrowed; but there is no approach to his redeeming graces and beauties. Contrary to the dictum of Gibbon, the poetic fame of Mallet rests on his ballads, and chiefly on his William

and Margaret,' which, written at the age of twentythree, afforded high hopes of ultimate excellence. The simplicity, here remarkable, he seems to have thrown aside when he assumed the airs and dress of a man of taste and fashion. All critics, from Dr Percy downwards, have united in considering William and Margaret' one of the finest compositions of the kind in our language. Sir Walter Scott conceived that Mallet had imitated an old Scottish tale to be found in Allan Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany,' beginning,

There came a ghost to Margaret's door.

The resemblance is striking. Mallet confessed only (in a note to his ballad) to the following verse in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle :'

When it was grown to dark midnight,
And all were fast asleep,

In came Margaret's grimly ghost,

And stood at William's feet.

In the first printed copies of Mallet's ballad, the two first lines were nearly the same as the above

When all was wrapt in dark midnight,

And all were fast asleep.

William and Margaret.

'Twas at the silent solemn hour,

When night and morning meet; In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, And stood at William's feet.

Her face was like an April morn

Clad in a wintry cloud;
And clay-cold was her lily hand
That held her sable shroud.

So shall the fairest face appear

When youth and years are flown:
Such is the robe that kings must wear,
When death has reft their crown.

Her bloom was like the springing flower,
That sips the silver dew;
The rose was budded in her cheek,
Just opening to the view.

But love had, like the canker-worm,
Consumed her early prime;
The rose grew pale, and left her cheek-
She died before her time.

Awake! she cried, thy true love calls,
Come from her midnight grave:
Now let thy pity hear the maid
Thy love refused to save.

This is the dark and dreary hour

When injured ghosts complain;
When yawning graves give up their dead,
To haunt the faithless swain.
Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,
Thy pledge and broken oath!
And give me back my maiden-vow,
And give me back my troth.

Why did you promise love to me,
And not that promise keep?
Why did you swear my eyes were bright,
Yet leave those eyes to weep!

How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?
Why did you say my lip was sweet,
And made the scarlet pale?
And why did I, young witless maid!
Believe the flattering tale?

That face, alas! no more is fair,

Those lips no longer red:

Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,
And every charm is fled.

The hungry worm my sister is;

This winding-sheet I wear:

And cold and weary lasts our night,

Till that last morn appear.

But hark! the cock has warned me hence;
A long and last adieu !

Come see, false man, how low she lies,
Who died for love of you.

The lark sung loud; the morning smiled
With beams of rosy red:

Pale William quaked in every limb,
And raving left his bed.

He hied him to the fatal place

Where Margaret's body lay;

And stretched him on the green-grass turf
That wrapt her breathless clay.

And thrice he called on Margaret's name,
And thrice he wept full sore;
Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,
And word spake never more!

Edwin and Emma.

Far in the windings of a vale,
Fast by a sheltering wood,

The safe retreat of health and peace,
A humble cottage stood.

There beauteous Emma flourished fair,
Beneath a mother's eye;

Whose only wish on earth was now
To see her blest, and die.

The softest blush that nature spreads
Gave colour to her cheek;

Such orient colour smiles through heaven,
When vernal mornings break.

Nor let the pride of great ones scorn
This charmer of the plains:
That sun, who bids their diamonds blaze,
To paint our lily deigns.

Long had she filled each youth with love,
Each maiden with despair;
And though by all a wonder owned,
Yet knew not she was fair:

Till Edwin came, the pride of swains,
A soul devoid of art;
And from whose eye, serenely mild,
Shone forth the feeling heart.
A mutual flame was quickly caught,
Was quickly too revealed;
For neither bosom lodged a wish
That virtue keeps concealed.

What happy hours of home-felt bliss
Did love on both bestow!
But bliss too mighty long to last,
Where fortune proves a foe.

His sister, who, like envy formed,
Like her in mischief joyed,
To work them harm, with wicked skill,
Each darker art employed.

The father too, a sordid man,

Who love nor pity knew,
Was all unfeeling as the clod
From whence his riches grew.

Long had he seen their secret flame,
And seen it long unmoved;
Then with a father's frown at last
Had sternly disapproved.

In Edwin's gentle heart, a war
Of differing passions strove:
His heart, that durst not disobey,
Yet could not cease to love.

Denied her sight, he oft behind

The spreading hawthorn crept, To snatch a glance, to mark the spot Where Emma walked and wept.

Oft, too, on Stanmore's wintry waste, Beneath the moonlight shade,

In sighs to pour his softened soul,

The midnight mourner strayed.

His cheek, where health with beauty glowed,

A deadly pale o'ercast;

So fades the fresh rose in its prime,

Before the northern blast.

The parents now, with late remorse,

Hung o'er his dying bed;

And wearied Heaven with fruitless vows,

And fruitless sorrows shed.

