"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 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 can not 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 're 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 !

LORD LYTTLETON.

1709-1773.

LORD LYTTLETON courted Lucy Fortescue, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, Esq., a country gentleman of Devonshire. She was in her twenty-second year, and was beautiful and accomplished; he was eight or nine years older, and was extremely plain, “of a feeble, ill-compacted frame, and a meagre, sallow countenance." His manners, however, were elegant, and his talents above mediocrity, and, as a woman seldom thinks of the person of her lover, he succeeded in winning the affections of Miss Fortescue, and they were married in 1741. They lived an ideal life for four or five years, surrounded by books and friends, and devoted to each other. Two children were born to them, and Lady Lyttleton was confined with a third, when she sickened and died. "I believe," her husband wrote to his father, two days before her death, "I believe God supports me above my own strength, for the sake of my friends who are concerned for me, and in return for the resignation with which I endeavor to submit to his will. If it please Him, in his infinite mercy, to restore my dear wife to me, I shall most thankfully acknowledge his goodness; if not, I shall most humbly endure his chastisement, which I have too much deserved." Lady Lyttleton died on the 19th of January, 1747, and was buried at OverArley, in Staffordshire. Her disconsolate husband erected a monument to her in the chancel of the church at Hagley, and solaced himself, Johnson sneeringly remarks, by writing a long monody on her memory.

Lord Lyttleton married again in 1749. His second wife was Elizabeth Rich, daughter of Sir Robert Rich, an intimate and dear friend of his Lucy. The experiment is said to have been an unhappy one, and to have added bitterness to his regrets.

AN IRREGULAR ODE,

WRITTEN AT WICKHAM. 1746.

Ye sylvan scenes, with artless beauty gay,
Ye gentle shades of Wickham, say,

What is the charm that each successive year,
Which sees me with my Lucy here,
Can thus to my transported heart
A sense of joy unfelt before impart?

Is it glad Summer's balmy breath, that blows
From the fair jasmine and the blushing rose?
Her balmy breath, and all her blooming store
Of rural bliss, was here before:

Oft have I met her on the verdant side
Of Norwood Hill, and in the yellow meads
Where Pan the dancing Graces leads,
Arrayed in all her flowery pride.

No sweeter fragrance now the gardens yield,
No brighter colours paint th' enamelled field.

Is it to Love these new delights I owe?
Four times has the revolving Sun
His annual circle through the zodiac run,
Since all that Love's indulgent power
On favoured mortals can bestow,
Was given to me in this auspicious bower.

Here first my Lucy, sweet in virgin charms,
Was yielded to my longing arms;
And round our nuptial bed,

Hovering with purple wings, th' Idalian boy
Shook from his radiant torch the blissful fire
Of innocent desires,

While Venus scattered myrtles o'er her head.
Whence then this strange increase of joy?
He, only he, can tell, who, matched like me,
(If such another happy man there be,)

Has by his own experience tried

How much THE WIFE is dearer than THE BRIDE.