Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised, While he was be- Rosciused, and you were bepraised! But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel, and mix with the skies: Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill, Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will; Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature, And slander itself must allow him good-nature; He was-could he help it?-a special attorney. He has not left a wiser or better behind: of hearing; When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. POSTSCRIPT. Here Whitefoord reclines, and, deny it who can, Whose temper was generous, open, sincere ; A stranger to flattery, a stranger to fear; What pity, alas! that so liberal a mind Ye newspaper witlings! ye pert scribbling folks! Who copied his squibs, and re-echoed his jokes! Ye tame imitators! ye servile herd! come, Still follow your master, and visit his tomb. To deck it bring with you festoons of the vine, And copious libations bestow on his shrine; Then strew all around it-you can do no lessCross-readings, ship-news, and mistakes of the press. Merry Whitefoord, farewell! for thy sake I admit That a Scot may have humor; I had almost said wit: This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse, "Thou best-humored man, with the worst-humored muse." Thomas Percy. He Percy, bishop of Dromore (1728-1811), was the son of a grocer, and a native of Bridgnorth, in Shropshire. was educated at Oxford, and having taken holy orders, became successively chaplain to the king, a dean, and then a bishop. In 1765 he published his "Reliques of English Poetry," the work by which he is chiefly known. It was largely influential in awakening a taste for natural descriptions, simplicity, and true passion, in opposition to the coldly correct and falsely sentimental style which was then predominant in English literature. Percy altered and supplemented many of these old pieces, copied as they were mostly from illiterate transcripts or the imperfect recitation of itinerant ballad-singers. THE FRIAR OF ORDERS GRAY.? It was a friar of orders gray Walked forth to tell his beads, And he met with a lady fair, Clad in a pilgrim's weeds. "Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar, I pray thee tell to me, 1 Caleb Whitefoord, a writer for the Advertiser. 2 Composed mostly of fragments of ancient ballads. No drizzly rain that falls on me Can wash my fault away." "Yet stay, fair lady, turn again, And dry those pearly tears; For see, beneath this gown of gray Thy own true love appears. "Here, forced by grief and hopeless love, These holy weeds I sought, And here amid these lonely walls "But haply, for my year of grace Is not yet passed away, Might I still hope to win thy love, No longer would I stay.” "Now farewell grief, and welcome joy Thomas Warton. Thomas Warton, the historian of English poetry (17281790), was the second son of Dr. Warton, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who was twice chosen Professor of Poetry by his university, and who himself wrote verses now happily consigned to oblivion. Joseph (1722-1800), the elder brother of Thomas, was also a poet in a small way, and wrote an "Ode to Fancy," hardly up to the standard of a modern school-boy. Thomas began early to write verses. His "Progress of Discontent," written before he was twenty, and in the style of Swift, is a remarkably clever production. It gave promise of achievements which he never fulfilled. He was made poetryprofessor at Oxford in 1757, and, on the death of Whitehead in 1785, was appointed poet-laureate. His "History of English Poetry" (1774-1778) forms the basis of his reputation, and is a valuable storehouse of facts and criticisms. Hazlitt considered some of Warton's sonnets "the finest in the language;" but this is wholly unmerited praise. Coleridge and Bowles also commended them. We select out of his nine sonnets the two best. TO MR. GRAY. Not that her blooms are marked with beauty's hue, Hears Cambria's bards devote the dreadful clew TO THE RIVER LODON. Miss Mitford, in "Our Village," says of the Lodon: "Is it not a beautiful river? rising level with its banks, so clear, and smooth, and peaceful, giving back the verdant landscape and the bright blue sky, and bearing on its pellucid stream the snowy water-lily, the purest of flowers, which sits enthroned on its own cool leaves, looking chastity itself, like the lady in 'Comus.'" Ah! what a weary race my feet have run, Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene. John Cunningham. Cunningham (1729-1773), the son of a wine-cooper in Dublin, was an actor by profession. "His pieces," says Chambers, "are full of pastoral simplicity and lyrical melody. He aimed at nothing high, and seldom failed.” MAY-EVE; OR, KATE OF ABERDEEN. To beds of state, go, balmy sleep 'Tis where you've seldom beeuMay's vigil while the shepherds keep With Kate of Aberdeen. Upon the green the virgins wait, In rosy chaplets gay, Till morn uubars her golden gate, And gives the promised May. Methinks I hear the maids declare The promised May, when seen, Not half so fragrant, half so fair, As Kate of Aberdeen. Strike up the tabor's boldest notes, The nested birds shall raise their throats He quits the tufted green: Fond bird! 'tis not the morning breaks, 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen. Now lightsome o'er the level mead, Like them the jocund dance we'll lead, For see, the rosy May draws nigh; John Scott. Scott (1730-1783), of Quaker descent, was the son of a draper in London, who retired to Amwell, where the poet spent his days in literary ease. He fondly hoped to immortalize his native village, on which he wrote a poem, “Amwell" (1776); but of all his works only the subjoined lines are remembered. ODE ON HEARING THE DRUM. To march, and fight, and fall in foreign lands. I hate that drum's discordant sound, Parading round, and round, and round; To me it talks of ravaged plains, And burning towns, and ruined swains, And mangled limbs, and dying groans, And widows' tears, and orphans' moans; And all that Misery's hand bestows To fill the catalogue of human woes. William Falconer. Falconer (1732-1769), a native of Edinburgh, was the son of a poor barber, who had two other children, both of whom were deaf and dumb. When very young, William was apprenticed to the merchant-service, and afterward went as second mate in a vessel which was wrecked on the coast of Africa; he and two others being the sole survivors. This led to his famous poem of "The Shipwreck," which he published in 1762. The Duke of York, to whom it was dedicated, procured for him the following year the appointment of midshipman on board the Royal George. He eventually became purser in the frigate Aurora, and was lost in her, on the outward voyage to India, in 1769. "The Shipwreck" has the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and approved by all experienced mariners for the accuracy of its nautical rules and descriptions. In vain the cords and axes were prepared, Erasmus Darwin. Darwin, the grandsire of the more renowned Charles Darwin, identified with what is known as the Darwinian theory of natural selection in biology, was born in Elton, England, in 1731, and died in 1802. He studied at Cambridge and Edinburgh, and established himself as a physician at Lichfield. He was an early advocate of the temperance cause. As the author of "The Botanic Garden," a poem in two parts-Part I., The Economy of Vegetation; Part II., The Loves of the Plants-also of "The Temple of Nature," a poem, he obtained distinction in literature. Of an original turn of mind, he seems to have had glimpses of the theories afterward expanded and illustrated by the labor and learning of his grandson. Byron speaks of Darwin's "pompous rhyme." His poems were very popular in their day, and he received £900 for his "Botanic Garden." In it he predicts the triumphs of steam in these prescient lines: "Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam! afar By his command of poetical diction and sonorous versification, he gave an imposing effect to much that he wrote, and his verses found enthusiastic admirers. The effect of the whole, however, is artificial, and his verses, though metrically correct and often beautiful in construction, fatigue by the monotony of the cadence. "There is a fashion in poetry," says Sir Walter Scott, "which, without increasing or diminishing the real value of the materials moulded upon it, does wonders in facilitating its currency while it has novelty, and is often found to impede its reception when the mode has passed away." The transitoriness of fashion seems to account for the fate of Darwin's poetry. The form was novel, the substance ephemeral. As a philosopher, he was charged with being too fond of tracing analogies between dissimilar objects, and of too readily adopting the ingenious views of others without sufficient inquiry. He was married twice, and had three sons by his first wife. A biography of Darwin, from the German of Ernst Krause, was published, 1880, in New York. Darwin was on the side of the American colonists in their war for independence. THE GODDESS OF BOTANY. FROM "THE BOTANIC GARDEN." "Winds of the north! restrain your icy gales, Down the steep slopes he led with modest skill And gave to beauty all the quiet scene. Bright as the morn descends her blushing car; The golden bits with flowery studs are decked, ELIZA AT THE BATTLE OF MINDEN. FROM "THE BOTANIC GARDEN." Now stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height, Bright stars of gold, and mystic knots of love; |