'Tis past! he cried, but, if your souls

Sweet mercy yet can move,

Let these dim eyes once more behold
What they must ever love!

She came; his cold hand softly touched,
And bathed with many a tear:
Fast-falling o'er the primrose pale,
So morning dews appear.

But oh! his sister's jealous care,
A cruel sister she!

Forbade what Emma came to say;
'My Edwin, live for me!'

Now homeward as she hopeless wept,

The churchyard path along,

The blast blew cold, the dark owl screamed Her lover's funeral song.

Amid the falling gloom of night,

Her startling fancy found

In every bush his hovering shade,
His groan in every sound.

Alone, appalled, thus had she passed
The visionary vale-

When lo! the death-bell smote her ear,
Sad sounding in the gale!

Just then she reached, with trembling step,
Her aged mother's door :

He's gone! she cried, and I shall see
That angel-face no more.

I feel, I feel this breaking heart

Beat high against my side!

From her white arm down sunk her headShe shivered, sighed, and died.

The smiling morn, the breathing spring,
Invite the tunefu' birds to sing;
And, while they warble from the spray,
Love melts the universal lay.
Let us, Amanda, timely wise,

Like them, improve the hour that flies;
And in soft raptures waste the day,
Among the birks of Invermay.
For soon the winter of the year,
And age, life's winter, will appear;
At this thy living bloom will fade,
As that will strip the verdant shade.
Our taste of pleasure then is o'er,
The feathered songsters are no more;
And when they drop and we decay,
Adieu the birks of Invermay!

Some additional stanzas were added to the above by Dr Bryce, Kirknewton. Invermay is in Perthshire, the native county of Mallet, and is situated near the termination of a little picturesque stream called the May. The 'birk' or birch-tree is abundant, adding grace and beauty to rock and stream. Though a Celt by birth and language, Mallet had none of the imaginative wildness or superstition of his native country. Macpherson, on the other hand, seems to have been completely imbued with it.

House in which Akenside was born.

butcher at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was born, November 9, 1721. An accident in his early years

the fall of one of his father's cleavers, or hatchets, on his foot-rendered him lame for life, and perpetuated the recollection of his lowly birth. The Society of Dissenters advanced a sum for the education of the poet as a clergyman, and he repaired to Edinburgh for this purpose in his eighteenth year. He afterwards repented of this destination, and, returning the money, entered himself as a student of medicine. He was then a poet, and in his Hymn to Science, written in Edinburgh, we see at once the formation of his classic taste, and the dignity of his personal character:

That last best effort of thy skill,
To form the life and rule the will,
Propitious Power! impart ;
Teach me to cool my passion's fires,
Make me the judge of my desires,
The master of my heart.

Raise me above the vulgar's breath,
Pursuit of fortune, fear of death,

And all in life that's mean;
Still true to reason be my plan,
Still let my actions speak the man,

Through every various scene.

A youth animated by such sentiments, promised a manhood of honour and integrity. After three years spent in Edinburgh, Akenside removed to Leyden to complete his studies; and in 1744 he was admitted to the degree of M.D. He next established himself as a physician in London. In Holland he had (at the age of twenty-three) written his 'Pleasures of Imagination,' which he now offered to Dodsley, demanding £120 for the copyright. The bookseller consulted Pope, who told him to make no niggardly offer, since this was no every-day writer.' The poem attracted much attention, and was afterwards translated into French and Italian. Akenside established himself as a physician in Northampton, where he remained a year and a-half, but did not succeed. The latter part of his life was spent in London. At Leyden he had formed an intimacy with a young Englishman of fortune, Jeremiah Dyson, Esq., which ripened into a friendship of the most close and enthusiastic description; and Mr Dyson (who was afterwards clerk of the House of Commons, a lord of the treasury, &c.) had the generosity to allow the poet £300 a-year. After writing a few Odes, and attempting a total alteration of his great poem (in which he was far from successful), Akenside made no further efforts at composition. His society was courted for his taste, knowledge, and eloquence; but his solemn sententiousness of manner, his romantic ideas of liberty, and his unbounded admiration of the ancients, exposed him occasionally to ridicule. The physician in Peregrine Pickle, who gives a feast in the manner of the ancients, is supposed to have been a caricature of Akenside. The description, for rich humour and grotesque combinations of learning and folly, has not been excelled by Smollett; but it was unworthy his talents to cast ridicule on a man of high character and splendid genius. Akenside died suddenly of a putrid sore throat, on the 23d of June 1770, in his 49th year, and was buried in St James's church. With a feeling common to poets, as to more ordinary mortals, Akenside, in his latter days, reverted with delight to his native landscape on the banks of the Tyne. In his fragment of a fourth book of The Pleasures of Imagination,' written in the last year of his life, there is the following beautiful passage:

Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands; where Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides,